[FairfieldLife] Re: Did you have this experience in India ? If so how did it influence you ?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltabl...@... wrote: First of all if we want to talk about having a simplistic understanding of the Hindu religious beliefs I have to object to your using Krishna's statement about the unfathomable nature of Karma out of context. He is referring to the future effect of an action and all its implications for a group of people and an individual trying to make a decision. Exactly. One of the things that always amuses me is that the very people who tend to trot out the olde Unfathomable are the ways of karma saw are the very ones who seem to get up on their high horses the most when they perceive something as unfair and feel the need to correct it. Some- how the ways of karma suddenly become not only fathomable to them but self-evident when this magical whatever-it-is-that-allows-them-to-fight- on-the-side-of-right happens. :-) As far as the specific punishments for various actions and the specific type of birth punishment meted out by Karma the Hindu scriptures are very clear. If you read the Laws of Manu you will find very detailed descriptions of what happens for trying to buck the caste system. (and we have already dealt with Maharishi attempted dodge, it doesn't hold up if you actually read the book.) The Laws of Manu has to be one of the most horrific texts ever created by human beings. WAY worse in its specificity than anything written by Hitler or the fundiest Christian Fundamentalist. The whole thing is about fostering an attitude of unblinking obeisance to The Law Of Preserving The Elite Status Of Those Who Claim To Be Able To Perceive The Law. Icky. Here is where Sam Harris and I agree. The absurdity of religious beliefs are being protected by people who are assuming a modified version that removes the most obviously antisocial elements. I am not arguing against your personal mix of ideas Judy. They are none of my business. I am arguing against a system of beliefs that claims to know how the universe works after death. And a society that uses that system to oppress people for generations. Why limit it to after death. Most of the laws that those who have oppressed people with have written are dealing with what they (the oppressors) are allowed to do to those who don't do what they want them to *before* death. I think that you can edit your statement above, Curtis, and make it more accurate. The problem with religious beliefs is people who claim to know, period. If the people who claim to know are few and have no social power or status, they are merely cultists. But if the people who claim to know happen to be the ruling class of a country, what they know tends to become formalized not only in religious laws but in social ones as well. Then you get laws like being able to kill an untouchable for looking askance at a Brahmin. What you believe in your self determined life in your free society has nothing to do with my objection. You have the luxury of believing anything you want precisely because our society has rejected the Vedic claim ... And the Christian claim, and the Jewish claim, and... ...that they know everything about how life works based on old books and a tradition that tells a child: you will never be good enough. I have *never* understood those who make excuses for the Indian caste system merely because Maharishi did. I mean, his whole *life* can be viewed as a form of rebellion against the caste system he portrayed himself as believing in. If he had really believed in it, he would never have begun teaching *because his caste is not allowed to set themselves up as teachers*. He would *certainly* never have created a bunch of out-caste white people as rajas or kings of an imaginary Vedic country if he had truly believed in the caste system. Maharishi believed in the caste system when it allowed him to get his way. As has everyone else in human history who either invented it or used it to suppress others *to* get their way. I think that anyone who *dares* to support the idea of the caste system should get to live a little of the karma of being ridiculed for doing so. The *only* reasons they can ever seem to come with for defending it are 1) Maha- rishi did, so it must have been right, or 2) it says so in the Vedic literature, which was written by People Who Knew. I don't think any of them ever knew. I don't think any human being in history has ever known. I think they only pretended to know because that made it easier for them to get their own way. As far as I know, not a single one of the holy tradition of teachers whom TMers revere ever paid their own way in life. Not one. Their lives were paid for by others, whom they had convinced *to* pay for them by convincing these others that they knew something. I think that to be kind the only thing we can be certain that any of them ever knew was how to get others to pay for their lives so they didn't
[FairfieldLife] Re: And now for something completely different
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, ShempMcGurk shempmcg...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: http://gimundo.com/videos/view/wonderful-guitar-music-from-botswana/ This is one of the most entertaining and sensual guitar styles I have ever seen. This makes me happy in every way. Seeing and hearing that video reminded me two things: 1) that blind Canadian rock guitarist who recently died. Like the player in the video he too had unconventional fingering style. Jeff Healey? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaaXQ6boLjQ 2) Paul Simon's album from the '80s called Graceland that used a lot of south African music (Ladysmith Black Mambasso?). A lot of the same guitar sounds.
[FairfieldLife] Dalai Lama to talk in Madison
Dalai Lama's talk in Madison on May 16 is free FW: Dear friends: His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Dr. Richard Davidson will appear for a public discussion on Sunday, May 16 at 2:15pm at the Overture Center, University of Wisconsin in Madison. Tickets are free, and will be available in the middle of April. This is part of the public opening of UW-Madison's Center for Investigating Healthy Minds, established by the renowned UW-Madison neuroscientist, Dr. Richard Davidson. Best selling authors, Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence and Ecological Intelligence and Jon Kabat-Zinn, best selling author of Wherever you go There you are, and the founding director of the Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, will moderate the discussion. Dr. Richard Davidson began exploring the intersection between Western science and Eastern philosophy after meeting the Dalai Lama in 1992. He studies how meditation changes people's brains to encourage happiness, compassion and kindness. For more information, go to http://www.investigatinghealthyminds.org. To give you an advance information, please know that Dr. Richard Davidson has kindly agreed to give a talk to support TIBETcenter. When more material information are known, we will send out emails. For the May 16 talk, it is good to get tickets immediately when made available, considering a large number of UW students, and the fact that the tickets are free. So, please check the organizer's web site. Tashi T. Phuri TIBETcenter 847-492-0809 Tue-Sat (1:00 to 6:30pm) http://www.TIBETcenterchicago.org http://www.support.TIBETcenterchicago.org
[FairfieldLife] Guru Dev - What do we say is a jagadguru?
In samsara there are two sorts of people - astika (religious) and nastika (unbeliever) - in the world of the atheist there isn't any guru. Of the world of the astika (religious) that guru should really be called jagadguru. Amongst the religious there are two kinds of believers. Some folk are setting their belief in a sakara (form) of Brahma and some in the nirakara (formless). The one who holds the ability to be guru to both, those who are speakers of the sakara (form) and those who are speakers of the nirakara (formless), the very same can be called a jagadguru. The meaning of this is that; of the sakara deities there are five Vedic deities, that is to say; Bhagwan Vishnu, Shiva, Shakti, Surya and Ganesha. There are different instructions for worship of all of these and for those who do not believe in the five deities he can also give instruction, the same is really a jagadguru. The person who instructs in the method of worship for devata (deities) is similar to the lowly paid vaidya (physician) who sets phials of medicine for all diseases, without also having the status of a compounder but calls himself a civil surgeon. Anybody can name their own son Rama. Who can stop them then? But merely from a name he does not become Rama. Then who stops anybody writing jagadguru in front of his own name? But when you ask the mark of the jagadguru then the proper indication really is this that nobody with faith in any deity goes away from the door disappointed. Recently sampradaya (sects) have allotted a relationship of worshipping Shiva, Shakti, Vishnu etc., this is improper. In the five deities there is not any inferiority or superiority. Every deity is similarly capable of dealing with the welfare of their own devotees, however much a worshipper they are, all are vaishnava, since all deities are parts of Bhagwan. Bhagwan states that:- GYaanaM gaNesho mama chakShurarkaMaH , shivo mamaatmaa mamashaktiraadhya . vibheda buddhayaa mayi ye bhajanti , mamaaN^gahiinaM kalayanti mandaaH .. That is, Ganesh ji is the head of Bhagwan, Surya are the eyes of Bhagwan, Shiva is the atma of Bhagwan, Adya Bhagavati is the shakti of Bhagwan. Therefore these five gods are several equal parts, which cannot be measured and split from one another, and they are to be worshiped as equals. [If not] then worship is not being done but [instead] the cutting off of parts is being done. It is clear that denying Ganesha in desiring to be a devotee of Vishnu, but he one who is cutting off Bhagwan Vishnu's head. If any devotee of Vishnu denies Shiva then he is cutting off the atma (soul) of Bhagwan Vishnu. This is really the manner of someone denying Devi (goddess) making Bhagwan powerless. Therefore, nowadays sectarian people have ill-will and malice towards one another but call themselves vaishnava (devotees of Vishnu) or of Bhagwan Shiva, has been calling himself shaiva (a devotee of Shiva), denying Bhagwan Vishnu. They are not really shaiva and not really vaishnava, they are merely hypocrites. A vaishnava is really he who is a devotee of Bhagwan Vishnu - vishnauratah vaishnavah uurdhvapuMD.hvatvaM vaishhNavatvam `Those who possess a urdhavapund (perpendicular marking on the forehead) are said to be vaishnava.' This is not a rule. He who worships Bhagwan Vishnu, he then is really a vaishnava. But also because all deities are different parts of Bhagwan, the worshipper of any deity can be called a vaishnava. At the time one is worshipping any deity, really at that time he is a vaishnava. The whole religious world is vaishnava. Those who say that only those who have perpendicular marking on the forehead are vaishnava, and who call others non-vaishnava, are unacquainted with reality. They are a disgrace to Bhagwan Vishnu. Any devotee of Shiva or worshipper of Shakti, if they do not accept themselves as vaishnava, then they are also in error. Anyone else in samsara (worldly existence) after this manner he is not vaishnava. Those sects who voice sectarian arguments do not achieve anything for themselves nor for others either. [Shri Shankaracharya UpadeshAmrita kaNa 78 of 108] http://www.paulmason.info/gurudev/UA_Hindi.htm#kaNa_78 translation - Paul Mason © 2006, 2007, 2009 http://www.paulmason.info/paulmason/contactdetails.htm Full English text of Guru Dev's 108 Discourses here: http://www.paulmason.info/gurudev/upadesh.htm
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Pitta and samaadhi?
On Mar 9, 2010, at 8:32 PM, WillyTex wrote: You're just too biased to sound very convincing. Vaj: Love those straw men, don't you? You mean, all those 'straw' girls that got 'fingered' by all those Hindu Swamis down in Texas, just because one Swami was charged? I never mentioned anyone other than your guru-neighbor. Are there more?
[FairfieldLife] Re: Guru Dev - What do we say is a jagadguru?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, do.rflex do.rf...@... wrote: In samsara there are two sorts of people - astika (religious) and nastika (unbeliever) - in the world of the atheist there isn't any guru. *Not* to get into debating What Guru Dev believed or didn't believe (because the guy means nothing to me and I don't give a crap), I should point out that the above intro to this talk makes a pretty heavy assumption. That is, that only those who believe in God can be spiritual seekers or appreciate a guru. Not true. Buddhists are essentially atheists in that they have no need to postulate a sentient God of any kind. That does not mean that they are not seekers of enlightenment, or that they wouldn't benefit from working with a guru, if they encountered someone they chose to address by that name. Just sayin' that when you're talking to a group of people who *assume* some mighty heavy-duty things about the nature of the universe (such as...uh...a belief in God), you might wanna spell that out right at the beginning, so that you're not excluding whole groups of spiritual seekers. :-)
[FairfieldLife] Re: Guru Dev - What do we say is a jagadguru?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_re...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, do.rflex do.rflex@ wrote: In samsara there are two sorts of people - astika (religious) and nastika (unbeliever) - in the world of the atheist there isn't any guru. *Not* to get into debating What Guru Dev believed or didn't believe (because the guy means nothing to me and I don't give a crap), I should point out that the above intro to this talk makes a pretty heavy assumption. That is, that only those who believe in God can be spiritual seekers or appreciate a guru. Not true. Buddhists are essentially atheists in that they have no need to postulate a sentient God of any kind. That does not mean that they are not seekers of enlightenment, or that they wouldn't benefit from working with a guru, if they encountered someone they chose to address by that name. Anyone can choose anyone they wish to be a 'guru' of just about anything. Generically, the word 'guru' simply means 'teacher.' Guru Dev was defining the meaning of a jagad-guru, not a generic 'guru.' Just sayin' that when you're talking to a group of people who *assume* some mighty heavy-duty things about the nature of the universe (such as...uh...a belief in God), you might wanna spell that out right at the beginning, so that you're not excluding whole groups of spiritual seekers. :-) The snippet from Guru Dev suggests the concept that the non-differentiated formless Absolute is included as a theistic concept - as Guru Dev expounds in other discourses on the concept that Paramatma [God] is both manifest [with form] and unmanifest [without form] and can be realized either way.
