[FairfieldLife] Re: My response to David Orme-Johnson.
its a tiny minority you are talking about. Just a tiny minority of Protestants and some Wahabists who think they have a conflict to be concerned about.TM has now or has had considerable success in conservative Catholic(esp.Peru and virtually all of Central and South America -and Muslim (Palestinians and UAE, Iran)areas. Even the current Pope gave his blessing while he was Cardinal Ratzinger, and he is a very much a conservative. And with Buddhist (Sri Lanka , Thailand, Tibetan Buddhists in India)monks. Winnebago,Salish and Mayan traditionalists. As a scientifically proven technique for individual restoration and collective peace. The populace seems to have some unimaginable sophistication. Maharaja Adhiraj Rajaram gave a brilliant speech about this kind of thing this Jan 12th. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig lengli...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, shukra69 shukra69@ wrote: There is nothing in doing TM that conflicts with doing any religion as currently practiced. There is no insult to any intelligence. There are specific religions which followers of obsess about the fact that TM mantras are used in religious ceremonies in India. These same people become very worried when I point out that some religions consider photocopying of religious art for any reason (including homework assignments for art class) to be a religious act in that religion or that witnessing the local Indian dancers doing a rain dance would be participation in someone else's religion. Likewise with hearing sacred music from the wrong religion (or any music at all) on the radio. L
[FairfieldLife] Re: My response to David Orme-Johnson.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, shukra69 shukr...@... wrote: Maharaja Adhiraj Rajaram gave a brilliant speech about this kind of thing this Jan 12th. NOT to get sucked into the infinity minus 1th iteration of this religion argument, IMO anyone who calls King Tony by that name would probably think he was giving a bril- liant speech if all he did was sneeze. :-) In other words, this whole argument appeals only to those who think they have something to prove, one way or another. And IMO that level of fanaticism is surpassed in its silli- ness only by trying TO prove it every time the subject comes up. Let it GO, people. You're pissing into the wind, trying to establish opinion as fact.
[FairfieldLife] Re: My response to David Orme-Johnson.
Judy, Your comments are excellent and very well constructed. We wish the same could be said about some people here on this list. Or rather than weeding them out, one could understand them differently. Repent, for example, is the term used in English translations of the Gospels for the Greek word metanoia. But going back to the Greek, it turns out that metanoia can also be understood to mean transcend (beyond-mind). So John the Baptist may have been crying in the wilderness, Transcend! For the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Jesus is recorded as having said, in the Sermon on the Mount, Be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect. We think of this as an impossible demand. Jesus must have meant that we should *strive* to be perfect, knowing that we could never achieve perfection. But again, the Greek word translated perfect can also mean whole, complete. In the Bhagavad-Gita, Krishna tells Arjuna, Be without the three gunas, freed from duality, ever firm in purity, independent of possessions, possessed of the Self (MMY's translation). MMY has interpreted Be without the three gunas to mean, Transcend! Could that also be the meaning of Be complete, as your Father in heaven is complete? Freed from duality, possessed of the Self? Was Jesus telling us to transcend? In an interview with PBS's Bill Moyers, scholar of religion (and winner of the 2008 TED Prize) Karen Armstrong had this to say about interpreting scripture: In the pre-modern world, what you see are the early Christian and Jewish commentators saying you must find new meaning in the Bible. And the rabbis would change the words of scripture to make a point to their pupils. Origen, the great second or third century Greek commentator on the Bible, said that it is absolutely impossible to take these texts literally. You simply cannot do so. And he said, 'God has put these sort of conundrums and paradoxes in so that we are forced to seek a deeper meaning.' And the Koran is the same. The Koran says every single one of its verses is an ayah, a symbol or a parable. Because you can only talk about God analogically, in terms of signs and symbols The three monotheisms, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, they have besetting problem, a besetting tendency. That is idolatry. Taking a human idea, a human idea of God, a human doctrine and making it absolute. Putting it in the place of God. http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/03132009/watch.html http://tinyurl.com/az3ue7 The whole interview is worth watching; there's also a transcript.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Global Good News Music Mall
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, bob_brigante no_re...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Rick Archer rick@ wrote: Global Good News recently launched a new page on its website, Music Mall. The link to Music Mall appears in the navigation bar at the left side of the Global Good News home page (or any Global Good News web page): http://www.globalgoodnews.com/ Or go directly to http://www.musicmall.globalgoodnews.com/daivishakti.html and bookmark this page. *** The GGN Music Mall lists a CD of Vishnu Sahasranam for $24.99: http://snipurl.com/du6p2 [www_vedic-arts_com] MAPI.com lists a CD of Vishnu Sahasranam for $200.00: http://snipurl.com/du6qf [www_mapi_com] So what's new..:-)
[FairfieldLife] Re: My response to David Orme-Johnson.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, BillyG. wg...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: Or rather than weeding them out, one could understand them differently. Thanks, that is pretty much my point. In fact in some cases you 'must' understand them differently to still remain in that Religion, but then the question arises are you 'really' still in that Religion. Contemporary Religions are full of misunderstandings and downright nonsense, we all know that! Repent, for example, is the term used in English translations of the Gospels for the Greek word metanoia. But going back to the Greek, it turns out that metanoia can also be understood to mean transcend (beyond-mind). So John the Baptist may have been crying in the wilderness, Transcend! For the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Jesus is recorded as having said, in the Sermon on the Mount, Be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect. We think of this as an impossible demand. Jesus must have meant that we should *strive* to be perfect, knowing that we could never achieve perfection. But again, the Greek word translated perfect can also mean whole, complete. In the Bhagavad-Gita, Krishna tells Arjuna, Be without the three gunas, freed from duality, ever firm in purity, independent of possessions, possessed of the Self (MMY's translation). FWIW, I seem to recall that verse has been rather problematic for many commentators, because Krishna tells Arjuna: nis-trai-guNyo bhavaarjuna (bhava+arjuna) that is, not-three-'guNaic' be, Arjuna! In the next phrase Krishna sez: (Be instead:) nitya-sattva-stho... (without sandhi: -staH) that is, ever sattva-staying. The problem is that 'sattva', of course, is one of the tree guNas, from which Krishna tells Arjuna to free himself! MMY's interpretation seems to indicate that he doesn't think 'sattva' in that phrase refers to one of the guNas?
[FairfieldLife] Re: Christian Science Monitor: The Coming Evangelical Collapse
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_re...@... wrote: Doug, in all honesty, I think you have been toking on the Maharishi Bong far too long. You make assump- tions about things that are not only unwarranted, they are far more offensive to thinking, feeling human beings than the behavior you find offensive. Your position (if it isn't parody) is that of the classic religious fanatic and elitist. WE (the people who do what *I* say and who live the way *I* want them to live) live in a state of Grace. Those who don't are offenders who require judgment and punishment if they won't do what *I* say. Okay, you caught me. Dear Turq, lion-hearted defender of (religious and intellectual) freedoms against tyrannies opressive and presumptioous, is a good observation you write here about the nature o evangelicalism everywhere. Barbarianism. I find i often rely on you for this quick editing eye towards a truth on things here. In reading FFL I come and leave to things otherwise for stretches but often in looking to FFL will quick read your posts as a vehicle to catch-up on the flow of things. Though tend to filter out skip your personal ad homind stuff with judy. But, This barbarian one was a particularly thoughtful one. Thanks. -Yours in Jihad, -D in FF --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_re...@... wrote: This is IMO a thoughtful article by a thoughtful person, but one who has completely missed the real reason why evangelical Christianity is dying. It's in the name. They're evangelical. They feel the need to *evangelize*, to bring people to the faith. IMO, *that* is the thing that people are going to resist in greater and greater numbers in the 21st century. Evangelizing one's faith is going to become perceived as tacky, as the effort of one person or many to shore up their own shaky faith by piling on the numbers around it (by growing the Church). This is revealed by the author when he complains that the Catholic Church and the Ortho- dox Church are benefiting from people leaving the evangelical churches, and he perceives that as a loss for his side and a win by the other side. I once found a fascinating phrase in a Japanese history book that had been translated into English. It was in a chapter dealing with the first arrival of Westerners in Japan. Japan at that time was a bastion of religious freedom. At least three major religions were present, in fairly equal numbers. And not only was there complete *tolerance* of a person's chosen religion, given the nature of the Japanese culture it was considered indecently *impolite* to attempt to convert someone to your religion. It just wasn't done. So who were the first arrivals in Japan from the West? Priests and missionaries. And what did they do? They evangelized; they proceeded to try to convert everyone they met to their religion. Some of them (primarily the Spanish and Portuguese monks) went so far as to actually kill people who would not convert, to intimidate others in the same village *into* converting. The Japanese textbook referred to this period of history as The Invasion of the Barbarians. What this thoughtful gentleman is *missing* is that evangelism itself is *barbaric*. It is the assump- tion that you know better than your fellow man what is better for him, and for his immortal soul. It is the assumption that you have not only the right to try to bring him to the faith, but the God-given duty to do so. That's as barbaric today as it was back in medieval Japan. And THAT is why evangelical Christianity is fading away. More and more people are just not willing to stand for the barbaric behavior of those who are trying to convert them to something they want no part of. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, I am the eternal L.Shaddai@ wrote: http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0310/p09s01-coop.html The coming evangelical collapse An anti-Christian chapter in Western history is about to begin. But out of the ruins, a new vitality and integrity will rise. By Michael Spencer from the March 10, 2009 edition Oneida, Ky. - We are on the verge within 10 years of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity. This breakdown will follow the deterioration of the mainline Protestant world and it will fundamentally alter the religious and cultural environment in the West. Within two generations, evangelicalism will be a house deserted of half its occupants. (Between 25 and 35 percent of Americans today are Evangelicals.) In the Protestant 20th century, Evangelicals flourished. But they will soon be living in a very secular and religiously antagonistic 21st century. This collapse will herald the arrival of an anti-Christian chapter of the post-Christian West. Intolerance of Christianity will rise to levels many of us have not believed possible in our lifetimes, and
[FairfieldLife] Re: My response to David Orme-Johnson.
MMY is not the only one with this interpretation though, even dualists like the Gaudya Vaishnavas believe that the goal is to be without, go beyond the three gunas. They have a different idea of what that is though. You can transcend and then abide in Sattwa.There is no contradiction on level of human reality. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, cardemaister no_re...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, BillyG. wgm4u@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: Or rather than weeding them out, one could understand them differently. Thanks, that is pretty much my point. In fact in some cases you 'must' understand them differently to still remain in that Religion, but then the question arises are you 'really' still in that Religion. Contemporary Religions are full of misunderstandings and downright nonsense, we all know that! Repent, for example, is the term used in English translations of the Gospels for the Greek word metanoia. But going back to the Greek, it turns out that metanoia can also be understood to mean transcend (beyond-mind). So John the Baptist may have been crying in the wilderness, Transcend! For the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Jesus is recorded as having said, in the Sermon on the Mount, Be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect. We think of this as an impossible demand. Jesus must have meant that we should *strive* to be perfect, knowing that we could never achieve perfection. But again, the Greek word translated perfect can also mean whole, complete. In the Bhagavad-Gita, Krishna tells Arjuna, Be without the three gunas, freed from duality, ever firm in purity, independent of possessions, possessed of the Self (MMY's translation). FWIW, I seem to recall that verse has been rather problematic for many commentators, because Krishna tells Arjuna: nis-trai-guNyo bhavaarjuna (bhava+arjuna) that is, not-three-'guNaic' be, Arjuna! In the next phrase Krishna sez: (Be instead:) nitya-sattva-stho... (without sandhi: -staH) that is, ever sattva-staying. The problem is that 'sattva', of course, is one of the tree guNas, from which Krishna tells Arjuna to free himself! MMY's interpretation seems to indicate that he doesn't think 'sattva' in that phrase refers to one of the guNas?
[FairfieldLife] Re: My response to David Orme-Johnson.
I agree that it is very tiresome to read here or anywhere those who expressions are guided only what can rhetorically be advantageous to their firmly held preconceptions. I can only suggest that you listen to that address if you have the chance and inclination and you might agree and understand why he is worthy of the name. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_re...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, shukra69 shukra69@ wrote: Maharaja Adhiraj Rajaram gave a brilliant speech about this kind of thing this Jan 12th. NOT to get sucked into the infinity minus 1th iteration of this religion argument, IMO anyone who calls King Tony by that name would probably think he was giving a bril- liant speech if all he did was sneeze. :-) In other words, this whole argument appeals only to those who think they have something to prove, one way or another. And IMO that level of fanaticism is surpassed in its silli- ness only by trying TO prove it every time the subject comes up. Let it GO, people. You're pissing into the wind, trying to establish opinion as fact.
[FairfieldLife] STARSHIP ANY DAY NOW
Many of you have heard the rumors. Well, they are true. Global Good News *has* been working on a TV series to follow up the success of their Global Good Music effort. It will be broadcast on the Maharishi Channel weekly. The rumors about the subject matter are true, too. It really *is* Sattvic SciFi. I've managed to get my hands on an advance copy of one of the scripts, and I share it with you out of the goodness of my heart. STARSHIP ANY DAY NOW Episode 108: Flying Time SCENE 37 -- The Clueful Chakra Cafe, around lunchtime [ The starship's cafeteria is almost empty. Word has spread about the food shortages. Sitting at a round table talking and drinking artificial water cocktails are JEAN ARRESQ, NABBY LOST, BILLY G. BLUEBALLS, USHANAS SHUKRA XXIV, and BRIG BOBANTE. They look up and see an old friend roll into the cafeteria. Enter JUDY STEIN-ABSONDERLICHLIEBE, in a motorized wheelchair that has long scythe-like blades protruding from each of its wheels like the ones on Messala's chariot in Ben-Hur. In case that didn't convey enough of a message, there is a bumper sticker on the back of the wheelchair that says: GO AHEAD MAKE MY YUGA The wheechair rolls up to the counter, and its occupant orders lunch. ] JUDY STEIN-ABSONDERLICHLIEBE I'll have an artificial soy burger. Hold the misrepresentation. PEON ON WORK-STUDY We've run out of artificial soy. We could make you an artificial artificial soy burger, if you don't mind that it's made from recycled organic material. JUDY STEIN-ABSONDERLICHLIEBE What kind of organic material? PEON ON WORK-STUDY Feces. JUDY STEIN-ABSONDERLICHLIEBE Fine. Whatever. Give me an artificial artificial soy burger. Hold the pickle, too. PEON ON WORK-STUDY No problem. We ran out of pickles months ago. Anything to drink with that? JUDY STEIN-ABSONDERLICHLIEBE Just water, please. PEON ON WORK-STUDY We've run out of water, too. I could give you a glass of artificial water. JUDY STEIN-ABSONDERLICHLIEBE What's that made from? No, never mind...I don't want to know. [ She presses a button on the arm of the wheelchair and a small missile launcher pops up. She curses under her breath, pushes that button again to put the missile launcher away and pushes the right button this time, and a tray pops up and folds down. She puts her food on it and rolls to the table where her friends are sitting. The electric motor of the wheelchair makes a G sound as it runs, sorta like the roar of a ferret with rabies. She reaches the table, where the occupants have carefully moved their chairs apart to make room for the wheelchair and its wheel-blades. ] ALL Hi, Judy. You look great today. JUDY STEIN-ABSONDERLICHLIEBE [ Shouting. ] WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THAT??!!! USHANAS SHUKRA XXIV Nothing, Judy. We're just glad to see you. JEAN ARRESQ Yeah, Judy. You are our goddess. Seeing you every day is a vision, like Vishnu seeing Lakshmi stepping out of her bath. BILLY G. BLUEBALLS Not that we'd want to see you stepping out of your bath or anything like that. ALL Nothing like that. Believe us. JUDY STEIN-ABSONDERLICHLIEBE Ok. Good to see you, too. What shall we argue about today? ALL [ Under their breath. ] Here it comes. JUDY STEIN-ABSONDERLICHLIEBE I think we should argue about whether TM is a religion or not. I know that all of the people who *care* about this are dead back on Earth, but I still like to argue about it, so... BRIG BOBANTE [ Interrupting. ] Judy, do you know what day it is today? JUDY STEIN-ABSONDERLICHLIEBE Uh, no. But give me a minute on Google and I'll tell you more about it than you know now. BRIG BOBANTE It's the 25th anniversary of when we blasted off for Planet Brahmaloka. JUDY STEIN-ABSONDERLICHLIEBE [ Googling furiously. ] I knew that. In fact, it was thirty years ago today that Da King came out of silence and told us about the Coming Apocalypse, and how it was going to destroy the Earth. And then he told us that everything was going to be OK, because he had cognized that there was a better place to live, on Planet Brahmaloka, and that we were going to build a starship and go there together. It took five years to raise the money and build the starship, but yes, we blasted off 25 years ago today. 25 years, three minutes, to be exact. Betcha didn't know all THAT, didja Brig?! ALL Wow, Judy. We didn't know all that. [ Back story for character motivation: You all knew all that. ] NABBY LOST Do you think there will be a party? BILLY G. BLUEBALLS Party? You know that parties are Off The Program. They were banned during the first year of the voyage, along with fun. We can have celebrations, but no parties. BRIG BOBANTE Of course we don't even have celebrations any more now that the Girish and the pundits stole the escape pod and went back to Earth in it. JEAN ARRESQ I wish they hadn't done that. It's not that I miss the pundits, it's that they took all the scriptures with them, so I've had nothing to read since they left. JUDY STEIN-ABSONDERLICHLIEBE [
[FairfieldLife] Re: Christian Science Monitor: The Coming Evangelical Collapse
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, dhamiltony2k5 dhamiltony...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: Doug, in all honesty, I think you have been toking on the Maharishi Bong far too long. ... Okay, you caught me. Dear Turq, lion-hearted defender of (religious and intellectual) freedoms against tyrannies opressive and presumptioous, is a good observation you write here about the nature o evangelicalism everywhere. Barbarianism. I find i often rely on you for this quick editing eye towards a truth on things here. In reading FFL I come and leave to things otherwise for stretches but often in looking to FFL will quick read your posts as a vehicle to catch-up on the flow of things. Though tend to filter out skip your personal ad homind stuff with judy. But, This barbarian one was a particularly thoughtful one. Thanks. -Yours in Jihad, -D in FF Thanks for reading it. I actually sent a copy of this to the Christian Science Monitor and they printed it. Or, that is, they printed the first five sentences of it. :-) If you've been reading my posts as a way of playing catch up, I have a treat for you that I just posted. In that particular rant, you can catch up on the FUTURE. I just got a wild hair of an idea up my ass while walking my dogs today, and sat in a cafe for a couple of hours working it out. I feel much better now. :-) --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: This is IMO a thoughtful article by a thoughtful person, but one who has completely missed the real reason why evangelical Christianity is dying. It's in the name. They're evangelical. They feel the need to *evangelize*, to bring people to the faith. IMO, *that* is the thing that people are going to resist in greater and greater numbers in the 21st century. Evangelizing one's faith is going to become perceived as tacky, as the effort of one person or many to shore up their own shaky faith by piling on the numbers around it (by growing the Church). This is revealed by the author when he complains that the Catholic Church and the Ortho- dox Church are benefiting from people leaving the evangelical churches, and he perceives that as a loss for his side and a win by the other side. I once found a fascinating phrase in a Japanese history book that had been translated into English. It was in a chapter dealing with the first arrival of Westerners in Japan. Japan at that time was a bastion of religious freedom. At least three major religions were present, in fairly equal numbers. And not only was there complete *tolerance* of a person's chosen religion, given the nature of the Japanese culture it was considered indecently *impolite* to attempt to convert someone to your religion. It just wasn't done. So who were the first arrivals in Japan from the West? Priests and missionaries. And what did they do? They evangelized; they proceeded to try to convert everyone they met to their religion. Some of them (primarily the Spanish and Portuguese monks) went so far as to actually kill people who would not convert, to intimidate others in the same village *into* converting. The Japanese textbook referred to this period of history as The Invasion of the Barbarians. What this thoughtful gentleman is *missing* is that evangelism itself is *barbaric*. It is the assump- tion that you know better than your fellow man what is better for him, and for his immortal soul. It is the assumption that you have not only the right to try to bring him to the faith, but the God-given duty to do so. That's as barbaric today as it was back in medieval Japan. And THAT is why evangelical Christianity is fading away. More and more people are just not willing to stand for the barbaric behavior of those who are trying to convert them to something they want no part of. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, I am the eternal L.Shaddai@ wrote: http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0310/p09s01-coop.html The coming evangelical collapse An anti-Christian chapter in Western history is about to begin. But out of the ruins, a new vitality and integrity will rise. By Michael Spencer from the March 10, 2009 edition Oneida, Ky. - We are on the verge within 10 years of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity. This breakdown will follow the deterioration of the mainline Protestant world and it will fundamentally alter the religious and cultural environment in the West. Within two generations, evangelicalism will be a house deserted of half its occupants. (Between 25 and 35 percent of Americans today are Evangelicals.) In the Protestant 20th century, Evangelicals flourished. But they will soon be living in a very secular and religiously antagonistic 21st century. This
[FairfieldLife] The Spirit Level - could change politics
This is a book with a big idea, big enough to change political thinking, and bigger than its authors at first intended. The problem they originally set out to solve was why health within a population gets progressively worse further down the social scale; they estimate that together they have clocked up more than 50 person-years gathering information from research teams across the globe. Their eureka moment came when they thought of putting the medical data alongside figures showing the extent of economic inequality within each country. They say modestly that since dependable statistics both on health and on income distribution are internationally available, it was only a matter of time before someone put the two together. All the same, they are the first to have done so. Their book charts the level of health and social problems as many as they could find reliable figures for against the level of income inequality in 20 of the world's richest nations, and in each of the 50 United States. They allocate a brief chapter to each problem, supplying graphs that display the evidence starkly and unarguably. What they find is that, in states and countries where there is a big gap between the incomes of rich and poor, mental illness, drug and alcohol abuse, obesity and teenage pregnancy are more common, the homicide rate is higher, life expectancy is shorter, and children's educational performance and literacy scores are worse. The Scandinavian countries and Japan consistently come at the positive end of this spectrum. They have the smallest differences between higher and lower incomes, and the best record of psycho-social health. The countries with the widest gulf between rich and poor, and the highest incidence of most health and social problems, are Britain, America and Portugal. Richard Wilkinson, a professor of medical epidemiology at Nottingham University, and Kate Pickett, a lecturer in epidemiology at York University, emphasise that it is not only the poor who suffer from the effects of inequality, but the majority of the population. For example, rates of mental illness are five times higher across the whole population in the most unequal than in the least unequal societies in their survey. One explanation, they suggest, is that inequality increases stress right across society, not just among the least advantaged. Much research has been done on the stress hormone cortisol, which can be measured in saliva or blood, and it emerges that chronic stress affects the neural system and in turn the immune system. When stressed, we are more prone to depression and anxiety, and more likely to develop a host of bodily ills including heart disease, obesity, drug addiction, liability to infection and rapid ageing. Societies where incomes are relatively equal have low levels of stress and high levels of trust, so that people feel secure and see others as co-operative. In unequal societies, by contrast, the rich suffer from fear of the poor, while those lower down the social order experience status anxiety, looking upon those who are more successful with bitterness and upon themselves with shame. In the 1980s and 1990s, when inequality was rapidly rising in Britain and America, the rich bought homesecurity systems, and started to drive 4x4s with names such as Defender and Crossfire, reflecting a need to intimidate attackers. Meanwhile the poor grew obese on comfort foods and took more legal and illegal drugs. In 2005, doctors in England alone wrote 29m prescriptions for antidepressants, costing the NHS £400m. Status anxiety and how we respond to it are basic, it seems, to our animal natures. In an experiment with macaque monkeys, the animals were housed in groups, and the social hierarchies that developed among them were observed. Then the monkeys were taught to administer cocaine to themselves by pressing a lever. The dominant monkeys in each group were relatively abstemious, but the subordinate monkeys took a lot of cocaine to medicate themselves against the pain of low social status. In a similar experiment, high-status monkeys from different groups were housed together, so that some of them became low status. The downwardly mobile monkeys accumulated abdominal fat and developed a rapid build-up of atherosclerosis in their arteries, just like humans. The different social problems that stem from income inequality often, Wilkinson and Pickett show, form circuits or spirals. Babies born to teenage mothers are at greater risk, as they grow up, of educational failure, juvenile crime, and becoming teenage parents themselves. In societies with greater income inequality, more people are sent to prison, and less is spent on education and welfare. In Britain the prison population has doubled since 1990; in America it has quadrupled since the late 1970s. American states with a wide gap between rich and poor are likelier to retain the death penalty, and to
[FairfieldLife] Re: The Spirit Level - could change politics
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, claudiouk claudi...@... wrote: This is a book with a big idea, big enough to change political thinking, and bigger than its authors at first intended. The problem they originally set out to solve was why health within a population gets progressively worse further down the social scale; they estimate that together they have clocked up more than 50 person-years gathering information from research teams across the globe. Their eureka moment came when they thought of putting the medical data alongside figures showing the extent of economic inequality within each country. They say modestly that since dependable statistics both on health and on income distribution are internationally available, it was only a matter of time before someone put the two together. All the same, they are the first to have done so. Their book charts the level of health and social problems as many as they could find reliable figures for against the level of income inequality in 20 of the world's richest nations, and in each of the 50 United States. They allocate a brief chapter to each problem, supplying graphs that display the evidence starkly and unarguably. What they find is that, in states and countries where there is a big gap between the incomes of rich and poor, mental illness, drug and alcohol abuse, obesity and teenage pregnancy are more common, the homicide rate is higher, life expectancy is shorter, and children's educational performance and literacy scores are worse. The Scandinavian countries and Japan consistently come at the positive end of this spectrum. They have the smallest differences between higher and lower incomes, and the best record of psycho-social health. The countries with the widest gulf between rich and poor, and the highest incidence of most health and social problems, are Britain, America and Portugal. Richard Wilkinson, a professor of medical epidemiology at Nottingham University, and Kate Pickett, a lecturer in epidemiology at York University, emphasise that it is not only the poor who suffer from the effects of inequality, but the majority of the population. For example, rates of mental illness are five times higher across the whole population in the most unequal than in the least unequal societies in their survey. One explanation, they suggest, is that inequality increases stress right across society, not just among the least advantaged. Much research has been done on the stress hormone cortisol, which can be measured in saliva or blood, and it emerges that chronic stress affects the neural system and in turn the immune system. When stressed, we are more prone to depression and anxiety, and more likely to develop a host of bodily ills including heart disease, obesity, drug addiction, liability to infection and rapid ageing. Societies where incomes are relatively equal have low levels of stress and high levels of trust, so that people feel secure and see others as co-operative. In unequal societies, by contrast, the rich suffer from fear of the poor, while those lower down the social order experience status anxiety, looking upon those who are more successful with bitterness and upon themselves with shame. In the 1980s and 1990s, when inequality was rapidly rising in Britain and America, the rich bought homesecurity systems, and started to drive 4x4s with names such as Defender and Crossfire, reflecting a need to intimidate attackers. Meanwhile the poor grew obese on comfort foods and took more legal and illegal drugs. In 2005, doctors in England alone wrote 29m prescriptions for antidepressants, costing the NHS £400m. Status anxiety and how we respond to it are basic, it seems, to our animal natures. In an experiment with macaque monkeys, the animals were housed in groups, and the social hierarchies that developed among them were observed. Then the monkeys were taught to administer cocaine to themselves by pressing a lever. The dominant monkeys in each group were relatively abstemious, but the subordinate monkeys took a lot of cocaine to medicate themselves against the pain of low social status. In a similar experiment, high-status monkeys from different groups were housed together, so that some of them became low status. The downwardly mobile monkeys accumulated abdominal fat and developed a rapid build-up of atherosclerosis in their arteries, just like humans. The different social problems that stem from income inequality often, Wilkinson and Pickett show, form circuits or spirals. Babies born to teenage mothers are at greater risk, as they grow up, of educational failure, juvenile crime, and becoming teenage parents themselves. In societies with greater income inequality, more people are sent to prison, and less is spent on education and welfare. In Britain the prison population has doubled since 1990; in America it
[FairfieldLife] Re: My response to David Orme-Johnson.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, cardemaister no_re...@... wrote: FWIW, I seem to recall that verse has been rather problematic for many commentators, because Krishna tells Arjuna: nis-trai-guNyo bhavaarjuna (bhava+arjuna) that is, not-three-'guNaic' be, Arjuna! In the next phrase Krishna sez: (Be instead:) nitya-sattva-stho... (without sandhi: -staH) that is, ever sattva-staying. The problem is that 'sattva', of course, is one of the tree guNas, from which Krishna tells Arjuna to free himself! MMY's interpretation seems to indicate that he doesn't think 'sattva' in that phrase refers to one of the guNas? I think in this case the sattva is meant to refer to the soul or Being-(Sanskrit sattva purity, literally existence, reality; adjectival s#257;ttvika pure).
