[FairfieldLife] Re: There is no such thing as Enlightenment
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, emptybill emptybill@... wrote:
Willy lives in the past and in the opinions of old, tired academics.
Georg Feuerstein points out that the oldest strata of the Upanishads
(Brihadaranyaka and Chandogya)
My wild guess is that the chandoga-s were most closely related
to the Siberian shamanic tradition, and perhaps also for instance
to the Finnish Kalevala. ;D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8UfdehDqm4
ROFLMAO!
Well, 'chando-ga' (chandaH + ga) means 'chandas-singing', i.e. saama-veda
chaps. ('ga' or 'gai' is the root for example of 'giitaa'). The form
'chaandogya' is, we believe, so called vRddhi-derivative from 'chandoga'. (So,
vRddhi here is 'a' 'aa', or, in H-K: 'A).
chandogam. (%{gai}) ` singer in metre ' , chanter'of the SV.
chAndogya n. ` doctrine of the Chando-gas ' , a Bra1hman2a of the SV.
(including the ChUp.) , Ka1tyS3r ' xxii Pa1n2. 4-3 , 129 Veda7ntas
[FairfieldLife] Re: There is no such thing as Enlightenment
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Jason jedi_spock@... wrote: --- emptybill emptybill@ wrote: Willy, Very inaccurate statements. Buddhism is not the source of Advaita. Vij�anavada is a Buddhist philosophical school while Yogacara is the theoretical compendium of its practices. Shankara saved some of his most pointed criticisms for the Buddhists of his day, particularly the Vijnanavada. There are parallels between some of Gaudapada's statements and the views of Vijnanavada because they both draw from the same milieu of philosophic discourse. As pointed out by K. A. Krishnaswamy Aiyer, Buddhism and Advaita are fundamentally opposed in five key points: 1. Both say that the world is unreal, but Buddhists mean that it is only a conceptual construct (vikalpa), while Shankara does not think that the world is merely conceptual. Shankara means it in a more literal sense. Gaudapada goes to the very extreme in his karika (commentary) on Mandukya upanishad. Willytex thinks Upanishads came after Shakyamuni which is doubtful. One reason it's called vedanta is because anta means rear end and the upanishads are in the end portion of the vedas. I wonder how Willytex reached such a conclusion. As I understand it, different upanishads were composed at different times., Some well-recognized upanishads are dated from within the last 1000 years, while others may predate Gautama Buddha by nearly as long. Many scholars believe that the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali is a post-Buddhist text, not only time-wise, but the terms seem to be inspired by Buddhist concepts. Likewise with the Mandukya Upanishad. L,
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, salyavin808 fintlewoodlewix@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: Siddhi means perfection. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/siddhi?s=t LOL. You're going by an online English dictionary's definition of a technical Sanskrit term? Technical term interpreted for you by who? The guy who told you you could fly? Besides that isn't really the only definition I could find just the one most suited to an emial discussion. I could photograph someothers or scan them and post if you like? http://dictionary.babylon.com/siddhi/ several different definitions. The TM research that everyone likes to malign shows very clearly that TM is twice as effective as other forms of meditation and relaxation at addressing anxiety. While many people like to point at the meta-analyses that say that TM research sucks, they miss the important point that according to those same meta-analyses, ALL meditation research, without fail, sucks. Probably because it's an old type of coping mechanism, pleasant to do but not worth the effort compared to other techniques of self development if you have a particular complaint to address. Or not. THe studies the US military are conducting will provide some pretty interesting data points. THis includes the most recent studies on mindfulness published in the past few days, weeks, months, etc, because those analyses claim that unless you use a true double-blind study performed by only by researchers who have no attachment to the techniques being tested, the study is pretty much worthless. I'm not tub thumping for anything other than common sense. Common sense is neither, as the saying goes, and common sense doesn't predict highly unusual events, by definition. If, on the other hand, you reject that extreme position, TM comes out far ahead. L
[FairfieldLife] Re: There is no such thing as Enlightenment
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, cardemaister no_reply@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, emptybill emptybill@ wrote: Willy lives in the past and in the opinions of old, tired academics. Georg Feuerstein points out that the oldest strata of the Upanishads (Brihadaranyaka and Chandogya) My wild guess is that the chandoga-s were most closely related to the Siberian shamanic tradition, and perhaps also for instance to the Finnish Kalevala. ;D http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8UfdehDqm4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DX11bBpuKlU
[FairfieldLife] Re: 'TM MagaZine'...
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Robert babajii_99@... wrote: http://issue7.tmmagazine.org/ THis video was linked to in that website: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embeddedv=8u4krJw-HjM L
[FairfieldLife] Re: There is no such thing as Enlightenment
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, cardemaister no_reply@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, cardemaister no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, emptybill emptybill@ wrote: Willy lives in the past and in the opinions of old, tired academics. Georg Feuerstein points out that the oldest strata of the Upanishads (Brihadaranyaka and Chandogya) My wild guess is that the chandoga-s were most closely related to the Siberian shamanic tradition, and perhaps also for instance to the Finnish Kalevala. ;D http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8UfdehDqm4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DX11bBpuKlU Well, gAyatrI-mantra (tat savitur vareNyam...) in Siberian shamanic style: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tS6NEE5Ob4E
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: [...] snip By the time I actually learned Yogic Flying in the Summer of 1985 (84?) I can't recall for sure, but I think you and I figured out at some point that we took the same CIC course and were on the same flying block. I'm pretty sure that was '86, and I think it was CIC #16. I'm pretty sure I noted my 11th anniversary of TM on the course, which would put it in 1984. I got out of the USAF 1.5 years earlier but they wouldn't accept me the first time I applied and I had to reapply the next year. My son was born in August 1986 so it had to be before then... Of course, I may be wrong on his birthday (blush). L L
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, salyavin808 fintlewoodlewix@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: Siddhi means perfection. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/siddhi?s=t LOL. You're going by an online English dictionary's definition of a technical Sanskrit term? Technical term interpreted for you by who? The guy who told you you could fly? Besides that isn't really the only definition I could find just the one most suited to an emial discussion. I could photograph someothers or scan them and post if you like? http://dictionary.babylon.com/siddhi/ several different definitions. Whatever, I remember the lectures and can't help noticing it all came to nought. The TM research that everyone likes to malign shows very clearly that TM is twice as effective as other forms of meditation and relaxation at addressing anxiety. While many people like to point at the meta-analyses that say that TM research sucks, they miss the important point that according to those same meta-analyses, ALL meditation research, without fail, sucks. Probably because it's an old type of coping mechanism, pleasant to do but not worth the effort compared to other techniques of self development if you have a particular complaint to address. Or not. THe studies the US military are conducting will provide some pretty interesting data points. Or not. Still wont change my experience from actually knowing many people who have done it for many years and aren't exactly the best adverts. THis includes the most recent studies on mindfulness published in the past few days, weeks, months, etc, because those analyses claim that unless you use a true double-blind study performed by only by researchers who have no attachment to the techniques being tested, the study is pretty much worthless. I'm not tub thumping for anything other than common sense. Common sense is neither, as the saying goes, and common sense doesn't predict highly unusual events, by definition. Highly unusual things like flying unaided or seeing through walls?
[FairfieldLife] Re: Lies my Guru Told Me
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, guusschilder gschilder@... wrote: Jason is citing Michael D. Coleman: .. simply put, these techniques have been taught for over 25 years and no one has ever flown and no one ever will .. It looks relevant here to tell that I really fully levitated, at least once, since practicing the yogic flying. And here, in Holland, I know of at least two other people who can say te same. I know a couple of people who claim to be Jesus Christ. Perhaps you all should get together. :-) To me it happened on the day after I had attended (for the first time) a performance of Tina Turner, in the start of her solo-career, in 1983. There you have it. Your levitation has nothing to do with the TM-Sidhis but is the result of being in the aura of a powerful Buddhist. :-)
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, seventhray1 steve.sundur@... wrote: Just kind of curious Barry. Science as far as I know does not examine the notion of breath, or prana, and the different types of pranas. And yet eastern literature discusses prana and the different types of prana quite a bit, and often authoritatively. Because science, or at least western science has not considered this, would you consider what has been said about prana to be hooey? Absolutely. From a Can it be verified by objective measurement point of view. I would also suggest that anything authoritative said about prana or any other subject by people living in essentially the dark ages and filtering *everything* they experienced and thought through the myths and superstitions of those times...uh...isn't. :-) For me, I am not ready to let science yet be the final arbiter of reality. Nor am I. I think both science and Woo Woo are what they are -- belief systems. I think both tend to impose their beliefs on the world around them far more than they use them to interpret or explain the world around them. If I had to guess at what percentage of its supposed authoritative knowledge Woo Woo got right, I'd guess 10%. Science, maybe 20%. Certainly I have great faith in science. But I'm also not afraid of trusting my own experiences, even if they run counter to the science of the day. I agree. I stop short of what *both* what Woo Woo-ers and scientists tend to say, which is, The way we see things is the truth. Anyone who says this is, in my opinion, either a lousy Woo Woo-er or a lousy scientist, or both. I don't think anyone in the history of human beings has ever known the truth about anything, and suspect that they never will. Being an admirable human being -- whether as a Woo Woo-er or a scientist -- is having the humility to admit this. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Share Long sharelong60@ wrote: I've continued my TM Sidhi practice and added healing modalities such as EFT tapping. I actually think TM helps me make wiser decisions concerning such. No personal offense meant, but this is just priceless. Can you imagine trying to explain to 99% percent of the people on this planet what *either* the TM Sidhis *or* EFT Tapping are, and while doing so using the phrase wiser decisions and keeping a straight face? :-) Don't get me wrong. Both have their cadre of believers. Both -- for all I know -- have benefit. But most people on the planet are going to bag them as New Age Hooey and, from the standpoint of real science, both are. But there's no accounting for belief, just as there is no accounting for taste. It's as individual as there are individuals, and that's the way it should be. I say, Carry on with whatever delusions make you happy. I say this to the scientists, too. :-)
[FairfieldLife] Re: India drowning in its own excreta, oh shit
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Jason jedi_spock@... wrote: The actual figures are even higher, Bhairitu. They say close to 700 million people in india have no toilets. Another major problem with many indians is that they don't hesitate to defecate even near roadsides or highways and even footpaths. An uncle of mine who worked in Africa for many years say that many African tribal villages inspite of having no toilets are actualy quite clean and tidy. They have better hygiene sense that most indians! That was true in Morocco when I was growing up there in the early 60s as well. It was considered bad form to leave a big, steaming pile of one's inner self in public view, when non-public areas were just a few steps away. The tidiest, as I remember, were the Berbers, possibly as a result of being desert dwellers and having a reverence for the space around them. They, even though nomadic by nature, dug latrines and carefully covered them up before moving to the next place. They were in a sense the first Sierra Club-ers I met, Leaving nothing behind but foot- prints, taking nothing but memories. Just as a reminder, the take a dump wherever you might be mindset was probably prevalent during the much-vaunted, golden Vedic Age as well. And I'm supposed to believe that these peoples' ideas about health, social interaction, spiritual reality and the nature of consciousness constitute knowledge, or the gold standard? Get real. India today is not a degraded form of Vedic India. It's the same place, and still IMO suffering under the yoke of the same mindset.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
Robin you say that you had to transfer your allegience to another reality. There is only one reality. Has it occured to you that both east and west could be wrong or both partially right.? Do you realise that by completely rejecting the east, you have in effect 'thrown the baby along with the bathwater'. The five paras that you have written below conclusively, authoritatively and empricaly prove that you were never in Unity, Robin. Scientists say that any technology that is once unleashed into the enviornment can never be rolled back. Same is the case of enlightenment or awakening. There is no such thing as de-enlightenment Robin. It's a one way trip. Face it Robin, you were *never* enlightened in the first place. Either the East was right, or Gerard Manley Hopkins was right. But the critical moment occurred when I realized: Well, either Christ is right or Maharishi is right. But truth is truth, and reality is reality. I came to the conclusion that Christ was right, that Aquinas was right, that Saint Theresa of Avila was right, and that Maharishi was deceived. I had to transfer my allegiance to another reality. That was easy while I was a Catholic, but in the fall of 1987 while in Lourdes, France, I became convinced that the Roman Catholic Church was without the power to save souls; that the Holy Ghost had abandoned it, that the Virgin Mary was not there but the suffering of deconstructing my enlightenment with help that was agony, confusion, terror beyond anything I could imagine. But it (getting de-enlightened) seems more or less to have come to an end. --- Robin Carlsen maskedzebra@... wrote: The apotheosis of all this occurred when I went into Unity Consciousness September 19, 1976 at 1:23 PM in Arosa, Switzerland on my Six Months Course. In this moment Mother was not only at Home in the sense of being present in one's life and watching over and protecting and nourishing one; Mother now took up personal residence *inside my own consciousness*. Reality instead of bringing about transcending and supporting my life now embodied itself in my consciousness, and in in this act of making me enlightened *reality took command and authority over not just my life but my very actions as a human being*. So in effect *I* became the embodiment of this reality in my own person. And I could feel the effect of my Unity Consciousness upon other personsbut only in any perceptible way if they were doing TM; if they were initiators the impact was even more pronounced. So eventually, once I formally converted to Catholicism, there was bound to be a crisis. Theologically, metaphysically, psychologically. And boy! was there ever. But I think Catholicism, even though I eventually came see that it had lost its supernatural vitality and efficacy, nevertheless, intellectually, philosophically, and psychologically confronted me with some irreconcilable truths. Either the East was right, or Gerard Manley Hopkins was right. *The Science of Being and The Art of Living* could not be more different in its conception of reality, of the self, of the universe, of God from Aquinas's *The Summa Theologica*. The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola does not read like anything one experienced on Teacher Training with Maharishi. But the critical moment occurred when I realized: Well, either Christ is right or Maharishi is right. And if Christ is right my enlightenment is an hallucination, a mystical illusionand Maharishi, he is as deceived as I amno matter what influence and power and integrity he seems to possess. And I have never seen anyone one thousandth as beautiful and impressive and seraphic as Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. But truth is truth, and reality is reality. I came to the conclusion that Christ was right, that Aquinas was right, that Saint Theresa of Avila was right, and that Maharishi was deceived. What about, then, The Support of Nature and Mother is at Home once I renounced my enlightenment and all things TM? Well, interestingly enough I had to disavow , abjure 'nature' and therefore 'Mother'. I had to transfer my allegiance to another reality. That was easy while I was a Catholic, but in the fall of 1987 while in Lourdes, France, I became convinced that the Roman Catholic Church was without the power to save souls; that the Holy Ghost had abandoned it, that the Virgin Mary was not there (except in some mystically deceitful way). In a sense, I felt I was now on my own. In any event, I very much do sense, feel, perceive this reality; but it does not contain God, or some Truth, or salvation, or perfection. No, it does not. So there can be nothing there which can take one to heaven, make one into a beautiful human being. But what it did for me was to disassemble my enlightenment, and allow me to find myself again, to return to waking state consciousness,
[FairfieldLife] Re: India drowning in its own excreta, oh shit
--- Jason jedi_spock@ wrote: The actual figures are even higher, Bhairitu. They say close to 700 million people in india have no toilets. Another major problem with many indians is that they don't hesitate to defecate even near roadsides or highways and even footpaths. An uncle of mine who worked in Africa for many years say that many African tribal villages inspite of having no toilets are actualy quite clean and tidy. They have better hygiene sense that most indians! --- turquoiseb no_reply@... wrote: That was true in Morocco when I was growing up there in the early 60s as well. It was considered bad form to leave a big, steaming pile of one's inner self in public view, when non-public areas were just a few steps away. The tidiest, as I remember, were the Berbers, possibly as a result of being desert dwellers and having a reverence for the space around them. They, even though nomadic by nature, dug latrines and carefully covered them up before moving to the next place. They were in a sense the first Sierra Club-ers I met, Leaving nothing behind but foot- prints, taking nothing but memories. Just as a reminder, the take a dump wherever you might be mindset was probably prevalent during the much-vaunted, golden Vedic Age as well. And I'm supposed to believe that these peoples' ideas about health, social interaction, spiritual reality and the nature of consciousness constitute knowledge, or the gold standard? Get real. India today is not a degraded form of Vedic India. It's the same place, and still IMO suffering under the yoke of the same mindset. Barry, did you know that the only city in ancient times that had running water delivered to your doorstep was ancient Rome with it's Aquaducts. After the collapse of Rome, no city in the world had running water till the 19th century when plumbing was developed. Thanks to the industrial revolution. Nehru, India's first prime minister once remarked that the flush toilet is one the greatest inventions of the modern age.!
[FairfieldLife] The Unconscious exists study says
Freud's Theory of Unconscious Conflict Linked to Anxiety Symptoms ScienceDaily (June 16, 2012) A link between unconscious conflicts and conscious anxiety disorder symptoms have been shown, lending empirical support to psychoanalysis. An experiment that Sigmund Freud could never have imagined 100 years ago may help lend scientific support for one of his key theories, and help connect it with current neuroscience. June 16 at the 101st Annual Meeting of the American Psychoanalytic Association, a University of Michigan professor who has spent decades applying scientific methods to the study of psychoanalysis will present new data supporting a causal link between the psychoanalytic concept known as unconscious conflict, and the conscious symptoms experienced by people with anxiety disorders such as phobias. Howard Shevrin, Ph.D., emeritus professor of psychology in the U-M Medical School's Department of Psychiatry, will present data from experiments performed in U-M's Ormond and Hazel Hunt Laboratory. The research involved 11 people with anxiety disorders who each received a series of psychoanalytically oriented diagnostic sessions conducted by a psychoanalyst. From these interviews the psychoanalysts inferred what underlying unconscious conflict might be causing the person's anxiety disorder. Words capturing the nature of the unconscious conflict were then selected from the interviews and used as stimuli in the laboratory. They also selected words related to each patient's experience of anxiety disorder symptoms. Although these words differed from patient to patient, results showed that they functioned in the same way. These verbal stimuli were presented subliminally at one thousandth of a second, and supraliminally at 30 milliseconds. A control category of stimuli was added that had no relationship to the unconscious conflict or anxiety symptom. While the stimuli were presented to the patients, scalp electrodes record the brain responses to them. In a previous experiment Shevrin had demonstrated that time-frequency features, a type of brain activity, showed that patients grouped the unconscious conflict stimuli together only when they were presented subliminally. But the conscious symptom-related stimuli showed the reverse pattern -- brain activity was better grouped together when patients viewed those words supraliminally. Only when the unconscious conflict words were presented unconsciously could the brain see them as connected, Shevrin notes. What the analysts put together from the interview session made sense to the brain only unconsciously. However, the experimental design in this first experiment did not allow for directly comparing the effect of the unconscious conflict stimuli on the conscious symptom stimuli. To obtain evidence for that next level, the unconscious conflict stimuli were presented immediately prior to the conscious symptom stimuli and a new measurement was made, of the brain's own alpha wave frequency, at 8-13 cycles per second, that had been shown to inhibit various cognitive functions. Highly significant correlations, suggesting an inhibitory effect, were obtained when the amount of alpha generated by the unconscious conflict stimuli were correlated with the amount of alpha associated with the conscious symptom alpha -- but only when the unconscious conflict stimuli were presented subliminally. No results were obtained when control stimuli replaced the symptom words. The fact that these findings are a function of inhibition suggests that from a psychoanalytic standpoint that repression might be involved. These results create a compelling case that unconscious conflicts cause or contribute to the anxiety symptoms the patient is experiencing, says Shevrin, who also holds an emeritus position in the Department of Psychology in U-M's College of Literature, Science and the Arts. These findings and the interdisciplinary methods used -- which draw on psychoanalysis, cognitive psychology, and neuroscience -- demonstrate that it is possible to develop an interdisciplinary science drawing upon psychoanalytic theory. He notes that a prominent critic of psychoanalysis and Freudian theory, Adolf Grunbaum, Ph.D., professor of the philosophy of science at the University of Pittsburgh, has expressed satisfaction that the new results, when added to previous evidence, show that fundamental psychoanalytic concepts can indeed be tested in empirical ways. For more than 40 years, Shevrin has led a team that has pushed at the boundaries between the disciplines of neuroscience, cognitive psychology, and psychoanalysis, looking for evidence that Freudian concepts such as the unconscious and repression could be documented through physical measures of brain activity. His work has explored the territory where neurobiology, thoughts, emotions and behavior meet. In 1968 he published the first report of brain responses to unconscious visual stimuli in
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, salyavin808 fintlewoodlewix@ wrote: Whatever, I remember the lectures and can't help noticing it all came to nought. Except the part about creating a situation where some of the physiological correlates of pure consciousness appear simultaneously with higher levels of brain activation, the purported purpose of practicing the techniques in the first place. Sparaig, I really wish you and others here would stop saying this. It really marks you as a newbie, someone who wasn't there when the TM-Sidhis came out. There was NO QUESTION when they were introduced that they were for the development of the siddhis them- selves. That was how they were promoted, and that was how they were measured. There used to be daily reports gathered at all the course locations and sent back to Maharishi, hoping to report the first person to truly levitate or perform any of the other objective siddhis. None ever happened. It was only AFTER none ever happened -- for years -- that the TM-Sidhi course began to be marketed in terms of expansion of consciousness or something to speed up enlightenment, or whatever euphemism you were sold. This happened because the TM-Sidhis FAILED, not because they succeeded. According to the definition you profess to believe in (Maharishi's), UC involves being able to fully perform the siddhis, objectively. According to that same definition, therefore, the TM movement has failed to produce even one person in over 40 years of teaching who was in UC. Yet you seem to think the odds are in your favor to keep on keepin' on. It's *fine* that you settled for the things you settled for, with TM and with the TM-Sidhis. But please don't pretend that the things you settled for were either how they were originally sold or that they were the goals of either at the time. The height of the high jump bar was lowered to match actual performance, that's all.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Jason jedi_spock@... wrote:
Robin you say that you had to transfer your allegience to
another reality. There is only one reality.