[FairfieldLife] When a Republican electoral victory is a good thing
When a Republican electoral victory is a good thing by kos http://kos.dailykos.com/ - Mar 09, 2010 Phew http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/03/creationist-cum-mccar\ thy-booster_rejected_by_texas_republicans.php . The top conservative activist on the powerful Texas Board of Education, who rejects evolution and has pushed for a revisionist right-wing U.S. history curriculum, is on the way out, after a moderate candidate defeated him in a tight primary last week. For months now, TPMmuckraker has been covering Don McLeroy as a major player in the battle over the drafting of nationally influential history textbook standards by the Texas board. Lobbyist Thomas Ratliff edged out McLeroy 50.4%-49.6% in a GOP primary for the seat McLeroy has held since 1999. Close as it was, Ratliff's win is significant because he represented a clear alternative to McLeroy, and he pulled through in a deeply conservative district. McLeroy's home county went 64-35 for McCain in '08, and no Democrat is even running for the board seat. Ratliff is younger, moderate, and emphasized listening to teachers and superintendents in determining what students should know, according to the endorsement column of the Dallas Morning News. How bad was McLeroy? * In 2008, he objected to including Chinese literature in English classes: [Y]ou really don't want Chinese books with a bunch of crazy Chinese words in them. Why should you take a child's time trying to learn a word that they'll never ever use again? He conceded some terms, such as chow mein, might be useful, the San Antonio Express-News reported. * He said during a 2008 debate over science standards: Is understanding of evolution 'vital' to the understanding of biology? No. * Last year he instructed curriculum writers to read the latest on [Joseph] McCarthy -- he was basically vindicated. * He described his textbook evaluation process this way to the Washington Monthly: The way I evaluate history textbooks is first I see how they cover Christianity and Israel. Then I see how they treat Ronald Reagan--he needs to get credit for saving the world from communism and for the good economy over the last twenty years because he lowered taxes. [...] * Finally, McLeroy successfully offered an amendment to U.S. history standards to require students to be able to describe the causes and key organizations and individuals of the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s, including Phyllis Schafly, the Contract with America, the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority, and the National Rifle Association. There is no liberal counterpart clause in the current draft of the standards. This guy was a full-fledged member of the American Taliban (and certainly made my forthcoming book titled, fittingly, American Taliban). His ouster, however narrow, suggests that there are still enough Republicans uncomfortable with this kind of theocratic agenda. Still, I don't doubt that given the dearth of hotly contested Democratic races in the primary, that challenger Ratliffe wasn't boosted by crossover Democratic and independent support in this open primary. Clearly, there was no margin to spare. Permalink http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/3/9/844475/-When-a-Republican-el\ ectoral-victory-is-a-good-thing
[FairfieldLife] Re: Guru Dev - What do we say is a jagadguru?
...in the world of the atheist there isn't any guru. TurquoiseB: Not true. Buddhists are essentially atheists in that they have no need to postulate a sentient God of any kind... You are incorrect. Obviously you have not spent any time with practicing Buddhists, Turq. Traditional Tibetan Buddhists accept the notion that the universe contains many more beings in it than are normally visible to us humans. Buddhists the world over have no objection to the existence of the Hindu Gods. You should have pointed out that Buddhists can't take refuge in the Gods because the gods are not Buddhas. That is, the Gods are not enlightened - there are no Buddhas in heaven. Buddhists believe that all the Hindu gods, for all their power, are not the final truth of things. Power does not necessarily entail insight, and for Buddhists the gods do not have the liberating insight that will produce enlightenment. But, none of this entails that the gods do not exist or that the Gods cannot excert a powerful influence over our lives. There are millions of Buddhists in Southesat Asia that pay their respects to the Gods every single day in ritual performances and prayers. In Tibet, lamas invoke other-world beings every day. Thus, the Buddhist has no problem with the Gods like you seem to have. It would be a good thing for you to visit a Buddhist country some day and observe Buddhism in practice. Sometimes philosophy books describing Buddhist beliefs don't really reflect actual Buddhist practices on the ground. 'Atheism' is an extreme view, not supported by Buddha. 'Blind faith' is another extreme. The Buddha taught the Middle Way: the avoidance of extremes. However, do not attempt to extremely avoid extremes. Read more: Buddhism in Practice ed. Donald S. Lopez, Jr. Princeton Readings in Religion, 1995
[FairfieldLife] Re: Did you have this experience in India ? If so how did it influence you ?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jst...@... wrote: I don't think it makes any sense to object to ideas *unless* they are the cause of bad actions. The thing is, certain ideas can lead to good actions as well as bad ones, depending on the interpretation and inclinations of the actor. I must be missing something here. It would be wrong to challenge a person's view that the world is flat if the person doesn't do bad things? That reduces the whole field of intellectual discourse to a pretty low level doesn't it? This view is used to protect the Muslim's right to believe in a holy book with absolute authority whose prophet condones the killing of infidels. The argument is that only a small number of Muslims take him at his word and go out and kill infidels. But in the case of the karmic thoery and its social manifestation in the caste system the numbers are reversed. We have millions of people who believe in this thoery outside India who may not be using it for repression. But we have close to a billion people in India whose lives are oppressed by this belief. If a person lived in England during our legal slavery era didn't own slaves but believed in the divinely sanctioned right to own them, would his idea be any less wrong? I am proposing that karmic thoery is not just the basis for cruelty in the vast majority of its believer's lives. I am saying further that it is a belief with poor evidence. And that it deserves to be subjected to the same analysis we give any other bad idea. Every area of our intellectual discourse is governed by laws of reason and evidence based criteria for evaluating the worthiness of the idea. Shielding spiritual beliefs from this process itself is a bad idea. Because the source of the idea comes from a system of authority, the argument that is often used by religious moderates that they don't take it all literally doesn't solve the problem of people who do. Your example of a Biblical saying being used in a good an bad way is an excellent illustration. The biblical story of Sodom, for example, leads some people to condemn homosexuality; it leads others to practice hospitality and charity. The reason it is wrong to persecute gay people has nothing to do with the scripture. The reason people practice hospitality and charity has nothing to do with the scripture. These are values we hold as a society or at least try to impose laws to disallow the worst violations. Linking these behaviors good or bad to the authority of scripture rather than the process of reasonable discourse about what kind of world we want to live in is the problem in my view. Because there is nothing intrinsic in the system of authority that guides one person to use it for good and another to use it for evil. So I say let all human ideas stand on their own merit and don't shield spiritual claims with claims of bigotry just because someone challenges the idea as a bad one, held for bad reasons. You would be right to tell a holocaust denier that his idea was wrong by the evidence even if he didn't use it to do bad things to Jews today. And a person who challenges them to provide evidence to support their outrageous belief is not a bigot for asking them to prove it. People will always believe things that are false. Myself included. The issue for me is how we discuss ideas, with freedom of the right to challenge bad evidence, or in a protected class of beliefs that are considered too special to be subjected to the same process that we use for every other idea in our society. No one would claim that a person is being a bigot for telling a member of the the other political party that their ideas have no merit. And no one would get away with a bad idea with the excuse that they haven't hurt anyone with it yet. The freedom to challenge ideas is a very good thing. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: -curtisdeltablues@ wrote: snip It is his rejection of that cruel ideology that makes his thinking so attractive to me. He is saying something that is the opposite view of the karmic belief system, it's not fair! Well, let's say it's the opposite of the view of some who believe in karma. The phrase It's not fair is the exact opposite of karmic theory without any need to reference how people apply what it means to their personal lives. LOL! Sorry, but I think it's absurd to get all wrought up over belief in the abstract. How can it be cruel except in reference to how it's applied? Black people are inferior. Apply that in the good way.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Pitta and samaadhi?