[FairfieldLife] Re: My response to David Orme-Johnson.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig lengli...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, shukra69 shukra69@ wrote: There is nothing in doing TM that conflicts with doing any religion as currently practiced. There is no insult to any intelligence. There are specific religions which followers of obsess about the fact that TM mantras are used in religious ceremonies in India. These same people become very worried when I point out that some religions consider photocopying of religious art for any reason (including homework assignments for art class) to be a religious act in that religion or that witnessing the local Indian dancers doing a rain dance would be participation in someone else's religion. Likewise with hearing sacred music from the wrong religion (or any music at all) on the radio. According the tm movt if a meditator attends a lecture by some guru or saint then that person has jeopardized their meditation practice and cannot be allowed to meditate in the domes because they will contaminate the experience. I'm not even talking about doing some other practice, just attending a meeting. Yet you seem to agree with the tmo that spending many hrs per day mentally doing mantras and sutras taken from classic hindu texts and ceremonies has nothing to do with hinduism. This seems a contradiction to me. personally i don't think the tm/sidhi program is necessarily hindu, though i do think most people in the domes are part of the maharishiism religion.
[FairfieldLife] Re: STARSHIP ANY DAY NOW
This playlet is the best thing Turq has posted in all the time I've been here -- an entertaining and very professional effort with some hefty conceptual clout. He says it took a couple hours to create -- hard to believe him on that -- looks like a lot more time was spent. If it was only a couple hours, the guy must be able to type 170 wpm and never have a typo. Turq seldom has any typos or run-on sentences or missing words etc. -- to which I additionally bow. Nice work, dude, but, ahem on the smarm dynamic despite the hilarity it yields. Of course, my review of your play would be a lot more positive and effusive if you'd made me one of the characters, so keep that in mind for future efforts. Not that I felt shunned to not be in the play, but that, natch, if an Edg is present in anything it is a better anything as all authors know. Edg --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_re...@... wrote: Many of you have heard the rumors. Well, they are true. Global Good News *has* been working on a TV series to follow up the success of their Global Good Music effort. It will be broadcast on the Maharishi Channel weekly. The rumors about the subject matter are true, too. It really *is* Sattvic SciFi. I've managed to get my hands on an advance copy of one of the scripts, and I share it with you out of the goodness of my heart. STARSHIP ANY DAY NOW Episode 108: Flying Time SCENE 37 -- The Clueful Chakra Cafe, around lunchtime [ The starship's cafeteria is almost empty. Word has spread about the food shortages. Sitting at a round table talking and drinking artificial water cocktails are JEAN ARRESQ, NABBY LOST, BILLY G. BLUEBALLS, USHANAS SHUKRA XXIV, and BRIG BOBANTE. They look up and see an old friend roll into the cafeteria. Enter JUDY STEIN-ABSONDERLICHLIEBE, in a motorized wheelchair that has long scythe-like blades protruding from each of its wheels like the ones on Messala's chariot in Ben-Hur. In case that didn't convey enough of a message, there is a bumper sticker on the back of the wheelchair that says: GO AHEAD MAKE MY YUGA The wheechair rolls up to the counter, and its occupant orders lunch. ] JUDY STEIN-ABSONDERLICHLIEBE I'll have an artificial soy burger. Hold the misrepresentation. PEON ON WORK-STUDY We've run out of artificial soy. We could make you an artificial artificial soy burger, if you don't mind that it's made from recycled organic material. JUDY STEIN-ABSONDERLICHLIEBE What kind of organic material? PEON ON WORK-STUDY Feces. JUDY STEIN-ABSONDERLICHLIEBE Fine. Whatever. Give me an artificial artificial soy burger. Hold the pickle, too. PEON ON WORK-STUDY No problem. We ran out of pickles months ago. Anything to drink with that? JUDY STEIN-ABSONDERLICHLIEBE Just water, please. PEON ON WORK-STUDY We've run out of water, too. I could give you a glass of artificial water. JUDY STEIN-ABSONDERLICHLIEBE What's that made from? No, never mind...I don't want to know. [ She presses a button on the arm of the wheelchair and a small missile launcher pops up. She curses under her breath, pushes that button again to put the missile launcher away and pushes the right button this time, and a tray pops up and folds down. She puts her food on it and rolls to the table where her friends are sitting. The electric motor of the wheelchair makes a G sound as it runs, sorta like the roar of a ferret with rabies. She reaches the table, where the occupants have carefully moved their chairs apart to make room for the wheelchair and its wheel-blades. ] ALL Hi, Judy. You look great today. JUDY STEIN-ABSONDERLICHLIEBE [ Shouting. ] WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THAT??!!! USHANAS SHUKRA XXIV Nothing, Judy. We're just glad to see you. JEAN ARRESQ Yeah, Judy. You are our goddess. Seeing you every day is a vision, like Vishnu seeing Lakshmi stepping out of her bath. BILLY G. BLUEBALLS Not that we'd want to see you stepping out of your bath or anything like that. ALL Nothing like that. Believe us. JUDY STEIN-ABSONDERLICHLIEBE Ok. Good to see you, too. What shall we argue about today? ALL [ Under their breath. ] Here it comes. JUDY STEIN-ABSONDERLICHLIEBE I think we should argue about whether TM is a religion or not. I know that all of the people who *care* about this are dead back on Earth, but I still like to argue about it, so... BRIG BOBANTE [ Interrupting. ] Judy, do you know what day it is today? JUDY STEIN-ABSONDERLICHLIEBE Uh, no. But give me a minute on Google and I'll tell you more about it than you know now. BRIG BOBANTE It's the 25th anniversary of when we blasted off for Planet Brahmaloka. JUDY STEIN-ABSONDERLICHLIEBE [ Googling furiously. ] I knew that. In fact, it was thirty years ago today that Da King came out of silence and told us about the Coming Apocalypse, and how it was going to destroy the Earth. And
[FairfieldLife] STARSHIP ANY DAY NOW: The Making Of
Ok, this was a weirder and longer rant than most. But its genesis says a lot about my life and how I live it, and this really *is* a very pleasant cafe, so I'm going to rap a bit about how it came to be. It was a melding-together of a number of different experiences over the last couple of days: * Watching the next-to-last episode of Battlestar Galactica, about the last days of a starship. * Watching the latest episode of Dollhouse, about a cult compound. * Following several of the threads here on FFL, and noticing how deja vu all over again it all was, including the participants. * Thinking about the them-vs-us thang that appears here from time to time. * Thinking about the nature of faith. * Eating a possibly-overly-adventurous pizza late last night, and having weird dreams as a result. * Walking along the Mediterranean, realizing again how nice a place Sitges is, and being in a really boppy mood. Anyway, I'm walking along the boardwalk with my dogs, all of this still rumbling around in my head, and all of a sudden it all coalesced into one wild hair idea -- Fairfield Life In Space. I dragged the dogs back to the apartment, much against their will, and I grabbed my laptop and ran for Villa Lola, where I have a track record of being able to write successfully. And I spent a couple of hours there just letting the dialog flow through me and onto phosphor. Came back home, spent about another half an hour polishing and formatting it properly, and fired it off. This process is kinda my definition of Tantra. All those different experiences -- contradictory and with nothing to tie them together -- all came together in a flash into one wild hair idea of How To Have Fun On A Sunday In Sitges. It really *was* fun for me. If I poked fun at a few people in the process of having that fun, I beg their indulgence. That's just the way the dialog came out. Someday I may get another wild hair idea and write about the other Fair- field Lifers back on Earth and what they're up to in this imaginary future. And if I do, I promise that I'll be as scathingly funny about us, too.
[FairfieldLife] Re: The Blue Balls Of Enlightenment
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, raunchydog raunchy...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung no_reply@ wrote: Poet craps on petty flaps Entraps self in ego wraps Canning jokes with bad scanning rhymes Will end fanning at bat with panning slimes Wrest off the mask lest a pest of no zest be your best. Burma Shave The mask wrest off, the pest must go Her wondrous verse we burry She deftly smacked imagined foe Her words made play for merry She wrote poor rhymes and lousy verse Yet, she cannot choose but try Careless, she goes from bad to worse Amusing self, she dabbles sly raunchydog The poet tries to do a beat But tinnish ear defeats her A scanning verse would be a treat But slop is all we get, so, gr. Burma Shave by Tom Waits lyrics: http://tinyurl.com/6h3zr4 Burma Shave by Tom Waits Youtube: http://tinyurl.com/ccnvm6 --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, raunchydog raunchydog@ wrote: In hopes to awaken Blue Balling retrieving Their senses forsaken Divining and grieving The seekers mistaken Scam artists believing They ask for deceiving Their money well taken --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, raunchydog raunchydog@ wrote: Blue balls a suggestion Of vasocongestion Arrive at conclusion Blue balls are delusion Pleidian coughing A hairball and laughing, Humans in need Of Nookie indeed! Impending disaster Ass-ended Blue Master Said, Quickly get laid Leave visions to fade! Surrender stiff staunch Launch mission debauch! In truth, we owe much To Masters and such: So partner and couple With bodies so supple Blue balling Vergina Could not-a be fine-na Cute. :-) You asked for a rap; you got a rap. Mine was a takeoff on channeled teachings, such as Lou Valentino used to post here with his Full Moon Readings, and as Nabby passes along from Benjamin Creme, and as glorified in the What the bleep... movie. Tens of thousands of people believe these channeled teachings, and base their lives on them and give their money to the channels. Personally I think it's kinda silly to pour your money and your life into the supposedly-channeled words of a Dead Thing that is supposedly living on some supposedly higher plane somewhere. But if it makes the people who believe in these things happy, more power to 'em. JZ Knight, also known as Ramtha, has made millions doing essentially the same thing I did in my parody. In her French chateau-style mansion in Washington state, she rolls her eyes up, speaks in a slightly different voice, and people believe that everything she says is really being said by Ramtha, a Lemurian warrior who fought the Atlanteans over 35,000 years ago. Interestingly, similar to my made-up Ascended Masters from the Pleiaides, Ramtha belives that the material world the densest plane of existence and the physical body are not evil, undesirable, or intrinsically bad. So she/he probably tells her followers to go out and get laid, just like I did. That's probably why they give her so much money. :-) Thanks for taking my parody lightly, after having asked for it in the first place. I really have nothing against people seeing blue balls or anything else in their meditations. It's the declaring that they know what these visions mean that I'm poking fun at. I don't think that they or the authorities they quote have *any idea* what these visions mean than my made-up Pleiaidian did. insert sound of cat coughing up a hairball here :-) --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, raunchydog raunchydog@ wrote: Maybe it's a little early in the day, but I'd really like to see Barry do a rap about everyone's blue balls. Ask and ye shall receive. Is it likely that I, humble trance channel that I am, could pass up a request for information from a seeker as sincere and devoted as yourself? No way. So here it is, channeled from the Ascended Masters directly to you. As usual for these sessions, I lit a stick of Nag Champa #69 incense, breathed in the heavenly aroma, and held it in my lungs for as long as I could to reestablish connec- tion with my contact among the Ascended Masters in the Pleiaides. Of course, while this is going on my Barry self is overshadowed, but I planned ahead and recorded the words I spoke while channeling the Ascended Masters' holy thoughts. This is what they had to say. The Blue Balls Of
[FairfieldLife] Re: The Spirit Level - could change politics
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, claudiouk claudi...@... wrote: they find is that, in states and countries where there is a big gap between the incomes of rich and poor, mental illness, drug and alcohol abuse, obesity and teenage pregnancy are more common, the homicide rate is higher, life expectancy is shorter, and children's educational performance and literacy scores are worse. The gap in income distribution has grown over the last 20-30 years and is troubling. However, By this description, what they found are the seeds of many many hypotheses, 99% of which they ignore. And they appear from your de3scripton to have croowend their favorite hypothesis as fact. As solid as thier hypothesis are: A country with x lead leads to large gap in income distribution (LGID). X could be mental illness, obesity, alcohol abuse, etc. And what about third factors? maybe both LGID and any of the x's, say mental illness, might both stem, from low levels of education. Or perhaps education that is too specialized -- not breaded and well rounded enough. What about unknown factors. Maybe there are factors y and z that we have not connected to the ills above, but indeed are the root of the problem. The Scandinavian countries and Japan consistently come at the positive end of this spectrum. They have the smallest differences between higher and lower incomes, and the best record of psycho-social health. And this somehow proves that the first leads to the other? The countries with the widest gulf between rich and poor, and the highest incidence of most health and social problems, are Britain, America and Portugal. The authors' method is objective and scientific, If it is, you have not presented any part of that. What is presented is someone starting with an agenda and filling in observations that appear to make their point. I am not arguing for or against LGID. I am arguing against agenda driven science. That's Bushian.