Has it occured to you that both east and west could be wrong
or both partially right.?
Do you realise that by completely rejecting the east, you
have in effect 'thrown the baby along with the bathwater'.
The five paras that you have written below conclusively,
authoritatively and empricaly prove that you were never in
Unity, Robin.
Scientists say that any technology that is once unleashed
into the enviornment can never be rolled back. Same is the
case of enlightenment or awakening.
There is no such thing as de-enlightenment Robin. It's a
one way trip.
Face it Robin, you were *never* enlightened in the first
place.
Bingo! The conclusion is therefore: not the Maharishi was deceived, but Robin
was (and still is)
I found these two videos of Osho very helpful in understanding enlightenment:
You Are in Prison and You Think You Are Free
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XyOmYVIsig
Spiritual Growth and Enlightenment
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uP5J3i1H5dA
There are several things that strike me as improbably on the account below. One
of these is the fact that Robin presents his 'enlightenment' in a straight line
leading up from his encounters with Maharishi and the experiences he has had on
courses or through plain TM ('transcending'). But in my own humble experiences,
this is not like it is. I remember Maharishi talking about the 'shock of unity'
(I am not totally sure now, if it as 'shock of unity' or 'shock of Brahman')
These were not very well known tapes, but I am sure, more than just me, who are
here, have seen it. This is what actually coincides with my own experiences in
this direction (I don't claim enlightenment though.)
Think of somebody being in a prison, and coming out of it! If you were your
whole life in a prison, you don't know what freedom is, you will only realize
it the moment you come out. It is not just a slowly and natural fading into
something you had already known before - as Robin depicts it.
Think of Plato's cave analogy, how the person, who is led outside of the cave,
first is blended by the bright sun light, before, he only knew the reflection
of light, not even the sun, but of fire.
I cannot help, and notice the strong emotional sense of nostalgia in Robins
report. I think many TM teachers can identify with these feelings, the memories
of being on rounding courses and so on. I know these feelings, but I don't in
no way, have any sense of nostalgia about it. It is simply gone, was nice at
the time, but has been replaced by something better, more true and more
liberating. So. I believe firmly, once you are liberated, there will be a break
to all of your past life, that cannot be reverted.
Either the East was right, or Gerard Manley Hopkins was
right.
But the critical moment occurred when I realized: Well,
either Christ is right or Maharishi is right.
But truth is truth, and reality is reality. I came to the
conclusion that Christ was right, that Aquinas was right,
that Saint Theresa of Avila was right, and that Maharishi
was deceived.
I had to transfer my allegiance to another reality. That
was easy while I was a Catholic, but in the fall of 1987
while in Lourdes, France, I became convinced that the
Roman Catholic Church was without the power to save souls;
that the Holy Ghost had abandoned it, that the Virgin Mary
was not there
but the suffering of deconstructing my enlightenment with
help that was agony, confusion, terror beyond anything I
could imagine. But it (getting de-enlightened) seems more
or less to have come to an end.
--- Robin Carlsen maskedzebra@ wrote:
The apotheosis of all this occurred when I went into Unity Consciousness
September 19, 1976 at 1:23 PM in Arosa, Switzerland on my Six Months
Course. In this moment Mother was not only at Home in the sense of being
present in one's life and watching over and protecting and nourishing one;
Mother now took up personal residence *inside my own consciousness*.
Reality instead of bringing about transcending and supporting my life now
embodied itself in my consciousness, and in in this act of making me
enlightened *reality took command and authority over not just my life but
my very actions as a human being*. So in effect *I* became the embodiment
of this reality in my own person. And I could feel the effect of my Unity
Consciousness upon other personsbut only in any perceptible way if they
were doing TM; if they were initiators the impact was even more pronounced.
So eventually, once I formally converted to Catholicism, there was bound to
be a crisis. Theologically, metaphysically, psychologically. And boy! was
there ever. But I think Catholicism, even though I
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, iranitea no_reply@... wrote:
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Jason jedi_spock@ wrote:
Face it Robin, you were *never* enlightened in the first
place.
Bingo! The conclusion is therefore: not the Maharishi was deceived, but Robin
was (and still is)
I found these two videos of Osho very helpful in understanding enlightenment:
You Are in Prison and You Think You Are Free
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XyOmYVIsig
Spiritual Growth and Enlightenment
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uP5J3i1H5dA
There are several things that strike me as improbably on the account below.
One of these is the fact that Robin presents his 'enlightenment' in a
straight line leading up from his encounters with Maharishi and the
experiences he has had on courses or through plain TM ('transcending'). But
in my own humble experiences, this is not like it is. I remember Maharishi
talking about the 'shock of unity' (I am not totally sure now, if it as
'shock of unity' or 'shock of Brahman') These were not very well known tapes,
but I am sure, more than just me, who are here, have seen it. This is what
actually coincides with my own experiences in this direction (I don't claim
enlightenment though.)
Think of somebody being in a prison, and coming out of it! If you were your
whole life in a prison, you don't know what freedom is, you will only realize
it the moment you come out. It is not just a slowly and natural fading into
something you had already known before - as Robin depicts it.
Think of Plato's cave analogy, how the person, who is led outside of the
cave, first is blended by the bright sun light, before, he only knew the
reflection of light, not even the sun, but of fire.
I cannot help, and notice the strong emotional sense of nostalgia in Robins
report. I think many TM teachers can identify with these feelings, the
memories of being on rounding courses and so on. I know these feelings, but I
don't in no way, have any sense of nostalgia about it. It is simply gone, was
nice at the time, but has been replaced by something better, more true and
more liberating. So. I believe firmly, once you are liberated, there will be
a break to all of your past life, that cannot be reverted.
On rereading my post above, I felt it wasn't really strong enough. So let me
add some thoughts and a little bit of context.
One is best made by a reference to Sankhya, something Willy referred to in a
post recently. Sankhya is all about separating Purusha and Prakriti. The
confusion in ignorance is the mixing of both. This discrimination (viveka) is
also important in Advaita. Now, Prakriti, that's all of nature, that's also all
the gods governing nature. The Upanishad says, that the gods keep man like
cattle, that they don't like man to get liberated (I don't remember which
Upanishad says it, but I am sure many of you have read it, and Carde would know
for sure). The point is, you are not just gathering the support of nature, you
are actually going out of nature, you are separating from Prakriti in your
consciousness.
Now I am aware of the influence of Gnosticism in the spiritual strata, and I
came recently across an Indian example of a teacher, obviously making
references to basically Gnostic thought, by calling all the Vedic gods archons.
I also discovered similar references in Aurobindean philosophy. Talking with my
friend in India, I pointed it out, being surrounded everywhere by all these
temples to various deities, in rural areas festivals are en vogue, where animal
sacrifice is still very popular, normal for the people there, as turkey is at
Xmas in our countries. My friend pointed out that all the Indian gods, but
especially a certain type of goddess worship is always ambivalent. The goddess
of smallpox has to be pacified, in order to not bring smallpox.
So he made an interesting point. He said, when you step outside of the circle,
where the gods have an influence on you, they might feel revengeful, and it
would be the role of the guru, to sort of pacify the gods in you. I know it
sounds weird, but this pacification would be a way, to reconcile your stepping
out of prakriti, but still live within prakriti in relative harmony. So, when
Maharishi speaks of support of nature, (he does so traditionally of course)
then, maybe, it is this what is meant. But the way he speaks about it, just
cuts the story short. It's sort of euphemistic.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, salyavin808 fintlewoodlewix@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, salyavin808 fintlewoodlewix@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: Siddhi means perfection. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/siddhi?s=t LOL. You're going by an online English dictionary's definition of a technical Sanskrit term? Technical term interpreted for you by who? The guy who told you you could fly? Besides that isn't really the only definition I could find just the one most suited to an emial discussion. I could photograph someothers or scan them and post if you like? http://dictionary.babylon.com/siddhi/ several different definitions. Whatever, I remember the lectures and can't help noticing it all came to nought. Except the part about creating a situation where some of the physiological correlates of pure consciousness appear simultaneously with higher levels of brain activation, the purported purpose of practicing the techniques in the first place. Oh yeah, except that part, silly of me to forget I've got physiological correlates appearing simultaneously with higher levels of brain activation going on. As I said, a stress reduction technique may not touch symptoms if they don't have anything to do with stress. It's funny how you can quote the brochures like you do above then contradict them like you do here. It's all a kind of mix and match thing for you but I don't seperate any of it, the teaching is what it is and, according to SCI, all health problems are stress related and TM is the cure for them all, have you ever even read the Science of Being? You should give it a try, I warn you though you might end up on my side of the sceptical fence. THis includes the most recent studies on mindfulness published in the past few days, weeks, months, etc, because those analyses claim that unless you use a true double-blind study performed by only by researchers who have no attachment to the techniques being tested, the study is pretty much worthless. I'm not tub thumping for anything other than common sense. Common sense is neither, as the saying goes, and common sense doesn't predict highly unusual events, by definition. Highly unusual things like flying unaided or seeing through walls? Or staring at goats, or having a single wave form appear on more than a dozen widely spaced electrodes simultaneously, or... There's no end of bullshit some people will believe. L
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL - mahavakyas
Tea wrote:
I remember Maharishi talking about the 'shock of unity'
my reply:
I'm not sure of the exact wording either, whether shock of unity or Brahman.
And I think in this context Maharishi talked about the mahavakyas, phrases that
the Master said to the disciple to help calm down the shock of this transition:
I am That
Thou art That
All This is That
That alone is
Probably best if said in Sanskrit (-:
And, just to add to the soup, I've been told there are different versions of
mahavakyas.
My guess is that their power stems from the shaktipat of the Master as well as
from their own inherent high vibe.
From: iranitea no_re...@yahoogroups.com
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, June 17, 2012 8:56 AM
Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Jason jedi_spock@... wrote:
Robin you say that you had to transfer your allegience to
another reality. There is only one reality.
Has it occured to you that both east and west could be wrong
or both partially right.?
Do you realise that by completely rejecting the east, you
have in effect 'thrown the baby along with the bathwater'.
The five paras that you have written below conclusively,
authoritatively and empricaly prove that you were never in
Unity, Robin.
Scientists say that any technology that is once unleashed
into the enviornment can never be rolled back. Same is the
case of enlightenment or awakening.
There is no such thing as de-enlightenment Robin. It's a
one way trip.
Face it Robin, you were *never* enlightened in the first
place.
Bingo! The conclusion is therefore: not the Maharishi was deceived, but Robin
was (and still is)
I found these two videos of Osho very helpful in understanding enlightenment:
You Are in Prison and You Think You Are Free
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XyOmYVIsig
Spiritual Growth and Enlightenment
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uP5J3i1H5dA
There are several things that strike me as improbably on the account below. One
of these is the fact that Robin presents his 'enlightenment' in a straight line
leading up from his encounters with Maharishi and the experiences he has had on
courses or through plain TM ('transcending'). But in my own humble experiences,
this is not like it is. I remember Maharishi talking about the 'shock of unity'
(I am not totally sure now, if it as 'shock of unity' or 'shock of Brahman')
These were not very well known tapes, but I am sure, more than just me, who are
here, have seen it. This is what actually coincides with my own experiences in
this direction (I don't claim enlightenment though.)
Think of somebody being in a prison, and coming out of it! If you were your
whole life in a prison, you don't know what freedom is, you will only realize
it the moment you come out. It is not just a slowly and natural fading into
something you had already known before - as Robin depicts it.
Think of Plato's cave analogy, how the person, who is led outside of the cave,
first is blended by the bright sun light, before, he only knew the reflection
of light, not even the sun, but of fire.
I cannot help, and notice the strong emotional sense of nostalgia in Robins
report. I think many TM teachers can identify with these feelings, the memories
of being on rounding courses and so on. I know these feelings, but I don't in
no way, have any sense of nostalgia about it. It is simply gone, was nice at
the time, but has been replaced by something better, more true and more
liberating. So. I believe firmly, once you are liberated, there will be a break
to all of your past life, that cannot be reverted.
Either the East was right, or Gerard Manley Hopkins was
right.
But the critical moment occurred when I realized: Well,
either Christ is right or Maharishi is right.
But truth is truth, and reality is reality. I came to the
conclusion that Christ was right, that Aquinas was right,
that Saint Theresa of Avila was right, and that Maharishi
was deceived.
I had to transfer my allegiance to another reality. That
was easy while I was a Catholic, but in the fall of 1987
while in Lourdes, France, I became convinced that the
Roman Catholic Church was without the power to save souls;
that the Holy Ghost had abandoned it, that the Virgin Mary
was not there
but the suffering of deconstructing my enlightenment with
help that was agony, confusion, terror beyond anything I
could imagine. But it (getting de-enlightened) seems more
or less to have come to an end.
--- Robin Carlsen maskedzebra@ wrote:
The apotheosis of all this occurred when I went into Unity Consciousness
September 19, 1976 at 1:23 PM in Arosa, Switzerland on my Six Months
Course. In this moment Mother was not only at Home in the sense of being
present in one's life and watching over and protecting and nourishing one;
Mother
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, iranitea no_reply@... wrote: I cannot help, and notice the strong emotional sense of nostalgia in [deleted]'s report. I think many TM teachers can identify with these feelings, the memories of being on rounding courses and so on. I know these feelings, but I don't in no way, have any sense of nostalgia about it. It is simply gone, was nice at the time, but has been replaced by something better, more true and more liberating. If you don't mind, I'd like to avoid the personalities and focus on the general phenomenon. I agree with you about the sense of *nostalgia* that many TMers seem to feel, and empathize with your experience. I have almost no sense of nostalgia about those days, either. As you say, any such feelings are simply gone. I don't know whether this is a good thing or a bad thing; it just is. It's been striking me today that one of the things that many people seem to be most nostalgic *for* (beside The Days When It Was All Still Fun, of course) is the sharing of hopeful memes, and how EASY it was to share them, because people would almost automatically believe even the most unbelievable of memes. You'd hear a Tall Tale Of Power from one of the early Sidhi courses of someone walking through a wall, or suddenly finding themselves out on the lawn in their skivvies, when the last they knew they were practicing the Sidhis in their room. And, more often than not, people *believed* this shit. They bought it hook, line, and sinker, and just couldn't *wait* to pass the meme along. Now, not so much. Claim to have seen someone levitate (as in real floating, hanging there in mid air in the same way that a brick doesn't), and I'd bet that fewer that 10% of the *TM True Believers* would believe you. The other 90% would say, How nice for you, or Wow, that's really cool...what *about* that Mets game last night, eh? Right? Let alone how such a sighting would be greeted here on FFL. :-) Now imagine how such a story would be received out in the world. That is, among an audience that had never heard of TM or meditation and had never cared to. Would they even bother with the How nice for you? I'm thinkin' that much of the nostalgia people feel for the Good Old Days of the TM movement is because it was easier to say shit like this back then and have it automatically believed. People's standards were lower, and their gullibility was higher. Now you can't just breeze into Dodge City, push your way through the swinging doors of the saloon, and say, Hey there...I'm the new guy in town. I'm enlightened, and expect something -- anything -- to happen. Whether on FFL or out in the world, my experience is that pronouncements such as this are greeted with a short interval of silence, followed by the audience going back to something more important, like taking another sip of whatever you are drinking. :-) I *like* this new, more saloon-like ambiance of spirituality. There is a Been-There-Done-That-ed-ness about it that I find also contains balance, and a greater sense of acceptance of and comfort with Who One Is Right Here, Right Now, than the I'll believe anything mindset of the past. I find the newer, more laissez-faire Whatever 'tude, if anything, *more* spiritual than the former 'tude. In the past (and among some even today) I always got a feeling that the seeker reacting to Tall Tales Of Power with automatic and enthusiastic belief really *needed* to hear them. These stories were, for them, like a canteen of water in the desert. *Of course* we believed them at the time; we *needed* to believe them, to keep on believing in other stuff. I can't feel nostalgic about that. I can remember it, and have compassion for my younger self for feeling that way, but I don't miss it, and wouldn't want to be in that mindset again, ever.
