I finally got around to responding to this guy. Here it is:
> Ricky, >all these > oppositions you have, we could take each one, one at a time, and > examine them, like the Zimbabwe dictator, Maharishi and Mia Farrow > and the rest, the tallest building, Rajas, etc. etc. etc., but the > individual issues like these will be endless -- your list will never > run out -- because it's rooted in something deeper within you than > the individual items and examples. That's a cop out for not examining the motives and realities behind these events. I don't have a polarized TM-Ex agenda. I think there's much more good than bad in the TM Movement. But I do believe there are some serious flaws. I don't really blame you for not wanting to look at them, because I don't think you could look at them thoroughly and openly and be comfortable staying in the movement. But it doesn't mean that someone who has chosen to look at them is merely projecting some inner angst on external events that are beyond reproach. What I've found w/TM-X type > people, and most of the fringe roos in Ff (even the more intelligent > ones, such as LB), it's kind of like talking to the KKK. I read a > book once by a journalist who went down south and interviewed all > these KKK crackers -- the leaders, the current and former Grand > Wizards and Dragons -- hoping to get at the more thoughtful and > intellectual underpinnings of their prejudices, some more valid > sounding justifications to write about (perhaps he was hoping at > least for something as intelligent sounding as the Bertrand Russell > and some of the other quotes you sent me; although, Russell, whom it > sounds cool and intelligent to quote, is really not such a good > reference for a six-pack Hindu Joe like yourself, because his > empiricist philosophical school denied the very possibility of > consciousness ever experiencing consciousness). I don't care what his overall philosophy was. I just like the quote I used. What the journalist > found was, they really had no intellectual foundations for their > beliefs. They were all a bunch of dumb-ass rednecks who had no > further justifications than, "Those bunch of goddamn coons. I hate em." > > We both know that your world view is not based on surface issues such > as, "What about Maharishi's praise of Robert Mugabe?" or "Well, then > why didn't they build the tallest building in the world > yet?" (Arguments, as Bobby showed, easily blown out of the murky > waters of doubt.) Not so easily in my book. If Idi Amin had been around at the time, Maharishi might just as well have praised him. Mugabe is in the same league. Heaping praise on this guy was a error in judgment in my opinion. One reason Maharishi makes these errors is that he surrounds himself with sycophants. Critics, even well-meaning ones, are sent packing. I never expected the world's tallest building to be build. The TMO could never pull off such a project. So either it was one of those "flexibility exercises" for the people working with Maharishi, or he had unrealistic expectations and squandered a lot of money that might have been used more constructively. >And I'm not comparing you to the KKK, although > most of the oppositions and prejudices I hear from the Ff fringe are > no more thoughtful than racism. Nonsense. Most of the responses from FFL that I appended to the previous email were quite thoughtful, and I'll append more to this one. I am saying that the intellectual > underpinnings are simply rooted in a belief system that is a > projection of something deeper than sense data and logic; it's about > how you process that data and interpret it, which has nothing to do > with discrimination and logic, but with the feeling level, and the > feeling level is rooted in the fibers of your being, constituted by > karma, gunas, planets, the whole package of who you are. You FEEL > more comfortable reducing Maharishi to a relative personality, with > flaws like all of us, Every enlightened being is also a relative personality with flaws like all of us. He is also much more than that. The paradox of Brahman. If you fail to recognize that Maharishi's pronouncements and actions are influenced by his personal and cultural biases, and instead regard them as universally true expressions of Cosmic Mind, you're depriving yourself of a valid understanding of what enlightenment is. I believe you can find many examples in Maharishi's teaching to support this point. who may know less about Vedic knowledge than > some gay cowboy named Dana or Oscar or LeRoy who went to India and > studied with the Hindu status quo; you don't FEEL comfortable seeing > Maharishi as an embodiment of pure knowledge, the only Rishi in > history who has cognized all the vedas, Maharishi never said he cognized all the Vedas. No official movement statement ever pronounced this. If you asked him point blank whether he had cognized all the Vedas, he would probably tell you he hadn't. Maharishi has told me personally that he makes mistakes and that we should bring it to his attention when he does so (although he may have started disallowing this at some point). You're aggrandizing him. Why? What does that say about your mentality? because that would not fit > into your world view and that is not how you feel comfortable with > yourself. There are no plausible intellectual reasonings to justify a > particular relative world view; in the end, it's all about justifying > one's individual existence, arranging ones sense of self to survive > and more comfortably "be" in the world; thinking the way you think > because of who you are, modifying your thoughts and attitudes in a > way that will