--- In [email protected], TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: <snip> > I think we're seeing the same phenomenon, to some > extent, in the people here who get uptight and start > attacking others when they question Maharishi's > enlightenment. Even though even *they* admit some- > times that they've never heard Maharishi *claim* > enlightenment, they simply cannot (or will not) allow > the idea that he is not enlightened to enter their > heads. It's as if they feel it would be some kind > of sin. Go figure. > > And yet another aspect of the same phenomenon can be > seen (in my estimation) in the thread asking for > people's criteria for *deeming* someone enlightened. > If you'll notice, many of the people who have tried > to turn that thread into an argument consistently > believe that Maharishi or others are enlightened, > and state that belief here as if it were an unques- > tionable, sacrosanct fact. Yet when asked to provide > a reason -- *any* reason -- for why they believe that, > they refuse. Again, go figure.
The ego-bound mind cannot accept a simple answer that the Self recognizes the Self. Again, if the ego-bound intellect could just be confronted with a set of relative criteria, then it could argue and challenge its way to 'freedom' and safety, yet when faced with nothing to challenge, it can only challenge the Self. This is why I have referred to the ego earlier as both cunning and stupid; cunning in that it will devise brilliant traps for itself, to maintain its limited existence, and stupid, because from the perspective of the Self its antics for self preservation are seen as glaringly obvious. Another reason the small self looks for lists is that in its limited time/space existence it defines itself through lists; I have been here and there, I know such and such, I have done this and that, so it naturally tries to find a similar definition for that which cannot be defined; non-dual awareness. It is a natural tendency for the ignorant self, yet one doomed to spectacular failure if the seeker is hungry enough.