[FairfieldLife] Re: There is no such thing as Enlightenment
Iran I Tea I find this particular article by Swartz to be an accurate representation of Shankara's central points about samyag-darshana - the gnosis of that Self which can never be an object or a subject. About Swartz's other essays I haven't read and cannot say. What his booklet does not have is representation and analysis of Shankara's views about a renunciate lifestyle and how this facilitates realization of Upanishadic brahmajnana. This is most apparent in Shankara's Bhagavad Gita Bhasya which is one of the oldest Gita commentaries still extant. His Bhasya is prior to and quite different from all commentaries which espouse the 3 sections of 6 chapters each schema including Maharishi's. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, iranitea no_reply@... wrote: IIRC Shankara did not use the word Advaita for his philosophy, rather it would have been called Sankhya at the time. Please also bear in mind, that discrimination, Viveka, was the basis of Shankaras teaching. Discrimination between Purusha and Prakriti, Brahman and Maya, therefore one of the works attributed to him is called Vivekachudamani or Crest jewel of discrimination. Shankara, like Nagarjuna, was adhering to the doctrine of two truths, as it is already mentioned in the Upanishads. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-truths_doctrine I have read much, but not yet all of the article by James Swartz, but I have a hard time believing he represents Shankara in any way. For me this is more like Neo-Advaita disguised as traditional Advaita
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, salyavin808 fintlewoodlewix@ wrote: Whatever, I remember the lectures and can't help noticing it all came to nought. Except the part about creating a situation where some of the physiological correlates of pure consciousness appear simultaneously with higher levels of brain activation, the purported purpose of practicing the techniques in the first place. Sparaig, I really wish you and others here would stop saying this. It really marks you as a newbie, someone who wasn't there when the TM-Sidhis came out. There was NO QUESTION when they were introduced that they were for the development of the siddhis them- selves. That was how they were promoted, and that was how they were measured. There used to be daily reports gathered at all the course locations and sent back to Maharishi, hoping to report the first person to truly levitate or perform any of the other objective siddhis. None ever happened. It was only AFTER none ever happened -- for years -- that the TM-Sidhi course began to be marketed in terms of expansion of consciousness or something to speed up enlightenment, or whatever euphemism you were sold. This happened because the TM-Sidhis FAILED, not because they succeeded. Exactly. I think the real discrepancy between anything Lawson or Judy say here about Sid(d)his, (see I don't even know anymore how to write it properly, shall I write it as in the original brochure, that came out 1977, or in the subsequent marketing maybe a year later), is all due to the fact that they were on courses about 10 years later. That's about the time, we had either already left the movement, or were about to leave it. In this sense, there is no doubt in what you say, but the notion, that the main aim of the Siddhis (as of 1977) as described as the development of enlightenment. Because at that time, the notion of 'capture the fort' in order to achieve everything that is around the fort, was still strong going in the movement. In the brochure of 1977 'Enlightenment and the Siddhis' (siddhis still written with dd), all these experiences of the siddhis were described as 'by-products' of the development of enlightenment, which would be, as you describe, incomplete without the full development of the siddhis, those special abilities, like flying of course.) This is of course also a reflection on the usual scriptural critique of the siddhis. The brochure had a lot of experience reports from six month courses, all describing various cosmic experiences, or well, experience of the super normal.) There were adds out showing seemingly flying people, saying something like 'breakthrough in human potential'. There was a banner/ exhibition showing people seemingly levitate. While it was always said, that these were mere byproducts, they were nevertheless stressed as necessary for enlightenment. There was a constant expectation fueled by rumors and sayings of Maharishi, some of them I was even present myself, that people would soon actually fly, first hoover and then fly, and that it was only due to stress in world consciousness, that it didn't yet happen. Maharishi also said this in videotapes circulated at the time, as I remember, he commented, that people would be surprised if somebody wouldn't sit inside a taxi, but hoover above it. This was on normal video tapes around 1978. This was also reflected in all the expectations we had at the time, I was living IN the movement, and the comments, you would hear from your fellow practitioners. For example people would comment that they feel that they are very close to REALLY fly, or that they were actually a few spit seconds longer in the air, or saw somebody like this during program. Why would the movement put people on 6 month courses on a wage to measure if they got actually lighter, videotaping it, to have evidence, if that wasn't what they expected? According to the definition you profess to believe in (Maharishi's), UC involves being able to fully perform the siddhis, objectively. According to that same definition, therefore, the TM movement has failed to produce even one person in over 40 years of teaching who was in UC. Yet you seem to think the odds are in your favor to keep on keepin' on. It's *fine* that you settled for the things you settled for, with TM and with the TM-Sidhis. But please don't pretend that the things you settled for were either how they were originally sold or that they were the goals of either at the time. The height of the high jump bar was lowered to match actual performance, that's all.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Jason jedi_spock@... wrote: Robin you say that you had to transfer your allegience to another reality. There is only one reality. Has it occured to you that both east and west could be wrong or both partially right.? Do you realise that by completely rejecting the east, you have in effect 'thrown the baby along with the bathwater'. The five paras that you have written below conclusively, authoritatively and empricaly prove that you were never in Unity, Robin. Scientists say that any technology that is once unleashed into the enviornment can never be rolled back. Same is the case of enlightenment or awakening. There is no such thing as de-enlightenment Robin. It's a one way trip. Well, at least per Patañjali that seems to be true. So, kaivalya refers to the pratiprasava of the three guNa-s after they have become puruSaarthashuunya... :D (YS IV 34) But of course everyone can define enlightenment as they like, I guess... :o pratiprasavam. counter-order , suspension of a general prohibition in a particular case S3am2k. Ka1tyS3r. Sch. Kull. ; an exception to an exception TPra1t. Sch. ; ***return to the original state*** Yogas. Face it Robin, you were *never* enlightened in the first place.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@... wrote: I *like* this new, more saloon-like ambiance of spirituality. There is a Been-There-Done-That-ed-ness about it that I find also contains balance, and a greater sense of acceptance of and comfort with Who One Is Right Here, Right Now, than the I'll believe anything mindset of the past. I find the newer, more laissez-faire Whatever 'tude, if anything, *more* spiritual than the former 'tude. In the past (and among some even today) I always got a feeling that the seeker reacting to Tall Tales Of Power with automatic and enthusiastic belief really *needed* to hear them. These stories were, for them, like a canteen of water in the desert. *Of course* we believed them at the time; we *needed* to believe them, to keep on believing in other stuff. I can't feel nostalgic about that. I can remember it, and have compassion for my younger self for feeling that way, but I don't miss it, and wouldn't want to be in that mindset again, ever. Just to prove that I include myself in my description of how twiffy and gullible we were in those days, today I was sent a scan of the only photo of myself with long hair that I've been able to find. And it's all pulled back into a pony tail, so you can't even see it here. :-( But this is how much of a twif I was at Squaw Valley in 1968. And I should be nostalgic about that? :-) [Me at Squaw Valley, 1968 :-)]
[FairfieldLife] St. John the Baptist, found?
New evidence for the bones of St. John the Baptist http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9333052/Scientists-find-new-evidence-supporting-John-the-Baptist-bones-theory.html
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
What's a twif? Wasn't in official welcoming glossary (-: From: turquoiseb no_re...@yahoogroups.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Sunday, June 17, 2012 11:08 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL - --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@... wrote: I *like* this new, more saloon-like ambiance of spirituality. There is a Been-There-Done-That-ed-ness about it that I find also contains balance, and a greater sense of acceptance of and comfort with Who One Is Right Here, Right Now, than the I'll believe anything mindset of the past. I find the newer, more laissez-faire Whatever 'tude, if anything, *more* spiritual than the former 'tude. In the past (and among some even today) I always got a feeling that the seeker reacting to Tall Tales Of Power with automatic and enthusiastic belief really *needed* to hear them. These stories were, for them, like a canteen of water in the desert. *Of course* we believed them at the time; we *needed* to believe them, to keep on believing in other stuff. I can't feel nostalgic about that. I can remember it, and have compassion for my younger self for feeling that way, but I don't miss it, and wouldn't want to be in that mindset again, ever. Just to prove that I include myself in my description of how twiffy and gullible we were in those days, today I was sent a scan of the only photo of myself with long hair that I've been able to find. And it's all pulled back into a pony tail, so you can't even see it here. :-( But this is how much of a twif I was at Squaw Valley in 1968. And I should be nostalgic about that? :-)
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
Adding to soup: I definitely remember hearing Maharishi say on a tape that in
each cell, at the deepest level, Purusha is Prakriti.
From: iranitea no_re...@yahoogroups.com
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, June 17, 2012 9:37 AM
Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, iranitea no_reply@... wrote:
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Jason jedi_spock@ wrote:
Face it Robin, you were *never* enlightened in the first
place.
Bingo! The conclusion is therefore: not the Maharishi was deceived, but Robin
was (and still is)
I found these two videos of Osho very helpful in understanding enlightenment:
You Are in Prison and You Think You Are Free
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XyOmYVIsig
Spiritual Growth and Enlightenment
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uP5J3i1H5dA
There are several things that strike me as improbably on the account below.
One of these is the fact that Robin presents his 'enlightenment' in a
straight line leading up from his encounters with Maharishi and the
experiences he has had on courses or through plain TM ('transcending'). But
in my own humble experiences, this is not like it is. I remember Maharishi
talking about the 'shock of unity' (I am not totally sure now, if it as
'shock of unity' or 'shock of Brahman') These were not very well known tapes,
but I am sure, more than just me, who are here, have seen it. This is what
actually coincides with my own experiences in this direction (I don't claim
enlightenment though.)
Think of somebody being in a prison, and coming out of it! If you were your
whole life in a prison, you don't know what freedom is, you will only realize
it the moment you come out. It is not just a slowly and natural fading into
something you had already known before - as Robin depicts it.
Think of Plato's cave analogy, how the person, who is led outside of the
cave, first is blended by the bright sun light, before, he only knew the
reflection of light, not even the sun, but of fire.
I cannot help, and notice the strong emotional sense of nostalgia in Robins
report. I think many TM teachers can identify with these feelings, the
memories of being on rounding courses and so on. I know these feelings, but I
don't in no way, have any sense of nostalgia about it. It is simply gone, was
nice at the time, but has been replaced by something better, more true and
more liberating. So. I believe firmly, once you are liberated, there will be
a break to all of your past life, that cannot be reverted.
On rereading my post above, I felt it wasn't really strong enough. So let me
add some thoughts and a little bit of context.
One is best made by a reference to Sankhya, something Willy referred to in a
post recently. Sankhya is all about separating Purusha and Prakriti. The
confusion in ignorance is the mixing of both. This discrimination (viveka) is
also important in Advaita. Now, Prakriti, that's all of nature, that's also all
the gods governing nature. The Upanishad says, that the gods keep man like
cattle, that they don't like man to get liberated (I don't remember which
Upanishad says it, but I am sure many of you have read it, and Carde would know
for sure). The point is, you are not just gathering the support of nature, you
are actually going out of nature, you are separating from Prakriti in your
consciousness.
Now I am aware of the influence of Gnosticism in the spiritual strata, and I
came recently across an Indian example of a teacher, obviously making
references to basically Gnostic thought, by calling all the Vedic gods archons.
I also discovered similar references in Aurobindean philosophy. Talking with my
friend in India, I pointed it out, being surrounded everywhere by all these
temples to various deities, in rural areas festivals are en vogue, where animal
sacrifice is still very popular, normal for the people there, as turkey is at
Xmas in our countries. My friend pointed out that all the Indian gods, but
especially a certain type of goddess worship is always ambivalent. The goddess
of smallpox has to be pacified, in order to not bring smallpox.
So he made an interesting point. He said, when you step outside of the circle,
where the gods have an influence on you, they might feel revengeful, and it
would be the role of the guru, to sort of pacify the gods in you. I know it
sounds weird, but this pacification would be a way, to reconcile your stepping
out of prakriti, but still live within prakriti in relative harmony. So, when
Maharishi speaks of support of nature, (he does so traditionally of course)
then, maybe, it is this what is meant. But the way he speaks about it, just
cuts the story short. It's sort of euphemistic.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: India drowning in its own excreta, oh shit
Yes, I was wondering what people were doing in the field near the shore of the Ganges in the early morning in Varanasi when I was there. Of course they were taking a poop. Understand that we Americans lose jobs to Indian engineers so I was making a harsh joke that if they are so good why can't they put their collective minds together and find an inexpensive and innovative way to solve the toilet problem in India. The truth is they aren't so good but fat headed American business fuckers stupidly believe they are and their golden geese. In fact with a few short months of evening courses for Fairfielders interested you could also train them to be pundits and fully capable of doing the rituals. No need to in slave some poor street Indians just because they might be able to read and pronounce Devanagari. But in dumb fuck America we don't train engineers anymore but major league sports athletes because the dumb fuck parents believe their kid is going to be one and so poor money into the sports programs while cutting things like the arts (which contribute immensely to developing the kind of creative mind to be an engineer). When I was growing up they didn't do that and the kids that were good in sports always found some one they could practice with rather than using the whole class to do so. PS: if you don't like my French, I use it because that is how derisive I feel about the situation. On 06/17/2012 01:20 AM, Jason wrote: The actual figures are even higher, Bhairitu. They say close to 700 million people in india have no toilets. Another major problem with many indians is that they don't hesitate to defecate even near roadsides or highways and even footpaths. An uncle of mine who worked in Africa for many years say that many African tribal villages inspite of having no toilets are actualy quite clean and tidy. They have better hygiene sense that most indians! --- Bhairitunoozguru@... wrote: But don't they have brilliant engineers who can solve this problem in a fortnight? ;-) On 06/16/2012 01:50 PM, Mike Dixon wrote: Yeah, but it's *organic*! From: Jasonjedi_spock@... Sent: Saturday, June 16, 2012 9:32 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] India drowning in its own excreta, oh shit 'India is drowning in its own excreta' R. PRASAD Sixty percent of people living in India do not have access to toilets, and hence are forced to defecate in the open. In actual numbers, sixty per cent translates to 626 million. This makes India the number one country in the world where open defecation is practised. Indonesia with 63 million is a far second! At 949 million in 2010 worldwide, vast majority of people practising open defecation live in rural areas. Though the number of rural people practising open defecation has reduced by 234 million in 2010 than in 1990, 'those that continue to do so tend to be concentrated in a few countries, including India', notes the 2012 update report of UNICEF and the World Health Organisation (WHO). For instance, of the 2.4 lakh gram panchayats in the country, only a mere 24,000 are completely free of open defecation. More than half of the 2.5 billion people without improved sanitation live in India or China. The high figure prevails even as four out of 10 people who have gained access to improved sanitation since 1990 live in these two countries. 'Rapidly-modernising India is drowning in its own excreta', notes the New Delhi-based Sunita Narain, Director General of the Centre for Science and Environment in a Comment piece published today (June 14) in Nature. The only silver lining is the determination with which Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh intends to rid the country of open defecation within a decade. His endeavour got a shot in the arm recently when the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs increased the amount of money to be spent for household toilets in rural areas from Rs.4,600 to Rs.10,000. But increased spending alone will in no way turn out to be a magic bullet in solving the malaise of open defecation. Numerous examples from other countries serve as testimony to this. Bringing about a change in mindset is the paramount need. Awareness of the link between open defection and diseases like diarrhoea will in one way change the way people defecate. After all, almost 10 per cent of all communicable diseases are linked to unsafe water and poor sanitation. According to WHO, open defecation is the 'riskiest sanitation practice of all'. According to the global health body, compared with 1990, more than two billion people have access to improved drinking water sources. Thus the Millennium Development Goal's drinking water target has been reached over 2 billion people have gained access to improved water sources from 1990 to 2010, and the proportion of the global population still using unimproved sources is estimated at only 11 per cent.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Share Long sharelong60@... wrote: What's a twif? Wasn't in official welcoming glossary (-: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=twif
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Alex Stanley j_alexander_stanley@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Share Long sharelong60@ wrote: What's a twif? Wasn't in official welcoming glossary (-: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=twif I dispute this, and confess to never having heard any similar definitions before. :-) I know the term from friends who worked at the Bodhi Tree bookstore. They used it to refer to customers who were so spaced out and spiritual that they made you wonder whether they could find their mouths with a fork, much less hold a job. That is the sense in which I use the word twif.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
Oy! Who says FFL isn't educational? (-: From: Alex Stanley j_alexander_stan...@yahoo.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Sunday, June 17, 2012 11:38 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL - --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Share Long sharelong60@... wrote: What's a twif? Wasn't in official welcoming glossary (-: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=twif
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
It isn't clear what discrepancy iranitea is referring to between anything Lawson or Judy say here about Sid(d)his, because Lawson and I have been saying the same things. I suspect what he meant to suggest is that there's a discrepancy between what Lawson and I are saying *and something else*, but he doesn't specify what. He may not quite know what discrepancy means or how it's used. I'm sure what he means to convey is that Lawson and I don't know what we're talking about, just as Barry claims. But the really interesting thing is that what iranitea goes on to describe of the early days of the TM-Sidhis not only is no different from what I've always understood, but also *confirms* what Lawson and I were saying. Barry is, of course, completely wrong to say Lawson wasn't there. He was there, and so was I, in 1976 when the TM-Sidhis were introduced to the TM rank and file. That we took the course 10 years or so later is irrelevant, contrary to what iranitea appears to think (although what he was trying to say in that regard wasn't at all clear). Both Barry and iranitea seem to believe we've been claiming nobody in the movement was talking about the supernormal performances that were said to be a result of the practice. We never said or suggested that. Barry and iranitea haven't been following the context of the discussion Lawson was having with salyavin. In fact, we were referring only to *how the course was marketed*, i.e., in the brochures, in the lectures that were given about the purpose of the TM-Sidhis course. *Certainly* supernormal performances and their significance were discussed at considerable length in the marketing materials and the lectures. Certainly that's what TMers talked about most, if not exclusively, among themselves. As Lawson and I have both said, however, and as iranitea confirms below (he's actually correcting Barry's rant), the *goal* of the practice was said to be facilitating the development of enlightenment, the supernormal performances being a byproduct and a benchmark of that development. That was the case in 1976, and it remained the case in the mid-'80s when Lawson and I took the course. Lawson did mention one difference: by the time we took the course, we were required to write out in longhand and sign a statement to the effect that we understood the goal of the course was *not* to achieve supernormal performances but to develop enlightenment. That was apparently a result, as Lawson said, of the TMO having being sued for false advertising. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, iranitea no_reply@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, salyavin808 fintlewoodlewix@ wrote: Whatever, I remember the lectures and can't help noticing it all came to nought. Except the part about creating a situation where some of the physiological correlates of pure consciousness appear simultaneously with higher levels of brain activation, the purported purpose of practicing the techniques in the first place. Sparaig, I really wish you and others here would stop saying this. It really marks you as a newbie, someone who wasn't there when the TM-Sidhis came out. There was NO QUESTION when they were introduced that they were for the development of the siddhis them- selves. That was how they were promoted, and that was how they were measured. There used to be daily reports gathered at all the course locations and sent back to Maharishi, hoping to report the first person to truly levitate or perform any of the other objective siddhis. None ever happened. It was only AFTER none ever happened -- for years -- that the TM-Sidhi course began to be marketed in terms of expansion of consciousness or something to speed up enlightenment, or whatever euphemism you were sold. This happened because the TM-Sidhis FAILED, not because they succeeded. Exactly. I think the real discrepancy between anything Lawson or Judy say here about Sid(d)his, (see I don't even know anymore how to write it properly, shall I write it as in the original brochure, that came out 1977, or in the subsequent marketing maybe a year later), is all due to the fact that they were on courses about 10 years later. That's about the time, we had either already left the movement, or were about to leave it. In this sense, there is no doubt in what you say, but the notion, that the main aim of the Siddhis (as of 1977) as described as the development of enlightenment. Because at that time, the notion of 'capture the fort' in order to achieve everything that is around the fort, was still strong going in the movement. In the brochure of 1977 'Enlightenment and the Siddhis' (siddhis still written with dd), all these experiences of the siddhis were described as 'by-products' of
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
Ah, higher education (-: From: turquoiseb no_re...@yahoogroups.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Sunday, June 17, 2012 11:44 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL - --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Alex Stanley j_alexander_stanley@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Share Long sharelong60@ wrote: What's a twif? Wasn't in official welcoming glossary (-: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=twif I dispute this, and confess to never having heard any similar definitions before. :-) I know the term from friends who worked at the Bodhi Tree bookstore. They used it to refer to customers who were so spaced out and spiritual that they made you wonder whether they could find their mouths with a fork, much less hold a job. That is the sense in which I use the word twif.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Cornrows
On 06/14/2012 10:52 PM, raunchydog wrote: I'm vacationing in Jamaica. Cornrows and beads are beautiful. http://youtu.be/E16dKX1rnMA Nice. I hope you take (or took) the time to ask Jamaicans about what the IMF did to them and maybe got some interviews on video.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- turquoiseb no_reply@ wrote: I *like* this new, more saloon-like ambiance of spirituality. There is a Been-There-Done-That-ed-ness about it that I find also contains balance, and a greater sense of acceptance of and comfort with Who One Is Right Here, Right Now, than the I'll believe anything mindset of the past. I find the newer, more laissez-faire Whatever 'tude, if anything, *more* spiritual than the former 'tude. In the past (and among some even today) I always got a feeling that the seeker reacting to Tall Tales Of Power with automatic and enthusiastic belief really *needed* to hear them. These stories were, for them, like a canteen of water in the desert. *Of course* we believed them at the time; we *needed* to believe them, to keep on believing in other stuff. I can't feel nostalgic about that. I can remember it, and have compassion for my younger self for feeling that way, but I don't miss it, and wouldn't want to be in that mindset again, ever. --- turquoiseb no_reply@... wrote: Just to prove that I include myself in my description of how twiffy and gullible we were in those days, today I was sent a scan of the only photo of myself with long hair that I've been able to find. And it's all pulled back into a pony tail, so you can't even see it here. :-( But this is how much of a twif I was at Squaw Valley in 1968. And I should be nostalgic about that? :-) [Me at Squaw Valley, 1968 :-)] [Me at Squaw Valley, 1968 :-)] I guess, we all were like that once upon a time. But then it's evolution. We learn and evolve. For me it's a windfall in terms of learning from the experiences of others. Give some credit to the internet too.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@ wrote: I *like* this new, more saloon-like ambiance of spirituality. There is a Been-There-Done-That-ed-ness about it that I find also contains balance, and a greater sense of acceptance of and comfort with Who One Is Right Here, Right Now, than the I'll believe anything mindset of the past. I find the newer, more laissez-faire Whatever 'tude, if anything, *more* spiritual than the former 'tude. In the past (and among some even today) I always got a feeling that the seeker reacting to Tall Tales Of Power with automatic and enthusiastic belief really *needed* to hear them. These stories were, for them, like a canteen of water in the desert. *Of course* we believed them at the time; we *needed* to believe them, to keep on believing in other stuff. I can't feel nostalgic about that. I can remember it, and have compassion for my younger self for feeling that way, but I don't miss it, and wouldn't want to be in that mindset again, ever. Just to prove that I include myself in my description of how twiffy and gullible we were in those days, today I was sent a scan of the only photo of myself with long hair that I've been able to find. And it's all pulled back into a pony tail, so you can't even see it here. :-( But this is how much of a twif I was at Squaw Valley in 1968. And I should be nostalgic about that? :-) [Me at Squaw Valley, 1968 :-)] You were allowed long hair! Things were different in those days...