[FairfieldLife] Re: STARSHIP ANY DAY NOW
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_re...@... wrote: Marvellous. Love it. Many of you have heard the rumors. Well, they are true. Global Good News *has* been working on a TV series to follow up the success of their Global Good Music effort. It will be broadcast on the Maharishi Channel weekly. The rumors about the subject matter are true, too. It really *is* Sattvic SciFi. I've managed to get my hands on an advance copy of one of the scripts, and I share it with you out of the goodness of my heart. STARSHIP ANY DAY NOW Episode 108: Flying Time SCENE 37 -- The Clueful Chakra Cafe, around lunchtime [ The starship's cafeteria is almost empty. Word has spread about the food shortages. Sitting at a round table talking and drinking artificial water cocktails are JEAN ARRESQ, NABBY LOST, BILLY G. BLUEBALLS, USHANAS SHUKRA XXIV, and BRIG BOBANTE. They look up and see an old friend roll into the cafeteria. Enter JUDY STEIN-ABSONDERLICHLIEBE, in a motorized wheelchair that has long scythe-like blades protruding from each of its wheels like the ones on Messala's chariot in Ben-Hur. In case that didn't convey enough of a message, there is a bumper sticker on the back of the wheelchair that says: GO AHEAD MAKE MY YUGA The wheechair rolls up to the counter, and its occupant orders lunch. ] JUDY STEIN-ABSONDERLICHLIEBE I'll have an artificial soy burger. Hold the misrepresentation. PEON ON WORK-STUDY We've run out of artificial soy. We could make you an artificial artificial soy burger, if you don't mind that it's made from recycled organic material. JUDY STEIN-ABSONDERLICHLIEBE What kind of organic material? PEON ON WORK-STUDY Feces. JUDY STEIN-ABSONDERLICHLIEBE Fine. Whatever. Give me an artificial artificial soy burger. Hold the pickle, too. PEON ON WORK-STUDY No problem. We ran out of pickles months ago. Anything to drink with that? JUDY STEIN-ABSONDERLICHLIEBE Just water, please. PEON ON WORK-STUDY We've run out of water, too. I could give you a glass of artificial water. JUDY STEIN-ABSONDERLICHLIEBE What's that made from? No, never mind...I don't want to know. [ She presses a button on the arm of the wheelchair and a small missile launcher pops up. She curses under her breath, pushes that button again to put the missile launcher away and pushes the right button this time, and a tray pops up and folds down. She puts her food on it and rolls to the table where her friends are sitting. The electric motor of the wheelchair makes a G sound as it runs, sorta like the roar of a ferret with rabies. She reaches the table, where the occupants have carefully moved their chairs apart to make room for the wheelchair and its wheel-blades. ] ALL Hi, Judy. You look great today. JUDY STEIN-ABSONDERLICHLIEBE [ Shouting. ] WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THAT??!!! USHANAS SHUKRA XXIV Nothing, Judy. We're just glad to see you. JEAN ARRESQ Yeah, Judy. You are our goddess. Seeing you every day is a vision, like Vishnu seeing Lakshmi stepping out of her bath. BILLY G. BLUEBALLS Not that we'd want to see you stepping out of your bath or anything like that. ALL Nothing like that. Believe us. JUDY STEIN-ABSONDERLICHLIEBE Ok. Good to see you, too. What shall we argue about today? ALL [ Under their breath. ] Here it comes. JUDY STEIN-ABSONDERLICHLIEBE I think we should argue about whether TM is a religion or not. I know that all of the people who *care* about this are dead back on Earth, but I still like to argue about it, so... BRIG BOBANTE [ Interrupting. ] Judy, do you know what day it is today? JUDY STEIN-ABSONDERLICHLIEBE Uh, no. But give me a minute on Google and I'll tell you more about it than you know now. BRIG BOBANTE It's the 25th anniversary of when we blasted off for Planet Brahmaloka. JUDY STEIN-ABSONDERLICHLIEBE [ Googling furiously. ] I knew that. In fact, it was thirty years ago today that Da King came out of silence and told us about the Coming Apocalypse, and how it was going to destroy the Earth. And then he told us that everything was going to be OK, because he had cognized that there was a better place to live, on Planet Brahmaloka, and that we were going to build a starship and go there together. It took five years to raise the money and build the starship, but yes, we blasted off 25 years ago today. 25 years, three minutes, to be exact. Betcha didn't know all THAT, didja Brig?! ALL Wow, Judy. We didn't know all that. [ Back story for character motivation: You all knew all that. ] NABBY LOST Do you think there will be a party? BILLY G. BLUEBALLS Party? You know that parties are Off The Program. They were banned during the first year of the voyage, along with fun. We can have celebrations, but no parties. BRIG BOBANTE Of course we don't even have celebrations any more now that the Girish and the
Re: [FairfieldLife] Gayatri, Buddhist mantra, HHDL on enlightenment
Sounds kinda bookish. Who wrote all that? - Original Message - From: emptybill To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Saturday, March 14, 2009 9:45 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Gayatri, Buddhist mantra, HHDL on enlightenment All this yada yada yada. WTF. Does anyone actually study this stuff that spews out of his or her mouth like vaporous ectoplasm - anyone here on FFL? !--[if !supportEmptyParas]-- !--[endif]-- 1.. If you want to chant the Gayatri, then go talk to a Pandit and ask him if you can record him reciting it. If he thinks you are sincere then he will be willing to teach you. However you will still need to learn how to pronounce aspirated consonants. Even better, get a simple Sanskrit CD for pronunciation and learn the five physical points for verbal articulation. If you practice you will learn within 2-3 weeks and will be able to properly say the mantra. Learn from a Pandit so you can get the chhanda. While you are at it, also learn the Tryambakam mantra of Shiva since it goes together with the Gayatri. These two mantras are the backbone of the craft for crossing over. Reduce kalpas of past karma with just these two mantra alone and kiss your stupidity, craving, loathing and inherent narcissism bye-bye. !--[if !supportEmptyParas]-- !--[endif]-- 2.. Same thing if you are a soi-disant Buddhist. Get Romanized transliterations of the Vajrayana mantras and give up the Tibetanized version. The Tibetans actually think they are pronouncing Sanskrit when they say Benzar instead of Vajra or Beikadze instead of Bhaishajye, Soha instead of a Swaha. Give up pigeon Sanskrit and do the real thing. !--[if !supportEmptyParas]-- !--[endif]-- 3.. HHDL's statements about enlightenment follow the direction set out by the founder of the Gelug sect, Je Tsongkapa. Real enlightenment is impossible for any human who does not hold a view of reality that is a non-affirming negative. It is a rigid triumphalist view. HHDL admits that the only other type of person who can realize full enlightenment is the simple, uneducated Buddhist yogis. That is because these practitioners can see emptiness directly - as the vacuous, absence of any type of inherent being whether for an object, person or force. Anything that appears in the multiverse of experience is simply the product of causes and conditions - there is nothing, as such, that makes anything what it is. This is the hard core Prasangika view which HHDL maintains even when discussing his lineage of Dzogchen.
[FairfieldLife] Re: My response to David Orme-Johnson.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, boo_lives boo_li...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, shukra69 shukra69@ wrote: There is nothing in doing TM that conflicts with doing any religion as currently practiced. There is no insult to any intelligence. There are specific religions which followers of obsess about the fact that TM mantras are used in religious ceremonies in India. These same people become very worried when I point out that some religions consider photocopying of religious art for any reason (including homework assignments for art class) to be a religious act in that religion or that witnessing the local Indian dancers doing a rain dance would be participation in someone else's religion. Likewise with hearing sacred music from the wrong religion (or any music at all) on the radio. According the tm movt if a meditator attends a lecture by some guru or saint then that person has jeopardized their meditation practice and cannot be allowed to meditate in the domes because they will contaminate the experience. I'm not even talking about doing some other practice, just attending a meeting. Yet you seem to agree with the tmo that spending many hrs per day mentally doing mantras and sutras taken from classic hindu texts and ceremonies has nothing to do with hinduism. This seems a contradiction to me. Don't know whether that's what Lawson had in mind, but shukra's original assertion (quoted at the top) to which Lawson was responding refers only to practicing TM, not the TM-Sidhis, much less group program in the Fairfield domes. Vaj's objection was also couched only in terms of doing plain-vanilla TM: I'm speaking in general of Abrahamic religions. If they were told and given full disclosure up front: hey guys and gals, this is a meditation method based on mentally repeating the seed syllables of Indian Tantric pagan goddesses to awaken this goddess within you (creative intelligence) and allow you to achieve a thought-free (transcendental), peaceful state--they most likely wouldn't go for it. (The allow you part of the above isn't accurate, of course, except as something that may happen during meditation. Achieving a thought-free state is a means to an end, not the final goal.) Don't know whether shukra would limit his assertion to plain-vanilla TM either, but only if he did would I agree without qualification. The more one gets into the teachings and the advanced practices, the dicier it gets. personally i don't think the tm/sidhi program is necessarily hindu, Doesn't have to be for there to be conflicts with non- Hindu religions. (On the other hand, some of MMY's teaching conflicts with some traditional understandings of Hinduism.) though i do think most people in the domes are part of the maharishiism religion. Ultimately, I think it's possible to understand religions in general, including Maharishiism, as versions of a subjective science (in the Ken Wilber sense) rather than as purely belief systems. In that case, conflicts would have to do with what *works*, which is a whole 'nother kettle of fish. And most religions these days have lost touch with their subjective-science nature in any case. I still think the most important thing to bear in mind is that if, as a religious person, you don't believe in what another religion teaches, practices of that other religion that don't involve conscious professions of faith in its teachings cannot conflict with your own beliefs, just as a matter of logic.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Global Good News Music Mall
That's enough to make me say, Jesus! - Original Message - From: bob_brigante no_re...@yahoogroups.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Sunday, March 15, 2009 12:53 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Global Good News Music Mall --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Rick Archer r...@... wrote: Global Good News recently launched a new page on its website, Music Mall. The link to Music Mall appears in the navigation bar at the left side of the Global Good News home page (or any Global Good News web page): http://www.globalgoodnews.com/ Or go directly to http://www.musicmall.globalgoodnews.com/daivishakti.html and bookmark this page. *** The GGN Music Mall lists a CD of Vishnu Sahasranam for $24.99: http://snipurl.com/du6p2 [www_vedic-arts_com] MAPI.com lists a CD of Vishnu Sahasranam for $200.00: http://snipurl.com/du6qf [www_mapi_com] To subscribe, send a message to: fairfieldlife-subscr...@yahoogroups.com Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!'Yahoo! Groups Links
[FairfieldLife] Re: STARSHIP ANY DAY NOW
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung no_re...@... wrote: This playlet is the best thing Turq has posted in all the time I've been here -- an entertaining and very professional effort with some hefty conceptual clout. Thanks. He says it took a couple hours to create -- hard to believe him on that -- looks like a lot more time was spent. If it was only a couple hours, the guy must be able to type 170 wpm and never have a typo. Turq seldom has any typos or run-on sentences or missing words etc. -- to which I additionally bow. I can type almost that fast, but it didn't take fast typing; it takes catching the wave of some fast thinking. I wrote up the back story of the story in another post. That's how it happened. I just wish that it happened more often. :-( Nice work, dude, but, ahem on the smarm dynamic despite the hilarity it yields. Of course, my review of your play would be a lot more positive and effusive if you'd made me one of the characters, so keep that in mind for future efforts. Not that I felt shunned to not be in the play, but that, natch, if an Edg is present in anything it is a better anything as all authors know. My apologies for the affront. It's just that I was limited in the number of possible char- acters in a bit this short. Besides, I needed potential candidates for being on that star- ship. I didn't think you'd be one of the ones signing up. But if I ever get hit with another moment of inspiration and write about the Left Behinders back on Earth, I'm sure you'll be a character. We might be in Hell instead of on our way to Brahmaloka, but our food and drink are better. You don't even want to ask what they make the beer out of on Starship Any Day Now.
Re: [FairfieldLife] STARSHIP ANY DAY NOW
Thanks. I laughed pretty thoroughly. - Original Message - From: TurquoiseB To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Sunday, March 15, 2009 8:50 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] STARSHIP ANY DAY NOW Many of you have heard the rumors. Well, they are true. Global Good News *has* been working on a TV series to follow up the success of their Global Good Music effort. It will be broadcast on the Maharishi Channel weekly. The rumors about the subject matter are true, too. It really *is* Sattvic SciFi. I've managed to get my hands on an advance copy of one of the scripts, and I share it with you out of the goodness of my heart. STARSHIP ANY DAY NOW Episode 108: Flying Time SCENE 37 -- The Clueful Chakra Cafe, around lunchtime [ The starship's cafeteria is almost empty. Word has spread about the food shortages. Sitting at a round table talking and drinking artificial water cocktails are JEAN ARRESQ, NABBY LOST, BILLY G. BLUEBALLS, USHANAS SHUKRA XXIV, and BRIG BOBANTE. They look up and see an old friend roll into the cafeteria. Enter JUDY STEIN-ABSONDERLICHLIEBE, in a motorized wheelchair that has long scythe-like blades protruding from each of its wheels like the ones on Messala's chariot in Ben-Hur. In case that didn't convey enough of a message, there is a bumper sticker on the back of the wheelchair that says: GO AHEAD MAKE MY YUGA The wheechair rolls up to the counter, and its occupant orders lunch. ] JUDY STEIN-ABSONDERLICHLIEBE I'll have an artificial soy burger. Hold the misrepresentation. PEON ON WORK-STUDY We've run out of artificial soy. We could make you an artificial artificial soy burger, if you don't mind that it's made from recycled organic material. JUDY STEIN-ABSONDERLICHLIEBE What kind of organic material? PEON ON WORK-STUDY Feces. JUDY STEIN-ABSONDERLICHLIEBE Fine. Whatever. Give me an artificial artificial soy burger. Hold the pickle, too. PEON ON WORK-STUDY No problem. We ran out of pickles months ago. Anything to drink with that? JUDY STEIN-ABSONDERLICHLIEBE Just water, please. PEON ON WORK-STUDY We've run out of water, too. I could give you a glass of artificial water. JUDY STEIN-ABSONDERLICHLIEBE What's that made from? No, never mind...I don't want to know. [ She presses a button on the arm of the wheelchair and a small missile launcher pops up. She curses under her breath, pushes that button again to put the missile launcher away and pushes the right button this time, and a tray pops up and folds down. She puts her food on it and rolls to the table where her friends are sitting. The electric motor of the wheelchair makes a G sound as it runs, sorta like the roar of a ferret with rabies. She reaches the table, where the occupants have carefully moved their chairs apart to make room for the wheelchair and its wheel-blades. ] ALL Hi, Judy. You look great today. JUDY STEIN-ABSONDERLICHLIEBE [ Shouting. ] WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THAT??!!! USHANAS SHUKRA XXIV Nothing, Judy. We're just glad to see you. JEAN ARRESQ Yeah, Judy. You are our goddess. Seeing you every day is a vision, like Vishnu seeing Lakshmi stepping out of her bath. BILLY G. BLUEBALLS Not that we'd want to see you stepping out of your bath or anything like that. ALL Nothing like that. Believe us. JUDY STEIN-ABSONDERLICHLIEBE Ok. Good to see you, too. What shall we argue about today? ALL [ Under their breath. ] Here it comes. JUDY STEIN-ABSONDERLICHLIEBE I think we should argue about whether TM is a religion or not. I know that all of the people who *care* about this are dead back on Earth, but I still like to argue about it, so... BRIG BOBANTE [ Interrupting. ] Judy, do you know what day it is today? JUDY STEIN-ABSONDERLICHLIEBE Uh, no. But give me a minute on Google and I'll tell you more about it than you know now. BRIG BOBANTE It's the 25th anniversary of when we blasted off for Planet Brahmaloka. JUDY STEIN-ABSONDERLICHLIEBE [ Googling furiously. ] I knew that. In fact, it was thirty years ago today that Da King came out of silence and told us about the Coming Apocalypse, and how it was going to destroy the Earth. And then he told us that everything was going to be OK, because he had cognized that there was a better place to live, on Planet Brahmaloka, and that we were going to build a starship and go there together. It took five years to raise the money and build the starship, but yes, we blasted off 25 years ago today. 25 years, three minutes, to be exact. Betcha didn't know all THAT, didja Brig?! ALL Wow, Judy. We didn't know all that. [ Back story for character motivation: You all knew all that. ] NABBY LOST Do you think there will be a party? BILLY G. BLUEBALLS
[FairfieldLife] Re: STARSHIP ANY DAY NOW
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_re...@... wrote: Many of you have heard the rumors. Well, they are true. Global Good News *has* been working on a TV series to follow up the success of their Global Good Music effort. It will be broadcast on the Maharishi Channel weekly. Nicely polished, but it still doesn't approach your Alice in Blunderland effort on alt.m.t way back in 2003: http://tinyurl.com/bvugrn (If anybody wants to take a gander--which I highly recommend--the context is a debate I was having with Barry about whether transcendental consciousness is more effectively achieved by exertion of or cessation of effort.)
[FairfieldLife] Rewarding the Best and the Brightest
AIG's CEO apparently lost the irony in his statement. The Best and the widely read book The Best and the Brightest -- an absorbing account of the whiz kids, including Robert Macnamara, from the JFK and Johnson administrations, who took the US into the huge debacle known as the Vietnam war (with long repercussions in foreign policy -- and the staggering inflation of the 70's). David Halberstam the author used the term pejoratively. Now we have 40 people in a small London branch of AIG who have brought the world economy to its knees -- being called in earnest the best and the brightest and the need for obscene bonuses to them from the now massively subsidized, essentially nationalized company -- to retain the services of these brilliant, highly moral and compassionate folks. Well at least we may get a great book or film out it all. A great read at the soup kitchen. WASHINGTON The American International Group, which has received more than $170 billion in taxpayer bailout money from the Treasury and Federal Reserve, plans to pay about $165 million in bonuses by Sunday to executives in the same business unit that brought the company to the brink of collapse last year. Edward M. Liddy, the government-appointed chairman of A.I.G., argued that some bonuses were needed to keep the most skilled executives. The payments to A.I.G.'s financial products unit are in addition to $121 million in previously scheduled bonuses for the company's senior executives and 6,400 employees across the sprawling corporation. Mr. Geithner last week pressured A.I.G. to cut the $9.6 million going to the top 50 executives in half and tie the rest to performance. The payment of so much money at a company at the heart of the financial collapse that sent the broader economy into a tailspin almost certainly will fuel a popular backlash against the government's efforts to prop up Wall Street. snip A.I.G., nearly 80 percent of which is now owned by the government. snip We cannot attract and retain the best and the brightest talent to lead and staff the A.I.G. businesses which are now being operated principally on behalf of American taxpayers if employees believe their compensation is subject to continued and arbitrary adjustment by the U.S. Treasury, he wrote Mr. Geithner on Saturday.
[FairfieldLife] Re: My response to David Orme-Johnson.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, shukra69 shukr...@... wrote: snip Even the current Pope gave his blessing while he was Cardinal Ratzinger, and he is a very much a conservative. Er, no, he didn't. From 1989: Vatican Warns About Zen, Yoga VATICAN CITY (AP) - The Vatican Thursday cautioned Roman Catholics that Eastern meditation practices such as Zen and yoga can degenerate into a cult of the body that debases Christian prayer. The love of God, the sole object of Christian contemplation, is a reality which cannot be `mastered' by any method or technique, said a document issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The document, approved by Pope John Paul II and addressed to bishops, said attempts to combine Christian meditation with Eastern techniques were fraught with danger although they can have positive uses. The 23-page document, signed by the West German congregation head Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was believed the first time the Vatican sought to respond to the pull of Eastern religious practices. Ratzinger told a news conference that the document was not condemning Eastern meditation practices, but was elaborating on guidelines for proper Christian prayer. By Eastern methods, the document said, it was referring to practices inspired by Hinduism and Buddhism such as Zen, Transcendental Meditation and yoga, which [may] involve prescribed postures and controlled breathing. Some Christians, caught up in the movement toward openness and exchanges between various religions and cultures, are of the opinion that their prayer has much to gain from these methods, the document said. But, it said, such practices can degenerate into a cult of the body and can lead surreptitiously to considering all bodily sensations as spiritual experiences. The document defined Christian prayer as a personal, intimate and profound dialogue between man and God. Such prayer flees from impersonal techniques or from concentrating on oneself, which can create a kind of rut, imprisoning the person praying in a spiritual privatism. Attempts to combine Christian and non-Christian meditation are not free from dangers and errors, the document said. It expressed particular concern over misconceptions about body postures in meditation. Some physical exercises automatically produce a feeling of quiet and relaxation, pleasing sensations, perhaps even phenomena of light and of warmth, which resemble spiritual well-being. To take such feelings for the authentic consolations of the Holy Spirit would be a totally erroneous way of conceiving the spiritual life. Giving them a symbolic significance typical of the mystical experience, when the moral condition of the person concerned does not correspond to such an experience, would represent a kind of mental schizophrenia which could also lead to psychic disturbance and, at times, to moral deviations. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is the Vatican's watchdog body for doctrinal orthodoxy. The document did not name any particular individuals, groups or religious movements that have strayed in the use of Eastern meditation practices but the congregation often acts in response to complaints. AP-NY-12-14-89 0937EST (C) Copyright 1989, Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. The AP story provides only selected quotes, some of which have almost nothing to do with TM, from the much longer document. The whole letter was reproduced on alt.m.t awhile back, in two parts (with commentary by a Catholic who was in agreement with it): http://groups.google.com/group/alt.meditation.transcendental/msg/7684e5f6c2949d18 http://tinyurl.com/d68jj9 http://groups.google.com/group/alt.meditation.transcendental/msg/c1c50a7ebe3d826e http://tinyurl.com/cqnkoy (NOTE TO BARRY: Google Groups Advanced Search is working perfectly today, and without any alteration in how I used it from last week, when it was not working.)
[FairfieldLife] Re: My response to David Orme-Johnson.
shukra69 wrote: There is nothing in doing TM that conflicts with doing any religion as currently practiced. There is no insult to any intelligence. Actually, TM conflicts with TM. Eat what mother gives you. But not if she's a non-meditator and is a meat eater. A TM TB mother would have the vibes to give to the cooking, and any mother that starts TM will eventually purify her diet until she's only cooking sattvic foods that Hinduism long ago adopted. Cows are sacred and should be worshipped. Meditate twice a day and take it as it comes. But don't expect much if you're only doing 15-20 minutes twice a day and not participating in the other 99% of the program that involves massive expenditures of time and money. And never take it as it comes if what comes is in the least supportive of any other spiritual program. Never take it easy by reading anything not printed with gold ink. And by the way, no one in the entire history of TM has ever been instructed to do 15 minute sessions, and the 20 minutes is really 22 minutes if you follow the instructions, and if you really want to know what we think then you should lay down and rest for ten minutes after your twenty minutes, and, hey, if you're going to do that, then why not listen to some skinny nerd in a diaper chant ancient words too? Be without the three gunas. But you'd better be able to identify with tamas when you're crossing the border with a suitcase full of cash. TM is not a religion. But, of course, from the Latin we know that religion means to bind back, and so, yes, TM is a religion but is actually more than a mere religion, because it's a meta-religion, and that means we're in the best religion, and, hey, what's a religion without bearded, berobed, saints walking amongst us with golden crowns -- each a priest-king who will gladly take your donations. TM is scientifically proven. But if any scientist tries to create a perfect laboratory testing of TM's results, the TMO will have nothing to do with that effort unless the scientist guarantees the results up front and has most of the paper written already. No effort is involved in saying the mantra. But if the mantra does not come, we easily come back to the mantra -- don't just sit there, do something. Enlightenment is easily gained in as little as five to eight years. Since the 1950s, we have never identified a single person being enlightened except Maharishi or Guru Dev, and anyone who says they've reached enlightenment are stomped until they're but a stain on the ground. That is, unless you are Andy Rymer who took his enlightened ass over to India to become a devotee of a pedophile. Life is bliss But Maharishi gets to yell at your ass and make you feel like shit, and if you don't feel like shit, you'd better fake feeling like shit without the least nuance of bliss being sensed in your mind. The laws of a nation are the laws of God. But each law that we tell you to break must be broken, and all laws must be broken at one point or another or you're really not on the program. We don't rail on the leader because they are the innocent manifestation of the nation's consciousness. But Maharishi says that Bush is Satan, and all of England must not be allowed to learn TM, and if the leader is also a murdering cannibal who is willing to force his minions to meditate, then we can safely ignore the voice of the minions. Shukra69, um, does the 69 mean you were the 69th person to get the user name Shukra or does it mean, um, you know. Edg --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, shukra69 shukr...@... wrote: There is nothing in doing TM that conflicts with doing any religion as currently practiced. There is no insult to any intelligence. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, BillyG. wgm4u@ wrote: I think when MMY states in the Science of Being that TM is compatible with any Religion he doesn't mean in the way they are currently being practiced, but in the way they were initially practiced. To suggest that TM is compatible with Religion in the way it is currently practiced today strikes me as an insult to ones intelligence. If the 'essence' of Religion (contact with Being as stated by MMY) is not in harmony with the 'body' of Religion (scripture) there will always be a conflict. MMY's suggestion that one can continue to practice their own Religion while practicing TM, would inevitably result in ones re-examining their Religion and unavoidably weeding out those aspects of their scripture which are inharmonious with the idea and practice of transcending (per their experience), leading one eventually to either reform their Religion or leave it all together. To conclude, in order for Religion, as it is being taught today to be in harmony with TM (or vis-a-versa) it would have to be reformed to be in harmony with the concept of a universal Being which through meditation can be experienced, here and now! I could go on, but I think you get the point (or should). P.S.
