We live in a world in which many of the conflicts around us are based (IMO) on ideas, and on *how* those ideas are communicated to others. Some on this planet clearly feel that their ideas are so "right" that they have the "duty" to convince others of their "rightness." Think religious fanatics who actively attempt to convert others to their beliefs. Think those who believe that their particular beliefs or form of meditation or prayer or worship should be mandated, made into a law, and imposed on everyone "for their own good." Think even those who seem compelled to react to any idea that is in conflict with their own ideas as an "attack," or an excuse for an argument in which they can "prove" the super- iority of their ideas.
Does that seem *respectful* to you? Does that seem like the most effective manner in which one can present one's spiritual ideas to others? It doesn't to me. There is a metaphor that, for me, presents a somewhat cooler way of presenting one's ideas to others -- just *present* them and then see whether anyone has an interest in them. If so, and the other person asks to hear more, explain more. If not, cool. The ideas have been presented, made available. A teacher I used to work with never used the "hard sell" in his public talks. He never sug- gested in those talks that he or his ideas were "better" than any other teacher or any other teachers' ideas. He just presented his "take" on things, explained it as best he could, and then said, "Good night. Thank you for coming." There was never even anything said about studying with him further. There was not even anything said about whether that possibility existed, or how someone who'd attended the public talk would go about it if they *wanted* to study with him further. And yet a great number of people did just that. Now in this case the teacher changed his approach later in his life, and started making claims about being "better" than others. But I think he was onto something during this earlier period of his teaching. When asked about his approach at that time, he used the metaphor of spiritual bookstores. You walk into one and you're surrounded by ideas. They're in each of the books around you, presented as best they could be by the holders of those ideas. You pick up a book, browse through it, and you're exposed to the writer's ideas. And you either resonate with those ideas or you don't. If you don't, plop! there goes the book back on the shelf. If you do, you might buy it and take it home and read it. The fact that you read it doesn't mean that you'll believe all the ideas in the book and sign up as an ardent supporter of those ideas because you read the book. All it means is that you were open enough to expose yourself to the ideas. And, from the other side, the writer is not really *pushing* those ideas on you, is he? He's just making them available, putting them up on a shelf where they might catch the eye of some seeker who might appreciate them. I always liked this metaphor. When it came time for me to teach classes again in meditation, long after I'd walked away from the TM movement and its style of presentation, I tried to use it as the metaphor for how I presented things. I just laid out what I had to say as best I could, taught the techniques of meditation that I was teaching for free, and then said, "Good night. Thank you for coming." I'm rambling, on a rainy day here in France, but I guess that all I really have to say is that this spiritual bookstore metaphor might be a good one to keep in mind on spiritual talk forums such as this one. Everyone here has ideas. Everyone here is a writer. Their posts are their books, the things that contain their ideas. Fairfield Life is just a bookstore, in which these idea-books are displayed on shelves. Isn't writing the idea-books enough? People are either going to resonate with the ideas or they're not. *Whether* they resonate with your ideas or not isn't really going to affect you much one way or another unless you believe it will. If you believe that someone disagreeing with your idea-books dimin- ishes you somehow, and you start arguing for the supremacy of your ideas, in most cases all you do is diminish the ideas themselves, and make it all about *you*, your ego, your small s self. The small s self already had its say, in the first post, in the first idea-book it placed on the shelf. If that didn't strike a resonance with readers, well by all means try, try again, if you feel that the idea has merit. Write another post about the *ideas*. Maybe you'll express the ideas better this time, and more people will find a resonance in them. But when you start arguing for the essential "right- ness" or the essential "correctness" or "better-ness" of your idea-books, you're kinda introducing the concept of the high-pressure used car salesman into an environment in which it doesn't belong. Can you *imagine* how you'd react if you wandered into a spiritual bookstore and some jerk wearing a bad polyester suit and white socks came up to you and started pressuring you to buy such-and-such book? Just write the books. The market will determine whether those books strike a resonance with the people browsing through the ideas contained in them. And if no one buys the books, or the ideas, that doesn't mean that they are "bad" books or ideas, or that the writer is "bad" or "lesser." Find another spiritual bookstore to display your idea- books in. Maybe this next bookstore has a more high-vibe clientele, and *everyone* there will find a resonance with your ideas, and just *love* your books. But in my opinion the used-car-salesman approach just diminishes the ideas, and tends to make people want to shop elsewhere. This itself is Just An Idea, Just Another Book On The Shelf. You can read it or not; I don't care. You can agree with it or not; I don't care. I had my fun in the writing of the book, and in placing it on the shelf alongside all the others.