Vaj: I never mentioned anyone other than your guru-neighbor. It's just that many of your comments seem to imply that your gurus are better than mine, and that you're a better person for it. As I pointed out, some of your gurus have been anything but role models. But, just because your guru had a mistress doesn't prove that all Tibetan lamas are scoundrels. Your comments just seem prejudiced against Hindus and Texans. In Texas, those charged with crimes are assumed to innocent until proven guilty, *in a trial*. Are there more? Who knows, but I'm not trying to defend the Swami next door. In fact, I've spent years refuting the Swami on Usenet. He could be guilty, but there' been no trial. Why didn't you tell us that three of your gurus have been charged with being deviates? That would have been more honest, I think, than implying that Hindu Swamis in Texas are all sex criminals. Vaj: According to Swami Prakashananda Saraswati, fingering little girls is where it's at. Apparently, it's just like fingering the goddess. After all, this is Texas! Yee ha! Jai Guru Dev! /FairfieldLife/message/243062
[FairfieldLife] Re: I do
Now I think a global collapse of the economy would actually be a good thing... So, you're in favor of mass starvation on a global scale, in order to elimnate most of the population on the planet... Bhairitu: who said there would be mass starvation if this happens? What do you think would happen if there was a global collapse of the economy? There must be millions of people out there now who are already starving. That's not a good thing! You said a very stupid thing which you probably didn't think about very much before you hit the send button! I'm not worried about my health insurance I'm pissed that health care is overpriced including my insurance... So, in your economic system, you're worried about your own health insurance while everyone else on the planet starves to death. I can't believe you'd even make such a statement. In my system, everyone on the planet would have a good paying job, so they could eat and take care of their health. Your system would lead to anarchy and worldwide starvation.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Did you have this experience in India ? If so how did it influence you ?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_re...@... wrote: Many excellent points. If the people who claim to know are few and have no social power or status, they are merely cultists. But if the people who claim to know happen to be the ruling class of a country, what they know tends to become formalized not only in religious laws but in social ones as well. Then you get laws like being able to kill an untouchable for looking askance at a Brahmin. Scary and true. It is the protected class of religious beliefs that I am arguing against. People think we shouldn't criticize a whole class of beliefs that include some of the most horrific and repugnant humans have devised just because they are not currently acting on them. It is moderate religious people who shield extremists but they both share the same faulty epistemology. Calling some books written by men scripture has caused a lot of problems that people could sort out quickly if they were discussed as we do any other book's ideas, one their own merit. What you believe in your self determined life in your free society has nothing to do with my objection. You have the luxury of believing anything you want precisely because our society has rejected the Vedic claim ... And the Christian claim, and the Jewish claim, and... Good point. I am pro secular! People can believe whatever they want but they don't get to cry foul if anyone points their finger and call bullshit. They can justify the reasons for their beliefs just as I have to. As a secular person I don't have a magic book that I can run to and claim it is unfair to criticize any of these ideas because they are special and above challenge. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: First of all if we want to talk about having a simplistic understanding of the Hindu religious beliefs I have to object to your using Krishna's statement about the unfathomable nature of Karma out of context. He is referring to the future effect of an action and all its implications for a group of people and an individual trying to make a decision. Exactly. One of the things that always amuses me is that the very people who tend to trot out the olde Unfathomable are the ways of karma saw are the very ones who seem to get up on their high horses the most when they perceive something as unfair and feel the need to correct it. Some- how the ways of karma suddenly become not only fathomable to them but self-evident when this magical whatever-it-is-that-allows-them-to-fight- on-the-side-of-right happens. :-) As far as the specific punishments for various actions and the specific type of birth punishment meted out by Karma the Hindu scriptures are very clear. If you read the Laws of Manu you will find very detailed descriptions of what happens for trying to buck the caste system. (and we have already dealt with Maharishi attempted dodge, it doesn't hold up if you actually read the book.) The Laws of Manu has to be one of the most horrific texts ever created by human beings. WAY worse in its specificity than anything written by Hitler or the fundiest Christian Fundamentalist. The whole thing is about fostering an attitude of unblinking obeisance to The Law Of Preserving The Elite Status Of Those Who Claim To Be Able To Perceive The Law. Icky. Here is where Sam Harris and I agree. The absurdity of religious beliefs are being protected by people who are assuming a modified version that removes the most obviously antisocial elements. I am not arguing against your personal mix of ideas Judy. They are none of my business. I am arguing against a system of beliefs that claims to know how the universe works after death. And a society that uses that system to oppress people for generations. Why limit it to after death. Most of the laws that those who have oppressed people with have written are dealing with what they (the oppressors) are allowed to do to those who don't do what they want them to *before* death. I think that you can edit your statement above, Curtis, and make it more accurate. The problem with religious beliefs is people who claim to know, period. If the people who claim to know are few and have no social power or status, they are merely cultists. But if the people who claim to know happen to be the ruling class of a country, what they know tends to become formalized not only in religious laws but in social ones as well. Then you get laws like being able to kill an untouchable for looking askance at a Brahmin. What you believe in your self determined life in your free society has nothing to do with my objection. You have the luxury of believing anything you want precisely because our society has rejected the Vedic claim ... And the Christian claim, and the Jewish claim, and... ...that they
[FairfieldLife] Re: Pitta and samaadhi?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, WillyTex willy...@... wrote: Your comments just seem prejudiced against Hindus and Texans. In Texas, those charged with crimes are assumed to innocent until proven guilty, *in a trial*. I've seen a lot of westerns that were set in Texas. From what I've seen the process is to swarm someone accused of a crime in a mob and put them on a horse with a rope around their neck tied to a tree. Then their girlfriend tries to run to save the person but is held back by the crowd and she falls to the ground crying. Then someone who is obviously intoxicated slaps the horse on the rear end sending it running but before the rope tightens the accused man's friend shoots the rope freeing the man who rides by the girlfriend and lifts her to the back of the horse. All three end up in Mexico in a cantina tossing back tequila shots to mariachi music. This is how the legal system works in Texas. Vaj: I never mentioned anyone other than your guru-neighbor. It's just that many of your comments seem to imply that your gurus are better than mine, and that you're a better person for it. As I pointed out, some of your gurus have been anything but role models. But, just because your guru had a mistress doesn't prove that all Tibetan lamas are scoundrels. Your comments just seem prejudiced against Hindus and Texans. In Texas, those charged with crimes are assumed to innocent until proven guilty, *in a trial*. Are there more? Who knows, but I'm not trying to defend the Swami next door. In fact, I've spent years refuting the Swami on Usenet. He could be guilty, but there' been no trial. Why didn't you tell us that three of your gurus have been charged with being deviates? That would have been more honest, I think, than implying that Hindu Swamis in Texas are all sex criminals. Vaj: According to Swami Prakashananda Saraswati, fingering little girls is where it's at. Apparently, it's just like fingering the goddess. After all, this is Texas! Yee ha! Jai Guru Dev! /FairfieldLife/message/243062
[FairfieldLife] Re: Did you have this experience in India ? If so how did it influence you ?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltabl...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: I think going after the religion rather than the behavior risks becoming a crusade and even a pogrom (figuratively speaking), and it doesn't affect the behavior. I missed this first time through. This is a legitimate point to consider. Even though the point you go on to consider is not at all the one I was making...O-K. I believe that religions have used this extreme use and application of the concept of challenging unproven claims (pogrom} Not what I meant by pogrom. I was referring to the potential to portray everyone who shares a specific religious heritage as Bad Guys (the way some here do with Christians and many right-wingers do with Muslims) pretty much regardless of behavior. to shield them from the normal discourse we expect with any other ideas. If a person today claims the holocaust never happened we challenge the idea with facts. If people claim Jesus rose from the dead we have a right to say what is your proof? Do you see any significant differences between these two claims? So I believe that we have erred on the side of allowing unchallenged beliefs about how life works rather than suppressing them or acting uncivilly to religious people in this country in the last few decades. Erred? My goodness, I hope that's a figure of speech. But we have created a ban on bringing into discussion these claims as if they are exempt from the challenge: what is your proof? And this is hurting us as a species trying to rise above superstitious tribal beliefs about one group of humans being intrinsically superior to another in a predetermined way. And they have earned their lower status by being bad in some way that the scripture, that God wrote or approves of, describes in detail. You sound as religious here about your perspective as the most fundamentalist Christian, Curtis. To me, it's not a matter of whether religious belief is exempt from challenge; it's a matter of whether indulging in such challenge is a distraction from focusing on the *behavior*. I really don't care whether someone believes Jesus rose from the dead as long as they behave humanely. I don't even especially care whether someone who holds this belief thinks of themselves as better than me as long as they don't allow that belief to affect their behavior toward me (or anyone else). In any case, many Christians who believe Jesus rose from the dead use their faith in that event to motivate them to behave as Jesus prescribed. We could all do a lot worse, behavior-wise, than adhering to Jesus's principles. And I doubt there are very many such people who think of themselves as intrinsically superior to another in a predetemined way, or that others have earned their lower status by being bad in some way described in Scripture. Maybe that's what *you* were taught to believe once upon a time (although predetermined sounds more Calvinist than Catholic!), but it certainly doesn't characterize Christians across the board. Painting with that kind of broad, simplistic brush is pretty much what I meant by *pogrom*. It strikes me that the objection to *ideas* simply because you find them superstitious, rather than evaluating people in terms of their *behavior*, is akin to condemning gay people for what they do in their bedrooms instead of evaluating how they behave in society. I also think the demand to prove Jesus rose from the dead is idiotic on its face, from several different angles.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Did you have this experience in India ? If so how did it influence you ?
Curtis: I am proposing that karmic thoery is not just the basis for cruelty in the vast majority of its believer's lives... You didn't state what is the 'karmic theory'. The karmic theory in South Asia is the law of action-reaction. It's just like the theory of causation. Karma means action: if we perform an action, there will be a corresponding reaction. In the karmic theory there is nothing in existence that can avoid causation. The question is, does a mental thought cause another coresponding re-action now, or in the future? In other words, is there such a thing as moral reciprocity? You alluded to one in your message, but what really makes acts right or wrong? You also didn't define 'caste system', and you may have assumed, falsely, that the Indian caste sytem is based on the color of an individual's skin. Caste doesn't refer to race, but to the birth circumstances of a person, such as gender and profession. In India 'caste' means 'class', and there are classes in almost every society. The question is, are there intrinsic, different classes in society or not? And if so, on what basis is a person classed?
[FairfieldLife] Re: Did you have this experience in India? If so how did it influence you ?
I'm really glad you replied to this, Curtis. And so well. I simply couldn't believe that someone could suggest that ideas shouldn't be challenged unless someone takes the idea and does something wrong with it. If that were true, someone could defend Sarah Palin's belief that she can see Russia from her house and her absolute right to hold such a belief until she starts throwing grenades into Russian territory. :-) --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltabl...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: I don't think it makes any sense to object to ideas *unless* they are the cause of bad actions. The thing is, certain ideas can lead to good actions as well as bad ones, depending on the interpretation and inclinations of the actor. I must be missing something here. It would be wrong to challenge a person's view that the world is flat if the person doesn't do bad things? That reduces the whole field of intellectual discourse to a pretty low level doesn't it? This view is used to protect the Muslim's right to believe in a holy book with absolute authority whose prophet condones the killing of infidels. The argument is that only a small number of Muslims take him at his word and go out and kill infidels. But in the case of the karmic thoery and its social manifestation in the caste system the numbers are reversed. We have millions of people who believe in this thoery outside India who may not be using it for repression. But we have close to a billion people in India whose lives are oppressed by this belief. If a person lived in England during our legal slavery era didn't own slaves but believed in the divinely sanctioned right to own them, would his idea be any less wrong? I am proposing that karmic thoery is not just the basis for cruelty in the vast majority of its believer's lives. I am saying further that it is a belief with poor evidence. And that it deserves to be subjected to the same analysis we give any other bad idea. Every area of our intellectual discourse is governed by laws of reason and evidence based criteria for evaluating the worthiness of the idea. Shielding spiritual beliefs from this process itself is a bad idea. Because the source of the idea comes from a system of authority, the argument that is often used by religious moderates that they don't take it all literally doesn't solve the problem of people who do. Your example of a Biblical saying being used in a good an bad way is an excellent illustration. The biblical story of Sodom, for example, leads some people to condemn homosexuality; it leads others to practice hospitality and charity. The reason it is wrong to persecute gay people has nothing to do with the scripture. The reason people practice hospitality and charity has nothing to do with the scripture. These are values we hold as a society or at least try to impose laws to disallow the worst violations. Linking these behaviors good or bad to the authority of scripture rather than the process of reasonable discourse about what kind of world we want to live in is the problem in my view. Because there is nothing intrinsic in the system of authority that guides one person to use it for good and another to use it for evil. So I say let all human ideas stand on their own merit and don't shield spiritual claims with claims of bigotry just because someone challenges the idea as a bad one, held for bad reasons. You would be right to tell a holocaust denier that his idea was wrong by the evidence even if he didn't use it to do bad things to Jews today. And a person who challenges them to provide evidence to support their outrageous belief is not a bigot for asking them to prove it. People will always believe things that are false. Myself included. The issue for me is how we discuss ideas, with freedom of the right to challenge bad evidence, or in a protected class of beliefs that are considered too special to be subjected to the same process that we use for every other idea in our society. No one would claim that a person is being a bigot for telling a member of the the other political party that their ideas have no merit. And no one would get away with a bad idea with the excuse that they haven't hurt anyone with it yet. The freedom to challenge ideas is a very good thing.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Did you have this experience in India ? If so how did it influence you ?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltabl...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: Many excellent points. If the people who claim to know are few and have no social power or status, they are merely cultists. But if the people who claim to know happen to be the ruling class of a country, what they know tends to become formalized not only in religious laws but in social ones as well. Then you get laws like being able to kill an untouchable for looking askance at a Brahmin. Scary and true. It is the protected class of religious beliefs that I am arguing against. As am I. People think we shouldn't criticize a whole class of beliefs that include some of the most horrific and repugnant humans have devised just because they are not currently acting on them. It is moderate religious people who shield extremists but they both share the same faulty epistemology. Calling some books written by men scripture has caused a lot of problems that people could sort out quickly if they were discussed as we do any other book's ideas, on their own merit. That's the way they should be discussed IMO. BTW, Curtis, a little while back I recommended a film called The Man From Earth. I think you'd really like it. Especially when the close friends of the guy who has just revealed to them that he has been alive on planet Earth for 14,000 years responds to the questions, Did you ever meet any of the great spiritual figures in history? *Were* you any of the great spiritual figures in history? To see one woman's reaction when he answers the second question honestly is worth the price of a rental just in itself. What you believe in your self determined life in your free society has nothing to do with my objection. You have the luxury of believing anything you want precisely because our society has rejected the Vedic claim ... And the Christian claim, and the Jewish claim, and... Good point. I am pro secular! People can believe whatever they want but they don't get to cry foul if anyone points their finger and call bullshit. But they do. Every day. They issue fatwas on cartoonists for drawing Mohammed comically, or on writers for writing about Satan with compassion. They claim *very loudly* that some ideas are off limits and cannot be challenged. They can justify the reasons for their beliefs just as I have to. As a secular person I don't have a magic book that I can run to and claim it is unfair to criticize any of these ideas because they are special and above challenge. Lucky you. Think about the level of idiot you would be if you had such a book, and had spent a lifetime using it to avoid examining the ideas in it. ALL books are candidates for crying bullshit on them. ALL ideas are candidates for the bull- shit certification process. I *DARE* anyone here to try to come up with an idea so holy that it cannot be challenged. Or a book. I'll wait.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Pitta and samaadhi?
