On Dec 31, 2006, at 10:09 AM, TurquoiseB wrote:
--- In [email protected], Vaj <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On Dec 30, 2006, at 6:04 PM, bob_brigante wrote:
In your post
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/message/126763
I found it interesting that Maharishi repeated several times that
people should only be meditating 3-4 hours. I wonder if this
message got through to Bevan et al who are requiring invincibility
course participants to do 8 hours:
He probably contradicts himself quite often.
Always has. So do the most enlightened teachers I've
encountered on the planet. The constant contradiction
is not a problem IMO; the tendency for people to want
not to *deal* with the contradiction and say that one
version is the "correct" version is where the problem
lies. :-)
I guess I've been fortunate, few of my teachers did contradict
themselves, in one case when a student brought up contradictions, the
teacher explained why that sometimes occurred and what it meant (in
that context) and why contradictions are sometimes just
irreconcilable (and that's fine).
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). That's
certainly becoming more pronounced lately.
Yes it is. I suspect he is about the average level of senility for
his age. Transcripts and audio feeds seem rather edited.
So he's probably
said both 3-4 and 8 if you go back in the transcripts.
What's disturbing to me is his emphasis on subtle meditative
moods and getting the students to wallow in them.
Bingo.
The gist of this latest talk seems to be, "These are the
experiences I want to hear. Don't bother to get up to
the microphone if you don't have one of these type of
experiences to relate. And, by the way, what you *really*
want to do more than anything else on this course is to
get yourself on the LIST of people who are *having* the
type of experiences I want to hear about."
Well duh...what do you think people are going to be
falling all over themselves to report from now on?
It's likely the "last big chance to do so". It doesn't matter if the
teaching is corrupted or represents a departure from that particular
enlightenment-tradition, it's what the people want--and if the people
don't get what they want, there'll be no more real cash-flow. Plus
I'm sure M. likes to be on the answering end of the mike--it's a real
ego-boost for an old businessman.
It's interesting, the Tibetan word for "meditative experiences",
nyams, even refers to meditation experiences as "meditative
moods" (meditative mood-making). It's instructive just reading the
definition:
nyams
debased [RY]
experience [RY]
nga'i nyams la bltas na + tshod red - I feel that [RY]
1) experience and feeling; 2) mental 'gyur ba externally symbolized
in body and speech expressions or, tshugs ka; 3) experience of,
familiarity; 4) [in] mind 'ong [IW]
Temporary experiences [RY]
nyams kyi snang ba visions of (ephemeral) (meditative) experience [RB]
must endure [RY]
feeling-sentiment, failures, soul, thought, strength, state,
experiences, deteriorate, faults, experiential sign of the
development of practice, violation, conviction, transgressor,
corruption, corrupted, humiliated, apprehension of ideas, soul,
manner, extent, degree, condition, elegance, charm, dignity,
meditative experience, mystical experience, corrupted, meditation-
mood, meditative moods, moods, diminish, signs-experiences, sign
experience [JV]
ephemeral meditative experience; fleeting experience [RB]
1) [meditative / temporary] experience, meditation-moods. 2) vision.
3) Abbr. of nyams pa 4) imposing air / presence / dignity, haughty,
arrogant. 5) elegance, charm, handsome, elegant. 6) thought, mind,
spirit. 7) impairment, impairment, sentiment [in dramatic arts].
thought, experiential sign of the development of practice,
experiences, withered; experience, meditation experience; violate,
damage, deteriorate, weaken [in context of vows and commitments] [RY]
feeling-sentiment, failures, soul, thought, strength, state,
experiences, deteriorate, faults, experiential sign of the
development of practice, violation, conviction, transgressor,
corruption, corrupted, humiliated, apprehension of ideas, soul,
manner, extent, degree, condition, elegance, charm, dignity,
meditative experience, mystical experience, corrupted, meditation-
mood, meditative moods, moods, diminish, signs-experiences, sign
experience, impairments [JV]
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.
It did surprise me too. When it got to repeating more of these old
patterns, it was a red flag for me.
It's such a contrast to Rama and some of the other
teachers I've worked with -- in the cases where they
asked what people's experiences were, they really wanted
to *know* what people's experiences were. There was NEVER
any suggestion of what a "good" experience was, or what
type of experience was expected or "better" than another.
I guess I got used to that type of *non*-programming in
such "talk about your experiences" sessions, and was a
little shocked to read this latest rap, in which it is
pretty clear that if you want to be considered "happening"
on this course, and on the LIST, you should stand up and
say that you are having the "expected" experiences, or
(given the before-mentioned tendency of devotees to give
the teacher whatever he asks for), pretend to be having
such experiences.
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.
Well the reason it's so irrelevant to me is that these were similar
experiences people have been have *for decades*.
It's nothing new.
The same old, same old.
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. 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.
And there is no real instruction in the value and the problem with
meditative experiences and/or how to handle them.
