--- In [email protected], TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: <snip> > But think about the placebo theory. One of the > first realizations one has after realization is > that it's not new. The state of attention you > find yourself in has always been present. What > then was the "effect" of the techniques you > practiced to realize that it has always been > present?
More importantly, does it matter? In one of the old Star Trek novels, at one point Mr. Spock observes that the entire medical system on the planet Vulcan is based on the placebo effect. There's a tendency to pooh-pooh the placebo effect as just a matter of wishful thinking. But if the placebo can invoke wishful thinking in such a way that it actually works to cure a disease or trigger realization, who the hell cares whether it's the placebo effect? And if *all* healing or self-realization techniques are placebo effects, the placebo idea becomes completely meaningless, because there's no longer any distinction to be made between placebo effect and "real" effect. Hence it makes no sense to denigrate the TM-Sidhis techniques MMY teaches as being "made up" by him rather than being taken from Patanjali, as long as what MMY is teaching triggers the "wishful thinking" of the practitioner to produce the desired effects. And if this is the case, as Jim pointed out, it puts MMY on the same level of mastery as Patanjali with regard to having been able to develop a system of effective placebos. Of course, it's said that Patanjali didn't invent anything he wrote about but rather codified preexisting techniques from oral teaching. So if MMY *did* invent the TM-Sidhis techniques, it actually puts him *above* Patanjali in terms of mastery. No wonder Jim found it surprising that Barry would pay MMY such an extravagant compliment!