[FairfieldLife] Irresponsible Advice
The other day while driving, I was listening to KHOE, the local MUM radio station (http://khoe.org/) and there was a show in which John Hagelin was reading meditators' questions to Maharishi. One kid asked him whether he should study modern mathematics, which he obviously wanted to do. Apparently he had heard that MMY has said that it was a waste of time. MMY reaffirmed that it was a waste of time, and proceeded to explain why in a way that made it obvious he didn't really know much about modern mathematics or probably even Vedic mathematics. This struck me as irresponsible, as the kid obviously respected MMY's opinion, and might forfeit a promising career based upon it. I can think of numerous other examples in which people asked MMY for advice, believing that whatever he said would be cosmically infallible, and he offered it, apparently believing the same thing, and the advice turned out to be wrong. Moral of the story: Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense. ~ Buddha
[FairfieldLife] The Culture Warriors Get Laid Off - Frank Rich
= What's been revealing about watching conservatives debate their fate since their Election Day Waterloo is how, the occasional Frum excepted, so many of them don't want to confront the obsolescence of culture wars as a political crutch. They'd rather, like Cantor, just change the subject much as they avoid talking about Bush and avoid reckoning with the doomed demographics of the G.O.P.'s old white male base. To recognize all these failings would be to confront why a once-national party can now be tucked into the Bible Belt. = SOMEDAY we'll learn the whole story of why George W. Bush brushed off that intelligence briefing of Aug. 6, 2001, Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S. But surely a big distraction was the major speech he was readying for delivery on Aug. 9, his first prime-time address to the nation. The subject which Bush hyped as one of the most profound of our time was stem cells. For a presidency in thrall to a thriving religious right (and a presidency incapable of multi-tasking), nothing, not even terrorism, could be more urgent. When Barack Obama ended the Bush stem-cell policy last week, there were no such overheated theatrics. No oversold prime-time address. No hysteria from politicians, the news media or the public. The family-values dinosaurs that once stalked the earth Falwell, Robertson, Dobson and Reed are now either dead, retired or disgraced. Their less-famous successors pumped out their pro forma e-mail blasts, but to little avail. The Republican National Committee said nothing whatsoever about Obama's reversal of Bush stem-cell policy. That's quite a contrast to 2006, when the party's wild and crazy (and perhaps transitory) new chairman, Michael Steele, likened embryonic stem-cell research to Nazi medical experiments during his failed Senate campaign. What has happened between 2001 and 2009 to so radically change the cultural climate? Here, at last, is one piece of good news in our global economic meltdown: Americans have less and less patience for the intrusive and divisive moral scolds who thrived in the bubbles of the Clinton and Bush years. Culture wars are a luxury the country the G.O.P. included can no longer afford. Not only was Obama's stem-cell decree an anticlimactic blip in the news, but so was his earlier reversal of Bush restrictions on the use of federal money by organizations offering abortions overseas. When the administration tardily ends don't ask, don't tell, you can bet that this action, too, will be greeted by more yawns than howls. Once again, both the president and the country are following New Deal-era precedent. In the 1920s boom, the reigning moral crusade was Prohibition, and it packed so much political muscle that F.D.R. didn't oppose it. The Anti-Saloon League was the Moral Majority of its day, the vanguard of a powerful fundamentalist movement that pushed anti-evolution legislation as vehemently as it did its war on booze. (The Scopes monkey trial was in 1925.) But the political standing of this crowd crashed along with the stock market. Roosevelt shrewdly came down on the side of the wets in his presidential campaign, leaving Hoover to drown with the dries. Much as Obama repealed the Bush restrictions on abortion and stem-cell research shortly after pushing through his stimulus package, so F.D.R. jump-started the repeal of Prohibition by asking Congress to legalize beer and wine just days after his March 1933 inauguration and declaration of a bank holiday. As Michael A. Lerner writes in his fascinating 2007 book Dry Manhattan, Roosevelt's stance reassured many Americans that they would have a president who not only cared about their economic well-being but who also understood their desire to be liberated from the intrusion of the state into their private lives. Having lost plenty in the Depression, the public did not want to surrender any more freedoms to the noisy minority that had shut down the nation's saloons. In our own hard times, the former moral majority has been downsized to more of a minority than ever. Polling shows that nearly 60 percent of Americans agree with ending Bush restrictions on stem-cell research (a Washington Post/ABC News survey in January); that 55 percent endorse either gay civil unions or same-sex marriage (Newsweek, December 2008); and that 75 percent believe openly gay Americans should serve in the military (Post/ABC, July 2008). Even the old indecency wars have subsided. When a federal court last year struck down the F.C.C. fine against CBS for Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction at the 2004 Super Bowl, few Americans either noticed or cared about the latest twist in what had once been a national cause célèbre. It's not hard to see why Eric Cantor, the conservative House firebrand who is vehemently opposed to stem-cell research, was disinclined to linger on the subject when asked about it on CNN last Sunday. He instead accused the
[FairfieldLife] Re: Irresponsible Advice
It should be noted that anyone with, say, an IQ of 140 or more can pass most advanced math courses, but it really really really takes a much higher IQ to achieve anything new in math. So if Hag thought the kid was asking if he should attempt to be a world class mathematician, then the kid would have to be so smart that he's already doing college math and would never have asked the question. If Hag thought the kid had a chance at being an engineer or chemist or physicist in the practical real world, then the kid should have been totally encouraged. Math itself will sort them all out. But, yuck, Hag giving advice to kids? He's ruined the lives of many many children by fucking their moms and making divorce an almost certainty. He couldn't be hurting kids more if he was using a chain saw. Edg --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Rick Archer r...@... wrote: The other day while driving, I was listening to KHOE, the local MUM radio station (http://khoe.org/) and there was a show in which John Hagelin was reading meditators' questions to Maharishi. One kid asked him whether he should study modern mathematics, which he obviously wanted to do. Apparently he had heard that MMY has said that it was a waste of time. MMY reaffirmed that it was a waste of time, and proceeded to explain why in a way that made it obvious he didn't really know much about modern mathematics or probably even Vedic mathematics. This struck me as irresponsible, as the kid obviously respected MMY's opinion, and might forfeit a promising career based upon it. I can think of numerous other examples in which people asked MMY for advice, believing that whatever he said would be cosmically infallible, and he offered it, apparently believing the same thing, and the advice turned out to be wrong. Moral of the story: Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense. ~ Buddha
RE: [FairfieldLife] Re: Irresponsible Advice
From: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com [mailto:fairfieldl...@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Duveyoung Sent: Sunday, March 15, 2009 11:40 AM To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Irresponsible Advice It should be noted that anyone with, say, an IQ of 140 or more can pass most advanced math courses, but it really really really takes a much higher IQ to achieve anything new in math. So if Hag thought the kid was asking if he should attempt to be a world class mathematician, then the kid would have to be so smart that he's already doing college math and would never have asked the question. If Hag thought the kid had a chance at being an engineer or chemist or physicist in the practical real world, then the kid should have been totally encouraged. Math itself will sort them all out. But, yuck, Hag giving advice to kids? He wasn't giving the advice. He was just relaying the kid's question to Maharishi. Maharishi was answering. (It was a tape from sometime before MMY died.)
[FairfieldLife] Re: Irresponsible Advice
There is a delicious irony in this post. Perhaps a brilliant satire. First, the word infallible. Who does not shirk at that word -- and that any of us felt another was infallible. The deep laughter in our soul at the infallibility of the pope still haunts us perhaps from past ages when we drunk the flowing streams of kool-aid -- or we protested and burned. That we and our observed others fell into the abyss of false security -- clinging to the hope -- seen as fact -- that even if we were paralyzed by the mystery of life, someone else had climbed the mountain and had not only a clearer view, but a perfect view. The great stuff of fairytales. And we, or we saw many, kept the faith -- like Peter and the Lost Boys. Until, as late bloomers, we grew up. Upon waking, we may feel how silly we must have been, to have seen a dream as real. Let no man become a prophet to us. Life is our only prophet. Albeit, we may find some experienced travelers along the way. And many thieves. So to prove the point, to ensure that we have hit upon a true insight, what do we do? Claim the validation of another infallible one -- as if their confirmation makes our new world clear and true. We can't find independence, we cannot reject human infallibility and then seek guidance by asking Is it True? to another to whom we have yet again transferred the mantle of infallibility. The ends never justify the means. You can't find your truth from others, you cannot gain independence of thinking by deferring to absolute authorities. There is a delicious irony in this post. Perhaps a brilliant satire. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Rick Archer r...@... wrote: The other day while driving, I was listening to KHOE, the local MUM radio station (http://khoe.org/) and there was a show in which John Hagelin was reading meditators' questions to Maharishi. One kid asked him whether he should study modern mathematics, which he obviously wanted to do. Apparently he had heard that MMY has said that it was a waste of time. MMY reaffirmed that it was a waste of time, and proceeded to explain why in a way that made it obvious he didn't really know much about modern mathematics or probably even Vedic mathematics. This struck me as irresponsible, as the kid obviously respected MMY's opinion, and might forfeit a promising career based upon it. I can think of numerous other examples in which people asked MMY for advice, believing that whatever he said would be cosmically infallible, and he offered it, apparently believing the same thing, and the advice turned out to be wrong. Moral of the story: Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense. ~ Buddha
[FairfieldLife] Re: My response to David Orme-Johnson.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jst...@... wrote: [...] I still think the most important thing to bear in mind is that if, as a religious person, you don't believe in what another religion teaches, practices of that other religion that don't involve conscious professions of faith in its teachings cannot conflict with your own beliefs, Except when they do, of course. just as a matter of logic. Logic within religion? Some would claim that the ultimate oxymoron. I once got a call from a friend on Purusha warning me about my improper use of TM Speak. Seems that in theh course of talking on the phone with someone about how to set up some publicity, I said the maharishi instead of Maharishi and this set off alarm bells about my status as an insider that eventually reached the ears of my friend, who said he had smoothed things over but thought I should be aware of the situation. Another annecdote that comes to mind is the time that I said something that offended the sensibilities of the Unitarian Universalist church secretary, who blurted you just don't understand The Unitarian Universalist Way. When I mentioned this to my friend, the minister of the church, he laughed and said 'The Unitarian Universalist Way'... What a concept! No doubt people feel the same way about my beliefs but they'd be wrong because all MY beliefs are logical. ;-) L
[FairfieldLife] Re: Irresponsible Advice
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Rick Archer r...@... wrote: The other day while driving, I was listening to KHOE, the local MUM radio station (http://khoe.org/) and there was a show in which John Hagelin was reading meditators' questions to Maharishi. One kid asked him whether he should study modern mathematics, which he obviously wanted to do. Apparently he had heard that MMY has said that it was a waste of time. MMY reaffirmed that it was a waste of time, and proceeded to explain why in a way that made it obvious he didn't really know much about modern mathematics or probably even Vedic mathematics. This struck me as irresponsible, as the kid obviously respected MMY's opinion, and might forfeit a promising career based upon it. I can think of numerous other examples in which people asked MMY for advice, believing that whatever he said would be cosmically infallible, and he offered it, apparently believing the same thing, and the advice turned out to be wrong. Moral of the story: Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense. ~ Buddha Given that John Hagelin's stature in the TMO came from his penchant to discover Vedic stuff within the fruits of Modern Mathematics, its doubly ironic. L.
Re: [FairfieldLife] GTV
TurquoiseB wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu noozg...@... wrote: TurquoiseB wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu noozguru@ wrote: Eliza can't act. Last night's episode was probably the best written and directed one so far. Different strokes for different folks. I thought that the most recent episode was the weakest yet, by far. I disagree. Bhairitu, Different strokes for different folks is what I said, and Different strokes for different strokes is what I meant. You can have your opinion; I can have mine. The universe is seemingly big enough to contain both of them. :-) I wanted to come back to this because you *conveniently* left off the rest of my paragraph which stated I was judging from a production point of view not taste. I don't know if you've ever made any films, even just short ones as I have using actors but I was looking at it much from the standpoint of the techniques used in filmmaking. I only bring this back up after watching At the Movies weekly episode where of course as has gone on for decades the two critics disagree. But these new young critics go much deeper into the reasons they dislike a film or like a film than their predecessors (one is the son of Jeffery Lyons and the other is a host on TCM). Drew me in meant that good techniques were used to keep me interested in the story. And of course many people here would have loved that the story was about a religious cult. That was taking a bit of a risk because many in the US did not take kindly to the feds action at Waco which this episode would have brought to mind. I think it is good when a show takes on a touchy subject like that though the episode could have been fleshed out a little more. But I think in comparison to the weak and somewhat hack writing I've seen in previous episodes this one worked a little better. In the episode of the prior week they didn't give much of a reason to stick around for the rest of the show except for a couple little incidents that happened right before the first two commercial breaks. Then they let down the audience by moving away from the focus on that incident after the break. Most writer would have resolved or pushed the incident a little further right after the commercial break. And after many people have wondered why they are treading the same theme as My Own Worst Enemy by having Echo lose her programming which happened many times to Slater's character in that show. So why don't you give us your expert critic break down of why you thought this last episode was the weakest? Different strokes is a bit of cop out. We know that you didn't like Mad Men though many of us thought it was a great show and still do. I liked Mad Men because I grew up with people like that in the late 50's and early 60's. Why don't you share your expert critic analysis on Synecdoche with folks here too? I bet Judy would love that film because of it involving the theater scene and resonated with me from what little I had to do with theater. Plus I just loved the way that Kaufman explored his themes. It is not your everyday film. BTW, on the forums I hang out on most people have similar opinions to mine on Dollhouse but we're waiting for episode 6 to see if Joss can bring any resuscitating magic to it. And BTW putting a show on Friday or Saturday can tell you much about how a network regards a series.
[FairfieldLife] SNL GIANTS -- Anyone see Will Ferrell's Goodbye to Bush?
Anyone see Will Ferrell's Goodbye to Bush? I only caught the last half hour, and it was great. His ability to do a Bush impression is secondary to the script's precision targeting of all things Bushy. He didn't merely reduce Bush to a cartoon and, instead, allowed us to see that Bush is so low-brow that we can have some compassion for him in that he faced immensities that he was so thoroughly unable to handle. All in all, cool stuff from Will who seems to be blessed with a constant stream of projects like this. Even when Will beats a meme to death (he's done so many sport oriented tales for instance,) he hits enough bullseyes to make them tasty fare. Try fitting Will into any role that other comics did -- it's always easy for me to imagine him doing as well or better. Could Will have done Chance the Gardener or Inspector Clouseau as well as Peter Sellers? Maybe not better, but who wouldn't like to see him try? Of all the SNL folks to hit Hollywood, who has had a better career than Will? Let's see, hmmm, who's the king of SNL. Even Eddie Murphy has to bow to Will's box office receipts. Maybe Adam Sandler can go toe to toe with Will money-wise, but Sandler is a one-note song compared to Will's incredible array of characters. Chevy Chase, eat your heart out. Dan Aykroyd has a bit more dramatic skill, but he's too often serious compared to Will's ironically satisfying froth. Okay, Billy Chrystal might be Will's equal, but where's Billy been lately? Christopher Guest certainly is accomplished and funny, but it's usually a dark funny compared to Will's light funny. Martin Short is definitely second tier compared to Will, Guest, Aykroyd and Chrystal. Robert Downey, Jr. is magnificent in all ways -- except he can't be anything but a straight man around Will. Ben Stiller can equal Will's willingness to be utterly dorky onscreen, but name any role of Will's that Ben could do as well or better. Mike Myers is a natural powerhouse, but he's invested in a campy silliness compared to Will's investment in intellectual silliness. Compare Myers saying something about his twigs and berries to Will scolding his dog for speaking Spanish. So, I like Will as the top to tops with Guest, Aykroyd, Chrystal. Robert Downey, Jr., Ben Stiller and Mike Myers as candidates for the nod. Heck I'll even toss in Steve Martin into this crew, but Will's beaten Steve's track record in every regard.. Anyone think differently? Here's the names -- see if one pops out brighter than Will. Also, maybe another 20 names from below can be singled out for special performances in which they, however briefly, got up to Will's dynamic, but Will has been able to deliver almost every time. * Dan Aykroyd (October 11, 19751979) YesY / hammer * John Belushi (October 11, 19751979) YesY / A-Class article * Chevy Chase (October 11, 1975October 30, 1976) YesY / hammer * George Coe (October 11, 1975October 25, 1975 [Credited].) o Not an original cast member, the original not ready for prime time cast members numbered only seven. * Jane Curtin (October 11, 19751980) hammer * Garrett Morris (October 11, 19751980) * Laraine Newman (October 11, 19751980) * Michael O'Donoghue (October 11, 1975 October 25, 1975 * Gilda Radner (October 11, 19751980) YesY / A-Class article Started 19751979 * Tom Davis ( 1975 - 1980 ) NoN * Al Franken ( 1975 - 1980 ) ( 1985 - 1986 ) ( 1987 - 1995 ) NoN * Bill Murray ( 1976 - 1980 ) hammer * Don Novello ( 1978 - 1980 ) ( 1985 - 1986 ) NoN * Peter Aykroyd ( 1979 - 1980 ) NoN * Jim Downey ( 1979 - 1980 ) NoN * Brian Doyle-Murray ( 1979 - 1980 ) ( 1981 - 1982 ) NoN / hammer * Tom Schiller ( 1979 - 1980 ) NoN * Paul Shaffer ( 1979 - 1980 ) NoN * Harry Shearer ( 1979 - 1980 ) ( 1984 - 1985 ) * Alan Zweibel ( 1979 - 1980 ) NoN [edit] Started 19801984 * Denny Dillon ( 1980 - 1981 ) * Gilbert Gottfried ( 1980 - 1981 ) * Yvonne Hudson (19801981) NoN * Matthew Laurance (19801981) NoN * Gail Matthius (19801981) hammer * Laurie Metcalf (19801981) NoN * Emily Prager (19801981) NoN * Ann Risley (19801981) * Charles Rocket (19801981) A-Class article / hammer * Patrick Weathers (19801981) NoN * Tony Rosato (19801982) * Robin Duke (19801984) * Tim Kazurinsky (19801984) * Eddie Murphy (19801984) YesY * Joe Piscopo (19801984) hammer * Christine Ebersole (19811982) hammer * Mary Gross (19811985) hammer * Brad Hall (19821984) hammer * Gary Kroeger (19821985) * Julia Louis-Dreyfus (19821985) * Jim Belushi (19831985) * Billy Crystal (19841985) hammer * Christopher Guest (19841985) hammer * Rich Hall (19841985) * Martin Short (19841985) * Pamela Stephenson (19841985) [edit] Started 19851989 * Joan Cusack ( 1985 - 1986 ) * Robert Downey, Jr. ( 1985 - 1986 )
[FairfieldLife] Re: My response to David Orme-Johnson.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig lengli...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: [...] I still think the most important thing to bear in mind is that if, as a religious person, you don't believe in what another religion teaches, practices of that other religion that don't involve conscious professions of faith in its teachings cannot conflict with your own beliefs, Except when they do, of course. Why, what a helpful comment, Lawson. (You don't think it would have been *more* helpful had you given an example, do you?) just as a matter of logic. Logic within religion? Some would claim that the ultimate oxymoron. Not within. It's just logic-logic, looking at the issue of competing belief systems from the outside, as it were. I would have thought you'd get my point. You mentioned Thor earlier. Does being awed by thunder mean you believe a god caused it? Not every monotheist is going to find the logic sufficient or compelling, certainly, but there *are* religious people who employ logic in the context of their religions, even if some of their specific beliefs are a-logical or even illogical. If you could bring yourself to rebut the logic of my statement, I'd be happy to try to refine it. I do think the basic point is a significant component of the argument, but it may require more qualification.
RE: [FairfieldLife] SNL GIANTS -- Anyone see Will Ferrell's Goodbye to Bush?
Have you seen this one Edg?: http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/74/the-landlord-from-will-ferrell-and-adam- ghost-panther-mckay
[FairfieldLife] Re: The Dreamers (was: Is it just me?)