Your comments just seem prejudiced against Hindus and Texans. In Texas, those charged with crimes are assumed to innocent until proven guilty, *in a trial*... Curtis: I've seen a lot of westerns that were set in Texas. From what I've seen the process is to swarm someone accused of a crime in a mob and put them on a horse with a rope around their neck tied to a tree... This is a set-up troll post, right? Most of the westerns I've seen that were set in Texas don't support lynching, Curtis. Most of them have a moral point to make. I don't think I've ever seen a John Wayne movie set in Texas where Wayne hangs a guy. I haven't seen every movie set in Texas, so can you be more specific? There's a Cenotaph in front of the Alamo, but I don't think any of the defenders were hanged by the invading forces. There have been six flags flying over Texas. Why would you be prejudiced against Tejanos? Demographics indicate that there are many more Hispanics in Texas than Caucasians and this has been the case for over 250 years. snip
[FairfieldLife] Re: Did you have this experience in India ? If so how did it influence you ?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltabl...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: I don't think it makes any sense to object to ideas *unless* they are the cause of bad actions. The thing is, certain ideas can lead to good actions as well as bad ones, depending on the interpretation and inclinations of the actor. I must be missing something here. It would be wrong to challenge a person's view that the world is flat if the person doesn't do bad things? Not wrong, just pointless from a practical standpoint; not the first order of business. Please don't put words in my mouth. snip The biblical story of Sodom, for example, leads some people to condemn homosexuality; it leads others to practice hospitality and charity. The reason it is wrong to persecute gay people has nothing to do with the scripture. The reason people practice hospitality and charity has nothing to do with the scripture. These are values we hold as a society or at least try to impose laws to disallow the worst violations. Linking these behaviors good or bad to the authority of scripture rather than the process of reasonable discourse about what kind of world we want to live in is the problem in my view. Because there is nothing intrinsic in the system of authority that guides one person to use it for good and another to use it for evil. Seems to me that's an excellent argument for focusing on the behavior rather than the beliefs! So I say let all human ideas stand on their own merit and don't shield spiritual claims with claims of bigotry just because someone challenges the idea as a bad one, held for bad reasons. That isn't where the bigotry comes in, as I thought I'd already explained. And nobody is trying to shield spiritual claims from challenge; that's a straw man. Dealing with behavior and dealing with beliefs are two different agendas. Going after the latter in an attempt to change the former is problematic, IMHO, for all the reasons you just stated above.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Did you have this experience in India ? If so how did it influence you ?
TurquoiseB: I *DARE* anyone here to try to come up with an idea so holy that it cannot be challenged. Or a book. I'll wait... So, that's your *idea* of a strawman argument?
[FairfieldLife] Re: Did you have this experience in India ? If so how did it influence you ?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltabl...@... wrote: [snip] But in the case of the karmic thoery and its social manifestation in the caste system the numbers are reversed. We have millions of people who believe in this thoery outside India who may not be using it for repression. But we have close to a billion people in India whose lives are oppressed by this belief. [snip] But not the SAME belief? Trying to follow this conversation... Seems to me that you are confusing a doctrine of fatalism with the doctrine of karma. You can be a fatalist without believing in karma - and vice versa. Karma is the idea that the world is a just system (as you said before). And the justice is believed to to consist in (essentially) as you sow shall ye reap. That doctrine in itself carries no implication as to how one should act towards those more unfortunate than ourselves. That needs OTHER beliefs. The truth is that it is karma + fatalism that has produced the unfortunate quietism that has caused so much trouble in, say, India. As MMY often pointed out. Fatalism is the idea that how we find ourselves is somehow how we are meant to be. And it fatally (!) lends itself to the thought that if this is how it's meant to be, who am I to think I should do anything to change it?. It seems to me that that should be the correct target of your frustration? Belief in karma is something else. It is just the universalisation of a principle we use all the time (of responsibility). If I choose to take my sailboat out in appalling weather, I have myself to blame if I get into difficulties (my karma). Fortunately for me, seeing it that way is not enough to stop most folks from considering trying to rescue me if they can! Or, take a child born with deformities. If I believe in karma and reincarnation, then I am led to believe that, yes, this is the consequence of past actions. (or, another way of saying the same thing, there is in reality no such thing as luck). But to get the unpleasant attitude you are hostile to, we need to add an additional component into the mix: That this a punishment from *God* with which I must not interfere. And that's the fatalism, which in no way follows from the theory of karma. (And perhaps the real villain is not fatalism, but something that lies behind that: religious hubris, the idea we can know the intentions of God. But personally I wouldn't think we moderns should get too smug about that, as hubris seems to be the sin of our age too!)
[FairfieldLife] Re: Did you have this experience in India? If so how did it influence you ?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_re...@... wrote: I'm really glad you replied to this, Curtis. And so well. I simply couldn't believe that someone could suggest that ideas shouldn't be challenged unless someone takes the idea and does something wrong with it. If that were true, someone could defend Sarah Palin's belief that she can see Russia from her house and her absolute right to hold such a belief until she starts throwing grenades into Russian territory. :-) And the religion whose scriptures say Sarah Palin can see Russia from her house is...? guffaw For the record, the beliefs in question (at least, the ones I'm discussing) are inherently unprovable (and undisprovable) religious beliefs.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Did you have this experience in India ? If so how did it influence you ?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jst...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: I think going after the religion rather than the behavior risks becoming a crusade and even a pogrom (figuratively speaking), and it doesn't affect the behavior. I missed this first time through. This is a legitimate point to consider. Even though the point you go on to consider is not at all the one I was making...O-K. I believe that religions have used this extreme use and application of the concept of challenging unproven claims (pogrom} Not what I meant by pogrom. I was referring to the potential to portray everyone who shares a specific religious heritage as Bad Guys (the way some here do with Christians and many right-wingers do with Muslims) pretty much regardless of behavior. That is a different discussion from whether or not their claims of how the world works have merit. to shield them from the normal discourse we expect with any other ideas. If a person today claims the holocaust never happened we challenge the idea with facts. If people claim Jesus rose from the dead we have a right to say what is your proof? Do you see any significant differences between these two claims? Sure, among them that the claim that Jesus physically rose from the dead is among the protected ideas in our culture that is felt is beyond challenge despite it being asserted as a fact. So I believe that we have erred on the side of allowing unchallenged beliefs about how life works rather than suppressing them or acting uncivilly to religious people in this country in the last few decades. Erred? My goodness, I hope that's a figure of speech. But we have created a ban on bringing into discussion these claims as if they are exempt from the challenge: what is your proof? And this is hurting us as a species trying to rise above superstitious tribal beliefs about one group of humans being intrinsically superior to another in a predetermined way. And they have earned their lower status by being bad in some way that the scripture, that God wrote or approves of, describes in detail. You sound as religious here about your perspective as the most fundamentalist Christian, Curtis. That claim is bogus. I am doing the exact opposite of a person who uses scriptural authority. I am saying that every claim religious or not is up for discussion. This is not my perspective, it is the basis for Western civilization. To me, it's not a matter of whether religious belief is exempt from challenge; it's a matter of whether indulging in such challenge is a distraction from focusing on the *behavior*. I really don't care whether someone believes Jesus rose from the dead as long as they behave humanely. I don't even especially care whether someone who holds this belief thinks of themselves as better than me as long as they don't allow that belief to affect their behavior toward me (or anyone else). You are taking a wack-a-mole approach. I am addressing the root of the problem. Expecting people not to have their religious convictions effect their behavior seems unlikely. And we are not just dealing with Jesus. We also have a guy who demands that followers kill non believers. And the source for that absolute truth makes no modern distinction that he doesn'e really really mean it. He repeats it to make sure you get the point. In any case, many Christians who believe Jesus rose from the dead use their faith in that event to motivate them to behave as Jesus prescribed. We could all do a lot worse, behavior-wise, than adhering to Jesus's principles. The ones they pick and choose from out faulty records through translation you mean. So is it Ok to believe that Lincoln was not assassinated? Which historical assertions are exempt from normal questioning? And I doubt there are very many such people who think of themselves as intrinsically superior to another in a predetemined way, or that others have earned their lower status by being bad in some way described in Scripture. I can't believe you would say that. Are you really unaware of what life is like in India? Maybe that's what *you* were taught to believe once upon a time (although predetermined sounds more Calvinist than Catholic!), but it certainly doesn't characterize Christians across the board. We are confusing mythologies here. That point concerns Hindus. Christians have other issues. But one uniting belief for most Christian groups is the physical resurrection of Jesus and the authority of the Bible as an accurate statement of how the world works. And just happening to be born into Catholicism which leads you to an eternity in heaven while all no Catholic burn in hell is not much of an improvement
[FairfieldLife] Re: Did you have this experience in India ? If so how did it influence you ?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, WillyTex willy...@... wrote: TurquoiseB: I *DARE* anyone here to try to come up with an idea so holy that it cannot be challenged. Or a book. I'll wait... So, that's your *idea* of a strawman argument? If he didn't believe in strawman arguments, he'd have about 75 percent less to say. ;-)
[FairfieldLife] Re: Did you have this experience in India ? If so how did it influence you ?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_re...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: First of all if we want to talk about having a simplistic understanding of the Hindu religious beliefs I have to object to your using Krishna's statement about the unfathomable nature of Karma out of context. He is referring to the future effect of an action and all its implications for a group of people and an individual trying to make a decision. Exactly. One of the things that always amuses me is that the very people who tend to trot out the olde Unfathomable are the ways of karma saw are the very ones who seem to get up on their high horses the most when they perceive something as unfair and feel the need to correct it. Some- how the ways of karma suddenly become not only fathomable to them but self-evident when this magical whatever-it-is-that-allows-them-to-fight- on-the-side-of-right happens. :-) Friendship means never having to tell a friend he's full of it, right, Curtis?
