Replying, but out of sequence: --- In [email protected], "peterklutz" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Before the adrenaline-surge hits your brain this time, > and your hands attack your keyboard, do yourself a favor > and presuppose that this post is written in earnest and > then internalize it.
Peter, in all honesty when I read your post I wasn't planning to reply AT ALL until I got to this last part, and realized that you desperately WANTED a reply. Then I remembered that you had actually replied to a post of mine yesterday without acting like a crazy, and realized that I owed you one, so here goes...a reply to the only things in your post I can possibly think of a reply to: > Reflections: > > (1) Like everything else in the non-absolute reality of life, > your argument works both ways - and may just as equally be > applied to you and Vaj. In my view more appropriately so > because you and Vaj usually strike first. An interesting point. I cannot speak for Vaj, but my suggestion to you is to do a search of my posts for the last few months (say since the beginning of the year) and repost here the ones in which I directly attack Maharishi, TM, TMers as a group (as opposed to individual TMers I might criticize as nut cases because...uh...they're acting like nut cases), etc. It is my perception that many on this forum who keep posting that "all Barry does" is attack these things are living in their own minds and in the past. That said, I readily admit to "striking first" against *individual* posters here who, in my opinion, are acting in a manner that reflects badly not only on TM and that tradition, but on ALL spiritual trad- itions. Sometimes I "strike first" by taunting them and pushing their buttons, SO THAT they will react by going a little crazy and revealing to even more people the extent of their craziness. At other times I "strike first" by poking fun at these individuals -- laughing uproariously at them and inviting others here to join in the laughter. I do this SO THAT more people *will* laugh at these people, and in the hope that someday a few of them might learn to laugh at themselves. > What is meant by "strike first?" > > "There is a principle in the martial arts, that whoever > strikes first loses. Because to strike at another takes > you off your center, re-your imbalance, and opens you up. With all due respect, it sounds as if you have read more about the martial arts than you have practiced them. Anyone who believes that to strike (or "strike first") one has to go off balance just hasn't spent much time in a dojo or on the contest mats. > The impulse that pushes you to take action, to strike > out at another, takes you down the path of a specific > energy, a specific possibility - and takes you out of > the place of all possibilities. So you're saying that by choosing one possibility (the path, for example, of poking fun at someone silly so that others will laugh at them...definitely a form of attack), one has been "taken out of the place of all possibilities?" Well, Ok, I guess, but one could make the case that by choosing *any* possibility one has *equally* taken oneself out of "the place of all possibilities." Only by remaining as inactive as a turnip can one choose no specific possibility from the pool of "all possibilities." > A master warrior knows that as soon as you feel that > desire come up, and then yield to it and let it turn > into action, you've already lost." > > Found at: > > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/message/108709 Oh. No WONDER you're confused. You're basing your view of what martial arts is about on the writings of Michael Dean Goodman. Well duh. What's HE going to do as a martial artist -- TALK you to death? A guy comes up to him in a bar and starts to pick a fight and in response Michael sits down and writes out a 7,000-word essay and flings it at him? :-) > (2) The only way to truly externalize this dance between > object, subject and the process of their mutual cognition/ > interaction (during which they tint and transform each other, > which you may have noticed) is to step outside their field > of interaction - i.e. to transcend. I have no earthly idea what you were trying to say here. If you are saying again that the only way to remain centered is to stay safely within the field of all possibilities and transcend, I wish you luck the next time you encounter Michael Dean Goodman in a bar, drunk and angry as hell and armed with a 7,000- word essay that he's getting ready to chuck at you. > You may view the rationales for the occasional reactions > your constant whining about MMY and his spiritual techniques > results in as: > > (A) Nature's way of, in one short burst, re-balancing a > flow of negativity that has built up You can view it that way if you like. I promise not to hit you with even a two-word reply if you do so. > (B) The personal views of individuals with good and solid > experiences of *externalizing* the relative and who there- > fore may have an inkling of just how great Maharishi's gift > to them is, and just how selfless his actions are as he > gave up a life in blissed solitude to spend fifty+ years > walking in the mud of the world in order to help his > fellowmen. You may view it this way if you like, too. Others of us do not look down upon the world we live in as "mud." > Before the adrenaline-surge hits your brain this time, and > your hands attack your keyboard, do yourself a favor and > presuppose that this post is written in earnest and then > internalize it. I've replied to it. That will have to be enough...