I came across The Dreamers and watched it this weekend. Checking other posts in Search, I see it has already been a topic. I am also readying The Long Tail (chortle if you must in thinking of Eva Green) written by an editor of Wired about the transition from a few hits to the almost infinite diversity stemming from ditgitalization -- now available in many areas -- books, films, music, services, the every-man producer of such, etc. A good, but not earth shattering read. However it does pull together various strands of thoughts I speculate many of us have had. The juxtaposition of the two combusts and fuses into some new views. First, there are no great films, no great actors or directors. Only various shades of interesting ones. An aspect of the film captures the almost unbounded exploration of cinema by the New Wave directors of the 60's (and stemming from before.) At the Cinematique -- The first time I saw a movie at the cinématèque française I thought, Only the French... only the French would house a cinema inside a palace -- a Mecca for all the new wave directors, actors, film enthusiasts, students, and all -- it showed all films, all films -- essentially -- the good, bad and ugly and everything in between. From which gems are pulled, styles, techniques, staging, acting, scenes, dialogue. All part of the rich tapestry of Cinema. All cherished and appreciated -- even if to only (rarely) to boo and scathe it. (Even a vacuum tells us things). And the film is composed of so many recreated scenes from the spectrum of films -- a tapestry of the history of cinema. What the film captures for me is the unbridled, unapologetic lust and savoring of Film itself. All of it. The Totality. And in the totality of Film -- how can they be be ranked or graded? How can one standout -- this is a great film and others trash. They all are interesting. They are all part of the whole. They all have elements (even if only to say -- this part is not the best of paths). Different films speak to different people. Different elements within a film speak to different people. Different films speak to us and only us -- perhaps today and not tomorrow. How can this be graded? What is the merit if such. Is The Dreamers a grea film. I don't know. I don't care. Is it an interesting film? Immensely. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_re...@... wrote: But I'll take advantage of the girl talk to write about a movie I watched again last night. Its relevance is that it may be the most erotic movie on my shelves. The film is called The Dreamers in English, and Innocents in French, and it's by Bernardo Berto- lucci. Bertolucci is known for his love of beauty in his actors, and he often finds these beauties first. Think Maria Schneider in Last Tango In Paris or Liv Tyler in Stealing Beauty. In The Dreamers Bertolucci had the inestimable good karma to introduce to the world Eva Green. Daughter of a French movie star who I always liked, Marlene Jobert, she inherited her mother's looks and then some. You may have seen her as a Bond girl, the most intelligent yet of the Bond girls, and the first match for him in any of the films. Or as Sybilla in Ridley Scott's Kingdom Of Heaven. Before that, at 23, she was in The Dreamers. Berto- lucci describes her as so beautiful it's indecent. That pretty much nails it. And in The Dreamers you get to see pretty much every inch of her. There is a possibility that Eva Green is the most beautiful woman on the planet. The movie itself is a film buff's delight. The 3 characters in its menage à trois are film freaks at the time of the Cinematèque riots in Paris in 1968. It's full of film in-jokes and trivia questions, and is obviously Bertolucci's homage to having been there himself; that's where and when he learned to make movies. The plot is a little odd, but really WHO CARES what the plot is about? It's a film that has Eva Green naked in it, for long, extended periods of time. There is a scene where she dresses up as Michelangelo's Venus de Milo. And puts her in the shade. I'll see your Chinese girl and raise you Eva Green. :-)
[FairfieldLife] Re: My response to David Orme-Johnson.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jst...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: [...] I still think the most important thing to bear in mind is that if, as a religious person, you don't believe in what another religion teaches, practices of that other religion that don't involve conscious professions of faith in its teachings cannot conflict with your own beliefs, Except when they do, of course. Why, what a helpful comment, Lawson. (You don't think it would have been *more* helpful had you given an example, do you?) Great topic. I only went back a few posts on this so I may miss some things. But as far as if it matters to some religious people that they are using another form of religious practice, I think that is more the norm for even moderately religious people. Many modern thinkers take it all with a grain of salt but superstitions remain. The idea that you shouldn't worship false idols was made pretty clear by Charlton Heston with that unfortunate Golden Calf incident in the 10 Commandments movie. The idea that you might be invoking some being with a mantra unknowingly gives plenty of religious people pause. In any case more honesty would give people more of a choice in this. I approve of the movement's more overt Hindu practices as better disclosure over the slippery style of teaching we were taught when I was involved. just as a matter of logic. Logic within religion? Some would claim that the ultimate oxymoron. Not within. It's just logic-logic, looking at the issue of competing belief systems from the outside, as it were. Here is a connecting piece perhaps. Logic is a system of preserving the truth contained in the premises. If you start with bullshit assumptive premises, that is what you end up with through the manipulations of logic. All it can insure is that you haven't added logical fallacies to the list of reasons the assertion is bullshit. So I don't see logical religion as an oxymoron. Plenty of Maharishi's teaching is logical given his assumptive assertions based on his religious background. That doesn't mean he is right about them. I would have thought you'd get my point. You mentioned Thor earlier. Does being awed by thunder mean you believe a god caused it? As long as we can agree that it is caused by God dropping a deuce, yes. Not every monotheist is going to find the logic sufficient or compelling, certainly, but there *are* religious people who employ logic in the context of their religions, even if some of their specific beliefs are a-logical or even illogical. I think St. Thomas nailed this one. It is due to the fact that logic is an incomplete epistemological tool. It's value is in a very narrow range. If you could bring yourself to rebut the logic of my statement, I'd be happy to try to refine it. I do think the basic point is a significant component of the argument, but it may require more qualification. I think some religious people who have the logic skills can be extremely logical in expressing their assumptive premises. But because most people don't study logic's place in epistemology they are overly impressed with its display while ignoring the man behind the curtain. There is nothing illogical with claiming that 3 out of 4 dentist's prefer Crest toothpaste. But it is a bit moronic to ignore the reality of statistical sampling, the fallacy of inductive reasoning, or even how many Dental conference trips to the land of coke and hookers Crest doles out to the sampled dentists to create such a preference.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Irresponsible Advice
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Rick Archer r...@... wrote: This one got my panties in a bunch! WTF! A young person who loves math not being encouraged by an adult to pursue their study? Since I work with lots of kids this boggles my mind. The whole concept that Maharishi glibly used of labeling something as a waste of time totally irks me. Given his Aspergers-like, self-serving focus on HIS TM, this view basically dismisses everything that isn't directly serving his business plan. Oh yeah and Hagelin gets the Guru pussy whipped award of the week for not standing up for the truth about math's value or even encouraging a young person to pursue their own interests. He knew better and didn't educate Maharishi (the non reader) which perpetuated Maharishi's ignorance as well as enabling his discouraging a kid to study what he loves. This story would make any educator who works hard to encourage young people's academic interests rather than ignorantly crush it to throw up in their mouths. A kid who WANTS to study math being DISCOURAGED by an adult. I gotta go brush my teeth so the acid doesn't eat through my enamel. The other day while driving, I was listening to KHOE, the local MUM radio station (http://khoe.org/) and there was a show in which John Hagelin was reading meditators' questions to Maharishi. One kid asked him whether he should study modern mathematics, which he obviously wanted to do. Apparently he had heard that MMY has said that it was a waste of time. MMY reaffirmed that it was a waste of time, and proceeded to explain why in a way that made it obvious he didn't really know much about modern mathematics or probably even Vedic mathematics. This struck me as irresponsible, as the kid obviously respected MMY's opinion, and might forfeit a promising career based upon it. I can think of numerous other examples in which people asked MMY for advice, believing that whatever he said would be cosmically infallible, and he offered it, apparently believing the same thing, and the advice turned out to be wrong. Moral of the story: Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense. ~ Buddha
[FairfieldLife] Re: Irresponsible Advice
The other day while driving, This is odd, why are they rebroadcasting advice to stay away from maths and the hard sciences? Either they genuinely are so dim they can't see the irony of having Hagelin, ubernerd, passing on advice to stay away from logic, reason, maths and physics, or they really do want people to stay away from those subjects in case someone wises up to the fact that Hagelin has been pulling the wool over people's eyes all these years. It really would not do for some kid from the Maharishi school to go off and get a proper education in maths and science and then come back and say Er.. excuse me but you told us X and I've learned that it's not true. Maybe the policy is to keep people stupid so they can carry on screwing them for money.
[FairfieldLife] Re: The Dreamers (was: Is it just me?)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: In The Dreamers Bertolucci had the inestimable good karma to introduce to the world Eva Green. Before that, at 23, she was in The Dreamers. Berto- lucci describes her as so beautiful it's indecent. That pretty much nails it. Speaking solely from a physical perspective, my first reaction in seeing her in the film was that she was oddly striking, but also quite plain -- a contradiction -- but in that was a bit of an Everywoman. At times quite hot (the first time this comes across for me is when she walks out the first morning into the living room, ready for school). At times she is breathtakingly mundane. As a whole woman -- in her character -- at first - complex, nuanced, smart, explorative, quirky, deep -- appearing independent -- quite attractive holistically. As the film progresses -- in her character -- for me she symbolizes attachment, the inability to let go, the fear of no identity -- the antithesis of the independence she was acting out in the first part of the film. As if a metaphor for exhaustingly clinging to a set, fixed established quite bound-up identity -- her role and existence as the other half of Theo. A settling for the status quo -- even in the context of throwing bombs and acting out as independent and free. And she is a fine actor -- so segregating the actor from the role is problematic. Her character was hot initially due to her striking independence and style. Her character became increasingly plain and mundane towards the end -- the glow was gone (from the character). And sustaining the theme from my first post on the film, I drop the categories of beautiful and certainly most beautiful. She is however, immensely interesting. And in The Dreamers you get to see pretty much every inch of her. There is a possibility that Eva Green is the most beautiful woman on the planet. The movie itself is a film buff's delight. The 3 characters in its menage à trois are film freaks at the time of the Cinematèque riots in Paris in 1968. It's full of film in-jokes and trivia questions, and is obviously Bertolucci's homage to having been there himself; that's where and when he learned to make movies. The plot is a little odd, but really WHO CARES what the plot is about? It's a film that has Eva Green naked in it, for long, extended periods of time. There is a scene where she dresses up as Michelangelo's Venus de Milo. And puts her in the shade. I'll see your Chinese girl and raise you Eva Green. :-)
[FairfieldLife] Re: GTV
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu noozg...@... wrote: So why don't you give us your expert critic break down of why you thought this last episode was the weakest? Different strokes is a bit of cop out. And miss jacuzzi time? Fergeddaboutit. I made you a film director in the sequel to Starship Any Day Now. Your ego will just have to be content with that. :-)
RE: [FairfieldLife] Re: Irresponsible Advice
From: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com [mailto:fairfieldl...@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of guyfawkes91 Sent: Sunday, March 15, 2009 1:38 PM To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Irresponsible Advice The other day while driving, This is odd, why are they rebroadcasting advice to stay away from maths and the hard sciences? Either they genuinely are so dim they can't see the irony of having Hagelin, ubernerd, passing on advice to stay away from logic, reason, maths and physics, or they really do want people to stay away from those subjects in case someone wises up to the fact that Hagelin has been pulling the wool over people's eyes all these years. It really would not do for some kid from the Maharishi school to go off and get a proper education in maths and science and then come back and say Er.. excuse me but you told us X and I've learned that it's not true. Maybe the policy is to keep people stupid so they can carry on screwing them for money. MMY often railed against modern sciences and related disciplines while promoting their Vedic equivalents. In this case, he was hyping Vedic mathematics, so he was putting down modern math to emphasize his contention that Vedic math is superior.
[FairfieldLife] Re: The Dreamers (was: Is it just me?)
Eva Green has edged out Isabelle Adjani as my favorite woman in cinema, so I should be all over this one. But I'm in the jacuzzi right now, so maybe later. :-) Glad you liked the movie. I did, too. The ques- tion of whether it is a great film or not I leave to others. I just watch it over and over to see Eva Green. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, grate.swan no_re...@... wrote: I came across The Dreamers and watched it this weekend. Checking other posts in Search, I see it has already been a topic. I am also readying The Long Tail (chortle if you must in thinking of Eva Green) written by an editor of Wired about the transition from a few hits to the almost infinite diversity stemming from ditgitalization -- now available in many areas -- books, films, music, services, the every-man producer of such, etc. A good, but not earth shattering read. However it does pull together various strands of thoughts I speculate many of us have had. The juxtaposition of the two combusts and fuses into some new views. First, there are no great films, no great actors or directors. Only various shades of interesting ones. An aspect of the film captures the almost unbounded exploration of cinema by the New Wave directors of the 60's (and stemming from before.) At the Cinematique -- The first time I saw a movie at the cinématèque française I thought, Only the French... only the French would house a cinema inside a palace -- a Mecca for all the new wave directors, actors, film enthusiasts, students, and all -- it showed all films, all films -- essentially -- the good, bad and ugly and everything in between. From which gems are pulled, styles, techniques, staging, acting, scenes, dialogue. All part of the rich tapestry of Cinema. All cherished and appreciated -- even if to only (rarely) to boo and scathe it. (Even a vacuum tells us things). And the film is composed of so many recreated scenes from the spectrum of films -- a tapestry of the history of cinema. What the film captures for me is the unbridled, unapologetic lust and savoring of Film itself. All of it. The Totality. And in the totality of Film -- how can they be be ranked or graded? How can one standout -- this is a great film and others trash. They all are interesting. They are all part of the whole. They all have elements (even if only to say -- this part is not the best of paths). Different films speak to different people. Different elements within a film speak to different people. Different films speak to us and only us -- perhaps today and not tomorrow. How can this be graded? What is the merit if such. Is The Dreamers a grea film. I don't know. I don't care. Is it an interesting film? Immensely. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: But I'll take advantage of the girl talk to write about a movie I watched again last night. Its relevance is that it may be the most erotic movie on my shelves. The film is called The Dreamers in English, and Innocents in French, and it's by Bernardo Berto- lucci. Bertolucci is known for his love of beauty in his actors, and he often finds these beauties first. Think Maria Schneider in Last Tango In Paris or Liv Tyler in Stealing Beauty. In The Dreamers Bertolucci had the inestimable good karma to introduce to the world Eva Green. Daughter of a French movie star who I always liked, Marlene Jobert, she inherited her mother's looks and then some. You may have seen her as a Bond girl, the most intelligent yet of the Bond girls, and the first match for him in any of the films. Or as Sybilla in Ridley Scott's Kingdom Of Heaven. Before that, at 23, she was in The Dreamers. Berto- lucci describes her as so beautiful it's indecent. That pretty much nails it. And in The Dreamers you get to see pretty much every inch of her. There is a possibility that Eva Green is the most beautiful woman on the planet. The movie itself is a film buff's delight. The 3 characters in its menage à trois are film freaks at the time of the Cinematèque riots in Paris in 1968. It's full of film in-jokes and trivia questions, and is obviously Bertolucci's homage to having been there himself; that's where and when he learned to make movies. The plot is a little odd, but really WHO CARES what the plot is about? It's a film that has Eva Green naked in it, for long, extended periods of time. There is a scene where she dresses up as Michelangelo's Venus de Milo. And puts her in the shade. I'll see your Chinese girl and raise you Eva Green. :-)
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Irresponsible Advice
Rick Archer wrote: From: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com [mailto:fairfieldl...@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Duveyoung Sent: Sunday, March 15, 2009 11:40 AM To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Irresponsible Advice It should be noted that anyone with, say, an IQ of 140 or more can pass most advanced math courses, but it really really really takes a much higher IQ to achieve anything new in math. So if Hag thought the kid was asking if he should attempt to be a world class mathematician, then the kid would have to be so smart that he's already doing college math and would never have asked the question. If Hag thought the kid had a chance at being an engineer or chemist or physicist in the practical real world, then the kid should have been totally encouraged. Math itself will sort them all out. But, yuck, Hag giving advice to kids? He wasn't giving the advice. He was just relaying the kid's question to Maharishi. Maharishi was answering. (It was a tape from sometime before MMY died.) I seem to remember a tape from the 70's but it was on the new math which was very controversial at the time. I can't see any Indian disparaging being competent at math. After all it makes getting an HB1 visa more likely. :-D Of course many Indians these days may be less interested in that visa because before all is said and done the US may wind up in worse shape than India was in 15 years ago. As for math there is math and math. One for the left brained like accounting, etc and the kind for the right brained to solve complex problems which require quite an creative mind able to deal with abstractions. The latter may not be good at doing your books however.
[FairfieldLife] Re: My response to David Orme-Johnson.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltabl...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: [...] I still think the most important thing to bear in mind is that if, as a religious person, you don't believe in what another religion teaches, practices of that other religion that don't involve conscious professions of faith in its teachings cannot conflict with your own beliefs, snip Great topic. I only went back a few posts on this so I may miss some things. But as far as if it matters to some religious people that they are using another form of religious practice, I think that is more the norm for even moderately religious people. Many modern thinkers take it all with a grain of salt but superstitions remain. The idea that you shouldn't worship false idols was made pretty clear by Charlton Heston with that unfortunate Golden Calf incident in the 10 Commandments movie. The idea that you might be invoking some being with a mantra unknowingly gives plenty of religious people pause. Just for one thing, the Golden Calf was supposed to be an idol *of Yahweh*, not of a different god. The big sin of the Israelites was that they weren't worshipping Yahweh directly as they'd been commanded to do. As to your second point, let me go back to my earlier comment on which the one above was based, responding to Vaj: - I'm speaking in general of Abrahamic religions. If they were told and given full disclosure up front: hey guys and gals, this is a meditation method based on mentally repeating the seed syllables of Indian Tantric pagan goddesses to awaken this goddess within you (creative intelligence) and allow you to achieve a thought-free (transcendental), peaceful state-- they most likely wouldn't go for it. [Moi:] However, none of the Abrahamic religions believes in the existence of Indian Tantric pagan goddesses. So according to their dogmas, it doesn't matter what Indian Tantrics think TM involves; it's just a fanciful story, completely irrelevant to the practice of TM by Christians, Jews, or Muslims. - If you don't believe in other competing beings, or don't believe they can be invoked by repeating a Sanskrit sound, how can you be concerned that this is what you may be doing when you practice TM? In any case more honesty would give people more of a choice in this. Would it? If by more honesty you mean telling people they're invoking a deity when they entertain the mantra, I'm not sure that's accurate. Seems to me there are at least two honest descriptions of TM. One is that it involves mentally entertaining a semantically meaningless sound; the other is that Hindus believe the sound invokes a pagan Tantric deity. To whom does this latter description give more of a choice? You're actually *eliminating* the choice to do TM for certain people who believe invoking such a deity would be a Bad Thing. snip If you could bring yourself to rebut the logic of my statement, I'd be happy to try to refine it. I do think the basic point is a significant component of the argument, but it may require more qualification. I think some religious people who have the logic skills can be extremely logical in expressing their assumptive premises. But because most people don't study logic's place in epistemology they are overly impressed with its display while ignoring the man behind the curtain. There is nothing illogical with claiming that 3 out of 4 dentist's prefer Crest toothpaste. But it is a bit moronic to ignore the reality of statistical sampling, the fallacy of inductive reasoning, or even how many Dental conference trips to the land of coke and hookers Crest doles out to the sampled dentists to create such a preference. Not a very good analogy for the logic of my statement with a view to adding necessary qualifications.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Irresponsible Advice
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Rick Archer r...@... wrote: The other day while driving, I was listening to KHOE, the local MUM radio station (http://khoe.org/) and there was a show in which John Hagelin was reading meditators' questions to Maharishi. One kid asked him whether he should study modern mathematics, which he obviously wanted to do. Apparently he had heard that MMY has said that it was a waste of time. MMY reaffirmed that it was a waste of time, and proceeded to explain why in a way that made it obvious he didn't really know much about modern mathematics or probably even Vedic mathematics. This struck me as irresponsible, as the kid obviously respected MMY's opinion, and might forfeit a promising career based upon it. Presumably he did say the kid should study Vedic math, right? Did he say the kid shouldn't become a mathematician? How old was the kid, could you tell? Elementary school, high school? As I understand it, what's called Vedic math (which may not be all that Vedic anyway) is a system for doing arithmetic, not higher math. If that's the case, learning to do arithmetic this way wouldn't stop him from going on to a career in higher math.
[FairfieldLife] Re: My response to David Orme-Johnson.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: [...] I still think the most important thing to bear in mind is that if, as a religious person, you don't believe in what another religion teaches, practices of that other religion that don't involve conscious professions of faith in its teachings cannot conflict with your own beliefs, Just for one thing, the Golden Calf was supposed to be an idol *of Yahweh*, not of a different god. The big sin of the Israelites was that they weren't worshipping Yahweh directly as they'd been commanded to do. As to your second point, let me go back to my earlier comment on which the one above was based, responding to Vaj: - I'm speaking in general of Abrahamic religions. If they were told and given full disclosure up front: hey guys and gals, this is a meditation method based on mentally repeating the seed syllables of Indian Tantric pagan goddesses to awaken this goddess within you (creative intelligence) and allow you to achieve a thought-free (transcendental), peaceful state-- they most likely wouldn't go for it. [Moi:] However, none of the Abrahamic religions believes in the existence of Indian Tantric pagan goddesses. So according to their dogmas, it doesn't matter what Indian Tantrics think TM involves; it's just a fanciful story, completely irrelevant to the practice of TM by Christians, Jews, or Muslims. - If you don't believe in other competing beings, or don't believe they can be invoked by repeating a Sanskrit sound, how can you be concerned that this is what you may be doing when you practice TM? Excellent point. But I am sorting this out -- fusing the two points. Just for one thing, the Golden Calf was supposed to be an idol *of Yahweh*, not of a different god. The big sin of the Israelites was that they weren't worshipping Yahweh directly as they'd been commanded to do. So if Moses did not believe that idols represented Yahweh, then what harm could he see in some worshiping such? Other than wasting time, in his view. If the idol really had no juice then the idolaters were not counter to direct contact with Yahweh. They were just engaged in some other activity of no consequence to Yahweh. Similar with the claim that mantra is invoking hindu gods. If the mantra has no juice to do that -- or the gods themselves are fantasy, then what harm is there? Its hardly practicing another religion. The them brings up an interesting conversation, in my head. Xian: TM invokes hindu gods and therefore is anti-christian. Columbo: so, let me see if I got this straight. You believe that hindu gods exist. And that mantra is an effective way to get them all jazzed up. Xian: Well, yes, thats why TM is anti christian. Columbo: I don't know much about religions, but if hindu gods exist, them clearly there are at least two or more gods, your christian god and the hindu god(s)/ Do I have that right? Xian: No. thats heresy. there is only One God. Our God. Columbo: But you just said ... Xian: You misunerstood, the hindu gods are not real. Columbo So how can something be a religion if it doesn't have any Gods. Since Hindo gods don't exist, the mantras are just sort of, well, meaningless sounds. Xian: But hidnus think they are real, so its a religion, just a false religion Columbo: Agaim I don't know much about religions, but if an american who knows nothing of Hinduism and nothing of Hindu gods -- which you say don't exist anyway -- then how can the Amercian be practicing Hinduism? Xian: I JUST told you. They are worshiping Hindu gods even if they don't now they are. They are being tricked. Columbo: But the gods aren't real. An they don't even know anything about the myths of these gods Xian: Brother, the devil has you by the balls. Columbo ok , but just one last thing. Lets say there ARE hindu gods. Then TM is claiming a direct way to contact these gods. You say prayer is the direct way to contact your God. So in fairness, shouldn't we compare which method gets to A or THE god first? Xian: Exorcist, over her, quick -- we have one deeply seeded with the devil.