[FairfieldLife] Re: Did you have this experience in India ? If so how did it influence you ?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltabl...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: I think going after the religion rather than the behavior risks becoming a crusade and even a pogrom (figuratively speaking), and it doesn't affect the behavior. I missed this first time through. This is a legitimate point to consider. Even though the point you go on to consider is not at all the one I was making...O-K. I believe that religions have used this extreme use and application of the concept of challenging unproven claims (pogrom} Not what I meant by pogrom. I was referring to the potential to portray everyone who shares a specific religious heritage as Bad Guys (the way some here do with Christians and many right-wingers do with Muslims) pretty much regardless of behavior. That is a different discussion from whether or not their claims of how the world works have merit. Uh, right. And...? (This is a *third* discussion, BTW.) snip If a person today claims the holocaust never happened we challenge the idea with facts. If people claim Jesus rose from the dead we have a right to say what is your proof? Do you see any significant differences between these two claims? Sure, among them that the claim that Jesus physically rose from the dead is among the protected ideas in our culture that is felt is beyond challenge despite it being asserted as a fact. Any other differences? snip But we have created a ban on bringing into discussion these claims as if they are exempt from the challenge: what is your proof? And this is hurting us as a species trying to rise above superstitious tribal beliefs about one group of humans being intrinsically superior to another in a predetermined way. And they have earned their lower status by being bad in some way that the scripture, that God wrote or approves of, describes in detail. You sound as religious here about your perspective as the most fundamentalist Christian, Curtis. That claim is bogus. I am doing the exact opposite of a person who uses scriptural authority. I am saying that every claim religious or not is up for discussion. This is not my perspective, it is the basis for Western civilization. And therefore not up for discussion, right? What's so fundamentalist-sounding about your spiel is your conviction as to the superiority of your views, as well as your propensity to slay straw men (e.g., exempt, protected, shielded). To me, it's not a matter of whether religious belief is exempt from challenge; it's a matter of whether indulging in such challenge is a distraction from focusing on the *behavior*. I really don't care whether someone believes Jesus rose from the dead as long as they behave humanely. I don't even especially care whether someone who holds this belief thinks of themselves as better than me as long as they don't allow that belief to affect their behavior toward me (or anyone else). You are taking a wack-a-mole approach. I am addressing the root of the problem. Expecting people not to have their religious convictions effect their behavior seems unlikely. For good or ill. But I think the root of the problem is failure of compassion, which hijacks religious beliefs as justification. snip In any case, many Christians who believe Jesus rose from the dead use their faith in that event to motivate them to behave as Jesus prescribed. We could all do a lot worse, behavior-wise, than adhering to Jesus's principles. The ones they pick and choose from out faulty records through translation you mean. So is it Ok to believe that Lincoln was not assassinated? Which historical assertions are exempt from normal questioning? Huh?? Is the belief that Lincoln was not assassinated a religious one that can't be either proved or disproved but is held on the basis of scriptural authority? What bad behavior does it generate? And please stop attributing to me the view that beliefs are somehow inherently exempt from questioning. Again, you're putting words in my mouth. And I doubt there are very many such people who think of themselves as intrinsically superior to another in a predetemined way, or that others have earned their lower status by being bad in some way described in Scripture. I can't believe you would say that. Are you really unaware of what life is like in India? Such is a referent word, Curtis. Such people refers back to Christians who believe Jesus rose from the dead [who] use their faith in that event to motivate them to behave as Jesus prescribed. Maybe that's what *you* were taught to believe once upon a time (although predetermined
[FairfieldLife] A proud day for Democrats
Perfect transparency We have to pass the bill so you can find out what's in it -House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
[FairfieldLife] Obama Defies Pessimists as Rising Economy Converges With Stocks
Obama Defies Pessimists as Rising Economy Converges With Stocks By Mike Dorning [220] March 10 (Bloomberg) -- The political consensus may be that President Barack Obama http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=Barack+Obamasite=wnewsclient=wne\ wsproxystylesheet=wnewsoutput=xml_no_dtdie=UTF-8oe=UTF-8filter=pge\ tfields=wnnissort=date:D:S:d1 's handling of the economy has been weak. The judgment of money in all its forms has been overwhelmingly positive, and that may be the more lasting appraisal. One year after U.S stocks hit their post-financial-crisis low on March 9, 2009, the benchmark Standard Poor's 500 Index http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=SPX%3AIND has risen more than 68 percent, and it's up more than 41 percent since Obama took office. Credit spreads have narrowed. Commodity prices have surged. Housing prices have stabilized. We've had a phenomenal run in asset classes across the board, said Dan Greenhaus http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=Dan+Greenhaussite=wnewsclient=wn\ ewsproxystylesheet=wnewsoutput=xml_no_dtdie=UTF-8oe=UTF-8filter=pg\ etfields=wnnissort=date:D:S:d1 , chief economic strategist for Miller Tabak Co. in New York. If he was a Republican, we would hear a never-ending drumbeat of news stories about markets voting in favor of the president. The economy has also strengthened beyond expectations at the time Obama took office. The gross domestic product grew at a 5.9 percent annual pace in the fourth quarter, compared with a median forecast of 2.0 percent in a Bloomberg survey of economists a week before Obama's Jan. 20, 2009, inauguration. The median forecast for GDP growth this year is 3.0 percent, according to Bloomberg's February survey of economists, versus 2.1 percent for 2010 in the survey taken 13 months earlier. You have to give them -- along with the Federal Reserve - - a lot of credit, said Joseph Carson http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=Joseph+Carsonsite=wnewsclient=wn\ ewsproxystylesheet=wnewsoutput=xml_no_dtdie=UTF-8oe=UTF-8filter=pg\ etfields=wnnissort=date:D:S:d1 , director of economic research at AllianceBernstein LP in New York. A year ago, there was panic, as well as concern. And a lot of the expectations were not only that we were going to have declines in activity but they would stretch all the way to 2010, if not 2011. Job Losses Ease Since then, monthly job losses have abated, from 779,000 during the month Obama took office to 36,000 last month. Corporate profits have grown; among 491 companies in the SP 500 that reported fourth-quarter earnings, profits rose 180 percent from a year ago, according to Bloomberg data. Durable goods http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=DGNOYOY%3AIND orders in January were up 9.3 percent from a year earlier. Inflation is tame, and long-term interest rates remain low. Still, the economy has become a political burden for Obama. Voters give his administration little credit for its performance, while the unemployment rate remains high, at 9.7 percent in February. Public opinion of Obama's handling of the economy has gone from 59 percent approval in February 2009 to 61 percent disapproval this February, according to Gallup polls. Critical of Deficit The budget deficits http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=FDEBTY%3AIND the administration has run up have stirred criticism from investment managers and economists, as well as voters. The Congressional Budget Office projects http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/112xx/doc11231/03-05-apb.pdf Obama's spending proposals would produce a record $1.5 trillion budget deficit this year and a $1.3 trillion deficit http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=FDDSGDP%3AIND in 2011. The investment returns and economic data don't impress some Obama critics. Coming off a level that was ridiculously low isn't much to boast about, said Dean Baker http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=Dean+Bakersite=wnewsclient=wnews\ proxystylesheet=wnewsoutput=xml_no_dtdie=UTF-8oe=UTF-8filter=pgetf\ ields=wnnissort=date:D:S:d1 , co-director of the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research. What most people care about is the economy creating jobs. It's still not. Mark Zandi http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=Mark+Zandisite=wnewsclient=wnews\ proxystylesheet=wnewsoutput=xml_no_dtdie=UTF-8oe=UTF-8filter=pgetf\ ields=wnnissort=date:D:S:d1 , chief economist at Moody's Economy.com http://www.economy.com/default.asp , said the public's opinion of the economy is likely to improve as the gains companies have made begin to translate into more jobs and higher wages. Businesses are doing very well but households have yet to benefit, Zandi said. Households will eventually benefit, but they'll have to see it before they believe it. 300,000 Jobs Seen The U.S. may add as many as 300,000 jobs in March, the most in four years, David Greenlaw http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=David+Greenlawsite=wnewsclient=w\ newsproxystylesheet=wnewsoutput=xml_no_dtdie=UTF-8oe=UTF-8filter=p\
[FairfieldLife] Swami Nithyananda Sex Scandal (Watch Video) | India
http://thefastertimes.com/india/2010/03/08/sex-and-the-single-swami-why-indi as-gurus-cant-keep-it-in-their-loincloths/
[FairfieldLife] The Crazies part 2
As I mentioned in my recent brief review of The Crazies a remake of the George Romero 1973 film of the same name and some of it shot about 150 miles due west of Fairfield in Lenox and Winterset, I felt the remake lacked edge so went in search of the original 1973 version. To my dismay (and no I don't have an active Netflix account but more on that later) I couldn't find it at local rental places even though the film was released on DVD just a few years ago. The reason might be that it is considered a cult film and the company who has the rights specializes in that and may specifically be doing limited editions to keep the collector value up. The 1973 version to coincide with the remake was rereleased on both DVD and Bluray. Yesterday I decided to trundle over to Rasputin's, a Bay Area used CD/DVD store that has an outlet nearby. Looking through the new releases I didn't see it and I did as best I could look through used DVDs but to no available. I then decided to see what they had in their used Bluray section and there to my surprise were new copies of the Bluray and discounted! The latter is something rare for that store as their Bluray prices were often more than the suggested retail for some reason. So I decided to snap it up figuring I could resell it if I didn't like it. The 1973 version is of course a B-movie. As some of us may remember back then most theaters showed two features, one a big Hollywood blockbuster and cheap B-movie that most people would walk out on after 10 minutes (and at drive-ins start doing something else). The film was commissioned by a small studio who had some soft core porn hits and wanted to branch out into other projects. It was also Romero's first union film. The script came from one that someone had written and he used about the first 10 pages as an idea. It was a story about a military plane crash that results in a biological weapon going into a towns water supply and making the residents go crazy and how the military goes into damage control resulting in them invading the town. The rest of the original script involved studying how both the military and the residents went crazy and could one tell the difference. It was also too verbal and the studio wanted an action film (he settled on something in between). Romero took those fragments to make the 1973 version and Brett Eisner likewise took concepts from that version for the remake. As I suspected the 1973 had a little more edge though it was a little less effective as the production quality (made on a $270K budget) was not that good. It was also less kind to the military given we were in the Vietnam era. Eisner apparently didn't want to go there in this post 9-11 age which is too bad (it is more subtext). The Bluray version is a nice transfer however I guess they didn't want to touch the soundtrack present in stunning DTS-Mono. It unfortunately seemed to be equalized for small drive-in speakers making it a bit trebley. I may have some high rolloff setting on my AV Receiver but I didn't go looking for it. One hilarious thing is that blood looked like someone had spilled a bunch of red poster paint. The Bluray also comes with commentary which I began listened to last night. It appears to have been done in 2002 to for the DVD version released back then. There is also a 14 minute featurette with cult actress Lynn Lowry who appears in the film. As for Netflix, yesterday I went to my local Hollywood Video to see what new release Blurays I might want to rent. Amazingly there were no new releases either Bluray or DVD. The clerk told me they didn't get a shipment and suggested that does not bode well. Hollywood Video owned by Movie Gallery declared bankruptcy for the second time last month. They closed stores in the area but the local one was profitable so they kept it open. My bet it will be gone soon. So it may be time to re-activate my Netflix account which was probably deleted anyway. In the meantime Redbox is very handy and they did get the new releases I was interested in but on DVD only (with an occasional Bluray).
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Pitta and samaadhi?
On Mar 10, 2010, at 9:56 AM, WillyTex wrote: Vaj: I never mentioned anyone other than your guru-neighbor. It's just that many of your comments seem to imply that your gurus are better than mine, and that you're a better person for it. As I pointed out, some of your gurus have been anything but role models. Who are your gurus? But, just because your guru had a mistress doesn't prove that all Tibetan lamas are scoundrels. He did? News to me. Your comments just seem prejudiced against Hindus and Texans. In Texas, those charged with crimes are assumed to innocent until proven guilty, *in a trial*. I see. Interesting opinion. Maybe you have an inferiority complex? Are there more? Who knows, but I'm not trying to defend the Swami next door. In fact, I've spent years refuting the Swami on Usenet. He could be guilty, but there' been no trial. Why didn't you tell us that three of your gurus have been charged with being deviates? That would have been more honest, I think, than implying that Hindu Swamis in Texas are all sex criminals. They have? News to me.
[FairfieldLife] George Dubya Bush in a Dream
In my dream, I submitted a short paper to Bush about my analysis of a small town called Sausalito in California. He read it and appeared to approve the contents of the report. But he soon rewrote the paper to include his own thoughts using words that came from prior reports, using typical government phrases and presentation. In the end, the report became a thick analysis of what was supposed to be an informal paper. I then found out that he actually had bought a piece of land several miles north of the town. He was farming the land for his own interest. This is an interesting dream in that I'm not a registered Republican nor have I voted for him when he was running for president. Does anyone know what the symbolism of this dream means?