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
just for fun for other lurkers It's partly just a habit I accidentally picked up and now can't kick, partly a perplexing puzzle..Uli Hesse [;)] .lol Aber unter uns: So ein ordentliches Männerspiel ist schon ein bisschen kraftvoller ... Hm ... Vielleicht ist es doch besser, wenn der Trainer kokst. [:D] (=Habitually does cocaine) Ich bitte um etwas Niveau, ist ja bodenlos hier. Mia san Mia: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Udk9oMJRuKY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpKOV-EaFj8 Fußball-Club Bayern München www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpKOV-EaFj8 nicknames: Die Bayern (The Bavarians) Die Roten (The Reds) FC Hollywood [:D] http://www.fcbayern.telekom.de/en/news/start/index.php http://scoreshelf.com/qmjb/en/Bayern_Munich/German_Bundesliga --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, iranitea no_reply@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Robin Carlsen maskedzebra@ wrote: Bayern Munich Yep, I tried to translate it into English --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, iranitea no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Robin Carlsen maskedzebra@ wrote: Beautiful stuff, Barry. A life well-lived. What happened to Orange in those first two games? The orange was squeezed out. Are they mourning there in Amsterdam? Arjen Robben seemed angry at being replaced. Is there an 'attitude' problem with the Dutch side? Don't know about that, but Robben has a bit of a down now. Remember also he is playing for Bavaria Munich. Many of the German players are his buddies. That would make sense to me. Nice goal by Robin, however. Can't beat that German discipline. Riiight! But not just discipline, also cleverness and great technique.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
Judy, you do at times have the tendency to go off on a tangent. The point is in the begining MMY didn't consider siddhis as important. Then for a brief period of time it was considered important. Then, in the 80's due to lawsuits again a U-turn was made that it was meant only for enlightenment. This is actually absurd. No other school practices this approach. --- authfriend jstein@... wrote: As Lawson and I have both said, however, and as iranitea confirms below (he's actually correcting Barry's rant), the *goal* of the practice was said to be facilitating the development of enlightenment, the supernormal performances being a byproduct and a benchmark of that development. That was the case in 1976, and it remained the case in the mid-'80s when Lawson and I took the course. Lawson did mention one difference: by the time we took the course, we were required to write out in longhand and sign a statement to the effect that we understood the goal of the course was *not* to achieve supernormal performances but to develop enlightenment. That was apparently a result, as Lawson said, of the TMO having being sued for false advertising. There was NO QUESTION when they were introduced that they were for the development of the siddhis them- selves. That was how they were promoted, and that was how they were measured. There used to be daily reports gathered at all the course locations and sent back to Maharishi, hoping to report the first person to truly levitate or perform any of the other objective siddhis. None ever happened. It was only AFTER none ever happened -- for years -- that the TM-Sidhi course began to be marketed in terms of expansion of consciousness or something to speed up enlightenment, or whatever euphemism you were sold. This happened because the TM-Sidhis FAILED, not because they succeeded.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, iranitea no_reply@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Jason jedi_spock@ wrote: snip Face it Robin, you were *never* enlightened in the first place. Bingo! The conclusion is therefore: not the Maharishi was deceived, but Robin was (and still is) Except that Maharishi appeared to confirm his enlightenment at the time. snip Think of somebody being in a prison, and coming out of it! If you were your whole life in a prison, you don't know what freedom is, you will only realize it the moment you come out. It is not just a slowly and natural fading into something you had already known before - as Robin depicts it. Um, but that isn't how Robin depicts it. He depicts it as a a sudden, overwhelming experience, a massive, instantaneous shift in his relationship to reality, just as in the Plato's Cave analogy: Think of Plato's cave analogy, how the person, who is led outside of the cave, first is blended by the bright sun light, before, he only knew the reflection of light, not even the sun, but of fire. He doesn't go into it in the post iranitea is commenting on, but he's done so in many other posts here, which iranitea either never bothered to read or has forgotten. Robin's current post has gotten mangled in the quoting; the original is here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/message/312354
[FairfieldLife] Re: India drowning in its own excreta, oh shit
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@... wrote: India today is not a degraded form of Vedic India. It's the same place, and still IMO suffering under the yoke of the same mindset. Don't you just hate those dirty indians and love the clean tibetans :-) To the westerners Triguna used to ask with a smile; and rectum is clean ? I think he never got used to how little we payed attention to cleanliness in this area.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Jason jedi_spock@... wrote: Judy, you do at times have the tendency to go off on a tangent. Could you identify the tangent I went on for me, please? The point is in the begining MMY didn't consider siddhis as important. Before he started to develop the practice, right. Then for a brief period of time it was considered important. Then, in the 80's due to lawsuits again a U-turn was made that it was meant only for enlightenment. Nope, wrong, sorry. The presentations and brochures when the TM-Sidhis course was first made available to the rank and file in 1976 said the practice was for developing enlightenment, the supernormal performances being byproducts of the practice and benchmarks of one's progress in that development. The point was that, as Patanjali warns, it's a bad idea to go after the siddhis *for their own sake*. But supernormal performances and experiences were considered an integral part of the development of enlightenment via the practice of the TM-SIdhis. The supernormal performances and experiences were no less important in this regard in the '80s. The lawsuits just made it necessary to have course applicants sign a statement that they understood they weren't being *promised* that they would be able to fly, etc., as a result of taking the course.
[FairfieldLife] Re: The Unconscious exists study says
Very interesting. Will be fascinating to see how that fits in with current plasticity models used by the NLP groups that do away (they think) with such Freudian notions and claim that anxiety is learned and can be simply re-learned through training different parts of the brain through repetition thus rendering psychoanalysis redundant.If there is unconscious conflict then it should override the plasticity idea that we can reprogramme ourselves? And how would TM affect the difference between the unconscious response and the measured anxiety. The TM model promises to release unconscious stress, here is a way to prove it. A rich seam of research for everyone here I think. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, iranitea no_reply@... wrote: Freud's Theory of Unconscious Conflict Linked to Anxiety Symptoms ScienceDaily (June 16, 2012) A link between unconscious conflicts and conscious anxiety disorder symptoms have been shown, lending empirical support to psychoanalysis. An experiment that Sigmund Freud could never have imagined 100 years ago may help lend scientific support for one of his key theories, and help connect it with current neuroscience. June 16 at the 101st Annual Meeting of the American Psychoanalytic Association, a University of Michigan professor who has spent decades applying scientific methods to the study of psychoanalysis will present new data supporting a causal link between the psychoanalytic concept known as unconscious conflict, and the conscious symptoms experienced by people with anxiety disorders such as phobias. Howard Shevrin, Ph.D., emeritus professor of psychology in the U-M Medical School's Department of Psychiatry, will present data from experiments performed in U-M's Ormond and Hazel Hunt Laboratory. The research involved 11 people with anxiety disorders who each received a series of psychoanalytically oriented diagnostic sessions conducted by a psychoanalyst. From these interviews the psychoanalysts inferred what underlying unconscious conflict might be causing the person's anxiety disorder. Words capturing the nature of the unconscious conflict were then selected from the interviews and used as stimuli in the laboratory. They also selected words related to each patient's experience of anxiety disorder symptoms. Although these words differed from patient to patient, results showed that they functioned in the same way. These verbal stimuli were presented subliminally at one thousandth of a second, and supraliminally at 30 milliseconds. A control category of stimuli was added that had no relationship to the unconscious conflict or anxiety symptom. While the stimuli were presented to the patients, scalp electrodes record the brain responses to them. In a previous experiment Shevrin had demonstrated that time-frequency features, a type of brain activity, showed that patients grouped the unconscious conflict stimuli together only when they were presented subliminally. But the conscious symptom-related stimuli showed the reverse pattern -- brain activity was better grouped together when patients viewed those words supraliminally. Only when the unconscious conflict words were presented unconsciously could the brain see them as connected, Shevrin notes. What the analysts put together from the interview session made sense to the brain only unconsciously. However, the experimental design in this first experiment did not allow for directly comparing the effect of the unconscious conflict stimuli on the conscious symptom stimuli. To obtain evidence for that next level, the unconscious conflict stimuli were presented immediately prior to the conscious symptom stimuli and a new measurement was made, of the brain's own alpha wave frequency, at 8-13 cycles per second, that had been shown to inhibit various cognitive functions. Highly significant correlations, suggesting an inhibitory effect, were obtained when the amount of alpha generated by the unconscious conflict stimuli were correlated with the amount of alpha associated with the conscious symptom alpha -- but only when the unconscious conflict stimuli were presented subliminally. No results were obtained when control stimuli replaced the symptom words. The fact that these findings are a function of inhibition suggests that from a psychoanalytic standpoint that repression might be involved. These results create a compelling case that unconscious conflicts cause or contribute to the anxiety symptoms the patient is experiencing, says Shevrin, who also holds an emeritus position in the Department of Psychology in U-M's College of Literature, Science and the Arts. These findings and the interdisciplinary methods used -- which draw on psychoanalysis, cognitive psychology, and neuroscience -- demonstrate that it is possible to develop an interdisciplinary science drawing upon psychoanalytic theory. He notes that a
[FairfieldLife] Re: The Unconscious exists study says
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, salyavin808 fintlewoodlewix@... wrote: Very interesting. Will be fascinating to see how that fits in with current plasticity models used by the NLP groups that do away (they think) with such Freudian notions and claim that anxiety is learned and can be simply re-learned through training different parts of the brain through repetition thus rendering psychoanalysis redundant.If there is unconscious conflict then it should override the plasticity idea that we can reprogramme ourselves? And how would TM affect the difference between the unconscious response and the measured anxiety. The TM model promises to release unconscious stress, here is a way to prove it. A rich seam of research for everyone here I think. Another perspective on this comes from the weird Rama guy I studied with for some time. In his view, the unconscious was a total misnomer, and badly misleading. In his view, *nothing* was ever uncon- scious. Each of us knows *everything* that influences our everyday thoughts and actions. It's just that out of habit and out of expediency we filter out the stuff we don't want to become conscious *of*. In other words, in his view (and I honestly can't tell you whether I agree with it or don't, although at this moment I kinda do), it's not that anything is ever unconscious, in the sense that it lies below the threshold of being able to experience it. It's that we don't *want* to experience it. So we don't. We lie to ourselves. The up side of this belief is that -- in theory -- one can try to speak to others as if they are as fully conscious as one conceives of them as capable of being. As opposed to speaking to them as if they are what they are pretending to be. He didn't always pull this off -- who does? -- but I felt the essential respect inherent in even the idea of it. If you encounter someone who is acting out in inappropriate behavior, and doing so while claiming to be unconscious of the internal imbalances that trigger that behavior, is it a favor to them to allow them to continue to believe that? --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, iranitea no_reply@ wrote: Freud's Theory of Unconscious Conflict Linked to Anxiety Symptoms ScienceDaily (June 16, 2012) A link between unconscious conflicts and conscious anxiety disorder symptoms have been shown, lending empirical support to psychoanalysis. An experiment that Sigmund Freud could never have imagined 100 years ago may help lend scientific support for one of his key theories, and help connect it with current neuroscience. June 16 at the 101st Annual Meeting of the American Psychoanalytic Association, a University of Michigan professor who has spent decades applying scientific methods to the study of psychoanalysis will present new data supporting a causal link between the psychoanalytic concept known as unconscious conflict, and the conscious symptoms experienced by people with anxiety disorders such as phobias. Howard Shevrin, Ph.D., emeritus professor of psychology in the U-M Medical School's Department of Psychiatry, will present data from experiments performed in U-M's Ormond and Hazel Hunt Laboratory. The research involved 11 people with anxiety disorders who each received a series of psychoanalytically oriented diagnostic sessions conducted by a psychoanalyst. From these interviews the psychoanalysts inferred what underlying unconscious conflict might be causing the person's anxiety disorder. Words capturing the nature of the unconscious conflict were then selected from the interviews and used as stimuli in the laboratory. They also selected words related to each patient's experience of anxiety disorder symptoms. Although these words differed from patient to patient, results showed that they functioned in the same way. These verbal stimuli were presented subliminally at one thousandth of a second, and supraliminally at 30 milliseconds. A control category of stimuli was added that had no relationship to the unconscious conflict or anxiety symptom. While the stimuli were presented to the patients, scalp electrodes record the brain responses to them. In a previous experiment Shevrin had demonstrated that time-frequency features, a type of brain activity, showed that patients grouped the unconscious conflict stimuli together only when they were presented subliminally. But the conscious symptom-related stimuli showed the reverse pattern -- brain activity was better grouped together when patients viewed those words supraliminally. Only when the unconscious conflict words were presented unconsciously could the brain see them as connected, Shevrin notes. What the analysts put together from the interview session made sense to the brain only unconsciously. However, the experimental design in this first experiment did not allow for directly comparing the effect of
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, salyavin808 fintlewoodlewix@ wrote: Whatever, I remember the lectures and can't help noticing it all came to nought. Except the part about creating a situation where some of the physiological correlates of pure consciousness appear simultaneously with higher levels of brain activation, the purported purpose of practicing the techniques in the first place. Sparaig, I really wish you and others here would stop saying this. It really marks you as a newbie, someone who wasn't there when the TM-Sidhis came out. There was NO QUESTION when they were introduced that they were for the development of the siddhis them- selves. That was how they were promoted, and that was how they were measured. There used to be daily reports gathered at all the course locations and sent back to Maharishi, hoping to report the first person to truly levitate or perform any of the other objective siddhis. None ever happened. MMY was a PR person at heart. He was well aware that a full-blown demo of the Sidhis, especially Yogic Flying, would have instantly fulfilled the World Plan of teaching everyone in the world to meditate. I've no doubt there was a bit of wishful thinking to confirm his own belief system mixed in there, as well. Of course, at least a year before the TM-Sidhis were announced, I was hearing rumors that someone had walked in on MMY floating himself. The cute young GF of a friend had allegedly been summoned to MMY's room and she arrived early and poked her nose in to see him floating 2 feet off the ground, so perhaps (just perhaps) he had his own experience to back up his expectations. Of course, maybe she saw him hopping like everyone else or perhaps the guy's GF lied to him. I DO believe that his GF told him *something* as he was a follower of Yogananda and had no interest in TM or MMY. What SHE actually saw is unknowable, of course. My own reaction to the story at that time was that if MMY was so enlightened that he could float around the room, he would have sensed her presence and made sure she didn't see him. These days, I consider THAT reaction naive: had he been practicing anything like what he taught, he would have been no more sensitive to the outside world that any other randomly hopping TM sidha would be, regardless of whether he was floating or merely hopping. It was only AFTER none ever happened -- for years -- that the TM-Sidhi course began to be marketed in terms of expansion of consciousness or something to speed up enlightenment, or whatever euphemism you were sold. This happened because the TM-Sidhis FAILED, not because they succeeded. As I said, the first time I formally heard about the TM-SIdhis course, which was within a few weeks of when I first heard rumors about it in 1976, I believe, it was presented as a course in the development of consciousness. The fact that you are hung up on the powers thing is your own problem. According to the definition you profess to believe in (Maharishi's), UC involves being able to fully perform the siddhis, objectively. According to that same definition, therefore, the TM movement has failed to produce even one person in over 40 years of teaching who was in UC. Yet you seem to think the odds are in your favor to keep on keepin' on. Full-blown UC includes being able to fully perform the siddhis. Of course, Vaj maintains that full-blown CC is all that is required to fully perform the siddhis, and perhaps he is right. However, in order to be in full-blown UC, one must already be in full-blown CC, so it's not an important distinction in the long run, as far as being in full-blown UC is concerned. It's *fine* that you settled for the things you settled for, with TM and with the TM-Sidhis. But please don't pretend that the things you settled for were either how they were originally sold or that they were the goals of either at the time. The height of the high jump bar was lowered to match actual performance, that's all. In fact, as I said, the official presentation of the TM-sidhis in 1976 was all about growth in consciousness. The official presentation of them in the first Collected [scientific] Papers was all about growth of consciousness. MMY's wishful thinking and really over the top publicity posters notwithstanding, that is how he presented them to the world, and since you weren't (if I recall correctly) involved with the TM organization at all by that time, your knowledge of MMY's attitude about them is 2nd or 3rd hand, at best. The fact that some TM teacher got hung up on the flying thing might be MMY's fault, although, as I have said, by 1976 the formal presentation of the TM-sidhis was in terms of enlightenment, and we still, more than 35 years later, hear people
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: India drowning in its own excreta, oh shit
On 06/17/2012 10:23 AM, nablusoss1008 wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoisebno_reply@... wrote: India today is not a degraded form of Vedic India. It's the same place, and still IMO suffering under the yoke of the same mindset. Don't you just hate those dirty indians and love the clean tibetans :-) To the westerners Triguna used to ask with a smile; and rectum is clean ? I think he never got used to how little we payed attention to cleanliness in this area. Yeah, like those people squatting in the field near the Ganges had a bucket of water with them. They probably dove into the Ganges instead which should give anyone pause to taking a dip in it. At that over 10 years ago returning Indian engineers wanted to do something about cleaning up the Ganges but got opposition from the religious nuts. And lets not forget that westerners don't have to deal with a lot parasites in their food as Indians do.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, salyavin808 fintlewoodlewix@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: [...] Whatever, I remember the lectures and can't help noticing it all came to nought. Except the part about creating a situation where some of the physiological correlates of pure consciousness appear simultaneously with higher levels of brain activation, the purported purpose of practicing the techniques in the first place. Oh yeah, except that part, silly of me to forget I've got physiological correlates appearing simultaneously with higher levels of brain activation going on. Well, that's what was said. It was said explicitly by Rick Archer to me in 1976, though he didn't say it in quite those words. It was said explicitly in the 1976 Collected Papers Volume 1. It was said explicitly to the world press in July 1986 when the first public Yogic Flying demos were held. And it was what I was required to write on that piece of paper I mentioned earlier when I applied for the TM-sidhis in 1985. I also applied in 1984, but I don't recall if it was required of me then. I may not have gotten far enough along in the application process to go through that little ritual since I had just gotten out of the USAF only a year earlier. As I said, a stress reduction technique may not touch symptoms if they don't have anything to do with stress. It's funny how you can quote the brochures like you do above then contradict them like you do here. It's all a kind of mix and match thing for you but I don't seperate any of it, the teaching is what it is and, according to SCI, all health problems are stress related and TM is the cure for them all, have you ever even read the Science of Being? You should give it a try, I warn you though you might end up on my side of the sceptical fence. Hmmm? Certainly, one can make a case that all health problems have a stress component, but if that component isn't the primary issue, than enlightenment (CC) won't address the primary issue. If you are missing an arm, gaining CC won't give you that arm back. Of course, one could make the case that one could voluntarily direct one's arm to grow back if one was in full-blown UC (but that goes back to the Sidhis in that case). I have read the Science of Being a few dozen times. Likewise with MMY's Gita commentary. There's no end of bullshit some people will believe. Obviously. However, if one suspends all common sense (to use your term) while participating in something, and then decides that that something doesn't jive with common sense, it isn't surprising that you would suddenly decide that the self-created straw-man of your own belief system was bullshit. One can make the case that ALL belief systems are bullshit. L