RE: [FairfieldLife] Re: Irresponsible Advice
From: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com [mailto:fairfieldl...@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of authfriend Sent: Sunday, March 15, 2009 2:30 PM To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Irresponsible Advice --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife%40yahoogroups.com , Rick Archer r...@... wrote: The other day while driving, I was listening to KHOE, the local MUM radio station (http://khoe.org/) and there was a show in which John Hagelin was reading meditators' questions to Maharishi. One kid asked him whether he should study modern mathematics, which he obviously wanted to do. Apparently he had heard that MMY has said that it was a waste of time. MMY reaffirmed that it was a waste of time, and proceeded to explain why in a way that made it obvious he didn't really know much about modern mathematics or probably even Vedic mathematics. This struck me as irresponsible, as the kid obviously respected MMY's opinion, and might forfeit a promising career based upon it. Presumably he did say the kid should study Vedic math, right? Right. Did he say the kid shouldn't become a mathematician? No. How old was the kid, could you tell? Elementary school, high school? Near or at college age. As I understand it, what's called Vedic math (which may not be all that Vedic anyway) is a system for doing arithmetic, not higher math. If that's the case, learning to do arithmetic this way wouldn't stop him from going on to a career in higher math. Right, but the way MMY argued it, using examples that to me implied a very limited understanding of math in any form, Vedic math is the be all and end all.
[FairfieldLife] Seasonal spring/summer jobs available in Fairfield at Chappel Studios
Hello All, The 2009 season is coming up soon and the Fairfield office needs to fill a total of 100+ positions in the Customer Service, Fulfillment and Production departments. Depending on the position, these jobs will start anywhere between mid-April and early May. The job details can be found at www.chappell.com/jobs under Seasonal Spring/Summer Work. If you know of someone who would be good at these positions (family, friends, neighbors, etc.), please have them apply online by March 27th at www.chappell.com/jobs. They’ll need to fill out the online application and a “Time Available” form. They also may apply in person or send their application and resume to: Event Photography Group ATTN: Mike Bailey 2280 West Tyler Ave. Fairfield, IA 52556 Also, I’ll be placing a stack of circulars down at the Reception desk (directly across from the attendance board) this afternoon. If you belong to a club, church, or other organization that allows ad posting and could leave a circular with them, that would be greatly appreciated. In addition, if you can think of any other bulletin boards in the greater Fairfield area where you could post circulars for us that would also be greatly appreciated! (If you’d like to drop off posters rather than circulars, please let me know.) Here are a few possibilities: * Restaurants * Coffee Houses * Supermarkets * Convenience Stores * Gas Stations * Hairdressers * Barbers * Community Centers * Recreational Centers * Health Fitness Businesses If you do any posting for us, please email and let me know where you posted them. This way when I go out posting, I won’t duplicate your efforts. Thanks! Mike
[FairfieldLife] Re: Irresponsible Advice
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Rick Archer r...@... wrote: From: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com [mailto:fairfieldl...@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of authfriend Sent: Sunday, March 15, 2009 2:30 PM To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Irresponsible Advice --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife%40yahoogroups.com , Rick Archer rick@ wrote: The other day while driving, I was listening to KHOE, the local MUM radio station (http://khoe.org/) and there was a show in which John Hagelin was reading meditators' questions to Maharishi. One kid asked him whether he should study modern mathematics, which he obviously wanted to do. Apparently he had heard that MMY has said that it was a waste of time. MMY reaffirmed that it was a waste of time, and proceeded to explain why in a way that made it obvious he didn't really know much about modern mathematics or probably even Vedic mathematics. This struck me as irresponsible, as the kid obviously respected MMY's opinion, and might forfeit a promising career based upon it. Presumably he did say the kid should study Vedic math, right? Right. Did he say the kid shouldn't become a mathematician? No. How old was the kid, could you tell? Elementary school, high school? Near or at college age. As I understand it, what's called Vedic math (which may not be all that Vedic anyway) is a system for doing arithmetic, not higher math. If that's the case, learning to do arithmetic this way wouldn't stop him from going on to a career in higher math. Right, but the way MMY argued it, using examples that to me implied a very limited understanding of math in any form, Vedic math is the be all and end all. I'm still puzzled as to why you suggest the kid might have forfeited a promising career. If Vedic math isn't the be-all and end-all, he'll find that out in pretty short order.
[FairfieldLife] Re: My response to David Orme-Johnson.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jst...@... wrote: Repent, for example, is the term used in English translations of the Gospels for the Greek word metanoia. But going back to the Greek, it turns out that metanoia can also be understood to mean transcend (beyond-mind). So John the Baptist may have been crying in the wilderness, Transcend! For the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Jesus is recorded as having said, in the Sermon on the Mount, Be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect. We think of this as an impossible demand. Jesus must have meant that we should *strive* to be perfect, knowing that we could never achieve perfection. But again, the Greek word translated perfect can also mean whole, complete. In the Bhagavad-Gita, Krishna tells Arjuna, Be without the three gunas, freed from duality, ever firm in purity, independent of possessions, possessed of the Self (MMY's translation). MMY has interpreted Be without the three gunas to mean, Transcend! Could that also be the meaning of Be complete, as your Father in heaven is complete? Freed from duality, possessed of the Self? Was Jesus telling us to transcend? My understanding is that metanoia meant change your mind or your outlook. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metanoia Which is somewhat similar to transcend if used in the sense of surpassing, leaving behind, or rising above. And of course intent of the biblical speakers was not for people to sit and meditate. It was more like change your outlook with a snap of your fingers.
[FairfieldLife] Re: My response to David Orme-Johnson.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jst...@... wrote: snip Great topic. I only went back a few posts on this so I may miss some things. But as far as if it matters to some religious people that they are using another form of religious practice, I think that is more the norm for even moderately religious people. Many modern thinkers take it all with a grain of salt but superstitions remain. The idea that you shouldn't worship false idols was made pretty clear by Charlton Heston with that unfortunate Golden Calf incident in the 10 Commandments movie. The idea that you might be invoking some being with a mantra unknowingly gives plenty of religious people pause. Just for one thing, the Golden Calf was supposed to be an idol *of Yahweh*, not of a different god. The big sin of the Israelites was that they weren't worshipping Yahweh directly as they'd been commanded to do. Yes that's right, I stand corrected. They were violating the second commandment rather than the first: 1) Thou shalt have no other gods before me. 2) Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, However my point still stands that this point got driven home to Christians, even casual ones and the dramatic movie is one of the ways that they imagine God laying down the law. As to your second point, let me go back to my earlier comment on which the one above was based, responding to Vaj: - I'm speaking in general of Abrahamic religions. If they were told and given full disclosure up front: hey guys and gals, this is a meditation method based on mentally repeating the seed syllables of Indian Tantric pagan goddesses to awaken this goddess within you (creative intelligence) and allow you to achieve a thought-free (transcendental), peaceful state-- they most likely wouldn't go for it. [Moi:] However, none of the Abrahamic religions believes in the existence of Indian Tantric pagan goddesses. So according to their dogmas, it doesn't matter what Indian Tantrics think TM involves; it's just a fanciful story, completely irrelevant to the practice of TM by Christians, Jews, or Muslims. - If you don't believe in other competing beings, or don't believe they can be invoked by repeating a Sanskrit sound, how can you be concerned that this is what you may be doing when you practice TM? It violates the first commandment still. In the ooga bugga world of religious beliefs many Christians view such Hindu gods as demonic forces. So I don't believe that most Christians are so free of a superstitious fear of worshiping other beings. They do believe that the devil can take any form to deceive you. In any case more honesty would give people more of a choice in this. Would it? If by more honesty you mean telling people they're invoking a deity when they entertain the mantra, I'm not sure that's accurate. Seems to me there are at least two honest descriptions of TM. One is that it involves mentally entertaining a semantically meaningless sound; the other is that Hindus believe the sound invokes a pagan Tantric deity. To whom does this latter description give more of a choice? You're actually *eliminating* the choice to do TM for certain people who believe invoking such a deity would be a Bad Thing. I agree that these are two different POV's on the mantras which have a certain amount of validity in context. I think full disclosure of the mantra's religious source is the right thing. If what you say is true, that the religious people don't believe in Hindu gods, then they wont have any problem. But they should be given the choice by not hiding their origin. We know from teaching TM in India that the whole meaningless sounds innocence argument is bogus. I am sensing a bit of withholding information for their own good in your last statement. I believe that is unethical. They can decide for themselves if they want to view it as a problem. Many have decided that it is not. But the TM technique is taught from the perspective that TM is tree and root and other religions are the branches. As we have discussed before, I believe this is an assumptively condescending position over other religions. That is one reason why Maharishi doesn't care about what other religious people believe in his triumphalist arrogance. snip If you could bring yourself to rebut the logic of my statement, I'd be happy to try to refine it. I do think the basic point is a significant component of the argument, but it may require more qualification. I think some religious people who have the logic skills can be extremely logical in expressing their assumptive premises. But because most people don't study logic's place in epistemology they are overly impressed with its display while ignoring the man behind the curtain. There is nothing illogical with claiming that 3 out of 4 dentist's prefer Crest
Re: [FairfieldLife] Gayatri, Buddhist mantra, HHDL on enlightenment
Gayatri Mantra comes together with Yagya Upavit Samskara. If you want to learn and chant Gayatri there are some other things about which you have to take care... not only how pronounce properly. Other mantras are not included in this procedure.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: GTV
TurquoiseB wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu noozg...@... wrote: So why don't you give us your expert critic break down of why you thought this last episode was the weakest? Different strokes is a bit of cop out. And miss jacuzzi time? Fergeddaboutit. I made you a film director in the sequel to Starship Any Day Now. Your ego will just have to be content with that. :-) At least you gave me a good editor. ;-) Is there a link to the movie reviews you write? I think folks here would like to read them outside the ones you post here. Your movie was a bit long for a morning play so I've saved it on my DVR. :-D
[FairfieldLife] Re: My response to David Orme-Johnson.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig lengli...@... wrote: Well, not everyone accepts the universal being schtick that is basically a Hindu interpretation of the TC state. As I have pointed out before, a strong atheist might well attain God Consciousness or Unity Consciousness' ala MMY's definitions and still remain a strong atheist. Just because YOU can't conceive of that happening doesn't mean its impossible, or even unlikely. If these states really ARE natural states of consciousness, then the number of interpretations of the states will be unlimited. L Lawson, your point of view is interesting. But why do you believe that these states may really be natural states of consciousness? Do you believe that TM can be taught without the puja? What is the purpose of the puja? God consciousness by MMY: In Maharishi's (1972) description of higher states of consciousness, the sixth state of consciousness, God consciousness, is defined by the unbounded, self-referral awareness of cosmic consciousness coexisting with the development of refined sensory perception during the three relative states of waking, dreaming, and sleeping. Perception and feeling reach their most sublime level, the finer and more glorious levels of creation are appreciated, and every impulse of thought and action is enriching to life (pp. 23-6?23-7). The sixth state is referred to as God consciousness, because the individual is capable of perceiving and appreciating the full range and mechanics of creation and experiences waves of love and devotion for the creation and its creator. Thus, in this state one not only experiences inner peace, but profoundly loving and peaceful relationships are cultivated with all others. http://www.mum.edu/m_effect/alexander/index.html How would an atheist interpret the part about experiencing love and devotion for the creator? I note the phrase profoundly loving and peaceful relationships are cultivated with all others. Do you believe that MMY was in this state? How do you reconcile it with his behavior which often showed impatience with others. You could also read this description as rather ordinary. I appreciate creation, and I have felt waves of love and devotion for creation. I think many have. Though it is a rare person who has profoundly loving and peaceful relationships cultivated with ALL others. I slack off there. I'm not touching unity consciousness yet.
[FairfieldLife] Re: My response to David Orme-Johnson.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, grate.swan no_re...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: snip If you don't believe in other competing beings, or don't believe they can be invoked by repeating a Sanskrit sound, how can you be concerned that this is what you may be doing when you practice TM? Excellent point. But I am sorting this out -- fusing the two points. Just for one thing, the Golden Calf was supposed to be an idol *of Yahweh*, not of a different god. The big sin of the Israelites was that they weren't worshipping Yahweh directly as they'd been commanded to do. So if Moses did not believe that idols represented Yahweh, then what harm could he see in some worshiping such? It wasn't Moses's idea; it was what Yahweh had told the Israelites when he appeared to them at Sinai, after they agreed to the Covenant, but before Moses received the Ten Commandments. Yahweh wanted the Israelites to acknowledge him directly. Maybe he thought they could get confused if they used an idol, or maybe he just figured the direct approach was more effective. I don't think this is really all that germane to my point, though. I was just addressing Curtis's remark. Other than wasting time, in his view. If the idol really had no juice then the idolaters were not counter to direct contact with Yahweh. They were just engaged in some other activity of no consequence to Yahweh. Only if they were doing both...Yahweh may not have wanted to risk them substituting worshipping through an idol for doing it directly. Similar with the claim that mantra is invoking hindu gods. If the mantra has no juice to do that -- or the gods themselves are fantasy, then what harm is there? Its hardly practicing another religion. Exactly. But that's the whole point of doing TM as an *adjunct* to your religious practice, not as a substitute for it. I recall hearing from a TM teacher that MMY was asked whether TM was a substitute for prayer, and he said not at all, but that you should pray *after* you meditate. The them brings up an interesting conversation, in my head. snip Columbo ok , but just one last thing. Lets say there ARE hindu gods. Then TM is claiming a direct way to contact these gods. You say prayer is the direct way to contact your God. So in fairness, shouldn't we compare which method gets to A or THE god first? Xian: Exorcist, over her, quick -- we have one deeply seeded with the devil. grin
[FairfieldLife] Re: My response to David Orme-Johnson.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltabl...@... wrote: I agree that these are two different POV's on the mantras which have a certain amount of validity in context. I think full disclosure of the mantra's religious source is the right thing. If what you say is true, that the religious people don't believe in Hindu gods, then they wont have any problem. But they should be given the choice by not hiding their origin. We know from teaching TM in India that the whole meaningless sounds innocence argument is bogus. I am sensing a bit of withholding information for their own good in your last statement. I believe that is unethical. They can decide for themselves if they want to view it as a problem. Exploring the full disclosure thing. TM Lecture Lecturer: So TM is not a religion. Historically, it has religious roots, but so does yoga and helping the poor. Doing either deos not make you a convert to some religion. Questioner: But what about the hindu gods thing? L: Its just a mythical part of the culture from which this universal method comes. Another example. Fasting. It comes from religious traditions, but if you do a 3-day liver detox fast, you are hardly practicing a religion. Q: But specifically, what about the hindu gods and mantra thing? Do Hindu gods exist? A: Absolutely not. Otherwise, if they did, TM would be a religious practice -- as praying to the Christian god is a religious practice. Q: So if I practice TM, and actually do come face to face with a hindu god, I can have my money back. A: Absolutely. Q: But if I do see hindu gods, can I sue for the loss of my soul A: You have no soul, thats all a myth too Q: Well what does exist? A: Absolutely nothing Q: Well thanks for your candor he says while running for the door. Lecturer: Well, TM is not for the faint of heart. Most of you want the truth, but you can't handle the truth.
[FairfieldLife] Re: My response to David Orme-Johnson.
The Christians whom I've banged against think that TM's pure being is the Devil's Playground -- one is opening one's self to demonic possession, ya see? Tell them that the goal is thoughtlessness and they run away from such a state, since it has no stance and that leaves Jesus out in the cold without his worshiper's mind being focused on him. The whole idolatry issue could be being missed here. To me, Moses was angry that folks were looking in the relative for the Absolute, not that worshiping the Golden Calf was sinful but that worshiping any THING was sinful -- including one's own mind's ideas about the nature of God. God cannot be given a name lest it become an object of fixation. Any name would be a quality -- not all qualities. Even God refused to name Himself to Moses and was content to say He should be referred to by the phrase I am that I am. Clearly Moses' God knows He's amness -- not the Absolute -- and was instructing the faithful to have no truck with experiences or conclusions, but instead, be silent instead of worshiping, say, the burning bush Moses was given as an embodiment of God. Moses didn't tell everyone to run up the mountain and bow to the bush, so Moses got it too. That said, they did keep the two tablets in an ark, and it was the holy of holies, so somewhere along the line, someone got their jollies with materiality. It's a Doctor Seuss rhyme. My name is I am, and I am that I am I am I am. Edg --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltabl...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: snip Great topic. I only went back a few posts on this so I may miss some things. But as far as if it matters to some religious people that they are using another form of religious practice, I think that is more the norm for even moderately religious people. Many modern thinkers take it all with a grain of salt but superstitions remain. The idea that you shouldn't worship false idols was made pretty clear by Charlton Heston with that unfortunate Golden Calf incident in the 10 Commandments movie. The idea that you might be invoking some being with a mantra unknowingly gives plenty of religious people pause. Just for one thing, the Golden Calf was supposed to be an idol *of Yahweh*, not of a different god. The big sin of the Israelites was that they weren't worshipping Yahweh directly as they'd been commanded to do. Yes that's right, I stand corrected. They were violating the second commandment rather than the first: 1) Thou shalt have no other gods before me. 2) Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, However my point still stands that this point got driven home to Christians, even casual ones and the dramatic movie is one of the ways that they imagine God laying down the law. As to your second point, let me go back to my earlier comment on which the one above was based, responding to Vaj: - I'm speaking in general of Abrahamic religions. If they were told and given full disclosure up front: hey guys and gals, this is a meditation method based on mentally repeating the seed syllables of Indian Tantric pagan goddesses to awaken this goddess within you (creative intelligence) and allow you to achieve a thought-free (transcendental), peaceful state-- they most likely wouldn't go for it. [Moi:] However, none of the Abrahamic religions believes in the existence of Indian Tantric pagan goddesses. So according to their dogmas, it doesn't matter what Indian Tantrics think TM involves; it's just a fanciful story, completely irrelevant to the practice of TM by Christians, Jews, or Muslims. - If you don't believe in other competing beings, or don't believe they can be invoked by repeating a Sanskrit sound, how can you be concerned that this is what you may be doing when you practice TM? It violates the first commandment still. In the ooga bugga world of religious beliefs many Christians view such Hindu gods as demonic forces. So I don't believe that most Christians are so free of a superstitious fear of worshiping other beings. They do believe that the devil can take any form to deceive you. In any case more honesty would give people more of a choice in this. Would it? If by more honesty you mean telling people they're invoking a deity when they entertain the mantra, I'm not sure that's accurate. Seems to me there are at least two honest descriptions of TM. One is that it involves mentally entertaining a semantically meaningless sound; the other is that Hindus believe the sound invokes a pagan Tantric deity. To whom does this latter description give more of a choice? You're actually *eliminating* the choice to do TM for certain people who believe invoking such a deity would be a Bad Thing. I agree that these are
[FairfieldLife] Re: My response to David Orme-Johnson.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, ruthsimplicity no_re...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: Repent, for example, is the term used in English translations of the Gospels for the Greek word metanoia. But going back to the Greek, it turns out that metanoia can also be understood to mean transcend (beyond-mind). So John the Baptist may have been crying in the wilderness, Transcend! For the kingdom of heaven is at hand. snip My understanding is that metanoia meant change your mind or your outlook. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metanoia Which is somewhat similar to transcend if used in the sense of surpassing, leaving behind, or rising above. From the Wikipedia entry: However, the prefix 'meta-' carries with it other variants that are consistent with the Eastern Greek philosophical mindset, and perhaps is at odds with Western views. 'Meta-' is additionally used to imply 'beyond' and 'outside of.' Obviously that's not the way Repent is traditionally explained in Christianity, but that was, you know, kind of my point (which you snipped). And of course intent of the biblical speakers was not for people to sit and meditate. It was more like change your outlook with a snap of your fingers. I'm not sure we can say with any certainty what the biblical speakers intended. And in any case, that isn't how repentance is generally taught; it's a process, not an instant transformation.
[FairfieldLife] Re: GTV
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu noozg...@... wrote: TurquoiseB wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu noozguru@ wrote: So why don't you give us your expert critic break down of why you thought this last episode was the weakest? Different strokes is a bit of cop out. And miss jacuzzi time? Fergeddaboutit. I made you a film director in the sequel to Starship Any Day Now. Your ego will just have to be content with that. :-) At least you gave me a good editor. ;-) An Emmy Award-winning editor. Is there a link to the movie reviews you write? I think folks here would like to read them outside the ones you post here. No. I prefer to keep that information to myself, for similar reasons as Ruth's. You've seen drafts of many of them anyway. I often write something up for FFL first, and then rewrite it for a larger audience. Maybe someday there will be a book of them. If so I'll tell people what its name is. Your movie was a bit long for a morning play so I've saved it on my DVR. :-D Isn't technology great? :-)
[FairfieldLife] Re: My response to David Orme-Johnson.
Here's something that would be a huge red flag to any Christian: Maharishi was asked if transcending was like dying. Maharishi closes his eyes for almost a minute, then opened them and said, Yes. Try that on your family members. Edg --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jst...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, grate.swan no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: snip If you don't believe in other competing beings, or don't believe they can be invoked by repeating a Sanskrit sound, how can you be concerned that this is what you may be doing when you practice TM? Excellent point. But I am sorting this out -- fusing the two points. Just for one thing, the Golden Calf was supposed to be an idol *of Yahweh*, not of a different god. The big sin of the Israelites was that they weren't worshipping Yahweh directly as they'd been commanded to do. So if Moses did not believe that idols represented Yahweh, then what harm could he see in some worshiping such? It wasn't Moses's idea; it was what Yahweh had told the Israelites when he appeared to them at Sinai, after they agreed to the Covenant, but before Moses received the Ten Commandments. Yahweh wanted the Israelites to acknowledge him directly. Maybe he thought they could get confused if they used an idol, or maybe he just figured the direct approach was more effective. I don't think this is really all that germane to my point, though. I was just addressing Curtis's remark. Other than wasting time, in his view. If the idol really had no juice then the idolaters were not counter to direct contact with Yahweh. They were just engaged in some other activity of no consequence to Yahweh. Only if they were doing both...Yahweh may not have wanted to risk them substituting worshipping through an idol for doing it directly. Similar with the claim that mantra is invoking hindu gods. If the mantra has no juice to do that -- or the gods themselves are fantasy, then what harm is there? Its hardly practicing another religion. Exactly. But that's the whole point of doing TM as an *adjunct* to your religious practice, not as a substitute for it. I recall hearing from a TM teacher that MMY was asked whether TM was a substitute for prayer, and he said not at all, but that you should pray *after* you meditate. The them brings up an interesting conversation, in my head. snip Columbo ok , but just one last thing. Lets say there ARE hindu gods. Then TM is claiming a direct way to contact these gods. You say prayer is the direct way to contact your God. So in fairness, shouldn't we compare which method gets to A or THE god first? Xian: Exorcist, over her, quick -- we have one deeply seeded with the devil. grin
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: My response to David Orme-Johnson.