[FairfieldLife] Re: A proud day for Democrats
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sgrayatlarge no_re...@... wrote: Perfect transparency We have to pass the bill so you can find out what's in it -House Speaker Nancy Pelosi It was a poor choice of wording, although you DID leave off the rest of the sentence. Here is the COMPLETE sentence: But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy. This isolated quote We have to pass the bill so you can find out what's in it is being broadcast all over the Obama/Pelosi/Reid hating fringe wingnut world as if to suggest that the the Democrats are hiding something nefarious in the bill. It's another lame-ass attempt by the right wingers to make a major issue out of a non-issue. It's that kind of nonsense that continues to show the wingnuts for the sorry losers that they are. Transparency? Both the Senate and House health bills that were passed have been scrutinized in detail and are publicly available along with the White House's own recent proposal. Whatever comes to be finally voted on will no doubt fall within the parameters already outlined in those documents.
[FairfieldLife] Re: George Dubya Bush in a Dream
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, John jr_...@... wrote: In my dream, I submitted a short paper to Bush about my analysis of a small town called Sausalito in California. He read it and appeared to approve the contents of the report. But he soon rewrote the paper to include his own thoughts using words that came from prior reports, using typical government phrases and presentation. In the end, the report became a thick analysis of what was supposed to be an informal paper. I then found out that he actually had bought a piece of land several miles north of the town. He was farming the land for his own interest. This is an interesting dream in that I'm not a registered Republican nor have I voted for him when he was running for president. Does anyone know what the symbolism of this dream means? Sausalito has a new village idiot.
Re: [FairfieldLife] A proud day for Democrats
Curiosity killed the cat. From: sgrayatlarge no_re...@yahoogroups.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wed, March 10, 2010 9:21:35 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] A proud day for Democrats Perfect transparency We have to pass the bill so you can find out what's in it -House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
[FairfieldLife] Re: Did you have this experience in India ? If so how did it influence you ?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jst...@... wrote: jstein@ wrote: I think going after the religion rather than the behavior risks becoming a crusade and even a pogrom (figuratively speaking), and it doesn't affect the behavior. I missed this first time through. This is a legitimate point to consider. Even though the point you go on to consider is not at all the one I was making...O-K. That is the point of going back and forth, to understand what points are being made. I believe that religions have used this extreme use and application of the concept of challenging unproven claims (pogrom} Not what I meant by pogrom. I was referring to the potential to portray everyone who shares a specific religious heritage as Bad Guys (the way some here do with Christians and many right-wingers do with Muslims) pretty much regardless of behavior. That is a different discussion from whether or not their claims of how the world works have merit. Uh, right. And...? (This is a *third* discussion, BTW.) OK we are discussing different aspects of complex issues. Since I don't portray everyone who shares a specific religious heritage as bad guys it doesn't apply to me. But I can think that they are wrong about what they are asserting or that there is little evidence for fantastic claims. And that the people who make less fantastic claims are shielding the ones who do while still maintaining the absurd premise that they have a unique insight into the mind of the creator of the universe and his desires concerning this world. snip If a person today claims the holocaust never happened we challenge the idea with facts. If people claim Jesus rose from the dead we have a right to say what is your proof? Do you see any significant differences between these two claims? Sure, among them that the claim that Jesus physically rose from the dead is among the protected ideas in our culture that is felt is beyond challenge despite it being asserted as a fact. Any other differences? This is annoying. There are many which one is important to you? The claims about both Jesus and the holocaust are based on historical evidence. One has good evidence and one has bad evidence. But they are both asserted as physical history about something that happened in this world, not the afterlife. the Bible uses accounts of people at the time as evidence for what they claim historically happened. snip But we have created a ban on bringing into discussion these claims as if they are exempt from the challenge: what is your proof? And this is hurting us as a species trying to rise above superstitious tribal beliefs about one group of humans being intrinsically superior to another in a predetermined way. And they have earned their lower status by being bad in some way that the scripture, that God wrote or approves of, describes in detail. You sound as religious here about your perspective as the most fundamentalist Christian, Curtis. That claim is bogus. I am doing the exact opposite of a person who uses scriptural authority. I am saying that every claim religious or not is up for discussion. This is not my perspective, it is the basis for Western civilization. And therefore not up for discussion, right? We are discussing it. Are there topics that should not be discussed? What's so fundamentalist-sounding about your spiel is your conviction as to the superiority of your views, as well as your propensity to slay straw men (e.g., exempt, protected, shielded). To me, it's not a matter of whether religious belief is exempt from challenge; it's a matter of whether indulging in such challenge is a distraction from focusing on the *behavior*. I really don't care whether someone believes Jesus rose from the dead as long as they behave humanely. I don't even especially care whether someone who holds this belief thinks of themselves as better than me as long as they don't allow that belief to affect their behavior toward me (or anyone else). You are taking a wack-a-mole approach. I am addressing the root of the problem. Expecting people not to have their religious convictions effect their behavior seems unlikely. For good or ill. But I think the root of the problem is failure of compassion, which hijacks religious beliefs as justification. Our application of compassion is often shaped by our religious beliefs. I remember Diane Sawyer interviewing a man who had murdered his sister who had sex to regain the honor of their family. For him it was an act of compassion for the girl and he felt nothing but pride in restoring his family's honor. Compassion is not a universal quality especially in how it is applied. Removing it from the context of protected religious
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: George Dubya Bush in a Dream
On Mar 10, 2010, at 1:00 PM, mainstream20016 wrote: Does anyone know what the symbolism of this dream means? Sausalito has a new village idiot. LOL Sal
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Turq: Does the snow in Spain....
ShempMcGurk wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu noozg...@... wrote: Nah. It's just Mother Earth trying to rid herself of an outbreak of humanus. ;-) Humanus...is that hummous made with human flesh instead of chick peas? You're such a falafel.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Swami Nithyananda Sex Scandal (Watch Video) | India
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Rick Archer r...@... wrote: http://thefastertimes.com/india/2010/03/08/sex-and-the-single-swami-why-indi as-gurus-cant-keep-it-in-their-loincloths/ I always thought he looked kind of hokey! He is apparently taking advantage of gullible people and sincere people looking for answers. It looks like his 'mistress' set him up, nice job if she did and good for her!!
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Swami Nithyananda Sex Scandal (Watch Video) | India
Didn't get to see the link, but didn't Satya Sai Baba like to suck the bad karma out of cute little boys? From: BillyG wg...@yahoo.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wed, March 10, 2010 11:52:23 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Swami Nithyananda Sex Scandal (Watch Video) | India --- In FairfieldLife@ yahoogroups. com, Rick Archer r...@... wrote: http://thefastertimes.com/india/2010/03/08/sex-and-the-single-swami-why-indi as-gurus-cant- keep-it-in- their-loincloths / I always thought he looked kind of hokey! He is apparently taking advantage of gullible people and sincere people looking for answers. It looks like his 'mistress' set him up, nice job if she did and good for her!!
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Turq: Does the snow in Spain....
TurquoiseB wrote: -- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu noozg...@... wrote: also fall in Sitges? :-D http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/09/spain-snowstorms-wreak-havoc Yup, it did. Pretty surprising. I looked up from work and big snowflakes the size of mothballs were floating down. They say it was the biggest snowfall in Barcelona in 20 years or so. Here in Sitges it didn't stick on the ground much, but it was fun while it lasted. The next day was sunny and clear skies. Go figure. We're getting weather like that in the Bay Area. One day last weekend was very spring like sunny, shorts and t-shirt weather. The next day icy cold and rainy. Not enough to snow but down into the 30s. We're starting to go into four seasons in one day weather. Some days I'm over dressed for my walk. I have three kinds of outfits to wear: 1) flanner workouts for cold winter, 2) windbreaker light ones for spring and fall and the rest of the time it's shorts and t-shirt. Last year the windbreaker outfits got used little as we seemed to go from winter to summer with nothing much in between.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Swami Nithyananda Sex Scandal (Watch Video) | India
In this day and age why would anyone follow a guru? Enlightenment? Liberation? Burn Karma? Not likely folks, wake up and smell the chai To quote the great GK Chesterton- When Man ceases to worship God he does not worship nothing but worships everything. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Rick Archer r...@... wrote: http://thefastertimes.com/india/2010/03/08/sex-and-the-single-swami-why-indi as-gurus-cant-keep-it-in-their-loincloths/
[FairfieldLife] Re: A proud day for Democrats
Why can't Obama clearly explain what the hell is trying to shove down our throats, because he can't and that's why each day the polls to support this garbage legislation keeps going down the ol' drain --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, do.rflex do.rf...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sgrayatlarge no_reply@ wrote: Perfect transparency We have to pass the bill so you can find out what's in it -House Speaker Nancy Pelosi It was a poor choice of wording, although you DID leave off the rest of the sentence. Here is the COMPLETE sentence: But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy. This isolated quote We have to pass the bill so you can find out what's in it is being broadcast all over the Obama/Pelosi/Reid hating fringe wingnut world as if to suggest that the the Democrats are hiding something nefarious in the bill. It's another lame-ass attempt by the right wingers to make a major issue out of a non-issue. It's that kind of nonsense that continues to show the wingnuts for the sorry losers that they are. Transparency? Both the Senate and House health bills that were passed have been scrutinized in detail and are publicly available along with the White House's own recent proposal. Whatever comes to be finally voted on will no doubt fall within the parameters already outlined in those documents.
[FairfieldLife] Re: A proud day for Democrats
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sgrayatlarge no_re...@... wrote: Why can't Obama clearly explain what the hell is trying to shove down our throats, because he can't You haven't been paying attention. Did you miss the recent publicly broadcast 7 hour meeting Obama had with the Republicans on Health Care Reform??? Have you missed the whole last year during which both the Senate and House bills were debated and passed??? and that's why each day the polls to support this garbage legislation keeps going down the ol' drain That's simply not true: Poll: 2/3 of Voters Say Pass Comprehensive Health Care Reform Americans spread the blame when it comes to the lack of cooperation in Washington, and, in a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, most want the two sides to keep working to pass comprehensive health-care reform... As party leaders tussle over the proposed bipartisan health care summit, nearly two-thirds of Americans say they want Congress to keep working to pass comprehensive health-care reform. Democrats overwhelmingly support continued action on this front, as do 56 percent of independents and 42 percent of Republicans. See Chart: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/behind-the-numbers/Poll1.gif More at link: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/behind-the-numbers/2010/02/americans_spread_the_blame_whe.html [snip to end]
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Swami Nithyananda Sex Scandal (Watch Video) | India
On Mar 10, 2010, at 3:37 PM, Mike Dixon wrote: Didn't get to see the link, but didn't Satya Sai Baba like to suck the bad karma out of cute little boys? Yes, but he never swallowed.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Swami Nithyananda Sex Scandal (Watch Video) | India
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sgrayatlarge no_re...@... wrote: In this day and age why would anyone follow a guru? Enlightenment? Liberation? Burn Karma? Not likely folks, wake up and smell the chai To quote the great GK Chesterton- When Man ceases to worship God he does not worship nothing but worships everything. What a fantastic quote! --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Rick Archer rick@ wrote: http://thefastertimes.com/india/2010/03/08/sex-and-the-single-swami-why-indi as-gurus-cant-keep-it-in-their-loincloths/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Swami Nithyananda Sex Scandal (Watch Video) | India
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj vajradh...@... wrote: On Mar 10, 2010, at 3:37 PM, Mike Dixon wrote: Didn't get to see the link, but didn't Satya Sai Baba like to suck the bad karma out of cute little boys? Yes, but he never swallowed. OK, *this* is the answer to Nabby's and others' oft-asked question: Why does someone who bailed on the whole Maharishi trip decades ago still hang out here? This is FUNNY. Funny in a way that only-once-around-the-block spiritual seekers just don't get. There are folks here who have been around the block more than once. And they've ventured into different blocks, different spiritual 'hoods. Doing that loosens one up a bit in my humble opinion, and makes for a higher, funnier quality of conversation. Me, I love Fairfield Life because it is such a *mix* of once-around-the-block-ers and been-there-done-that- wanna-buy-the-T-shirt-so-you-can-say-that-you've- been-there-done-that-too'ers. You get the perspective of those who have never known any other spiritual teacher than Maharishi, and have never known any other spiritual path. I learn much from these people. About their perspective, about how much of it I used to share, and about aspects of it I no longer share. This place simply would not be as interesting without Nabby, or JohnR, or even Off in his peer review rules moments. At the same time, this place would not be nearly as interesting without the perspectives of those who have moved on to other formal spiritual teachers and paths. I learn much from them. Or without the perspective of folks like Curtis, who espouses no spiritual path but whose lifestyle I view as far more spiritual than many spiritual seekers' lifestyles, including my own. If you haven't been around the spiritual block more than once, here's a free clue for you. You know how Shit happens? Fact of life. Nothing inherently bad or good about shit happening. Shit just happens. Taking a dump doth not connote a Big Scandal. Similarly, in spiritual movements Sexual scandals happen. This seems to be a phenomenon almost as common as Shit happening, but seems to get more attention. So why is that? What IS it about sex that makes so many spiritual seekers so uptight? This Nityananda guy just knocked off a piece of nookie. And not just *any* nookie. He managed to hook up with the modern counterpart of a Vedic goddess, a TV or movie star (I've never been able to tell which from the news reports). If this was George Clooney, you wouldn't bat an eyelash. But if it's Nityananda? Or Satya Sai Baba? Or Chogyam Trungpa? Or Maharishi? Or King Tony? I'd really like to have someone who bristles at the thought of one of those dudes other than George Clooney being *guy* enough to knock off a little nookie when he thought no one was looking and who finds that thought shocking, or heretical, or disrespectful in some way to explain to me why you think this. I give all of these guys the ability to be *guys*, and to get stupid every so often about the places they choose to put their dicks. Lord knows I've made some questionable choices in that regard in my life. What about enlighten- ment (if you believe that any or all of the aforementioned are/were enlightened) would make any of them less susceptible to such bouts of pheromonal folly than George Clooney?