[FairfieldLife] Re: The Unconscious exists study says
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, salyavin808 fintlewoodlewix@ wrote: Very interesting. Will be fascinating to see how that fits in with current plasticity models used by the NLP groups that do away (they think) with such Freudian notions and claim that anxiety is learned and can be simply re-learned through training different parts of the brain through repetition thus rendering psychoanalysis redundant.If there is unconscious conflict then it should override the plasticity idea that we can reprogramme ourselves? And how would TM affect the difference between the unconscious response and the measured anxiety. The TM model promises to release unconscious stress, here is a way to prove it. A rich seam of research for everyone here I think. Another perspective on this comes from the weird Rama guy I studied with for some time. In his view, the unconscious was a total misnomer, and badly misleading. In his view, *nothing* was ever uncon- scious. Each of us knows *everything* that influences our everyday thoughts and actions. It's just that out of habit and out of expediency we filter out the stuff we don't want to become conscious *of*. That's the way most think of it these days and it's how I've learned to look at it since doing an NLP course. I suppose if the habit of ignoring uncomfortable thoughts becomes entrenched it effectively becomes an unconscious in the Freudian sense but his idea centred on the belief that the unconscious was made mostly of childhood emotions that became our lowest level of mind and character before speech and seperation from mother created what we call our conscious higher mind. Reprogramming that is the goal of all mental improvement techniques I think and can we really get to those depths through mindfulness or things like TM? I really don't know. In other words, in his view (and I honestly can't tell you whether I agree with it or don't, although at this moment I kinda do), it's not that anything is ever unconscious, in the sense that it lies below the threshold of being able to experience it. It's that we don't *want* to experience it. So we don't. We lie to ourselves. Yes, out of convenience for sure. Memory is very selective. The up side of this belief is that -- in theory -- one can try to speak to others as if they are as fully conscious as one conceives of them as capable of being. As opposed to speaking to them as if they are what they are pretending to be. I'm sure we're all simply what we pretend to be. He didn't always pull this off -- who does? -- but I felt the essential respect inherent in even the idea of it. If you encounter someone who is acting out in inappropriate behavior, and doing so while claiming to be unconscious of the internal imbalances that trigger that behavior, is it a favor to them to allow them to continue to believe that? In a therapuetic setting you do it gently and the patient only takes it on when they are aware and become ready to tackle things (good news if you charge by the hour.) In the NLP course I did all this stuff comes up spontaneously as they teach a little mindfulness trick to let you reveal the thoughts that you don't like to acknowledge lurking quietly in the background. It can be a shock or a pleasant surprise to find out how trivial an ancient agony can be in the light of day once you're all grown up but they stay buried and cause stress symptoms regardless unless challenged. How this fits in with the Freudian idea I outlined I don't know but I suspect there are different levels we can tackle until it gets to the pre-verbal training we all got and then it becomes tricky. NLP teaches that unconscious thought patterns aren't good or bad because the unconscious doesn't know the difference but just acts according to habit, this makes sense to me but how we do something about it if it stops you working at the potential you'd like is the big question. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, iranitea no_reply@ wrote: Freud's Theory of Unconscious Conflict Linked to Anxiety Symptoms ScienceDaily (June 16, 2012) A link between unconscious conflicts and conscious anxiety disorder symptoms have been shown, lending empirical support to psychoanalysis. An experiment that Sigmund Freud could never have imagined 100 years ago may help lend scientific support for one of his key theories, and help connect it with current neuroscience. June 16 at the 101st Annual Meeting of the American Psychoanalytic Association, a University of Michigan professor who has spent decades applying scientific methods to the study of psychoanalysis will present new data supporting a causal link between the psychoanalytic concept known as unconscious conflict, and the conscious symptoms experienced by people with anxiety disorders such
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, iranitea no_reply@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, salyavin808 fintlewoodlewix@ wrote: Whatever, I remember the lectures and can't help noticing it all came to nought. Except the part about creating a situation where some of the physiological correlates of pure consciousness appear simultaneously with higher levels of brain activation, the purported purpose of practicing the techniques in the first place. Sparaig, I really wish you and others here would stop saying this. It really marks you as a newbie, someone who wasn't there when the TM-Sidhis came out. There was NO QUESTION when they were introduced that they were for the development of the siddhis them- selves. That was how they were promoted, and that was how they were measured. There used to be daily reports gathered at all the course locations and sent back to Maharishi, hoping to report the first person to truly levitate or perform any of the other objective siddhis. None ever happened. It was only AFTER none ever happened -- for years -- that the TM-Sidhi course began to be marketed in terms of expansion of consciousness or something to speed up enlightenment, or whatever euphemism you were sold. This happened because the TM-Sidhis FAILED, not because they succeeded. Exactly. I think the real discrepancy between anything Lawson or Judy say here about Sid(d)his, (see I don't even know anymore how to write it properly, shall I write it as in the original brochure, that came out 1977, or in the subsequent marketing maybe a year later), is all due to the fact that they were on courses about 10 years later. That's about the time, we had either already left the movement, or were about to leave it. Was in 1976 or 1977? And yet, this is all enthusiasm and doesn't change what the formal presentation was to us peons as early as 1976. Rick, do you remember when you first did that tour with Purusha presenting stuff about the TM-Sidhis to local centers? Regardless, we heard what we (and MMY) wanted us to hear. My own belief is that he was indeed convinced that floating was just around the corner and wanted everyone to start as fast as possible in order to usher in the 'full dawn of the Age of Enlightenment' so he was willing to play a bit fast and loose with the current reality in the belief that the result would be reality catching up with his rhetoric. In this sense, there is no doubt in what you say, but the notion, that the main aim of the Siddhis (as of 1977) as described as the development of enlightenment. Because at that time, the notion of 'capture the fort' in order to achieve everything that is around the fort, was still strong going in the movement. In the brochure of 1977 'Enlightenment and the Siddhis' (siddhis still written with dd), all these experiences of the siddhis were described as 'by-products' of the development of enlightenment, which would be, as you describe, incomplete without the full development of the siddhis, those special abilities, like flying of course.) This is of course also a reflection on the usual scriptural critique of the siddhis. exactly as I have said. Over enthusiasm of everyone (including myself at that time) aside, the core message was and always has been the same: development of the siddhis is a by-product of becoming enlightened. MMY merely claimed that it was possible, in the correct context (TM-Sidhis course) to develop siddhis in order to speed up development of enlightenment. The brochure had a lot of experience reports from six month courses, all describing various cosmic experiences, or well, experience of the super normal.) There were adds out showing seemingly flying people, saying something like 'breakthrough in human potential'. There was a banner/ exhibition showing people seemingly levitate. While it was always said, that these were mere byproducts, they were nevertheless stressed as necessary for enlightenment. Full-blown UC, at least or, as Vaj claims, full-blown CC, which is, as we all know, something that MMY claimed was a pre-requisit for full-blown UC. There was a constant expectation fueled by rumors and sayings of Maharishi, some of them I was even present myself, that people would soon actually fly, first hoover and then fly, and that it was only due to stress in world consciousness, that it didn't yet happen. Maharishi also said this in videotapes circulated at the time, as I remember, he commented, that people would be surprised if somebody wouldn't sit inside a taxi, but hoover above it. This was on normal video tapes around 1978. I recall at least hearing about that before I left for the USAF in 1978. The PR
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@... wrote: There's no end of bullshit some people will believe. Obviously. However, if one suspends all common sense (to use your term) while participating in something, and then decides that that something doesn't jive with common sense, it isn't surprising that you would suddenly decide that the self-created straw-man of your own belief system was bullshit. It depends what the belief system is, the idea that I self- created a belief around the siddhis is laughable, I got my knowledge and understanding about it from the reesh himself it's just that I don't try and kid myself about what it meant now it's turned out not to work. In the case of levitation via yogic hopping I can honestly, but shamefully, say that I brought into it for a while. I find it hard to comprehend that I once really did believe, even for a second, that the laws of physics were optional due to having a few very unlikely phrases from Maharishi. But yes, I think I was dumb enough to believe it for a while. That's the power of cults, they can turn everyone into an idiot for a while or as long as the need to hold the belief outweighs the fear of having to think for yourself. We live and learn don't we. Hopefully. One can make the case that ALL belief systems are bullshit. I try and avoid them, all we have really are things that are more or less likely to be true. And it all comes down to what you accept as evidence. L
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Jason jedi_spock@... wrote: Judy, you do at times have the tendency to go off on a tangent. The point is in the begining MMY didn't consider siddhis as important. Then for a brief period of time it was considered important. Then, in the 80's due to lawsuits again a U-turn was made that it was meant only for enlightenment. This is actually absurd. No other school practices this approach. You still don't understand. Floating is a by-product of becoming enlightened. Becoming enlightened is a by-product of cultivating the ability to float via practice of the TM-Sidhis. Everyone fully expected to eventually be floating when I took the TM-Sidhis in the mid 80's. However, we had to prove legally that we understood that they were for enlightenment and no guarantee of any power was made. I would venture to say that people STILL expect eventually to be floating when they take the course. Myself, I have become far more skeptical over the last 25 years, but I dutifully attempt to set my skepticism aside when I sit down to practice and remind myself that Yogic Flying is for floating. L.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, iranitea no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Jason jedi_spock@ wrote: snip Face it Robin, you were *never* enlightened in the first place. Bingo! The conclusion is therefore: not the Maharishi was deceived, but Robin was (and still is) Except that Maharishi appeared to confirm his enlightenment at the time. I heard that Robin was asked to speak about his valid experiences of UC, not that MMY had confirmed that he was floating around the room. L
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Robin Carlsen maskedzebra@... wrote: [...] . Now it is mostly ignored�except for people like David Orme-Johnson. But I suppose the writing was on the wall when the judge in New Jersey ruled that TM was a religion (Malik versus Yogi 1977). That for me, was the beginning of The End. A slight nit: Malnak vs Yogi didn't rule that TM was a religion but that teaching TM + its theoretical component, SCI, in the public schools was a violation of the separation of church and state. That distinction is important because it allows the David Lynch Foundation to offer the Quiet Time program where every student and teacher in a school can learn TM for free and voluntarily practice it during the Quiet Time period at the start and end of each school day. Had TM itself been ruled a religion, they couldn't get away with doing that. L
Re: [FairfieldLife] Pureview Windoze phoney??
On 06/16/2012 03:00 PM, cardemaister wrote: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=384977931549858set=a.109142489133405.4548.100686616645659type=1 http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/06/17/it-is-succeed-or-die-for-nokia-observers-say/ They fell asleep at the wheel and rested on their laurels. Not good enough in today cut-throat tech world.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@... wrote: [...] Nope, wrong, sorry. The presentations and brochures when the TM-Sidhis course was first made available to the rank and file in 1976 said the practice was for developing enlightenment, the supernormal performances being byproducts of the practice and benchmarks of one's progress in that development. The point was that, as Patanjali warns, it's a bad idea to go after the siddhis *for their own sake*. But supernormal performances and experiences were considered an integral part of the development of enlightenment via the practice of the TM-SIdhis. BTW, either the Yogativa (sp) Upanishad or the Shiva Samhita describes Yogic Flying as a practice that benefits the entire world. So MMY's take on things can be supported by at least one traditional text. L
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
Has it ever occured to you that you threw out the baby with the bath water? That TM and TM-Sidhis practice are beneficial in their own right, regardless of the overblown rhetoric that was used to sell them to you? L. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, salyavin808 fintlewoodlewix@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: There's no end of bullshit some people will believe. Obviously. However, if one suspends all common sense (to use your term) while participating in something, and then decides that that something doesn't jive with common sense, it isn't surprising that you would suddenly decide that the self-created straw-man of your own belief system was bullshit. It depends what the belief system is, the idea that I self- created a belief around the siddhis is laughable, I got my knowledge and understanding about it from the reesh himself it's just that I don't try and kid myself about what it meant now it's turned out not to work. In the case of levitation via yogic hopping I can honestly, but shamefully, say that I brought into it for a while. I find it hard to comprehend that I once really did believe, even for a second, that the laws of physics were optional due to having a few very unlikely phrases from Maharishi. But yes, I think I was dumb enough to believe it for a while. That's the power of cults, they can turn everyone into an idiot for a while or as long as the need to hold the belief outweighs the fear of having to think for yourself. We live and learn don't we. Hopefully. One can make the case that ALL belief systems are bullshit. I try and avoid them, all we have really are things that are more or less likely to be true. And it all comes down to what you accept as evidence. L
[FairfieldLife] Movie review: Extraterrestrial
Extraterrestrial is a Spanish comedy of errors about a group of people who live in the same apartment. Julio has been having an affair with neighbor Julia (a cutie played by Michelle Jenner) and Carlos's girlfriend (who is clueless about what is going on) and next door neighbor Angel is jealous. Anyway, Julio wakes to notice things seem quiet outside and looking up at the sky over Madrid sees a huge UFO hovering. Well the movie has little to do about the UFO but more to do about the actions the quartet have between each other and given that the area has been evacuated though for one reason or another they didn't evacuate. Probably worth a NF WI if you are into Spanish comedies but who the hell knows when it will show up because Universal licensed it. It was available pre-release on Amazon Instant for a good price so watched it there in HD on my BD player. Also available on Vudu but for more. The PQ was excellent on Amazon at 1080p and 5.1 Dolby. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1680133/ In the meantime TCM had a Friday evening of old sci-fi classics so I recorded some of them. One was World Without End with Rod Taylor (new to movies in 1956) which was a hoot as it was so dumb. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049964/ Oh, in case you haven't heard yet or live on Mars, Rodney King died.
[FairfieldLife] My TM mantra dilemna--- help requested...
I am an MIU grad, executive governor, 40-year TMeditator with a personal mantra dilemna and am in need of some help. Thank you for reading the following. It's a bit convoluted and redundant, but only because I am striving for clarity... My brief mantra history: I was initiated (for $45.) in 1972 at Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont. A year Iater I was on TTC in Engelberg, Suisse. Then on my 6-month course in 1976 I received my 1st advanced technique from Maharishi. Two years later I received my 2nd a.t. from Lillian (quickest-puja-in-the-world) Rosen at MIU. When I received all the TM teaching mantras from Maharishi at the end of TTC from Maharishi directly, I was surprired to see that my 1st mantra I received from my initiator was different from any M. gave me. When M. gave me my first a.t. in '76, all was remedied because what he gave me I found delightful, smooth-sailing, easy. comfortable, a good fit, etc., and the core bija sound of the mantra matched what he (Maharishi) had imparted in the group of mantras he (Maharishi) had imparted to me at the end of TTC. But then when Lillian gave me my 2nd technique, again the pronunciation of her bestowed to me seed mantra was different from the group of teaching seed mantras Maharishi gave me to teach with. I know that different teachers, male and female, were given slightly different mantras, also depending on what year they were made initiators. Here is my specific dilemna: having seen online the mantra charts for advanced techniques on several websites over the years, I see the correct spelling of my seed 2nd tecnique mantra that Lillian gave me... but her pronunciation of it is quite different (as I said above) from the group of mantras Maharishi gave me to impart when teaching. Advanced technique mantras are longer, of course, but it's the seed part I am referring to. My subjective feeling is I never liked what Lillian gave me (as an aside, nor her demeanor). The pronunciation somehow seems wrong or contrived, not sleek and smooth. I really have no way to have my present advanced technique mantra checked other than looking online. I could, and have a bit, experiment with the pronunciation to match what I received from Maharishi, but there-in lies my dilemna... I could, but am hesitant to, make up my own mantra. to reiterate: this ( wrong?? ) mantra I have been using for so many years seems flat, contrived, boring, etc.. And I have stopped meditating regularly because of this. The old vibrant vitality in my meditation practice is just not there any more (again, incorrect mantra ?? ). Same with the sidhis that I practiced for so many years-- at a certain point my inner feeling was that practicing them felt like an inner imposition, a contrived prison of obligatory practice that I kept perpetuating, and FOR WHOM was I doing this ? I stopped the sidhis because I felt they were not constructive, life-supporting, energetic, fun, vibrant, etc. I really only did them forever out of a sense of deference to Maharishi's (great seer's) direction... BTW, the Age of Enlightenment technique I received personally from Maharishi on my first 6-month course ( pre-sidhis ) I do find very profound and amazing. . So, thank you for reading ! Please be kind and constructive as I am very sincere in my posting this. I have lurked for several years here and have occasionally posted. I would really like to see all the disparity I have witnessed here coalesce into a positive channel to help me with my spiritual dilemna, putting this website to good use. THANK YOU...