On Mar 15, 2009, at 4:02 PM, ruthsimplicity wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jst...@... wrote: Repent, for example, is the term used in English translations of the Gospels for the Greek word metanoia. But going back to the Greek, it turns out that metanoia can also be understood to mean transcend (beyond-mind). So John the Baptist may have been crying in the wilderness, Transcend! For the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Jesus is recorded as having said, in the Sermon on the Mount, Be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect. We think of this as an impossible demand. Jesus must have meant that we should *strive* to be perfect, knowing that we could never achieve perfection. But again, the Greek word translated perfect can also mean whole, complete. In the Bhagavad-Gita, Krishna tells Arjuna, Be without the three gunas, freed from duality, ever firm in purity, independent of possessions, possessed of the Self (MMY's translation). MMY has interpreted Be without the three gunas to mean, Transcend! Could that also be the meaning of Be complete, as your Father in heaven is complete? Freed from duality, possessed of the Self? Was Jesus telling us to transcend? My understanding is that metanoia meant change your mind or your outlook. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metanoia Which is somewhat similar to transcend if used in the sense of surpassing, leaving behind, or rising above. And of course intent of the biblical speakers was not for people to sit and meditate. It was more like change your outlook with a snap of your fingers. Typical TM evangelistic apologism. The fact is TM, being mantras of goddesses of another religion break a number of Judaic laws, as would undergoing any TM initiation puja where you bow to a guy hailed Guru Deva, The Guru God, and most certainly yagyas would be forbidden: Not to entertain thoughts of other gods besides Him Ex. 20:3 Not to inquire into idolatry Lev. 19:4 (i.e. the Hindu use of yagyas) Since the TM puja requires kneeling before an alter with a guru-God, many prohibitions on idols would apply, heres a few: Not to worship idols in the manner they are worshiped Ex. 20:5 Not to make an idol for others Lev. 19:4 You shouldn't advise others undergo the TM puja: Not to missionize an individual to idol worship Deut. 13:12 Dating TM initiators is also taboo: Not to love the idolater Deut. 13:9 Not to save the idolater Deut. 13:9 MMY lectures also verboten: Not to listen to a false prophet Deut. 13:4 But it is legal to destroy puja sets: To destroy idols and their accessories Deut. 12:2 Not to derive benefit from idols and their accessories Deut. 7:26 Not to derive benefit from ornaments of idols Deut. 7:25 You wouldn't be allowed to sign the TM application form: Not to make a covenant with idolaters Deut. 7:2 Certain TM sidhi formulae would have to skipped: Not to go into a trance to foresee events, etc. Deut. 18:10 No Maharish Jyotish: Not to engage in astrology Lev. 19:26 Actually you can skip most of the TMSP: Not to perform acts of magic Deut. 18:10 And pronouncing HaShem, the secret name of god as shring, aing, eng, etc. is also forbidden: Not to take God's Name in vain Ex. 20:6
[FairfieldLife] Re: My response to David Orme-Johnson.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jst...@... wrote: I'm not sure we can say with any certainty what the biblical speakers intended. And in any case, that isn't how repentance is generally taught; it's a process, not an instant transformation. It is instant enough to work at a death bed conversion in most forms of Christianity I am aware of. The process of confession in Catholicism requires a few minutes of reciting some Hail Mary's and Our Fathers. It is as instant as your intention is sincere in asking for forgiveness. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, ruthsimplicity no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: Repent, for example, is the term used in English translations of the Gospels for the Greek word metanoia. But going back to the Greek, it turns out that metanoia can also be understood to mean transcend (beyond-mind). So John the Baptist may have been crying in the wilderness, Transcend! For the kingdom of heaven is at hand. snip My understanding is that metanoia meant change your mind or your outlook. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metanoia Which is somewhat similar to transcend if used in the sense of surpassing, leaving behind, or rising above. From the Wikipedia entry: However, the prefix 'meta-' carries with it other variants that are consistent with the Eastern Greek philosophical mindset, and perhaps is at odds with Western views. 'Meta-' is additionally used to imply 'beyond' and 'outside of.' Obviously that's not the way Repent is traditionally explained in Christianity, but that was, you know, kind of my point (which you snipped). And of course intent of the biblical speakers was not for people to sit and meditate. It was more like change your outlook with a snap of your fingers. I'm not sure we can say with any certainty what the biblical speakers intended. And in any case, that isn't how repentance is generally taught; it's a process, not an instant transformation.
[FairfieldLife] Re: The Culture Warriors Get Laid Off - Frank Rich
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, do.rflex do.rf...@... wrote: = What's been revealing about watching conservatives debate their fate since their Election Day Waterloo is how, the occasional Frum excepted, so many of them don't want to confront the obsolescence of culture wars as a political crutch. They'd rather, like Cantor, just change the subject much as they avoid talking about Bush and avoid reckoning with the doomed demographics of the G.O.P.'s old white male base. To recognize all these failings would be to confront why a once-national party can now be tucked into the Bible Belt. = SOMEDAY we'll learn the whole story of why George W. Bush brushed off that intelligence briefing of Aug. 6, 2001, Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S. But surely a big distraction was the major speech he was readying for delivery on Aug. 9, his first prime-time address to the nation. The subject which Bush hyped as one of the most profound of our time was stem cells. For a presidency in thrall to a thriving religious right (and a presidency incapable of multi-tasking), nothing, not even terrorism, could be more urgent. When Barack Obama ended the Bush stem-cell policy last week, there were no such overheated theatrics. No oversold prime-time address. No hysteria from politicians, the news media or the public. The family-values dinosaurs that once stalked the earth Falwell, Robertson, Dobson and Reed are now either dead, retired or disgraced. snip, The analogy between stem cells and corn syrup should be pointed out. Each is a two part thing which is usually ignored (to our detriment) Corn syrup and HFCS are not the same- one is helpful and the other is a disaster. So it goes with stem cells- stem cells have proven to be of great help whereas embryonic stem cells have produced no good results but, often disasters. Funding for useless research is big business and, will not soon go away. N.
[FairfieldLife] Re: My response to David Orme-Johnson.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltabl...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: snip As to your second point, let me go back to my earlier comment on which the one above was based, responding to Vaj: - I'm speaking in general of Abrahamic religions. If they were told and given full disclosure up front: hey guys and gals, this is a meditation method based on mentally repeating the seed syllables of Indian Tantric pagan goddesses to awaken this goddess within you (creative intelligence) and allow you to achieve a thought-free (transcendental), peaceful state-- they most likely wouldn't go for it. [Moi:] However, none of the Abrahamic religions believes in the existence of Indian Tantric pagan goddesses. So according to their dogmas, it doesn't matter what Indian Tantrics think TM involves; it's just a fanciful story, completely irrelevant to the practice of TM by Christians, Jews, or Muslims. - If you don't believe in other competing beings, or don't believe they can be invoked by repeating a Sanskrit sound, how can you be concerned that this is what you may be doing when you practice TM? It violates the first commandment still. Not if you don't believe there are other gods, it doesn't. In the ooga bugga world of religious beliefs many Christians view such Hindu gods as demonic forces. So I don't believe that most Christians are so free of a superstitious fear of worshiping other beings. They do believe that the devil can take any form to deceive you. Yes, but Curtis, I *covered* that. Superstitious fear of worshipping other beings isn't part of orthodox (small o) Christianity, for one thing. And for another, my statement explicitly excluded such people. In any case more honesty would give people more of a choice in this. Would it? If by more honesty you mean telling people they're invoking a deity when they entertain the mantra, I'm not sure that's accurate. Seems to me there are at least two honest descriptions of TM. One is that it involves mentally entertaining a semantically meaningless sound; the other is that Hindus believe the sound invokes a pagan Tantric deity. To whom does this latter description give more of a choice? You're actually *eliminating* the choice to do TM for certain people who believe invoking such a deity would be a Bad Thing. I agree that these are two different POV's on the mantras which have a certain amount of validity in context. I think full disclosure of the mantra's religious source is the right thing. FWIW, I don't know what your approach was, but every time in my experience that a meditator asked about the Hindu connection, the teacher explained it (not in great detail, but enough to sound an alarm if one's trigger were delicate). I'm all for that. It seems to me, though, that if you're devoutly religious and are sitting there in an intro lecture with a picture of Guru Dev in front of you, hearing the teachings of somebody called Maharishi, who you're told is a Hindu monk, and you *don't ask* about the Hindu connection, it's because either you know already and don't care, or you don't want to know. (Or you're not as devout as you pretend.) If what you say is true, that the religious people don't believe in Hindu gods, then they wont have any problem. But they should be given the choice by not hiding their origin. We know from teaching TM in India that the whole meaningless sounds innocence argument is bogus. Not sure what you're referring to here exactly. I am sensing a bit of withholding information for their own good in your last statement. I believe that is unethical. What I'm trying to point out is that there are two sides to the issue. I don't know what the solution is. You can only do so much explaining of complex theological issues like this in an intro lecture without creating even more confusion. BTW, you don't believe in any of it, so why are you so solicitous of the sensibilities of religious people? They can decide for themselves if they want to view it as a problem. Many have decided that it is not. But the TM technique is taught from the perspective that TM is tree and root and other religions are the branches. Well, not until you get further into MMY's teaching. My points here are limited to learning and practicing plain-vanilla TM. As we have discussed before, I believe this is an assumptively condescending position over other religions. That is one reason why Maharishi doesn't care about what other religious people believe in his triumphalist arrogance. Yeah, I don't buy this as part of this particular argument. It's no more arrogant or condescending than most flavors of Christianity (or Islam, for that matter). snip If you could bring yourself to rebut the logic of my statement, I'd be happy to try to refine
[FairfieldLife] Re: My response to David Orme-Johnson.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltabl...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: I'm not sure we can say with any certainty what the biblical speakers intended. And in any case, that isn't how repentance is generally taught; it's a process, not an instant transformation. It is instant enough to work at a death bed conversion in most forms of Christianity I am aware of. The process of confession in Catholicism requires a few minutes of reciting some Hail Mary's and Our Fathers. It is as instant as your intention is sincere in asking for forgiveness. I am focusing more on the forgiveness side. Forgiveness implies an insight that ones actions were less than fully productive. Perhaps hurtful to others. Confession of that, recognition of that, whether to someone else, to ourselves, or to some image we have of god, is human growth. It applies to stages of our life, or day to day. Born of the realization that Boy was I ever blind back then (yesterday or yesteryear) we take on larger perspectives and horizons.
[FairfieldLife] Re: My response to David Orme-Johnson.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jst...@... wrote: I'm not sure we can say with any certainty what the biblical speakers intended. And in any case, that isn't how repentance is generally taught; it's a process, not an instant transformation. But not a process of meditation with a mantra.
[FairfieldLife] Re: My response to David Orme-Johnson.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltabl...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: I'm not sure we can say with any certainty what the biblical speakers intended. And in any case, that isn't how repentance is generally taught; it's a process, not an instant transformation. It is instant enough to work at a death bed conversion in most forms of Christianity I am aware of. The process of confession in Catholicism requires a few minutes of reciting some Hail Mary's and Our Fathers. It is as instant as your intention is sincere in asking for forgiveness. I am focusing more on the forgiveness side. Forgiveness implies an insight that ones actions were less than fully productive. Perhaps hurtful to others. Confession of that, recognition of that, whether to someone else, to ourselves, or to some image we have of god, is human growth. It applies to stages of our life, or day to day. Born of the realization that Boy was I ever blind back then (yesterday or yesteryear) we take on larger perspectives and horizons.
[FairfieldLife] Re: My response to David Orme-Johnson.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltabl...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: I'm not sure we can say with any certainty what the biblical speakers intended. And in any case, that isn't how repentance is generally taught; it's a process, not an instant transformation. It is instant enough to work at a death bed conversion in most forms of Christianity I am aware of. The process of confession in Catholicism requires a few minutes of reciting some Hail Mary's and Our Fathers. It is as instant as your intention is sincere in asking for forgiveness. I am focusing more on the forgiveness side. Asking for forgiveness implies an insight that ones actions were less than fully productive. Perhaps hurtful to others. Confession of that, recognition of that, whether to someone else, to ourselves, or to some image we have of god, is human growth. It applies to stages of our life, or day to day. Born of the realization that Boy was I ever blind back then (yesterday or yesteryear) we take on larger perspectives and horizons. In that sense, recognition of better ways = asking for forgiveness is instant, in my experience. Ones we get it, we are transformed, we move on. Break old habits.
[FairfieldLife] Re: My response to David Orme-Johnson.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung no_re...@... wrote: Here's something that would be a huge red flag to any Christian: Maharishi was asked if transcending was like dying. Maharishi closes his eyes for almost a minute, then opened them and said, Yes. Try that on your family members. I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.--St. Paul, 1 Corinthians 15:31
[FairfieldLife] Re: My response to David Orme-Johnson.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltabl...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: I'm not sure we can say with any certainty what the biblical speakers intended. And in any case, that isn't how repentance is generally taught; it's a process, not an instant transformation. It is instant enough to work at a death bed conversion in most forms of Christianity I am aware of. The process of confession in Catholicism requires a few minutes of reciting some Hail Mary's and Our Fathers. It is as instant as your intention is sincere in asking for forgiveness. Boy, is that a non sequitur. It's instant only because you don't have any time left to continue the process. Plus which, if you've asked for it, you've already been thinking about it.
[FairfieldLife] Re: My response to David Orme-Johnson.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, ruthsimplicity no_re...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: I'm not sure we can say with any certainty what the biblical speakers intended. And in any case, that isn't how repentance is generally taught; it's a process, not an instant transformation. But not a process of meditation with a mantra. Perhaps you should go back to my original post and see what my point was, rather than introducing all kinds of irrelevances.
[FairfieldLife] Re: My response to David Orme-Johnson.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltabl...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: I'm not sure we can say with any certainty what the biblical speakers intended. And in any case, that isn't how repentance is generally taught; it's a process, not an instant transformation. It is instant enough to work at a death bed conversion in most forms of Christianity I am aware of. The process of confession in Catholicism requires a few minutes of reciting some Hail Mary's and Our Fathers. It is as instant as your intention is sincere in asking for forgiveness. Yes, the idea is that it isn't work to find god. Like it or not, meditation is work Twenty minutes twice a day for year after year after year and you still probably have not reached god consciousness, much less unity consciousness. Where for Christianity, God is there, you just accept it. Snap!
[FairfieldLife] Re: My response to David Orme-Johnson.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, ruthsimplicity no_re...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: I'm not sure we can say with any certainty what the biblical speakers intended. And in any case, that isn't how repentance is generally taught; it's a process, not an instant transformation. It is instant enough to work at a death bed conversion in most forms of Christianity I am aware of. The process of confession in Catholicism requires a few minutes of reciting some Hail Mary's and Our Fathers. It is as instant as your intention is sincere in asking for forgiveness. Yes, the idea is that it isn't work to find god. Like it or not, meditation is work. No wonder you didn't stick with it! Twenty minutes twice a day for year after year after year and you still probably have not reached god consciousness, much less unity consciousness. Where for Christianity, God is there, you just accept it. Snap! Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed-- not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence-- continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.--St. Paul, Philippians 2:12-13
[FairfieldLife] Re: My response to David Orme-Johnson.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung no_re...@... wrote: Here's something that would be a huge red flag to any Christian: Maharishi was asked if transcending was like dying. Maharishi closes his eyes for almost a minute, then opened them and said, Yes. Try that on your family members. Edg * Since there are millions of so-called Christians that think of themselves as born-again (which obviously implies the death of the old person and rebirth anew), only the most retarded could have a problem with what MMY said. TM, in fact, gives meaning to the expression born-again, since it is necessary for a person to be reborn many times (by daily transcending the old limits one lived and being reborn with expanded awareness).
[FairfieldLife] Re: My response to David Orme-Johnson.
Judy: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: I'm not sure we can say with any certainty what the biblical speakers intended. And in any case, that isn't how repentance is generally taught; it's a process, not an instant transformation. Curtis: It is instant enough to work at a death bed conversion in most forms of Christianity I am aware of. The process of confession in Catholicism requires a few minutes of reciting some Hail Mary's and Our Fathers. It is as instant as your intention is sincere in asking for forgiveness. Me: Yes, the idea is that it isn't work to find God. Like it or not, meditation is work. Twenty minutes twice a day for year after year after year and you still probably have not reached God consciousness, much less unity consciousness. Where for Christianity, God is there, you just accept it. Some say you need to ask for forgiveness to get to heaven or to be part of the kingdom of God, others say Jesus took on your sins so all is already forgiven. Jesus wasn't exactly straightforward about what exactly is the kingdom of god. But I am not aware of any sort of meditative process to reach this kingdom of god. The basic theory of Christianity seems to be that Jesus did the work for you. I tend to think that we blow religious texts out of proportion and tend to believe that there was more going on in the past than there was. Myths grow and take on a life of their own. Pretty soon we have people believing that the red sea parted for the Jews, Lazarus rose from the dead, and Nabby hopped 10 yards on his ass. And we forget inconvenient information, like that MMY did not exhibit the characteristics of an enlightened person which he himself outlined.
[FairfieldLife] Re: My response to David Orme-Johnson.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jst...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, ruthsimplicity no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: I'm not sure we can say with any certainty what the biblical speakers intended. And in any case, that isn't how repentance is generally taught; it's a process, not an instant transformation. It is instant enough to work at a death bed conversion in most forms of Christianity I am aware of. The process of confession in Catholicism requires a few minutes of reciting some Hail Mary's and Our Fathers. It is as instant as your intention is sincere in asking for forgiveness. Yes, the idea is that it isn't work to find god. Like it or not, meditation is work. No wonder you didn't stick with it! Twenty minutes twice a day for year after year after year and you still probably have not reached god consciousness, much less unity consciousness. Where for Christianity, God is there, you just accept it. Snap! Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed-- not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence-- continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.--St. Paul, Philippians 2:12-13 Well, it is work in that you have to do something. Even if that something is sitting and meditating. Time passes and you bring you mind to the mantra. It still is doing something. Given how much time people have spent meditating without enlightenment I am amazed that you continue! But to each their own. I certainly am not a biblical expert, I read the bible back in college years ago. So the current message of accepting Jesus as your lord and savior isn't enough, you have to fear and tremble too. At least according to Paul. Where for Christianity, God is there, you just accept it. Some say you need to ask for forgiveness to get to heaven or to be part of the kingdom of God, others say Jesus took on your sins so all is already forgiven. Jesus wasn't exactly straightforward about what exactly is the kingdom of god. But I am not aware of any sort of meditative process to reach this kingdom of god. The basic theory of Christianity seems to be that Jesus did the work for you. I tend to think that we blow religious texts out of proportion and tend to believe that there was more going on in the past than there was. Myths grow and take on a life of their own. Pretty soon we have people believing that the red sea parted for the Jews, Lazarus rose from the dead, and Nabby hopped 10 yards on his ass. And we forget inconvenient information, like the violence in religious texts. Like that MMY did not exhibit the characteristics of an enlightened person which he himself outlined.
[FairfieldLife] Re: My response to David Orme-Johnson.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj vajradh...@... wrote: On Mar 15, 2009, at 4:02 PM, ruthsimplicity wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: Repent, for example, is the term used in English translations of the Gospels for the Greek word metanoia. But going back to the Greek, it turns out that metanoia can also be understood to mean transcend (beyond-mind). So John the Baptist may have been crying in the wilderness, Transcend! For the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Jesus is recorded as having said, in the Sermon on the Mount, Be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect. We think of this as an impossible demand. Jesus must have meant that we should *strive* to be perfect, knowing that we could never achieve perfection. But again, the Greek word translated perfect can also mean whole, complete. In the Bhagavad-Gita, Krishna tells Arjuna, Be without the three gunas, freed from duality, ever firm in purity, independent of possessions, possessed of the Self (MMY's translation). MMY has interpreted Be without the three gunas to mean, Transcend! Could that also be the meaning of Be complete, as your Father in heaven is complete? Freed from duality, possessed of the Self? Was Jesus telling us to transcend? snip Typical TM evangelistic apologism. The fact is TM, being mantras of goddesses of another religion break a number of Judaic laws, Such as? as would undergoing any TM initiation puja where you bow to a guy hailed Guru Deva, The Guru God Except that, of course, the person being initiated into TM is not required to bow to Guru Dev. , and most certainly yagyas would be forbidden: Except that, as Vaj knows, I was discussing *only* the practice of plain-vanilla TM, so yagyas and most of the rest of his laboriously compiled list does not apply, and the remainder is opinion based on rather desperately stretched definitions. Non Sequitur City.
[FairfieldLife] Re: My response to David Orme-Johnson.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jst...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, ruthsimplicity no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: I'm not sure we can say with any certainty what the biblical speakers intended. And in any case, that isn't how repentance is generally taught; it's a process, not an instant transformation. But not a process of meditation with a mantra. Perhaps you should go back to my original post and see what my point was, rather than introducing all kinds of irrelevances. You think it is irrelevant. I think it is not. You do not control the conversation. The conversation goes where it goes.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Bat-Shit Insane -- A Generalized Rant About Language
Finishing up with this from Ruth last week: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, ruthsimplicity no_re...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: snip But my point was, and remains, that we need to learn to love bats and do what we can to protect them. In this instance, for a change, Vaj proves an excellent example. If your point is what you say it is (we need bats) What I said my point was is that we need to *learn to love* bats (because we need them). This was in response, of course, to your assertion that you weren't so fond of them, after having posted the scary-sounding factoid that most people who get rabies in the US got it from a bat bite that most didn't even notice. You failed, however, to point out that those who didn't notice the bite and therefore didn't get treatment to prevent rabies amounted to 1.1 person a year from 1980 to 2000. We don't want to promote fear and loathing of bats. If you have chiroptophobia there's nothing much you can do about it, I suppose, but the phobia doesn't have anything to do with the actual degree of threat bats pose. there would be no need for the sarcasm directed to me I'd say my sarcasm was well warranted. (Right. It's really a terrible problem. . .) and to Vaj (for a change. . .). Your point gets lost when it is coated with poison. You need to get a vaccination if you're that easily poisoned. (Oh, and it's just me who's poisonous, right? Not Barry or Vaj or Sal or Lawson or Curtis or anybody else. Sarcasm would be unknown on this forum if it weren't for me. Right, Ruth?) You get more bees with honey. You mean flies. Bees make their own honey. But I'm not into catching flies, I'm into swatting 'em. Obnoxious pests. And my point was to provide some rabies treatment information after you noted so few people die of rabies. Yes, and? Apparently the vast majority of people who've been bitten by rabid bats already know to get preventive treatment, or the death toll would be a lot higher. Right?
