Remember the Disney cartoon "Dumbo?" His friend and mentor gives him a "magical feather" that allows him to fly when he holds it in his trunk. The thing is, the feather wasn't magical. It was a *trick*, some- thing that allowed Dumbo to transcend his own self- imposed limitations and realize an ability that had always been available to him.
I think that this is an interesting metaphor to keep in mind when looking at spiritual traditions. With the arrival of some pundits in Fairfield I would expect to see more of something I've seen in other spiritual groups. That is, people reporting "good experiences" or even realization experiences, because now they have an *excuse* to do so. They have been given a "magical feather." A teacher comes to town and does a certain empower- ment (in a Tibetan Buddhist context) or the teacher announces some kind of "phase shift" in the overall environment or "enough" buttbouncers gather together or some pundits come to town and start chanting. And what happens? Suddenly it's "OK" to have "good experiences." It's now *permissible* to have "better experiences," and thus people start having them. What I wonder about is how much "mood making" (in a slightly negative sense) or "giving permission to oneself" (in a more positive sense) is involved in this phenomenon (which seems to appear in *every* spiritual trip). This is *not* a negative rap about TM, or any other technique. I am firmly convinced that much of self discovery is *tricking* oneself (one's self) into recognizing what has always already been present, but which for various reasons one never gave oneself permission to notice before. It's as if the empower- ment or the announcement or the "correct numbers" or the chanting pundits act as some kind of catalyst, *NOT* in the sense that these events actually *DO* anything, but in the sense that seekers *perceive* them as an event that allows them to open their minds to what is already present. Anyway, I just thought I'd throw it out as something to ponder when reports of the "good experiences" start coming in, attributed directly to the arrival of the pundits. Me, I suspect that the experiences will be no different than they ever were. It'll just be that bored, uninspired seekers will have a legit- imate excuse to view their everyday states of attention in a new way, and thus realize that they haven't been nearly as boring and uninspiring as they'd thought they were. To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/