[FairfieldLife] Re: My TM mantra dilemna--- help requested...
Jeeze louise. This, assuming you are not a troll, fully illustrates my observation that a TM teacher can teach TM properly without ever getting it him or her self. If you can't remember, or at least consciously assimilate, what you are instructed say to meditators about this situation, then go and get checked by an active teacher and let them tell you verbally. L. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, stevelf ysoy10li@... wrote: I am an MIU grad, executive governor, 40-year TMeditator with a personal mantra dilemna and am in need of some help. Thank you for reading the following. It's a bit convoluted and redundant, but only because I am striving for clarity... My brief mantra history: I was initiated (for $45.) in 1972 at Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont. A year Iater I was on TTC in Engelberg, Suisse. Then on my 6-month course in 1976 I received my 1st advanced technique from Maharishi. Two years later I received my 2nd a.t. from Lillian (quickest-puja-in-the-world) Rosen at MIU. When I received all the TM teaching mantras from Maharishi at the end of TTC from Maharishi directly, I was surprired to see that my 1st mantra I received from my initiator was different from any M. gave me. When M. gave me my first a.t. in '76, all was remedied because what he gave me I found delightful, smooth-sailing, easy. comfortable, a good fit, etc., and the core bija sound of the mantra matched what he (Maharishi) had imparted in the group of mantras he (Maharishi) had imparted to me at the end of TTC. But then when Lillian gave me my 2nd technique, again the pronunciation of her bestowed to me seed mantra was different from the group of teaching seed mantras Maharishi gave me to teach with. I know that different teachers, male and female, were given slightly different mantras, also depending on what year they were made initiators. Here is my specific dilemna: having seen online the mantra charts for advanced techniques on several websites over the years, I see the correct spelling of my seed 2nd tecnique mantra that Lillian gave me... but her pronunciation of it is quite different (as I said above) from the group of mantras Maharishi gave me to impart when teaching. Advanced technique mantras are longer, of course, but it's the seed part I am referring to. My subjective feeling is I never liked what Lillian gave me (as an aside, nor her demeanor). The pronunciation somehow seems wrong or contrived, not sleek and smooth. I really have no way to have my present advanced technique mantra checked other than looking online. I could, and have a bit, experiment with the pronunciation to match what I received from Maharishi, but there-in lies my dilemna... I could, but am hesitant to, make up my own mantra. to reiterate: this ( wrong?? ) mantra I have been using for so many years seems flat, contrived, boring, etc.. And I have stopped meditating regularly because of this. The old vibrant vitality in my meditation practice is just not there any more (again, incorrect mantra ?? ). Same with the sidhis that I practiced for so many years-- at a certain point my inner feeling was that practicing them felt like an inner imposition, a contrived prison of obligatory practice that I kept perpetuating, and FOR WHOM was I doing this ? I stopped the sidhis because I felt they were not constructive, life-supporting, energetic, fun, vibrant, etc. I really only did them forever out of a sense of deference to Maharishi's (great seer's) direction... BTW, the Age of Enlightenment technique I received personally from Maharishi on my first 6-month course ( pre-sidhis ) I do find very profound and amazing. . So, thank you for reading ! Please be kind and constructive as I am very sincere in my posting this. I have lurked for several years here and have occasionally posted. I would really like to see all the disparity I have witnessed here coalesce into a positive channel to help me with my spiritual dilemna, putting this website to good use. THANK YOU...
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@... wrote: snip And full blown UC is different than having valid experiences of UC which is what apparently MMY said about Robin at one point. I make the case that many of Robin's issues stemmed from the fact that he missed [or rejected] MMY's point about floating being a _sine qua non_ for full blown UC (or CC -waves to Vaj). FWIW, if Robin was having only experiences of UC, they were, according to him, totally stable 24/7 throughout the 10 years during which he considered himself to be enlightened. Regarding MMY's comment about flying being the sine qua non for full-blown UC, I do not think that was meant the way we tend to interpret it, if we take MMY's definition of UC seriously. Maybe Robin will have something to say to clarify this.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@... wrote: Has it ever occured to you that you threw out the baby with the bath water? Nope, I still do TM but because I like it not because I'm kidding myself it's doing anything more than put a nice shine on things. Any further benefits will be appreciated. The siddhis were abandoned a long time ago as a waste of time and not a particularly pleasant one at that. And it took a long time to admit to myself that they were doing me no good rather than simply that something good is happening. If you get more out of it I'm happy for you but the TM mythos is great at keeping you at it when it aint working and I know a lot of people who should stop and also loads who like it, we're all different. That TM and TM-Sidhis practice are beneficial in their own right, regardless of the overblown rhetoric that was used to sell them to you? L. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, salyavin808 fintlewoodlewix@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: There's no end of bullshit some people will believe. Obviously. However, if one suspends all common sense (to use your term) while participating in something, and then decides that that something doesn't jive with common sense, it isn't surprising that you would suddenly decide that the self-created straw-man of your own belief system was bullshit. It depends what the belief system is, the idea that I self- created a belief around the siddhis is laughable, I got my knowledge and understanding about it from the reesh himself it's just that I don't try and kid myself about what it meant now it's turned out not to work. In the case of levitation via yogic hopping I can honestly, but shamefully, say that I brought into it for a while. I find it hard to comprehend that I once really did believe, even for a second, that the laws of physics were optional due to having a few very unlikely phrases from Maharishi. But yes, I think I was dumb enough to believe it for a while. That's the power of cults, they can turn everyone into an idiot for a while or as long as the need to hold the belief outweighs the fear of having to think for yourself. We live and learn don't we. Hopefully. One can make the case that ALL belief systems are bullshit. I try and avoid them, all we have really are things that are more or less likely to be true. And it all comes down to what you accept as evidence. L
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, iranitea no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Jason jedi_spock@ wrote: snip Face it Robin, you were *never* enlightened in the first place. Bingo! The conclusion is therefore: not the Maharishi was deceived, but Robin was (and still is) Except that Maharishi appeared to confirm his enlightenment at the time. I heard that Robin was asked to speak about his valid experiences of UC, not that MMY had confirmed that he was floating around the room. Non sequitur, actually. See my previous post.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: [...] Nope, wrong, sorry. The presentations and brochures when the TM-Sidhis course was first made available to the rank and file in 1976 said the practice was for developing enlightenment, the supernormal performances being byproducts of the practice and benchmarks of one's progress in that development. The point was that, as Patanjali warns, it's a bad idea to go after the siddhis *for their own sake*. But supernormal performances and experiences were considered an integral part of the development of enlightenment via the practice of the TM-SIdhis. BTW, either the Yogativa (sp) Of these http://sanskritdocuments.org/doc_upanishhat/doc_upanishhat.html ...probably, yoga-tattva... Upanishad or the Shiva Samhita describes Yogic Flying as a practice that benefits the entire world. So MMY's take on things can be supported by at least one traditional text. L
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: snip And full blown UC is different than having valid experiences of UC which is what apparently MMY said about Robin at one point. I make the case that many of Robin's issues stemmed from the fact that he missed [or rejected] MMY's point about floating being a _sine qua non_ for full blown UC (or CC -waves to Vaj). FWIW, if Robin was having only experiences of UC, they were, according to him, totally stable 24/7 throughout the 10 years during which he considered himself to be enlightened. And yet... He never claimed he could float as far as I know. MMY's comment about how the TM-sidhis would clarify people's real state of consciousness, regardless of what they thought, is not only relevant, but directed at least partly at Robin and others like him. Regarding MMY's comment about flying being the sine qua non for full-blown UC, I do not think that was meant the way we tend to interpret it, if we take MMY's definition of UC seriously. Or perhaps it was. Maybe Robin will have something to say to clarify this. If Robin doesn't claim that he was floating at that time, then it supports my conclusions, I think. L.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, cardemaister no_reply@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: [...] Nope, wrong, sorry. The presentations and brochures when the TM-Sidhis course was first made available to the rank and file in 1976 said the practice was for developing enlightenment, the supernormal performances being byproducts of the practice and benchmarks of one's progress in that development. The point was that, as Patanjali warns, it's a bad idea to go after the siddhis *for their own sake*. But supernormal performances and experiences were considered an integral part of the development of enlightenment via the practice of the TM-SIdhis. BTW, either the Yogativa (sp) Of these http://sanskritdocuments.org/doc_upanishhat/doc_upanishhat.html ...probably, yoga-tattva... BTW, the alphabetical order is that of Sanskrit, here in Harvard- Kyoto transliteration scheme: Vowels (short and long), anusvaara (M) and visarga (H): a A i I u U R RR lR lRR e ai o au M H Consonants, starting from the deepest series: (guttural) k kh g gh G ( = ng in thing) (palatal) c ch j jh J ( = ñ in mañana) (retroflex aka cerebral) T Th D Dh N (dental)t th d dh n (labial) p ph b bh m Semivowels: y (as in 'yes') r l v Sibilants and 'h': z ( = palatal 'sh') S ( = retroflex 'sh'), s, h Upanishad or the Shiva Samhita describes Yogic Flying as a practice that benefits the entire world. So MMY's take on things can be supported by at least one traditional text. L
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
I'm chiming in late on this topic, but I was there when the siddhis were first taught to us. And my recollection (contrary to yours Barry) is that, right from the beginning, MMY talked about them as a technique to promote the ability to maintain PC while in activity, and also as a test of one's ability to do that. I don't recall his ever saying that the siddhi results alone were the object of the practice. He said that was a limited view of the the whole endeavor. Personally, I never got much from the practice, and it seemed to devour so much time, time I did not really have as a parent who needed to cook meals, take care of kids, read and do all the other fun things in life. I decided it was incompatible with my householder life. While doing it form time to time, I did feel energy during the flying technique, I never really flew anywhere - except once out of the blue I lifted high for a few seconds - no effort on my part. Otherwise, I sat and sat. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Jason jedi_spock@... wrote: Judy, you do at times have the tendency to go off on a tangent. The point is in the begining MMY didn't consider siddhis as important. Then for a brief period of time it was considered important. Then, in the 80's due to lawsuits again a U-turn was made that it was meant only for enlightenment. This is actually absurd. No other school practices this approach. --- authfriend jstein@ wrote: As Lawson and I have both said, however, and as iranitea confirms below (he's actually correcting Barry's rant), the *goal* of the practice was said to be facilitating the development of enlightenment, the supernormal performances being a byproduct and a benchmark of that development. That was the case in 1976, and it remained the case in the mid-'80s when Lawson and I took the course. Lawson did mention one difference: by the time we took the course, we were required to write out in longhand and sign a statement to the effect that we understood the goal of the course was *not* to achieve supernormal performances but to develop enlightenment. That was apparently a result, as Lawson said, of the TMO having being sued for false advertising. There was NO QUESTION when they were introduced that they were for the development of the siddhis them- selves. That was how they were promoted, and that was how they were measured. There used to be daily reports gathered at all the course locations and sent back to Maharishi, hoping to report the first person to truly levitate or perform any of the other objective siddhis. None ever happened. It was only AFTER none ever happened -- for years -- that the TM-Sidhi course began to be marketed in terms of expansion of consciousness or something to speed up enlightenment, or whatever euphemism you were sold. This happened because the TM-Sidhis FAILED, not because they succeeded.
[FairfieldLife] 'The True Story of Maharishi's(Patanjali) Sidhi Program'...
When Maharishi brought out the Sidhi Program, he first taught the advanced Teachers and got feedback from them, on how it was going... This is such a subtle practice that Maharishi wanted to present it in terms of what would be 'acceptable'... He also wanted as many meditators to take the course as possible, and so stuctured it in a way which would be basic and general... The main purpose of 'Patanjali's Yoga Sutras' is to 'Establish Yoga' or Union with the Absolute; it is NOT for the 'Developement of any Powers', per se... It is repeatedly stated in the Yoga Sutras, that the 'Letting Go' of any particular 'Result of the Sutra' would be a nesassary ingrediant of successful practice of 'Sanyama'... In the practice of Sanyama, the meditator has become familiar with 'Transcending' while practicing TM, and also has become 'Aware' to whatever extent of 'Pure Consciousness' or 'Samadhi'... Therefore, all it takes at this point, is to add a specific 'Sutra' to the practice of transcending, which one is quite familiar with, while maintaining the 'Witnessing Awareness of Pure Consciousness' or 'Samadhi'... Now, there was much anticipation at the time that Maharishi presented this new knowledge to the general population of meditators back in 1977, the start of the first course in the United States...at M.I.U. Back in the day... Many people had heard rumors of this or that or the other thing... Maharishi had some publicity posters printed up, which made it look like these meditators were actually floating.. But they weren't floating at all...rather they were exhibiting muscle contractions and quirky, jerky movements which caused them to hop a few inches off the ground for a few moments and move forward, exhorting great effort... Rather than being effortless, it seemed that this particular practice of the 'Flying Sutra' was somehow requiring effort and action... In explaining the purpose of the Sutras and particularly the Flying Sutra, Maharishi had said, that it would have a very 'Stabilizing effect' to perform this action which the awareness was in the Transcendent'... Now, remember that Patanjali said, that no particlar result was focused on, but rather it was an inward stroke during Sanyama and effortlessness which would produce the result, not of any particular sutra or power, but rather to stabilize Being in the Awareness, and establishing Unity or Brahman Consciousness... There are a few people who are practicing in the Dome that are 'Experiencing Brahman Consciousness'...so it is not true that Maharishi didn't bring anyone to this state of consciousness!... Now, I feel that it is unnecesssary for anyone to 'hop' during the practice of the Flying Sutra... I feel it is more on the level of consciousness that one 'Flies'... When one is in Brahman, and experiencing that Wholeness Within, and when one is identified with 'Space Itself' and when one can feel as time and light as a small particle, then one can instantly feel oneself moving through space, at the speed of thought, and actually experiencing what the 'All Encompassing Awareness' feels at a distance, whether that distance is few yards or a few thousand miles, the awarness is expanded out, in a real enough way, that the Yogi can experience things beyond the normal boundaries of the senses and the ego and the intellect... When one sees over and over again, that all existence radiates from the Inner Self of Samadhi, through the practice of TM and the TM-Sidhis... Then, one is stabilizing the awareness of Being in the awareness of 'All that there Is'... Robert.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: snip And full blown UC is different than having valid experiences of UC which is what apparently MMY said about Robin at one point. I make the case that many of Robin's issues stemmed from the fact that he missed [or rejected] MMY's point about floating being a _sine qua non_ for full blown UC (or CC -waves to Vaj). FWIW, if Robin was having only experiences of UC, they were, according to him, totally stable 24/7 throughout the 10 years during which he considered himself to be enlightened. And yet... He never claimed he could float as far as I know. MMY's comment about how the TM-sidhis would clarify people's real state of consciousness, regardless of what they thought, is not only relevant, but directed at least partly at Robin and others like him. You have no way of knowing who it was directed to, Lawson. Regarding MMY's comment about flying being the sine qua non for full-blown UC, I do not think that was meant the way we tend to interpret it, if we take MMY's definition of UC seriously. Or perhaps it was. I think not. Not the way you're interpreting it, at any rate. And it would be important to know the exact words he said, as well as the context in which he said them. Maybe Robin will have something to say to clarify this. If Robin doesn't claim that he was floating at that time, then it supports my conclusions, I think. He doesn't, but I think it would be prudent to hear what he has to say before deciding that the absence of such a claim supports one's conclusions on this point. You could also review what he wrote about his experience in the post he left about it yesterday. That *should* give you a clue. This is very much a case where Knowledge is different in different states of consciousness applies. Bottom line, there's no way we can tell what state of consciousness Robin was in. But it's entirely possible to rule out some of the reasons that have been given for believing he was not in UC.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, salyavin808 fintlewoodlewix@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: Has it ever occured to you that you threw out the baby with the bath water? Nope, I still do TM but because I like it not because I'm kidding myself it's doing anything more than put a nice shine on things. Any further benefits will be appreciated. Fair enouigh. The siddhis were abandoned a long time ago as a waste of time and not a particularly pleasant one at that. And it took a long time to admit to myself that they were doing me no good rather than simply that something good is happening. If you get more out of it I'm happy for you but the TM mythos is great at keeping you at it when it aint working and I know a lot of people who should stop and also loads who like it, we're all different. I definitely notice a difference when I don't practice them and so do friends and family. Whether this is anything beyond placebo, who can say. L
[FairfieldLife] Re: India drowning in its own excreta, oh shit
You are rather late to get the news. Almost every house unit at Mohenjo-daro was equipped with a private bathing area with drains to take the dirty water out into a larger drain that emptied into a sewage drain. Many of these bathing areas had water tight floors to keep moisture from seeping into the other rooms nearby or below. http://www.harappa.com/indus/12.html --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Jason jedi_spock@... wrote: --- Jason jedi_spock@ wrote: The actual figures are even higher, Bhairitu. They say close to 700 million people in india have no toilets. Another major problem with many indians is that they don't hesitate to defecate even near roadsides or highways and even footpaths. An uncle of mine who worked in Africa for many years say that many African tribal villages inspite of having no toilets are actualy quite clean and tidy. They have better hygiene sense that most indians! --- turquoiseb no_reply@ wrote: That was true in Morocco when I was growing up there in the early 60s as well. It was considered bad form to leave a big, steaming pile of one's inner self in public view, when non-public areas were just a few steps away. The tidiest, as I remember, were the Berbers, possibly as a result of being desert dwellers and having a reverence for the space around them. They, even though nomadic by nature, dug latrines and carefully covered them up before moving to the next place. They were in a sense the first Sierra Club-ers I met, Leaving nothing behind but foot- prints, taking nothing but memories. Just as a reminder, the take a dump wherever you might be mindset was probably prevalent during the much-vaunted, golden Vedic Age as well. And I'm supposed to believe that these peoples' ideas about health, social interaction, spiritual reality and the nature of consciousness constitute knowledge, or the gold standard? Get real. India today is not a degraded form of Vedic India. It's the same place, and still IMO suffering under the yoke of the same mindset. Barry, did you know that the only city in ancient times that had running water delivered to your doorstep was ancient Rome with it's Aquaducts. After the collapse of Rome, no city in the world had running water till the 19th century when plumbing was developed. Thanks to the industrial revolution. Nehru, India's first prime minister once remarked that the flush toilet is one the greatest inventions of the modern age.!
[FairfieldLife] Re: Pureview Windoze phoney??
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu noozguru@... wrote: On 06/16/2012 03:00 PM, cardemaister wrote: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=384977931549858set=a.109142489133405.4548.100686616645659type=1 http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/06/17/it-is-succeed-or-die-for-nokia-observers-say/ They fell asleep at the wheel and rested on their laurels. Not good enough in today cut-throat tech world. Dude, haven't you heard? By 2016, Windows Phone will top iOS in market share! http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericsavitz/2012/06/06/windows-phone-to-top-ios-market-share-by-2016-idc-says/ http://tinyurl.com/725wak2 The world will be clamoring to get their hands on a Windows Phone, and they'll also be enthusiastically upgrading to Windows 8 so that their PCs will look just like their phones. Nokia/MSFT über alles, baby!
