--- In [email protected], TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In [email protected], "wgm4u" <wgm4u@> wrote: > > > > Maharishi and Guru Dev are/were apparently > > enlightened, right? > > Why do you assume this? > > I'm not trying to be argumentative, just to > bring up an assumption so common in the TM > movement that it is rarely challenged. Nor > does anyone give any thought to where the > assumption *came from*. It's just assumed as > a given and filed away in a box and every- > thing else one chooses to believe about TM > and its teachings is built on top of it. > > The fascinating thing is that I have met > many people like myself who, in my case > during 14 years in the TMO, *never once* > heard Maharishi say that he was enlightened. > Not once. And yet many of those *same* people > assume he is anyway. Their *belief* or *hope* > that he is enlightened is more important to > them than what they've actually heard him say. > Go figure.
Or their intuition, of course. Is it your contention that enlightened teachers always say they're enlightened, such that if a teacher does not say this, it's because they're not? Or to put it another way, is the most important criterion for whether a teacher is enlightened that he/she has said so? And a corollary: Is it ever the case that a teacher who is not enlightened claims to be enlightened?
