--- In [email protected], TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>
> --- In [email protected], "Rick Archer" <rick@> wrote:
> >
> > I'm not talking about getting to see him. I doubt very
> > much that the Dalai Lama lavishes jewels and expensive
> > clothes and cushy digs on the important people while
> > treating the little people as expendable commodities.
>
> From what I have been given to understand from
> friends who have worked with him closely for
> decades, it is the exact opposite. The Dalai Lama
> hates the publicity shots with the rich and famous,
> and tends to "come alive" and interact joyously with
> everyday "journeyman" monks who do the "grunt
> work" of spreading Tibetan Buddhism.
>
> To put this in perspective, that would be like
> Maharishi giving a special audience to the guy
> who had worked his butt off in the field to spread
> TM and, as a result, had initiated over 1000 people
> within a year, while ignoring the person who was
> standing there with a check for Big Bucks in his
> hand.
>
> I mention this not as metaphor but as something
> I actually saw happen. Only in reverse. Maharishi
> blew off the initiator who had taught (at the time)
> the most people in TM movement history within one
> year, and spent his entire time hobnobbing with a
> German who had become a TM teacher years before,
> had never taught TM to anyone in his life, but who
> had a check for measly sum (at that time) of 100K
> in his hand. And this was back in the Seventies,
> before the lust for money became *really* out
> of hand.
>
> I repost here something I posted on TM-Free this
> morning, as a comment to a thread that dealt with
> the "coronation" of the latest "Raj Rajeshwari."
>
> Betty writes (in a comment to Gina's post):
> "I was never aware of the shame of not being
> wealthy until I went on TTC."
>
> An interesting and accurate perception, Betty.
> I can only say that it wasn't always that way.
> On my TTC back in 1972, the vast majority of
> us were "poor folk," having had to scrape up
> the money to attend TTC however we could, and
> having done so because we had a desire to help
> other "poor folk" like ourselves to learn to
> meditate.
>
> But back then learning to meditate the TM way
> cost $35 to $75. That was before Maharishi
> started equating being rich with being highly
> evolved, and equating giving as much of those
> riches to him as possible with being even more
> highly evolved.
>
> One of the saddest things you can see in any
> spiritual tradition is this transition. In the
> beginning, putting one's life on the line to
> help others is viewed as good karma, and as an
> indication of one's spiritual worth. But in the
> last days of any dying spiritual organization,
> only cutting a check is seen as indicative of
> one's spiritual worth.
>
> The costumes and the pomp and circumstance of
> "coronations" such as this one are just the
> surface symptoms of a greater dis-ease. They
> are like the carcinomas that appear on the skin
> of a patient who is already close to death.
>
All of this reads a lot better without the frequent conclusions
sprinkled throughout. Though it is tempting for the mind to safely
jump to conclusions, it is far more interesting not to.