[FairfieldLife] Re: Swami Nithyananda Sex Scandal (Watch Video) | India
Yes Curtis, how about everyone in the west to grow up, start acting like adults, stop wearing the loin cloth diapers, stupid beads, amulets that protect you from nothing,chant childish love songs to false gods, stop worshipping rocks and mountains, the ganges is a polluted stream of water that needs western recusitation and pollution controls. I have nothing against Indians practising Hinduism, but when soon to be medicared baby boomers who haven't grown up spend 40 years and think they know something, well it comes across as frankly silly. I know, I've been there and realized that I was going nowhere, it's a cycle where you end up in the same place. You think you have really grown spiritually after 40 years? If you want to meditate to reduce stress, fine, but don't try to make it more that what it is. The movement and all this raja garbage started to believe in their own bullshit and now look what happens. I'm embarassed to have the same birthday as Beven. But on the other hand, Fairfield Life does bring me great amusement, so it's a free country, do what you like, at least at this time, things may change in the future, your choices may become more limited as time goes by --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltabl...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sgrayatlarge no_reply@ wrote: In this day and age why would anyone follow a guru? Enlightenment? Liberation? Burn Karma? Not likely folks, wake up and smell the chai To quote the great GK Chesterton- When Man ceases to worship God he does not worship nothing but worships everything. What a fantastic quote! --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Rick Archer rick@ wrote: http://thefastertimes.com/india/2010/03/08/sex-and-the-single-swami-why-indi as-gurus-cant-keep-it-in-their-loincloths/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Swami Nithyananda Sex Scandal (Watch Video) | India
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltabl...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sgrayatlarge no_reply@ wrote: In this day and age why would anyone follow a guru? Enlightenment? Liberation? Burn Karma? Not likely folks, wake up and smell the chai To quote the great GK Chesterton- When Man ceases to worship God he does not worship nothing but worships everything. What a fantastic quote! G,K. Chesterton rocks! I was first turned on to him by Christians on a Bruce Cockburn mailing list (which kinda qualifies them as being a bit Not Yer Ordinary Christians). One of them used to sign his posts with a .sig file from Chesterton, which knocked my socks off the first time I read it and does still today: Seriousness is not a virtue. Chesterton is FUNNY. How many Christian philosophers can you say that about? The man had a level of *mirth* about him that made his deep faith in Christ and his teachings almost lovable.
[FairfieldLife] Maharishi: The immense value of being on a long-rounding program
Poster in the Maharishi Patanjali Golden Dome March 8-10, 2010 Speaking to a rounding course, Maharishi emphasized the immense value of being on a long rounding program. It's such a great opportunity. It's such a great opportunity to start living this knowledge. That is why I'm emphasizing every day: Be with the routine. Be with the routine. Every moment is so precious. One would not know at what moment what big block can slide away, and leave one absolutely free. One would not know. There is no way to know that this is the last stroke and it's going to finish next moment. It's not necessary to linger on. Any time it could just flash, and done with it. Finished.| Maharishi, 1971 Maharishi ended this lecture by saying: Nothing would distract us from one-pointedness of our daily routine. And then we'll see how bright we come out. Very great. Absolutely very, very precious; most fortunate. And great, in every way.attachment: Maharishi1 copy.jpg
[FairfieldLife] And the lucky country is El Salvidore
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2010 14:28:52 + Subject: Good TM News From South America From: john4bu...@gmail.com Good TM News From South America In Mexico, Sidhi instruction continues in the schools, and corporate projects are beginning. In Guatemala the project to instruct the prison population is going ahead and now the department of education has requested TM for all the schools. *The department of education of El Salvador has also requested TM for the 1.1 million students of the private and public schools, and the first schools are now beginning.* Paraguay is in the same position. Dr Julio Pereira is developing the project in his city as a model neighbourhood with two schools, Maharishi Tower of Invincibility, and groups of yogic flyers for invincibility of Argentina – this is creating wide interest amongst the other mayors of Latin America. In Ecuador, the project for national invincibility is being expanded with 500 students, and invincibility programmes are starting this week in Nicaragua, Guyana and Colombia. Brazil is planning the implementation of TM in the schools of Rio, and Venezuela is finishing the last preparations to construct the Maharishi Tower of Invincibility. -- Handle every stressful situation like a dog. If can't eat or hump it, piss on it and walk away.
[FairfieldLife] Post Count
Fairfield Life Post Counter === Start Date (UTC): Sat Mar 06 00:00:00 2010 End Date (UTC): Sat Mar 13 00:00:00 2010 466 messages as of (UTC) Wed Mar 10 22:49:57 2010 47 nablusoss1008 no_re...@yahoogroups.com 45 ShempMcGurk shempmcg...@netscape.net 40 authfriend jst...@panix.com 38 WillyTex willy...@yahoo.com 34 TurquoiseB no_re...@yahoogroups.com 28 off_world_beings no_re...@yahoogroups.com 26 Vaj vajradh...@earthlink.net 24 lurkernomore20002000 steve.sun...@sbcglobal.net 23 curtisdeltablues curtisdeltabl...@yahoo.com 20 Bhairitu noozg...@sbcglobal.net 18 tartbrain no_re...@yahoogroups.com 18 Buck dhamiltony...@yahoo.com 16 do.rflex do.rf...@yahoo.com 9 merudanda no_re...@yahoogroups.com 8 Mike Dixon mdixon.6...@yahoo.com 7 Rick Archer r...@searchsummit.com 7 It's just a ride bill.hicks.all.a.r...@gmail.com 7 AnkhAton ankha...@yahoo.com 6 metoostill metoost...@yahoo.com 6 cardemaister no_re...@yahoogroups.com 6 Alex Stanley j_alexander_stan...@yahoo.com 4 sgrayatlarge no_re...@yahoogroups.com 4 scienceofabundance no_re...@yahoogroups.com 4 Sal Sunshine salsunsh...@lisco.com 4 John jr_...@yahoo.com 3 Joe geezerfr...@yahoo.com 2 uns_tressor uns_tres...@yahoo.ca 2 Dick Mays dickm...@lisco.com 1 shukra69 shukr...@yahoo.ca 1 merlin vedamer...@yahoo.de 1 mainstream20016 mainstream20...@yahoo.com 1 fillosofree fillosof...@yahoo.com 1 azgrey no_re...@yahoogroups.com 1 Zoran Krneta krneta.zo...@gmail.com 1 Pamela Paradowski laks...@pipeline.com 1 PaliGap compost...@yahoo.co.uk 1 Duveyoung no_re...@yahoogroups.com 1 BillyG wg...@yahoo.com Posters: 38 Saturday Morning 00:00 UTC Rollover Times = Daylight Saving Time (Summer): US Friday evening: PDT 5 PM - MDT 6 PM - CDT 7 PM - EDT 8 PM Europe Saturday: BST 1 AM CEST 2 AM EEST 3 AM Standard Time (Winter): US Friday evening: PST 4 PM - MST 5 PM - CST 6 PM - EST 7 PM Europe Saturday: GMT 12 AM CET 1 AM EET 2 AM For more information on Time Zones: www.worldtimezone.com
[FairfieldLife] The myth of 'green' jobs.....
http://www.youtube.com/user/thedailybeck?blend=3ob=4#p/u/12/H6IY0UK9O2k
[FairfieldLife] Re: Swami Nithyananda Sex Scandal (Watch Video) | India
He rocks because he's wise, something that's very refreshing around here. Maybe he represents an adult level of Christianity that is rarely seen or reported, only Sunday school jibberish that seems to resonant with the the cultural creatives who couldn't be bothered by all matters serious or again dare I say Adult. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_re...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sgrayatlarge no_reply@ wrote: In this day and age why would anyone follow a guru? Enlightenment? Liberation? Burn Karma? Not likely folks, wake up and smell the chai To quote the great GK Chesterton- When Man ceases to worship God he does not worship nothing but worships everything. What a fantastic quote! G,K. Chesterton rocks! I was first turned on to him by Christians on a Bruce Cockburn mailing list (which kinda qualifies them as being a bit Not Yer Ordinary Christians). One of them used to sign his posts with a .sig file from Chesterton, which knocked my socks off the first time I read it and does still today: Seriousness is not a virtue. Chesterton is FUNNY. How many Christian philosophers can you say that about? The man had a level of *mirth* about him that made his deep faith in Christ and his teachings almost lovable.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Pitta and samaadhi?
But, just because your guru had a mistress doesn't prove that ... I would tend to choose the guru with the mistress. He/She became fully Liberated while bonking their brains out -- and their liberation is stable even amongst the bright sun of all out sex. Thus their methods are powerful. On the other hand, the teacher that are celibate, and.or request or expect that of their students, clearly have weaker methods since you have to give up life to get liberated. 100% of life. Wimpy methods for those who shun, or get shunned, from celestialistic union. I would tend towards the real 200% gurus, not the wimpy ones.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Obama Defies Pessimists as Rising Economy Converges With Stocks
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, do.rflex do.rf...@... wrote: Obama Defies Pessimists as Rising Economy Converges With Stocks By Mike Dorning [220] March 10 (Bloomberg) -- The political consensus may be that President Barack Obama http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=Barack+Obamasite=wnewsclient=wne\ wsproxystylesheet=wnewsoutput=xml_no_dtdie=UTF-8oe=UTF-8filter=pge\ tfields=wnnissort=date:D:S:d1 's handling of the economy has been weak. The judgment of money in all its forms has been overwhelmingly positive, and that may be the more lasting appraisal. While it lasts. Until the new asset bubbles burst -- stemming from the sudden huge burst of free money banks and the savvy can borrow at near 0 interest and buy into the next bubble before it tanks. Already it looks like China is in a housing bubble. And if that collapses, the 2008 US housing collapse, and shakeout in financial markets, will look like springtime in Paris. And when people sober up to the massive debt the bailout and stimulus have created. Wall street has blinders on. They did not see or get the housing bubble, or the internet bubble. Until they crashed. And the party will really get going when California, Florida, along with Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain etc and choice other nations and states default on their debt. US could loose its draw as a save haven, with 2-4 trillions of dollars being dumped, sinking bond prices and causing interest rates to soar (like above 20%). This will tank both Wall St and the economy. And make the obese US debt difficult if impossible to continue to finance -- and vastly expanding the deficits and national debt beyond comprehensive -- raising the possibility of US default on its debt. With no more borrowing, Govt services will tank. Unemployment will hit above 30%, and the underemployment rate will break 50%. There will be riots in the streets. But pot growers will thrive, selling openly and unhindered as police and NARC dollars are decimated. They will buy up cheap choice real estate and becomes the landed gentry of the next several decades. The Crash of 2012. If only Paul Erdman was around to work through and elaborate in the details -- with ample does of amongst babes, booze and bongs, weaving in and out of the story. But after that bubble burst heals, things will be very cool.