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Jason jedi_spock@ wrote: Judy, you do at times have the tendency to go off on a tangent. The point is in the begining MMY didn't consider siddhis as important. Then for a brief period of time it was considered important. Then, in the 80's due to lawsuits again a U-turn was made that it was meant only for enlightenment. This is actually absurd. No other school practices this approach. You still don't understand. Floating is a by-product of becoming enlightened. Becoming enlightened is a by-product of cultivating the ability to float via practice of the TM-Sidhis. That's somehow circular logic here, don't you think? A (Siddhis) is the result (by-product) of B (full enlightenment). B (full enlightenment) is the result of (practicing) A (siddhis). Now what? Everyone fully expected to eventually be floating when I took the TM-Sidhis in the mid 80's. However, we had to prove legally that we understood that they were for enlightenment and no guarantee of any power was made. I would venture to say that people STILL expect eventually to be floating when they take the course. Bingo! One other difference, between you course, and the one I was on, is, that we actually expected to float on the course itself. I mean, we didn't see any videos or demonstrations of YF, we were just exposed to photos presented in a very manipulated way, so we had the feeling people were actually staying longer in the air then they actually did. I remember how disappointed I was, when I actually saw the first person hopping on my course. And, after swallowing that, when I had started hopping myself, and it started to be 'fun' and good, we were still expecting floating in the nearby future. There was this rumor about a press conference announced, where Maharishi would fly across Lake Lucerne, and that would prepare world consciousness to rise enough, so that we all would float. Now the point I was making, was actually, while it was always stated that enlightenment was the MAIN goal, even in 1977, the full experience of the siddhis were a secondary goal, and at the time, this secondary goal was much more emphasized in publications and talks, than it was later on. For example, there were posters showing the Sidha Man, cross legged floating like a Superman. The goal to ultimately fly was always there. It is obvious, that through time, and failing to achieve these, this secondary goal was pushed more into the background as a distant possibility, while at the same time it was more and more substituted by the goals of reaching enlightenment, and, as this also didn't work out for most people, by the goal to change collective consciousness and achieve world peace. It's a classic case of goal replacements. Myself, I have become far more skeptical over the last 25 years, but I dutifully attempt to set my skepticism aside when I sit down to practice and remind myself that Yogic Flying is for floating. L.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Pureview Windoze phoney??
On 06/17/2012 03:13 PM, Alex Stanley wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitunoozguru@... wrote: On 06/16/2012 03:00 PM, cardemaister wrote: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=384977931549858set=a.109142489133405.4548.100686616645659type=1 http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/06/17/it-is-succeed-or-die-for-nokia-observers-say/ They fell asleep at the wheel and rested on their laurels. Not good enough in today cut-throat tech world. Dude, haven't you heard? By 2016, Windows Phone will top iOS in market share! http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericsavitz/2012/06/06/windows-phone-to-top-ios-market-share-by-2016-idc-says/ http://tinyurl.com/725wak2 The world will be clamoring to get their hands on a Windows Phone, and they'll also be enthusiastically upgrading to Windows 8 so that their PCs will look just like their phones. Nokia/MSFT über alles, baby! And of course with 10 or more daily patches to plug security holes. I think that Microsoft is on the way down. BTW, shouldn't the guvmint be looking into payola in the tech journalism industry?
[FairfieldLife] Pyramid Code Revealed
The author believes that the Giza pyramid in Egypt was a consciousness machine. It was designed to maintain the global consciousness of human beings at a high level during the silver age or yuga. This brings one of the experts to believe that the pyramids of Egypt may have been built 36,000 years ago, which is derived by using the vedic measurement of time. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqaMrPaisYEfeature=g-vrec
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL - mahavakyas
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Share Long sharelong60@... wrote:
Tea wrote:
I remember Maharishi talking about the 'shock of unity'
my reply:
I'm not sure of the exact wording either, whether shock of unity or
Brahman. And I think in this context Maharishi talked about the mahavakyas,
phrases that the Master said to the disciple to help calm down the shock of
this transition:
Yes, it was about Mahavakyas
I am That
Thou art That
All This is That
That alone is
Probably best if said in Sanskrit (-:
Not sure about that.
And, just to add to the soup, I've been told there are different versions of
mahavakyas.
Right. Generally four Mahavakyas are selected as the main ones, each being from
a different Upanishad, corresponding to one of the different 4 Vedas. All the
Mahavakyas confirm the identity between individual soul, atma, and Brahman.
My guess is that their power stems from the shaktipat of the Master as well
as from their own inherent high vibe.
Sure, they have to be taught by the guru at the right moment, when the disciple
is ready for it.
From: iranitea no_re...@yahoogroups.com
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, June 17, 2012 8:56 AM
Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
Â
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Jason jedi_spock@ wrote:
Robin you say that you had to transfer your allegience to
another reality. There is only one reality.
Has it occured to you that both east and west could be wrong
or both partially right.?
Do you realise that by completely rejecting the east, you
have in effect 'thrown the baby along with the bathwater'.
The five paras that you have written below conclusively,
authoritatively and empricaly prove that you were never in
Unity, Robin.
Scientists say that any technology that is once unleashed
into the enviornment can never be rolled back. Same is the
case of enlightenment or awakening.
There is no such thing as de-enlightenment Robin. It's a
one way trip.
Face it Robin, you were *never* enlightened in the first
place.
Bingo! The conclusion is therefore: not the Maharishi was deceived, but Robin
was (and still is)
I found these two videos of Osho very helpful in understanding enlightenment:
You Are in Prison and You Think You Are Free
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XyOmYVIsig
Spiritual Growth and Enlightenment
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uP5J3i1H5dA
There are several things that strike me as improbably on the account below.
One of these is the fact that Robin presents his 'enlightenment' in a
straight line leading up from his encounters with Maharishi and the
experiences he has had on courses or through plain TM ('transcending'). But
in my own humble experiences, this is not like it is. I remember Maharishi
talking about the 'shock of unity' (I am not totally sure now, if it as
'shock of unity' or 'shock of Brahman') These were not very well known tapes,
but I am sure, more than just me, who are here, have seen it. This is what
actually coincides with my own experiences in this direction (I don't claim
enlightenment though.)
Think of somebody being in a prison, and coming out of it! If you were your
whole life in a prison, you don't know what freedom is, you will only realize
it the moment you come out. It is not just a slowly and natural fading into
something you had already known before - as Robin depicts it.
Think of Plato's cave analogy, how the person, who is led outside of the
cave, first is blended by the bright sun light, before, he only knew the
reflection of light, not even the sun, but of fire.
I cannot help, and notice the strong emotional sense of nostalgia in Robins
report. I think many TM teachers can identify with these feelings, the
memories of being on rounding courses and so on. I know these feelings, but I
don't in no way, have any sense of nostalgia about it. It is simply gone, was
nice at the time, but has been replaced by something better, more true and
more liberating. So. I believe firmly, once you are liberated, there will be
a break to all of your past life, that cannot be reverted.
Either the East was right, or Gerard Manley Hopkins was
right.
But the critical moment occurred when I realized: Well,
either Christ is right or Maharishi is right.
But truth is truth, and reality is reality. I came to the
conclusion that Christ was right, that Aquinas was right,
that Saint Theresa of Avila was right, and that Maharishi
was deceived.
I had to transfer my allegiance to another reality. That
was easy while I was a Catholic, but in the fall of 1987
while in Lourdes, France, I became convinced that the
Roman Catholic Church was without the power to save souls;
that the Holy Ghost had abandoned it, that the Virgin Mary
was not there
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@ wrote: I *like* this new, more saloon-like ambiance of spirituality. There is a Been-There-Done-That-ed-ness about it that I find also contains balance, and a greater sense of acceptance of and comfort with Who One Is Right Here, Right Now, than the I'll believe anything mindset of the past. I find the newer, more laissez-faire Whatever 'tude, if anything, *more* spiritual than the former 'tude. In the past (and among some even today) I always got a feeling that the seeker reacting to Tall Tales Of Power with automatic and enthusiastic belief really *needed* to hear them. These stories were, for them, like a canteen of water in the desert. *Of course* we believed them at the time; we *needed* to believe them, to keep on believing in other stuff. I can't feel nostalgic about that. I can remember it, and have compassion for my younger self for feeling that way, but I don't miss it, and wouldn't want to be in that mindset again, ever. Just to prove that I include myself in my description of how twiffy and gullible we were in those days, today I was sent a scan of the only photo of myself with long hair that I've been able to find. And it's all pulled back into a pony tail, so you can't even see it here. :-( But this is how much of a twif I was at Squaw Valley in 1968. And I should be nostalgic about that? :-) [Me at Squaw Valley, 1968 :-)] Wow, nice photo, you look like you are just coming from Star Trek (what's the star at your chest?). Yeah, you do look a bit dreamy here, but so did I at the time I remember. 1968, quite early on, before my time.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, iranitea no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Jason jedi_spock@ wrote: snip Face it Robin, you were *never* enlightened in the first place. Bingo! The conclusion is therefore: not the Maharishi was deceived, but Robin was (and still is) Except that Maharishi appeared to confirm his enlightenment at the time. I heard that Robin was asked to speak about his valid experiences of UC, not that MMY had confirmed that he was floating around the room. Non sequitur, actually. See my previous post. But, as I pointed out, MMY's comment about the TM-Sidhis letting people know where they REALLY are at, enlightenment-wise, seems directed to Robin and anyone else who was certain they were fully in UC. L.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@... wrote: [...] Bottom line, there's no way we can tell what state of consciousness Robin was in. But it's entirely possible to rule out some of the reasons that have been given for believing he was not in UC. Fred Travis sometimes refers to the subjects who score at the extreme end of his Brain INtegration Scale, who were all selected for testing because they were reporting 24/7 witnessing for at least a year, as enlightened subjects. IN that sense, Robin's UC experience, which apparently lasted 10 years, according to him, could indeed be called real UC. However, MMY made it very clear that the ability to perform any and all of the sidhis at will (and if you were practicing the TM-Sidhis during the period in which you started to claim full enlightenment, this would mean during your daily sutra practice), was a requisit for full enlightenment. If Robin wasn't floating when practicing the TM-SIdhis and if MMY declared that he was having valid UC experiences, then it follows that MMY wasn't declaring Robin to be in UC permanently, but only that his UC episodes were real in a temporary sense rather than he was a fully enlightened person forever more. L.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Pyramid Code Revealed
John, if you are interested in this idea and ancient Egyptian civilization and its spiritual knowledge, see if you can find the book called Initiation by Elizabeth Haich. I think she is dead now, but she wrote the book sometime in the 1960's at the request of several of her students. She was a German pianist, had a family, and since childhood had many spontaneous spiritual experiences which she did not really understand. She was guided by a Master who appeared to her in her awarenss only. As an adult, she began to recall a past life in Egypt, and her own initiation at one of the temples. A good portion of the book is about that past life of hers in Egypt. She says the pyramids and some temples were definitely used to raise the consciousness of well trained students, males and females. She, however, made a mistake and had a bad result. But her writings about life during that era are fascinating. According to Haich, it was a very very spiritual civilization in Egypt, and they had serious training for aspirants to higher states of consciousness. Among other things, she claimed that she had been trained, just as a normal part of her daily life, to communicate with lions and tigers (they roamed the grounds of her family estate). They did not attack her because of this. Anyway, it is an engrossing read (I read it in 1971, so I can only hope it is still engrossing) and an amazing story. Her descriptions of higher states of consciousness as she evolved in her life of the 1920-50's pretty much match MMY's stages. She is one of those people who as a young person spontaneously began doing yoga postures without ever having seen or read of them. She was from a wealthy German family - and I think she had to leave during Hitler's time. I know Barnes and Noble has it, but it costs $32.75. Maybe you can find it elsewhere for less, or get a used copy. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, John jr_esq@... wrote: The author believes that the Giza pyramid in Egypt was a consciousness machine. It was designed to maintain the global consciousness of human beings at a high level during the silver age or yuga. This brings one of the experts to believe that the pyramids of Egypt may have been built 36,000 years ago, which is derived by using the vedic measurement of time. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqaMrPaisYEfeature=g-vrec
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, iranitea no_reply@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Jason jedi_spock@ wrote: Judy, you do at times have the tendency to go off on a tangent. The point is in the begining MMY didn't consider siddhis as important. Then for a brief period of time it was considered important. Then, in the 80's due to lawsuits again a U-turn was made that it was meant only for enlightenment. This is actually absurd. No other school practices this approach. You still don't understand. Floating is a by-product of becoming enlightened. Becoming enlightened is a by-product of cultivating the ability to float via practice of the TM-Sidhis. That's somehow circular logic here, don't you think? A (Siddhis) is the result (by-product) of B (full enlightenment). B (full enlightenment) is the result of (practicing) A (siddhis). Now what? Being able to benchpress xxx kg is long-term outcome of practicing benchpressing x(xx) kg and building up to xxx kg. benchpressing x(xx) kg on a regular basis and building up your weight is the only way of becoming able to benchpress xxx kg unless you have some other exercise that develops the some muscles to the same degree. Everyone fully expected to eventually be floating when I took the TM-Sidhis in the mid 80's. However, we had to prove legally that we understood that they were for enlightenment and no guarantee of any power was made. I would venture to say that people STILL expect eventually to be floating when they take the course. Bingo! One other difference, between you course, and the one I was on, is, that we actually expected to float on the course itself. I mean, we didn't see any videos or demonstrations of YF, we were just exposed to photos presented in a very manipulated way, so we had the feeling people were actually staying longer in the air then they actually did. I remember how disappointed I was, when I actually saw the first person hopping on my course. And, after swallowing that, when I had started hopping myself, and it started to be 'fun' and good, we were still expecting floating in the nearby future. There was this rumor about a press conference announced, where Maharishi would fly across Lake Lucerne, and that would prepare world consciousness to rise enough, so that we all would float. Sure, MMY was very confident, but either he was exagerating his confidence in hopes of getting everyone else enthusiastic and regular and perhaps speed up the process, or he was simply wrong to be so confident. Or, you can argue that he didn't believe his rhetoric at all. Is that what you are suggesting? Now the point I was making, was actually, while it was always stated that enlightenment was the MAIN goal, even in 1977, the full experience of the siddhis were a secondary goal, and at the time, this secondary goal was much more emphasized in publications and talks, than it was later on. For example, there were posters showing the Sidha Man, cross legged floating like a Superman. The goal to ultimately fly was always there. It is obvious, that through time, and failing to achieve these, this secondary goal was pushed more into the background as a distant possibility, while at the same time it was more and more substituted by the goals of reaching enlightenment, and, as this also didn't work out for most people, by the goal to change collective consciousness and achieve world peace. It's a classic case of goal replacements. And, obviously, MMY's expectations weren't fulfilled in the timeframe he suggested. By definition, this makes him less than perfectly enlightened, assuming that perfect enlightenment means you can't be wrong about an estimation of how long it will take for something to happen. Myself, I have become far more skeptical over the last 25 years, but I dutifully attempt to set my skepticism aside when I sit down to practice and remind myself that Yogic Flying is for floating. L
Re: [FairfieldLife] My TM mantra dilemna--- help requested...
On 06/17/2012 01:04 PM, stevelf wrote: I am an MIU grad, executive governor, 40-year TMeditator with a personal mantra dilemna and am in need of some help. Thank you for reading the following. It's a bit convoluted and redundant, but only because I am striving for clarity... My brief mantra history: I was initiated (for $45.) in 1972 at Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont. A year Iater I was on TTC in Engelberg, Suisse. Then on my 6-month course in 1976 I received my 1st advanced technique from Maharishi. Two years later I received my 2nd a.t. from Lillian (quickest-puja-in-the-world) Rosen at MIU. When I received all the TM teaching mantras from Maharishi at the end of TTC from Maharishi directly, I was surprired to see that my 1st mantra I received from my initiator was different from any M. gave me. When M. gave me my first a.t. in '76, all was remedied because what he gave me I found delightful, smooth-sailing, easy. comfortable, a good fit, etc., and the core bija sound of the mantra matched what he (Maharishi) had imparted in the group of mantras he (Maharishi) had imparted to me at the end of TTC. But then when Lillian gave me my 2nd technique, again the pronunciation of her bestowed to me seed mantra was different from the group of teaching seed mantras Maharishi gave me to teach with. I know that different teachers, male and female, were given slightly different mantras, also depending on what year they were made initiators. Here is my specific dilemna: having seen online the mantra charts for advanced techniques on several websites over the years, I see the correct spelling of my seed 2nd tecnique mantra that Lillian gave me... but her pronunciation of it is quite different (as I said above) from the group of mantras Maharishi gave me to impart when teaching. Advanced technique mantras are longer, of course, but it's the seed part I am referring to. My subjective feeling is I never liked what Lillian gave me (as an aside, nor her demeanor). The pronunciation somehow seems wrong or contrived, not sleek and smooth. I really have no way to have my present advanced technique mantra checked other than looking online. I could, and have a bit, experiment with the pronunciation to match what I received from Maharishi, but there-in lies my dilemna... I could, but am hesitant to, make up my own mantra. to reiterate: this ( wrong?? ) mantra I have been using for so many years seems flat, contrived, boring, etc.. And I have stopped meditating regularly because of this. The old vibrant vitality in my meditation practice is just not there any more (again, incorrect mantra ?? ). Same with the sidhis that I practiced for so many years-- at a certain point my inner feeling was that practicing them felt like an inner imposition, a contrived prison of obligatory practice that I kept perpetuating, and FOR WHOM was I doing this ? I stopped the sidhis because I felt they were not constructive, life-supporting, energetic, fun, vibrant, etc. I really only did them forever out of a sense of deference to Maharishi's (great seer's) direction... BTW, the Age of Enlightenment technique I received personally from Maharishi on my first 6-month course ( pre-sidhis ) I do find very profound and amazing. . So, thank you for reading ! Please be kind and constructive as I am very sincere in my posting this. I have lurked for several years here and have occasionally posted. I would really like to see all the disparity I have witnessed here coalesce into a positive channel to help me with my spiritual dilemna, putting this website to good use. THANK YOU... I had confusion over my advanced technique too which MMY gave me on TTC but so did about 1/2 the plane of folks returning from TTC. Many could either not remember at all or not remember clearly. A few years later I just learned something else and have been happy ever since. BTW, I wrote MMY twice for a mantra check but never heard back. Learning something else is not that big a deal since many other paths have mantras for the public that are as strong as the advanced technique (yes it is those paths first technique).