allow you to feel most resolved in your relationship > with everyone around you. Character is fate. Hmmm. So you're saying that this is something that you and I and everyone does? But isn't there a difference between people who are willing to challenge their own assumptions and are eager to revise their world view in light of new evidence, and those who have become static by asserting that they know the truth and are capable of judging those who don't see things their way as deluded? > > What I will argue against, Ricky, is your adhering to these lines of > reasoning, using lame examples to justify your beliefs, calling > people fundamentalists if they don't agree with you on these surface > issues, I would not call you a fundamentalist for not agreeing with me on surface issues. I respect your right to disagree. I would regard you as a fundamentalist if, as I said above, you are cock-sure that you know the truth and feel qualified to judge me as deluded because I don't share your perspective. >and your presenting of all these "facts" on your website You imply that I author all the content on FFL. Again, it is an open forum. "The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of...." >to > support your world view when the real discrepancy between all these > view points is not these confused issues themselves but what lies > deeper: the feeling level of acceptance or rejection, which is based > on how much love and how much universal sympathy and support for all > beings there is deep in one's heart. That and a degree of brainwave > coherence, or lack thereof. I don't think that love and critical faculties are mutually exclusive. One should never abdicate one's critical faculties. If a spiritual teacher tells you to do so, head for the door. > Amma, 'one of the beautiful flowers rising up as the Age of > Enlightenment dawns,' would never waste time putting Maharishi down. > There's way too much love and clarity in her heart. But instead, says > of him, "The greatest meditation teacher who ever walked the earth," > as quoted to me by one of her disciples. (I experienced her adoration > on Maharishi myself once when I spoke to her about him.) You're right that I've been more critical and have spent much more time discussing controversial points about MMY than Amma ever would. But then, I am not a guru or a public figure with people recording and hanging on my every word. Amma used to praise Sai Baba, but in recent years when people ask her publicly about other gurus, she usually declines to comment, saying that a few of them are giving the rest a bad name. I'm not implying that she is including MMY in that few. But she did comment to a friend of mine last summer that his secretaries are embezzling a lot of the money. > > You tell me I need to challenge my assumptions because I don't FEEL > like you do about Maharishi. You use Bertrand Russell quotes to imply > that I need to see things oppositely because I'm aligned with > Maharishi and support him wholeheartedly. If I said that, then I'd like to revise my statement. I'm not in a position to tell you what you should do. Personally, I think it's a healthy thing to challenge one's assumptions, but it's none of my business whether you or anyone else does that. It's a personal choice. You tell me, in so many > words, that I still stand 100% in the Movement only because I merely > believe what I've been told. You, by way of inserting quotes, tell me > I'm a fundamentalist because I am unwaveringly devoted to the > Master. Perhaps I deserve that condescending treatment because I > tell you outright that you're deluded. You don't deserve that treatment Tom. I honor your choice to do that. I did that for decades. I don't think you're in a position to decide whether or not I am deluded, but if you do think that, I understand, because for years, that's what I thought of anyone who left the movement. But Ricky, it's only your use > of these flaky superficial arguments against Maharishi that I > dismiss, so you will see through them. If you want to embrace Amma > that's not an unevolutionary thing. But your negativity masquerading > as rationality, you know better than that and need to go deeper into > that universal love where all this is resolved and there's no mucky > opposition in your awareness. You may be right. I may reach a stage at which I am no longer interested in pondering the implications of movement goings on or Maharishi's behavior. But like someone said, if you get divorced it's natural to be interested in what's happening with your ex. You spent years with the person, there are lots of deep impressions, and you naturally want to evaluate thoughts and feelings that surreptitiously became part of your makeup, to see if they deserve to stay, need to be revised, or perhaps cast out altogether. > > You could never "dampen" the "enthusiasm or devotion" of these > people, because it is self-referral, true and real and pure. Honestly, it is not my agenda to do so. >Because > your "facts" are not facts at all, That's your fundamentalist speaking. You're rejecting out of hand things that you haven't even looked at. >but whining expressions of doubt > and misinformation, rooted in whatever feelings are there inside you. > But truth is not based on feeling. It just is. Very true, which is why I don't let feelings make me say, "Don't confuse me with the facts, I've made up my mind." Or more to the point, "Whatever you've discovered, it couldn't be factual because it conflicts with my feelings." >Maybe you're the one > who needs to consider that the opposite is true. I have, and whatever the point under consideration, it is.
