TurquoiseB wrote:
> --- In [email protected], Bhairitu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>> My experience over the years is that as my consciousness rises
>> if I spend any amount of time at all around non-meditators the
>> majority of them start to seem like wild animals. I guess this
>> is because they are at the mercy of superficial influences which
>> are like "lines drawn on water or lines drawn on air" for many
>> of us. I'm not saying that all non-meditators are like that as
>> there are some people who just come into life at a higher level
>> of evolution than others. Nor am I positing some superiority
>> thing. It's just that if you spend any time with them beyond
>> some casual contact they seem to go completely blindly off on
>> tangents that I evolved out of years ago as so can be a little
>>
> < annoying (especially if they are trying to drag you along with
>
>> them).
>>
>
> My experience has been both similar and dissimilar.
> Yes, there is something about having trod a spiritual
> path (and a Tantric path in particular) that lightens
> one up, if one's predilection is to allow lightening
> up. If it's not, the spiritual path can render one's
> ass tighter than a garden hose with a knot tied in it.
>
> And yes, many who have *not* had that experience take
> some things that I take lightly with a great deal of
> seriousness. ( Especially because I live in France,
> and the French tend to take almost *everything*
> too seriously. :-)
>
> That said, I often find my French non-meditating
> neighbors very grounding, in the best sense of that
> word. In my opinion they have many of their priorities
> in life right. They value family, and love, and good
> food and good wine and laughter and taking vacations
> and stuff like that. Unlike Americans, they do *not*
> value status and making money and slaving away at
> one's job terribly much. I would venture to guess
> that "making more money" would not make most French
> people's Top Ten List of their priorities in life.
> That is very refreshing -- and grounding -- to me,
> because I feel the same way. So there is some
> possibility that what you feel is an *American*
> phenomenon, as opposed to a mediator-vs-non-
> meditator phenomenon.
>
I had a wonderful experience in India on how warm people were and
welcoming, a stark contrast to stuck-up, uptight Americans. I dreaded
returning to the US.
>
>> My relatives who out of all of them only my oldest nephew
>> learned meditation are always "so busy" and I think "no
>> you just aren't able to handle life so well any more
>> being blown about by an increasing amount of chaotic
>> influences in our noisier world." We as meditators tend
>> to have a stable base of consciousness and the chaos of
>> the world has less and less influence as our consciousness
>> evolves.
>>
>
> And yet you, as a meditator, occasionally find that
> their chaos gets to you. Sounds like an opportunity
> to me, not a problem.
>
And that's why I teach meditation. :)
>
>> I would like to hear other's *experience* on this and not
>> theory.
>>
>
> Good topic.
>
> I guess my reply is, Yes, at times they do seem a
> bit more primitive and ruled by emotion than do
> many of my long-term meditator friends. No, that's
> not a problem for me. I kinda enjoy it. I spent
> too many years in the study of self realization
> distancing myself from my emotions to want to have
> much to do with that these days. I am *not* one of
> those "Life is suffering" Buddhists. I suspect that
> the Buddha was misquoted, and that his real message
> was in the Third Noble Truth, not the First. Life
> is a seemingly-endless dance of delight for me,
> and some of its most delightful dancers have never
> *heard* of meditation.
>
>
>
>
>