[FairfieldLife] Re: My response to David Orme-Johnson.
Well, it is work in that you have to do something. Even if that something is sitting and meditating. Time passes and you bring you mind to the mantra. It still is doing something. *** TM is called a natural technique because it is conducted by nature -- effort is not called for. Just as we do something to sleep -- another natural process -- by fluffing up a pillow and lying down, we easily introduce the mantra, and since, unlike sleep, we maintain awareness, we repeat that easy introduction of the mantra when we realize it's gone.
[FairfieldLife] Re: My response to David Orme-Johnson.
One of my great uncles stopped TM for this reason, he said it felt like dying to him, and he didn't like that feeling.Not for any religious dogma. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung no_re...@... wrote: Here's something that would be a huge red flag to any Christian: Maharishi was asked if transcending was like dying. Maharishi closes his eyes for almost a minute, then opened them and said, Yes. Try that on your family members. Edg --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, grate.swan no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: snip If you don't believe in other competing beings, or don't believe they can be invoked by repeating a Sanskrit sound, how can you be concerned that this is what you may be doing when you practice TM? Excellent point. But I am sorting this out -- fusing the two points. Just for one thing, the Golden Calf was supposed to be an idol *of Yahweh*, not of a different god. The big sin of the Israelites was that they weren't worshipping Yahweh directly as they'd been commanded to do. So if Moses did not believe that idols represented Yahweh, then what harm could he see in some worshiping such? It wasn't Moses's idea; it was what Yahweh had told the Israelites when he appeared to them at Sinai, after they agreed to the Covenant, but before Moses received the Ten Commandments. Yahweh wanted the Israelites to acknowledge him directly. Maybe he thought they could get confused if they used an idol, or maybe he just figured the direct approach was more effective. I don't think this is really all that germane to my point, though. I was just addressing Curtis's remark. Other than wasting time, in his view. If the idol really had no juice then the idolaters were not counter to direct contact with Yahweh. They were just engaged in some other activity of no consequence to Yahweh. Only if they were doing both...Yahweh may not have wanted to risk them substituting worshipping through an idol for doing it directly. Similar with the claim that mantra is invoking hindu gods. If the mantra has no juice to do that -- or the gods themselves are fantasy, then what harm is there? Its hardly practicing another religion. Exactly. But that's the whole point of doing TM as an *adjunct* to your religious practice, not as a substitute for it. I recall hearing from a TM teacher that MMY was asked whether TM was a substitute for prayer, and he said not at all, but that you should pray *after* you meditate. The them brings up an interesting conversation, in my head. snip Columbo ok , but just one last thing. Lets say there ARE hindu gods. Then TM is claiming a direct way to contact these gods. You say prayer is the direct way to contact your God. So in fairness, shouldn't we compare which method gets to A or THE god first? Xian: Exorcist, over her, quick -- we have one deeply seeded with the devil. grin
RE: [FairfieldLife] Re: Irresponsible Advice
From: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com [mailto:fairfieldl...@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of authfriend Sent: Sunday, March 15, 2009 3:02 PM To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Irresponsible Advice I'm still puzzled as to why you suggest the kid might have forfeited a promising career. If Vedic math isn't the be-all and end-all, he'll find that out in pretty short order. He might, or he might forfeit important academic and career choices and set himself back years.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Irresponsible Advice
Hagelin is a physicist who teaches physics and so was Maharishi, so is the head of the Maharishi school in Fairfield. Of course they want more mathematicians . You can't get anywhere in Physics without Math. You are misunderstanding something there. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Rick Archer r...@... wrote: The other day while driving, I was listening to KHOE, the local MUM radio station (http://khoe.org/) and there was a show in which John Hagelin was reading meditators' questions to Maharishi. One kid asked him whether he should study modern mathematics, which he obviously wanted to do. Apparently he had heard that MMY has said that it was a waste of time. MMY reaffirmed that it was a waste of time, and proceeded to explain why in a way that made it obvious he didn't really know much about modern mathematics or probably even Vedic mathematics. This struck me as irresponsible, as the kid obviously respected MMY's opinion, and might forfeit a promising career based upon it. I can think of numerous other examples in which people asked MMY for advice, believing that whatever he said would be cosmically infallible, and he offered it, apparently believing the same thing, and the advice turned out to be wrong. Moral of the story: Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense. ~ Buddha
[FairfieldLife] Re: My response to David Orme-Johnson.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jst...@... wrote: snip Non Sequitur City. Not really. You have to look at the whole package and part of the package is the puja and the siddhis and everything else that MMY branded as part of his enlightenment package. Especially given his comments such as all the lifetimes it would take to get enlightened through 2 times 20 TM, the other stuff is relevant in any discussion of TM. You could come to the conclusion that TM is part of a religion of MMY, essentially a false prophet. Or you could come to the conclusion that the whole thing is a fraud. Or you could come to the conclusion that TM is a relaxation technique but I would prefer one that doesn't have all these religious ambiguities. Everything MMY said is important to know in evaluating his claims. If are religious and knew all the things that the proponents of TM believed and supported, it may effect your interpretation of what exactly is TM, the mantras, and the purpose of the puja. The argument some use that TM is just a technique begs the question. What is the purpose of the technique? What does god consciousness mean? What does unity consciousness mean? Why all the other techniques if you get to unity consciousness through TM? How can you, if you are religious, say that TM is ok as a technique but the siddhis are over the line? Why all the supplements, the yagyas, the jyotish, the vaastu architecture? If these are not important to finding God, why are they promoted? How does heaven fit in with this? How does Jesus dying for my sins fit in with this? A lot of rationalizing has to go into making western religions and TM fit. But then again, a lot of rationalizing has to into meditating and doing the siddhis for 30 or more years without enlightenment.
[FairfieldLife] Re: GTV
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu noozg...@... wrote: TurquoiseB wrote: Different strokes for different folks is what I said, and Different strokes for different strokes is what I meant. You can have your opinion; I can have mine. The universe is seemingly big enough to contain both of them. :-) I wanted to come back to this because you *conveniently* left off the rest of my paragraph which stated I was judging from a production point of view not taste. I don't know if you've ever made any films, even just short ones as I have using actors but I was looking at it much from the standpoint of the techniques used in filmmaking. ... I had neither the time nor the inclination to get into some egobattle with you before, and I have neither the time nor the inclination to do so now. But I will do one thing, and explain a difference between how I think you are seeing and judging these TV series and the way I see and judge them. I don't think you understand the nature of the medium you are dealing with. You keep talking about these episodes as if they were standalone, one-hour movies that have to work *as* one-hour movies. That's a very commercial and very limited way of looking at the medium of TV. Yes, it's relevant because audiences and network executives are stupid, and look at ratings to tell them whether to allow a series to continue or not. And many creators of bad TV series *pander* to this by writing episodic television that is basic- ally a series of short stories, each designed to pander to the ratings police and provide a neat little package to viewers each week and thus stay on the air. True masters of the genre don't do this. They take a leap of faith and assume that the series will be on the air as long as they want it to be. Sometimes they lose in this leap of faith, as Joss Whedon did in Firefly/Serenity. There he was only given a total of sixteen hours to tell his story. But THINK about that. Sixteen hours. That's the equivalent of eight movies. And that was a series that was tragically cut short. Buffy had *144* hours to tell its story. Angel had *101* hours to tell its story. Battlestar Galactica had 76 hours to tell its story. Where I think you're missing the point is by think- ing of television in terms of movies. The medium that a movie is most like is a SHORT STORY, not a novel. Firefly/Serenity was a novel. Buffy, Angel, and Battlestar Galactica were multi-volume SERIES OF NOVELS. If you look at things that way, and have the vision and personal power *TO* ignore the ratings cops and win *anyway*, you can use television to achieve a whole other kind of storytelling. You don't have to remain stuck inside the SHORT STORY form of storytelling that is imposed on you in movies. You don't have to think about making every episode standalone so that you will appeal to the maximum number of short attention span viewers. Instead, you can throw away the conventions of the short story and move into novel territory. You can TAKE YOUR TIME telling the story, and throw a few details into episode 5 that have no payoff until episode 75. Instead of pandering to your audience as having a short attention span and incapable of remembering things from week to week you can MAKE DEMANDS on them, and REQUIRE them to remember what was done in previous weeks. THAT is what Joss Whedon was talking about in the accumulated knowledge quote I brought to your attention twice. THAT is what he does when he makes a series. You complained that a scene had no rele- vance to the episode, that it didn't advance the episode's plotline. You're missing the point. Joss doesn't think that way. He's taking a CHANCE that the series will stay on the air, and writing a NOVEL, not a SHORT STORY. That scene between Victor and Sierra in the shower in episode 5 may not pay off until episode 75. He's taking a chance that there will *BE* an episode 75. If he loses, there may not be. But if he wins, he has transcended the pander to the ratings cops mentality and attempted to tell a larger story. He has refused to stick to the short story medium, and is trying to write a novel. I say good luck to him. I'd rather watch episodes by Joss Whedon, David Milch, and Alan Ball -- ALL of whom write great television NOVELS -- than watch a series of mediocre short stories strung together. You've written often on this forum about your short attention span. You've chastised me for writing longer posts than you comfortably CAN read in one sitting. For all I know, you gave up on *this* post after the second paragraph. I think that's limiting you when it comes to judging whether a TV series is good or not. You're asking the creators of the series to pander to your short attention span. If that's your preference, cool, but the television geniuses I named above don't WANT you as their audience. They're looking for people who read novels or multi-volume series of novels, not
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: My response to David Orme-Johnson.
On Mar 15, 2009, at 6:34 PM, bob_brigante wrote: Well, it is work in that you have to do something. Even if that something is sitting and meditating. Time passes and you bring you mind to the mantra. It still is doing something. *** TM is called a natural technique because it is conducted by nature -- effort is not called for. Just as we do something to sleep -- another natural process -- by fluffing up a pillow and lying down, we easily introduce the mantra, and since, unlike sleep, we maintain awareness, we repeat that easy introduction of the mantra when we realize it's gone. Nonetheless, ask any good yogi of mantrashastra in the Shankaracharya Order, and they'll tell you flat out this is wrong. Whenever there is an object of meditation, there is a technique to work with that object. Whenever there is a technique, there is (subtle) effort always involved. Actually the Sanskrit word for technique also means effort. This is important in understanding the differences between different styles of meditation. The most common style of mediation in MMY's tradition that is really effortless is Nididhyanasana, Vedantic Contemplation. It's kinda funny to hear TM-bots repeat this false information over and over again as if they were experts, but it's also sad in a way. It's sad because while they're convinced they have the effortless technique, all the parroting shows is they're not even really familiar with meditation praxis at all. It would behoove TM proselytizers to think outside the box and learn a bit about meditation so the don't end up sounding so clueless, that 'my hygiene is so great, but you have a booger on your face kinda feeling'.
[FairfieldLife] Re: My response to David Orme-Johnson.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, ruthsimplicity no_re...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: snip I certainly am not a biblical expert, Nope. Neither am I. I read the bible back in college years ago. So the current message of accepting Jesus as your lord and savior isn't enough, you have to fear and tremble too. At least according to Paul. It's more complicated than that. If you sincerely ask for God's forgiveness, you get it unconditionally. But that doesn't mean you sit back and coast. As my favorite minister, William Sloane Coffin, was fond of saying, Christianity hasn't been tried and found wanting, it's been tried and found difficult. Where for Christianity, God is there, you just accept it. Some say you need to ask for forgiveness to get to heaven or to be part of the kingdom of God, others say Jesus took on your sins so all is already forgiven. Jesus wasn't exactly straightforward about what exactly is the kingdom of god. But I am not aware of any sort of meditative process to reach this kingdom of god. The basic theory of Christianity seems to be that Jesus did the work for you. That's how the Christian Scriptures have been interpreted. My original point, of course, which you appear to have missed entirely, is that there may be other valid interpretations (not least because what has come down to us in written form may not be exactly what Jesus actually taught--the notion that Jesus did the work for you comes from Paul, who never met him, at least in the flesh). That Jesus may have taught some form of meditation is a fairly widespread notion, not limited to TMers by any means. Some of the extracanonical texts such as the Gnostic Gospels contain pretty pointed suggestions to that effect. Plus which, if he did teach meditation, it would likely have been an oral teaching that got lost or was even suppressed when Christianity became organized and created a hierarchy on which one was dependent for the sacraments. And in any case, Christianity is not devoid of meditation techniques by any means (e.g., centering prayer), some of which are quite similar to TM. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cloud_of_Unknowing In a follow-up to The Cloud, called The Book of Privy Counseling, the author characterizes the practice of contemplative unknowing as worshiping God with one's 'substance,' coming to rest in a 'naked blind feeling of being,' and ultimately finding thereby that God is one's being. The Cloud of Unknowing draws on the mystical tradition of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, which has reputedly inspired generations of mystical searchers from John Scotus Erigena, through Book of Taliesin, Nicholas of Cusa and St. John of the Cross to Teilhard de Chardin. ... It has been described as Christianity with a Zen outlook, but has also been derided by some as anti- intellectual. And then there's always Meister Eckhart, of whom Schopenhauer wrote: If we turn from the forms, produced by external circumstances, and go to the root of things, we shall find that Sakyamuni [the Buddha] and Meister Eckhart teach the same thing; only that the former dared to express his ideas plainly and positively, whereas Eckhart is obliged to clothe them in the garment of the Christian myth, and to adapt his expressions thereto. The point is, we don't know how much clothing in the garment of Christian myth has taken place since Jesus' day. We don't even know how much Paul himself did to create the myth to serve his own purposes, or how much the institutionalized Church did to protect its own interests. But as Karen Armstrong pointed out in what I quoted in my original post, it's only in relatively modern times that forming new interpretations of scripture has been discouraged.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Irresponsible Advice
On Mar 15, 2009, at 11:25 AM, Rick Archer wrote: The other day while driving, I was listening to KHOE, the local MUM radio station (http://khoe.org/) and there was a show in which John Hagelin was reading meditators' questions to Maharishi. One kid asked him whether he should study modern mathematics, which he obviously wanted to do. Apparently he had heard that MMY has said that it was a waste of time. MMY reaffirmed that it was a waste of time, and proceeded to explain why in a way that made it obvious he didn't really know much about modern mathematics or probably even Vedic mathematics. This struck me as irresponsible, as the kid obviously respected MMY's opinion, and might forfeit a promising career based upon it. I can think of numerous other examples in which people asked MMY for advice, believing that whatever he said would be cosmically infallible, and he offered it, apparently believing the same thing, and the advice turned out to be wrong. Moral of the story: Seems like MMY believed almost any subject was a waste of time: history, sociology, most of the arts, music except for ghandarva-veda, languages except for Sanskrit...what's left? Sal
[FairfieldLife] Re: My response to David Orme-Johnson.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, ruthsimplicity no_re...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, ruthsimplicity no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: I'm not sure we can say with any certainty what the biblical speakers intended. And in any case, that isn't how repentance is generally taught; it's a process, not an instant transformation. But not a process of meditation with a mantra. Perhaps you should go back to my original post and see what my point was, rather than introducing all kinds of irrelevances. You think it is irrelevant. I think it is not. You do not control the conversation. The conversation goes where it goes. Please look up the word perhaps in Mr. Dictionary. You can take your own contribution anywhere you want. I'm not obliged to follow you there if it has nothing to do with what I was talking about, though, so you'll have to find somebody else to have a conversation with.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Bat-Shit Insane -- A Generalized Rant About Language
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jst...@... wrote: (Oh, and it's just me who's poisonous, right? Not Barry or Vaj or Sal or Lawson or Curtis or anybody else. Sarcasm would be unknown on this forum if it weren't for me. Right, Ruth?) I address the sarcasm addressed to me if I feel like it. So are you arguing that your sarcasm is ok because others use sarcasm? Or are you arguing that I can't address your sarcasm if I don't address the sarcasm of others? Or do you just want to argue with me because you think it is fun? I have seen you use this argument before. The logical response to your argument would be that two wrongs do not make a right. If you make these arguments for fun, then the proper response would be to ignore you, as it would be trolling. BTW, the phrase catching more bees with honey was a colloquialism where I grew up. I have also heard the flies version. No colloquialisms are wrong, they just are.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Irresponsible Advice
On Mar 15, 2009, at 11:48 AM, Rick Archer wrote: It should be noted that anyone with, say, an IQ of 140 or more can pass most advanced math courses, but it really really really takes a much higher IQ to achieve anything new in math. So if Hag thought the kid was asking if he should attempt to be a world class mathematician, then the kid would have to be so smart that he's already doing college math and would never have asked the question. If Hag thought the kid had a chance at being an engineer or chemist or physicist in the practical real world, then the kid should have been totally encouraged. Math itself will sort them all out. But, yuck, Hag giving advice to kids? He wasn't giving the advice. He was just relaying the kid's question to Maharishi. Maharishi was answering. (It was a tape from sometime before MMY died.) You sure it wasn't from after he died, Rick? Nothing would surprise me. Sal
[FairfieldLife] Re: My response to David Orme-Johnson.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, ruthsimplicity no_re...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: snip Non Sequitur City. Not really. You have to look at the whole package No, you don't, not with regard to the point I was making, which had to do only with whether the practice of plain-vanilla TM and no teaching beyond the three days of checking conflicts with anyone's religion.
[FairfieldLife] Re: My response to David Orme-Johnson.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jst...@... wrote: Please look up the word perhaps in Mr. Dictionary. Perhaps you should look up pedantic in Mr. Dictionary.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Bat-Shit Insane -- A Generalized Rant About Language
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, ruthsimplicity no_re...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: (Oh, and it's just me who's poisonous, right? Not Barry or Vaj or Sal or Lawson or Curtis or anybody else. Sarcasm would be unknown on this forum if it weren't for me. Right, Ruth?) I address the sarcasm addressed to me if I feel like it. So are you arguing that your sarcasm is ok because others use sarcasm? Or are you arguing that I can't address your sarcasm if I don't address the sarcasm of others? I'm pointing out that you *don't*. Or do you just want to argue with me because you think it is fun? I have seen you use this argument before. The logical response to your argument would be that two wrongs do not make a right. Not to the argument I'm making, which is about double standards. If you make these arguments for fun, then the proper response would be to ignore you, as it would be trolling. Please feel free to ignore me for any reason whatsoever. I note that you ignored everything in my post *except* this and the bees comment. BTW, the phrase catching more bees with honey was a colloquialism where I grew up. I have also heard the flies version. No colloquialisms are wrong, they just are. Makes no sense with bees.
[FairfieldLife] Re: My response to David Orme-Johnson.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jst...@... wrote: snip If you don't believe in other competing beings, or don't believe they can be invoked by repeating a Sanskrit sound, how can you be concerned that this is what you may be doing when you practice TM? It violates the first commandment still. Not if you don't believe there are other gods, it doesn't. I think once you are discussing the perspective of the 10 commandments you are assuming that. Thou shalt not have other Gods before thee contains the assumption that this is an option. So I don't believe that most Christians don't have a problem with this since it is the first commandment. By the time they get to adultery they seem to get more casual... In the ooga bugga world of religious beliefs many Christians view such Hindu gods as demonic forces. So I don't believe that most Christians are so free of a superstitious fear of worshiping other beings. They do believe that the devil can take any form to deceive you. Yes, but Curtis, I *covered* that. Superstitious fear of worshipping other beings isn't part of orthodox (small o) Christianity, for one thing. And for another, my statement explicitly excluded such people. I believe it is. My point was that people are vaguely superstitious about such things. In any case more honesty would give people more of a choice in this. Would it? If by more honesty you mean telling people they're invoking a deity when they entertain the mantra, I'm not sure that's accurate. Seems to me there are at least two honest descriptions of TM. One is that it involves mentally entertaining a semantically meaningless sound; the other is that Hindus believe the sound invokes a pagan Tantric deity. To whom does this latter description give more of a choice? You're actually *eliminating* the choice to do TM for certain people who believe invoking such a deity would be a Bad Thing. I agree that these are two different POV's on the mantras which have a certain amount of validity in context. I think full disclosure of the mantra's religious source is the right thing. FWIW, I don't know what your approach was, but every time in my experience that a meditator asked about the Hindu connection, the teacher explained it (not in great detail, but enough to sound an alarm if one's trigger were delicate). I'm all for that. It seems to me, though, that if you're devoutly religious and are sitting there in an intro lecture with a picture of Guru Dev in front of you, hearing the teachings of somebody called Maharishi, who you're told is a Hindu monk, and you *don't ask* about the Hindu connection, it's because either you know already and don't care, or you don't want to know. (Or you're not as devout as you pretend.) If what you say is true, that the religious people don't believe in Hindu gods, then they wont have any problem. But they should be given the choice by not hiding their origin. We know from teaching TM in India that the whole meaningless sounds innocence argument is bogus. Not sure what you're referring to here exactly. I am sensing a bit of withholding information for their own good in your last statement. I believe that is unethical. What I'm trying to point out is that there are two sides to the issue. I don't know what the solution is. You can only do so much explaining of complex theological issues like this in an intro lecture without creating even more confusion. Or giving people a chance to make up their minds with more of the facts. The idea that people have to be kept form being confused doesn't sit well. I'm not sure it is such a complex theological issue for people not into the belief system at your level. BTW, you don't believe in any of it, so why are you so solicitous of the sensibilities of religious people? The question of being straightforward and honest, respecting people's beliefs has nothing to do with sharing the beliefs. This is not only true for for non believers but for believers too. It is a basic quality of fairness and decency when promoting an idea like TM. The TM group has mostly dropped their facade so I don't have much issue with them now. But when I hear about it getting into schools it reminds me that their parents will not be given a more complete story, they will get the sanitized version so they wont be confused. They can decide for themselves if they want to view it as a problem. Many have decided that it is not. But the TM technique is taught from the perspective that TM is tree and root and other religions are the branches. Well, not until you get further into MMY's teaching. My points here are limited to learning and practicing plain-vanilla TM. That perspective is a part of plane vanilla TM. The concept is largely a myth because people don't continue with TM