[FairfieldLife] This is what I've been saying all along
For those who think that we don't already have socialized medicine in the United States, think again. We already have humungous spending by government in the healthcare field...and this article confirms it. Half of every healthcare dollar spent in the United States is by the government. From: http://www.slate.com/id/2247393/ http://www.slate.com/id/2247393/ What Government Takeover?The bogus Republican claim that Obamacare is a government takeover of one-sixth of the economy. By Daniel GrossPosted Tuesday, March 9, 2010, at 5:37 PM ET There have been lots of absurdities in the debatesuch as it isabout health care reform. There's the hypocrisy http://www.slate.com/id/2225664/ of people dependent on government-run health care complaining about government-run health care. And now comes the Republican canard that the current health care reform proposal constitutes a government takeover of one-sixth of the economy. Here are Rep. Steve Buyer http://stevebuyer.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=154029 of Indiana, Rep. John Fleming http://www.votesmart.org/speech_detail.php?sc_id=508040keyword=phrase\ =contain= of Louisiana, and Sen. Jim DeMint http://demint.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=JimsJournal.Detail\ Blog_ID=06302d5c-a7ea-fd3c-e0d7-1ca1dfaa9d9b of South Carolina making precisely that argument. First, the proposed health care reform does not take over the system in any sense. Much to the chagrin of progressives, the bills under consideration don't contain a public option and don't provide for a single payer. In fact, they provide subsidies for millions of people to purchase private insurance. Second, such statements reveal how pathetically little many of our policymakers and pundits understand American health care spending. We're already halfway toward socialized medicine, but not because of Obamacare. (Here's a column I wrote about this in December 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/03/business/yourmoney/03view.html .) Over the last couple of decades, as the private sector has done a miserable job controlling costs, as employers have felt less and less compelled to offer health care benefits as a condition of employment, as the population has aged, and as the government created new health care entitlements, the government has been slowly assuming a higher portion of health care spending in the United Statesor taking it over. Check out Table 123 in the CDC's big annual report http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/hus09.pdf . In 1990, health care expenditures in the United States were split, 60-40, between the private and public sectors. By 2000, the ratio had fallen to 55.9-44.1. In other words, in the 1990s, a period in which Republicans controlled the House for six years, the share of health spending controlled by the government rose by 10 percent. The trend continued in the period from 2000 to 2008, when Republicans controlled the White House and largely controlled Congress. The recession boosted the poverty rate, making more people eligible for Medicaid, and led to the reduction of millions of payroll jobs, which led to losses in job-related insurance.* #Correction By 2008, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services http://www.cms.hhs.gov/NationalHealthExpendData/downloads/tables.pdf , private health care expenditures had fallen to 52.7 percent and public had risen to 47.3 percent. In pretty much every year of the Bush administration, the government took over a greater chunk of the health care sector. And many of the Republicans who are complaining about reform proposals today didn't utter a peep. In fact, they helped the process along by voting for the Medicare prescription drug benefit in 2003. (Hat tip to Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic for the references http://www.tnr.com/blogs/the-treatment .) CMS also notes http://www.cms.hhs.gov/NationalHealthExpendData/downloads/proj2009.pdf that thanks to these trends, public spending will soon outpace private spendingeven in the absence of significant reform. As a result of more rapid growth in public spending, the public share of total health care spending is expected to rise from 47 percent in 2008, exceed 50 percent by 2012, and then reach nearly 52 percent by 2019. So, to reiterate, we're already half way toward fully socialized medicine. The government has already taken over one-twelfth of the economyand more every day. That's the status quo the opponents of reform are defending. Correction, March 10, 2010: The original sentence mistakenly referred to Medicare instead of Medicaid. (Return #Return to the corrected sentence.)
[FairfieldLife] Re: Swami Nithyananda Sex Scandal (Watch Video) | India
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltabl...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sgrayatlarge no_reply@ wrote: In this day and age why would anyone follow a guru? Enlightenment? Liberation? Burn Karma? Not likely folks, wake up and smell the chai To quote the great GK Chesterton- When Man ceases to worship God he does not worship nothing but worships everything. What a fantastic quote! You do realize the quote is not recommending that one stop worshiping God, but rather the opposite, right? (Also, it's not actually from Chesterton, but that's another story.)
[FairfieldLife] Re: George Dubya Bush in a Dream
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, John jr_...@... wrote: In my dream, I submitted a short paper to Bush about my analysis of a small town called Sausalito in California. He read it and appeared to approve the contents of the report. But he soon rewrote the paper to include his own thoughts using words that came from prior reports, using typical government phrases and presentation. In the end, the report became a thick analysis of what was supposed to be an informal paper. I then found out that he actually had bought a piece of land several miles north of the town. He was farming the land for his own interest. This is an interesting dream in that I'm not a registered Republican nor have I voted for him when he was running for president. Does anyone know what the symbolism of this dream means? Going with the often-cited principle that any character in a dream (other than a member of your immediate family or a very close friend) represents an aspect of yourself, is there anything about yourself that you can see in the Bush character in your dream? (Not necessarily Bush as he was as president, but as he was in your dream.) Is there any relatively minor event or situation or scenario or project in your life that you've inflated or padded or made more of than was really warranted (to others, or just in your own mind), in a way that furthered your self-interest or self-regard? Try to abstract what went on in the dream; state the events of the dream as nonspecifically as possible (as I've taken a stab at above). Then see if they fit anything going on in your life. Also, are there any associations you can come up with to Sausalito--either the actual town, or its name as a sequence of sounds? The word sauce comes to my mind, but I don't know if that would have any resonance for you. Were there any prominent objects in the dream, or prominent features of the setting? Often the mind uses the words for such objects or features as puns to give you clues as to what the dream is about.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Swami Nithyananda Sex Scandal (Watch Video) | India
When Man ceases to worship God he does not worship nothing but worships everything. What a fantastic quote! FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jst...@... wrote: You do realize the quote is not recommending that one stop worshiping God, but rather the opposite, right?--- In I didn't have any context for the intention of the author but found it fit my experience of dropping theism pretty well. I guess I had it all wrong. Doing a bit of research and finding this version: The first effect of not believing in God is to believe in anything. I disagree with this statement and will have to do a bit more digging to see what was meant. I don't see how seeing God as a man made myth makes you more gullible, it made me less. What I found appealing in my mistaken impression of the first quote was that appreciating the world more was one of the results of me dropping out of theism. Life itself became holy in a naturalistic sense of the word. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sgrayatlarge no_reply@ wrote: In this day and age why would anyone follow a guru? Enlightenment? Liberation? Burn Karma? Not likely folks, wake up and smell the chai To quote the great GK Chesterton- When Man ceases to worship God he does not worship nothing but worships everything. What a fantastic quote! You do realize the quote is not recommending that one stop worshiping God, but rather the opposite, right? (Also, it's not actually from Chesterton, but that's another story.)
[FairfieldLife] Re: Swami Nithyananda Sex Scandal (Watch Video) | India
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sgrayatlarge no_re...@... wrote: He rocks because he's wise, something that's very refreshing around here. Maybe he represents an adult level of Christianity that is rarely seen or reported, only Sunday school jibberish that seems to resonant with the the cultural creatives who couldn't be bothered by all matters serious or again dare I say Adult. I don't think most nonreligious people have a clue how profound Christianity can be. I gave it a try for several years at one point, and while it didn't really work for me, I ended up with a tremendous respect for it, at least the liberal social-justice version I was exposed to. And it wasn't just the works part; that was pretty impressive, but the *theology* was vastly more thoughtful and demanding than I had realized. Although Chesterton isn't actually responsible for the quote you posted, he made another weighty observation: Christianity hasn't been tried and found wanting, it's been tried and found difficult.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Swami Nithyananda Sex Scandal (Watch Video) | India
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltabl...@... wrote: When Man ceases to worship God he does not worship nothing but worships everything. What a fantastic quote! FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: You do realize the quote is not recommending that one stop worshiping God, but rather the opposite, right?--- In I didn't have any context for the intention of the author but found it fit my experience of dropping theism pretty well. I guess I had it all wrong. Doing a bit of research and finding this version: The first effect of not believing in God is to believe in anything. Although the sentiment is Chesterton's, the various versions of the quotation seem to have been derived from someone else's paraphrase of the sentiment, which Chesterton had expressed quite differently. I disagree with this statement and will have to do a bit more digging to see what was meant. I don't see how seeing God as a man made myth makes you more gullible, it made me less. What I found appealing in my mistaken impression of the first quote was that appreciating the world more was one of the results of me dropping out of theism. Life itself became holy in a naturalistic sense of the word. In the Christian sense, the first version would refer to idolatry, worship of the material world (including science). The second version, the one you found, is probably closer to what Chesterton had in mind that the quote was paraphrasing, exemplified in New Age-type beliefs (including, for some who had already dropped out of theism, TM). --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sgrayatlarge no_reply@ wrote: In this day and age why would anyone follow a guru? Enlightenment? Liberation? Burn Karma? Not likely folks, wake up and smell the chai To quote the great GK Chesterton- When Man ceases to worship God he does not worship nothing but worships everything. What a fantastic quote! You do realize the quote is not recommending that one stop worshiping God, but rather the opposite, right? (Also, it's not actually from Chesterton, but that's another story.)
[FairfieldLife] Re: George Dubya Bush in a Dream
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_re...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, John jr_esq@ wrote: In my dream, I submitted a short paper to Bush about my analysis of a small town called Sausalito in California. He read it and appeared to approve the contents of the report. But he soon rewrote the paper to include his own thoughts using words that came from prior reports, using typical government phrases and presentation. In the end, the report became a thick analysis of what was supposed to be an informal paper. I then found out that he actually had bought a piece of land several miles north of the town. He was farming the land for his own interest. This is an interesting dream in that I'm not a registered Republican nor have I voted for him when he was running for president. Does anyone know what the symbolism of this dream means? You clearly have unresolved sexual issues with George W. Bush. The paper being rewritten by Bush echoes similar issues expressed often by THE CORRECTOR on this forum, who seems to believe as you do that anyone having a different opinion of one of your opuses than you do is a not only attacking you, but also making a veiled comment on the diminutive stature of your penis. (This fear, as far as I can tell, is shared equally by you and THE CORRECTOR.) Bush wishing to turn your deep, spiritual insights into cold, hard profit reveals your latent fear and distrust of Maharishi. Long suppressed, this fear cannot come out overtly because of decades of cult conditioning, and must be expressed covertly by picking some other public figure who lacked any sense of ethics and would do anything for a buck. Buying up land near to the town you like is just as clearly a veiled desire to have either Maharishi or Bush cozy up next to you and fondle your buttocks. Just sayin'. Hey...you asked. :-) Barry, as usual, you continue to follow your modus operendi. It appears that your analysis reflect your own state of consciousness. Let's leave it at that for the time being.
