--- In [email protected], TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In [email protected], Vaj <vajranatha@> wrote: <snip> > > The recent posts attributed to him seem to indicate some > > senility. > > I wouldn't say senility. I have seen no real sign of > the more common forms of senility. But I *am* getting > really tired of the kind of echolalia he indulges in > (repeating words that don't need to be repeated).
Actually, echolalia is repeating the words of someone else, not one's own words. He's obviously not as mentally quick as he used to be; my guess is that repeating words and phrases is his way of giving himself time to formulate what he's going to say next. <snip> > It *surprised* me to see MMY pandering to the inherent > tendency in spiritual devotees to *moodmake* the type > of experiences they have been *told* are expected of > them. Actually that is your *interpretation* of what you see. Others might have very different interpretations. <snip> > > Why would you want to encourage such nonsense? Since there's > > no spiritual benefit, one has to assume it's to raise more money. > > I would not go so far. I think that a much simpler, and > kinder, explanation is that these are the types of exper- > iences that Maharishi assumes he *should* be hearing by > now, given all his time working with these people. There- > fore he *wants* to hear them, so he's telling people *what* > he wants to hear, so that they'll *say* what he wants to > hear. Actually, we should probably not conclude this when we haven't been on the course and heard how he conducts the experience sessions. For example, he may have solicited the experiences first before identifying them as "good" experiences. > To be open to all possibilities, it is certainly possible > that some of the people who report such experiences after > hearing what kind of experiences they are *supposed* to be > having are doing so in good faith, and reporting their real > experiences. But the fact that they *have* been told what > to report taints the reports themselves. Again, we don't know that he told them what he wanted to hear, at least at first. Certainly verifying "good" experiences after they had been reported innocently would give others an idea of what he wants to hear, but on the other hand, he wants others to be able to *recognize* these experiences when they have them themselves. Plus which, he's clearly intent on conveying an intellectual understanding of these types of experiences, which would be hard to do if nobody knew what they were, no? if you've been > around the spiritual block a few times and are aware of how > devotees tend to tell the teacher what the teacher wants to > hear, the fact that he told everyone in no uncertain terms > what he wanted to hear doesn't really suggest that such > reports are going to be free of moodmaking. Sure, but perhaps that's a chance he's willing to take in the interests of what he wants to teach *about* such experiences. Perhaps he feels that after many years of hearing him condemn moodmaking, everyone should be clear as to how counterproductive it is; and that those who do it anyway deserve what they get. You can't force anybody not to moodmake, but if the alternative is not to explore experiences at all, maybe you just have to figure the benefits of exploration to those who refrain from moodmaking outweigh the negative consequences to those who don't.