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, iranitea no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Jason jedi_spock@ wrote: snip Face it Robin, you were *never* enlightened in the first place. Bingo! The conclusion is therefore: not the Maharishi was deceived, but Robin was (and still is) Except that Maharishi appeared to confirm his enlightenment at the time. I heard that Robin was asked to speak about his valid experiences of UC, not that MMY had confirmed that he was floating around the room. Non sequitur, actually. See my previous post. But, as I pointed out, MMY's comment about the TM-Sidhis letting people know where they REALLY are at, enlightenment- wise, seems directed to Robin and anyone else who was certain they were fully in UC. If they were *not* fully in UC. And we'd have to know exactly what he meant: in what way would the TM-Sidhis let people know where they REALLY were at? Look, it's really just so silly even to be speculating about this. But here's one thing to keep in mind: from 1976 until 1983, MMY could at any time have told Robin he wasn't in UC, or made an announcement to that effect, for that matter, and stopped Robin and Robin's group in its tracks. But he didn't. It wasn't until he was under a court order that he finally spoke up, at a point when validating Robin's enlightenment could have created serious problems for MIU and the movement generally. Why did he wait until Robin had precipitated a crisis at MIU--even telling Bevan prior to that to leave Robin alone--if he knew all along Robin wasn't in UC? There doesn't seem to be any way we can know what was going on in MMY's mind where Robin was concerned.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@... wrote: [...] Why did he wait until Robin had precipitated a crisis at MIU--even telling Bevan prior to that to leave Robin alone--if he knew all along Robin wasn't in UC? He was having valid experiences of UC, according to all accounts Why discourage Robin in his growth rather then letting him draw his own conclusions by MMY's generalized public statements? Robin never went back and asked MMY to revalidate things, did he? Had he done so, MMY might have said don't worry or he might have said go and be practical in society as he did with Curtis. Either way... There doesn't seem to be any way we can know what was going on in MMY's mind where Robin was concerned. Of course there is. MMY made a very clear statement about full success in any of the sidhis, such as yogic flying, and full enlightenment. It was up to Robin to make the connection, and apparently he never did. L.
[FairfieldLife] Post Count
Fairfield Life Post Counter === Start Date (UTC): Sat Jun 16 00:00:00 2012 End Date (UTC): Sat Jun 23 00:00:00 2012 148 messages as of (UTC) Mon Jun 18 00:13:54 2012 22 sparaig lengli...@cox.net 15 cardemaister no_re...@yahoogroups.com 14 authfriend jst...@panix.com 11 Buck dhamiltony...@yahoo.com 10 salyavin808 fintlewoodle...@mail.com 10 Jason jedi_sp...@yahoo.com 9 turquoiseb no_re...@yahoogroups.com 9 iranitea no_re...@yahoogroups.com 9 Bhairitu noozg...@sbcglobal.net 8 Share Long sharelon...@yahoo.com 6 emptybill emptyb...@yahoo.com 4 marekreavis reavisma...@sbcglobal.net 2 Xenophaneros Anartaxius anartax...@yahoo.com 2 Susan waybac...@yahoo.com 2 Robin Carlsen maskedze...@yahoo.com 2 Robert babajii...@yahoo.com 2 Mike Dixon mdixon.6...@yahoo.com 2 Alex Stanley j_alexander_stan...@yahoo.com 1 stevelf ysoy1...@yahoo.com 1 seventhray1 steve.sun...@sbcglobal.net 1 raunchydog raunchy...@yahoo.com 1 nablusoss1008 no_re...@yahoogroups.com 1 merudanda no_re...@yahoogroups.com 1 m2smart4u2000 no_re...@yahoogroups.com 1 guusschilder gschil...@hetnet.nl 1 John jr_...@yahoo.com 1 Richard J. Williams rich...@rwilliams.us Posters: 27 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] Re: Pureview Windoze phoney??
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu noozguru@... wrote: On 06/17/2012 03:13 PM, Alex Stanley wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitunoozguru@ wrote: On 06/16/2012 03:00 PM, cardemaister wrote: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=384977931549858set=a.109142489133405.4548.100686616645659type=1 http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/06/17/it-is-succeed-or-die-for-nokia-observers-say/ They fell asleep at the wheel and rested on their laurels. Not good enough in today cut-throat tech world. Dude, haven't you heard? By 2016, Windows Phone will top iOS in market share! http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericsavitz/2012/06/06/windows-phone-to-top-ios-market-share-by-2016-idc-says/ http://tinyurl.com/725wak2 The world will be clamoring to get their hands on a Windows Phone, and they'll also be enthusiastically upgrading to Windows 8 so that their PCs will look just like their phones. Nokia/MSFT über alles, baby! And of course with 10 or more daily patches to plug security holes. I think that Microsoft is on the way down. To be honest, I've been very happy with Windows 7. But, from what I've read, people who have tried the Windows 8 preview generally dislike the new desktop environment. It sounds like Win 8 will be Vista 2.0. I skipped Vista and stuck with XP until just a couple years ago, when my hard drive failed, and I upgraded to a solid state drive and Win 7. I will probably stick with Win 7 for a similarly long time.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: [...] Why did he wait until Robin had precipitated a crisis at MIU--even telling Bevan prior to that to leave Robin alone--if he knew all along Robin wasn't in UC? He was having valid experiences of UC, according to all accounts Why discourage Robin in his growth rather then letting him draw his own conclusions by MMY's generalized public statements? How would telling Robin he wasn't quite there yet have discouraged Robin's growth? In 1983, he was causing big problems at MIU. Why didn't MMY interfere then? Robin never went back and asked MMY to revalidate things, did he? They were in personal contact at least once after Robin had set up his own group in Victoria (before coming to MIU). Had he done so, MMY might have said don't worry or he might have said go and be practical in society as he did with Curtis. I think that was Joe Kellett, not Curtis. Either way... There doesn't seem to be any way we can know what was going on in MMY's mind where Robin was concerned. Of course there is. MMY made a very clear statement about full success in any of the sidhis, such as yogic flying, and full enlightenment. You're still assuming you understand that statement. It was up to Robin to make the connection, and apparently he never did. Or he did, and knew it didn't mean what you think it meant. Like I say, best to ask him how he sees all this. You and I aren't in a position to say what's what.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Pureview Windoze phoney??
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Alex Stanley j_alexander_stanley@... wrote: snip To be honest, I've been very happy with Windows 7. Me too (although my needs are a lot less demanding than yours). Some minor annoyances (the idiot Libraries) but some great advantages. And my legacy programs run just fine on it. But, from what I've read, people who have tried the Windows 8 preview generally dislike the new desktop environment. It sounds like Win 8 will be Vista 2.0. I skipped Vista and stuck with XP until just a couple years ago, when my hard drive failed, and I upgraded to a solid state drive and Win 7. Me too, except my XP machine's motherboard failed (I think) in October of last year, and the hard drive on my new Win7 machine isn't solid-state. I will probably stick with Win 7 for a similarly long time. How long will Microsoft support it?
[FairfieldLife] Re: My TM mantra dilemna--- help requested...
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@... wrote: Jeeze louise. This, assuming you are not a troll, fully illustrates my observation that a TM teacher can teach TM properly without ever getting it him or her self. If you can't remember, or at least consciously assimilate, what you are instructed say to meditators about this situation, then go and get checked by an active teacher and let them tell you verbally. L. Jeeze louise, right back at ya, Lawson... there is not much about me that resembles a troll, but I will look into my soul and consider it. Thank you.That troll you referred to would have to be pretty well informed to provide the info that I did in my post, dontchathink...?? A meditator would presumably never know there exists discrepencies in the same TM mantra pronunciations, or, maybe you did not get my post, which BTW surprises me because you seem one of the more astute members here IMHO. But I thank you for your response and advice .
[FairfieldLife] Re: My TM mantra dilemna--- help requested...
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, m2smart4u2000 no_reply@... wrote: The Vedic experts come from time to time to every area and that is the only real way to have your advanced technique checked. They will check any advanced technique. I would try to get in touch with your local largest nearby center to find out when they are coming. Do not refer to other unreliable sources on the internet. There are wrong instructions all around. The only reliable source for the checking is from the vedic pundits. I was recently able to meet with one of the vedic pundits to ask questions and clear up confusion. Thank you, m2smart4u2000-- I will LOVE to have this happen and will check it out. I am currently living in the San Francisco area and will contact the center and see what they know about the Vedic experts. All the best to you!
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Pureview Windoze phoney??
On 06/17/2012 05:28 PM, Alex Stanley wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitunoozguru@... wrote: On 06/17/2012 03:13 PM, Alex Stanley wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitunoozguru@ wrote: On 06/16/2012 03:00 PM, cardemaister wrote: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=384977931549858set=a.109142489133405.4548.100686616645659type=1 http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/06/17/it-is-succeed-or-die-for-nokia-observers-say/ They fell asleep at the wheel and rested on their laurels. Not good enough in today cut-throat tech world. Dude, haven't you heard? By 2016, Windows Phone will top iOS in market share! http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericsavitz/2012/06/06/windows-phone-to-top-ios-market-share-by-2016-idc-says/ http://tinyurl.com/725wak2 The world will be clamoring to get their hands on a Windows Phone, and they'll also be enthusiastically upgrading to Windows 8 so that their PCs will look just like their phones. Nokia/MSFT über alles, baby! And of course with 10 or more daily patches to plug security holes. I think that Microsoft is on the way down. To be honest, I've been very happy with Windows 7. But, from what I've read, people who have tried the Windows 8 preview generally dislike the new desktop environment. It sounds like Win 8 will be Vista 2.0. I skipped Vista and stuck with XP until just a couple years ago, when my hard drive failed, and I upgraded to a solid state drive and Win 7. I will probably stick with Win 7 for a similarly long time. I have a Windows 7 64-bit machine and a Vista laptop. After using Linux (Ubuntu) for several years as my main machine I can't stand how clunky and stupid Windows is. See they feel they need to do things differently or be accused of copying Linux (or UNIX). When I first got the Windows 7 machine it booted in under a minute and now it takes around 3 and not really ready except at the 5 minute. Now if you want to go in and hassle with startups which are sometimes VERY tricky to remove one can reduce that startup time. But why should we need to? This Linux machine is still booting at around 15 seconds a good year after I built it (actually assemble would be the proper word). And it is a 64-bit machine too and cost me $350 to assemble (1 TB drive and 4 GB memory, 3 cores). Microsoft has been getting a lot of heat for not doing something about these slow bootups. They seem to be stuck in some kind of mainframe mentality. And friends who used to work there said it is an ego war between major architects. So the public loses. If they wanted a secure system then just put the Windows GUI on top of Linux and be done with it. Oh but egos would be hurt big time! Apple put the the Mac OS on top of BSD and I never heard much complaining about users needing learn root privileges. If Apple got the wild hair to start making their OS available for other machines (again) then Microsoft would really feel doomed. I think people would jump in a heartbeat but right now you pay a Calvin Kline premium just to have that logo on your computer. And then what if Google Desktop took off (unlikely because it is cloud)? And I'm thinking of dropping Ubuntu and going with Mint since the guy in charge at Ubuntu seems to be a problem. I actually got a 16 GB USB stick to try a persistent install of Linux Mint 13 64-bit to see if my criticals will work okay. In the meantime what can we do to coordinate a chat room time? I see people drop by when no one else is around. It would be a hoot to have a full fledge FFL chat!
[FairfieldLife] Re: My TM mantra dilemna--- help requested...
my comments interspersed --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, iranitea no_reply@... wrote: Dear Stevef, first I want to congratulate you, you have come to the right place, here on this forum FFL, many experienced TM teachers hang out, many EX-teachers, and also many would be teachers are here, who are still faithfully practicing. So, help is sure to reach you. I will comment further down. thanks-- it's always nice to be congratulated :) If I interpret this correctly, you actually got the same bija from Lillian, that was on your mantra list from Maharishi, just the pronunciation differed? EXACTLY RIGHT... And now you are inquiring of the pronunciation of the same bija as you got it from Maharishi was appropriate for you to repeat? Of course it is: two people pronounce the same mantra different. You personally prefer the pronunciation of Maharishi, who must have been the one who gave the mantra to Lillian in the first place, so it is of course completely right of you to adopt that pronunciation. It is the same mantra, so you didn't 'construct' it. It is completely okay you repeat, a you remember it from Maharishi, of course. Makes sense to me, but sometimes the most obvious things can be difficult to see... And I have stopped meditating regularly because of this. The old vibrant vitality in my meditation practice is just not there any more (again, incorrect mantra ?? ). IMHO you should not force yourself to meditate. I do meditate myself, but I don't use the TM mantra anymore. IMHO you should meditate with the mantra or word that inspires you most. Don't force yourself, do it when you are inspired to do it. This is not a TM advice, but my personal advice. Meditation will come completely by itself and spontaneous with time. Same with the sidhis that I practiced for so many years-- at a certain point my inner feeling was that practicing them felt like an inner imposition, a contrived prison of obligatory practice that I kept perpetuating, and FOR WHOM was I doing this ? I stopped the sidhis because I felt they were not constructive, life-supporting, energetic, fun, vibrant, etc. I really only did them forever out of a sense of deference to Maharishi's (great seer's) direction... I also stopped the siddhis, as I didn't feel any difference anymore when doing it, or when not doing it. If you feel they are helpful, do it, but if you do it only to please Maharishi it is useless. You might also, as an alternative, only practice the siddhis you are drawn to, which you feel do enrich you, and skip the rest. Again, what you say makes sense ... BTW, the Age of Enlightenment technique I received personally from Maharishi on my first 6-month course ( pre-sidhis ) I do find very profound and amazing. Exactly. Do just the practices that enrich you and leave the rest. Right. We are experimental pawns no more... For me this long TMO journey has always been --- take what works and ignore the rest. But over the years the scale has been really leaning over to the insane side of things--- completely lacking in the TMO having a sincere heart filled with compassion, sincerity and fairness. The perfection I used to project onto Maharishi was naieve of me. Yet life is always that way-- what are you going to focus on in all one's interactions with people ? The positive or the negative. Everyone, beautiful Maharishi, too, and me as well, has aspects of good and evil
[FairfieldLife] Re: My TM mantra dilemna--- help requested...
my comments below I had confusion over my advanced technique too which MMY gave me on TTC but so did about 1/2 the plane of folks returning from TTC. Many could either not remember at all or not remember clearly. A few years later I just learned something else and have been happy ever since. BTW, I wrote MMY twice for a mantra check but never heard back. Learning something else is not that big a deal since many other paths have mantras for the public that are as strong as the advanced technique (yes it is those paths first technique). I am curious what specific other paths you are referring to. The curious thing about advanced techniques is that (according to what I have seen on some websites) the difference between the advanced techniques is pretty minimal-- just some added shri's and namah's in different #'s with the same core bija mantra in between... hold on, I think some lightning just hit my house how strange, there's not a cloud in the sky..
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL - mahavakyas
Do you mean: Not sure about That? (-:
From: iranitea no_re...@yahoogroups.com
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, June 17, 2012 5:46 PM
Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL - mahavakyas
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Share Long sharelong60@... wrote:
Tea wrote:
I remember Maharishi talking about the 'shock of unity'
my reply:
I'm not sure of the exact wording either, whether shock of unity or
Brahman. And I think in this context Maharishi talked about the mahavakyas,
phrases that the Master said to the disciple to help calm down the shock of
this transition:
Yes, it was about Mahavakyas
I am That
Thou art That
All This is That
That alone is
Probably best if said in Sanskrit (-:
Not sure about that.
And, just to add to the soup, I've been told there are different versions of
mahavakyas.
Right. Generally four Mahavakyas are selected as the main ones, each being from
a different Upanishad, corresponding to one of the different 4 Vedas. All the
Mahavakyas confirm the identity between individual soul, atma, and Brahman.
My guess is that their power stems from the shaktipat of the Master as well
as from their own inherent high vibe.
Sure, they have to be taught by the guru at the right moment, when the disciple
is ready for it.
From: iranitea no_re...@yahoogroups.com
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, June 17, 2012 8:56 AM
Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
Â
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Jason jedi_spock@ wrote:
Robin you say that you had to transfer your allegience to
another reality. There is only one reality.
Has it occured to you that both east and west could be wrong
or both partially right.?
Do you realise that by completely rejecting the east, you
have in effect 'thrown the baby along with the bathwater'.
The five paras that you have written below conclusively,
authoritatively and empricaly prove that you were never in
Unity, Robin.
Scientists say that any technology that is once unleashed
into the enviornment can never be rolled back. Same is the
case of enlightenment or awakening.
There is no such thing as de-enlightenment Robin. It's a
one way trip.
Face it Robin, you were *never* enlightened in the first
place.
Bingo! The conclusion is therefore: not the Maharishi was deceived, but Robin
was (and still is)
I found these two videos of Osho very helpful in understanding enlightenment:
You Are in Prison and You Think You Are Free
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XyOmYVIsig
Spiritual Growth and Enlightenment
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uP5J3i1H5dA
There are several things that strike me as improbably on the account below.
One of these is the fact that Robin presents his 'enlightenment' in a
straight line leading up from his encounters with Maharishi and the
experiences he has had on courses or through plain TM ('transcending'). But
in my own humble experiences, this is not like it is. I remember Maharishi
talking about the 'shock of unity' (I am not totally sure now, if it as
'shock of unity' or 'shock of Brahman') These were not very well known tapes,
but I am sure, more than just me, who are here, have seen it. This is what
actually coincides with my own experiences in this direction (I don't claim
enlightenment though.)
Think of somebody being in a prison, and coming out of it! If you were your
whole life in a prison, you don't know what freedom is, you will only realize
it the moment you come out. It is not just a slowly and natural fading into
something you had already known before - as Robin depicts it.
Think of Plato's cave analogy, how the person, who is led outside of the
cave, first is blended by the bright sun light, before, he only knew the
reflection of light, not even the sun, but of fire.
I cannot help, and notice the strong emotional sense of nostalgia in Robins
report. I think many TM teachers can identify with these feelings, the
memories of being on rounding courses and so on. I know these feelings, but I
don't in no way, have any sense of nostalgia about it. It is simply gone, was
nice at the time, but has been replaced by something better, more true and
more liberating. So. I believe firmly, once you are liberated, there will be
a break to all of your past life, that cannot be reverted.
Either the East was right, or Gerard Manley Hopkins was
right.
But the critical moment occurred when I realized: Well,
either Christ is right or Maharishi is right.
But truth is truth, and reality is reality. I came to the
conclusion that Christ was right, that Aquinas was right,
that Saint Theresa of Avila was right, and that Maharishi
was deceived.
I had to transfer my allegiance to another reality. That
was easy while I
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: My TM mantra dilemna--- help requested...
Dit-dit-dit-dittos Steve! I've had the exact same frustration for the exact same reasons! There is a very subtle difference in how Lillian pronounced a certain bija and how any other Adv.Tech teacher would pronounce it, especially the Indians. Lillian's was not smooth and easy, more twisted, requiring effort. I did get used to it though and eventually started having nice experiences. From: stevelf ysoy1...@yahoo.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Sunday, June 17, 2012 6:28 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: My TM mantra dilemna--- help requested... my comments interspersed --- In mailto:FairfieldLife%40yahoogroups.com, iranitea no_reply@... wrote: Dear Stevef, first I want to congratulate you, you have come to the right place, here on this forum FFL, many experienced TM teachers hang out, many EX-teachers, and also many would be teachers are here, who are still faithfully practicing. So, help is sure to reach you. I will comment further down. thanks-- it's always nice to be congratulated :) If I interpret this correctly, you actually got the same bija from Lillian, that was on your mantra list from Maharishi, just the pronunciation differed? EXACTLY RIGHT... And now you are inquiring of the pronunciation of the same bija as you got it from Maharishi was appropriate for you to repeat? Of course it is: two people pronounce the same mantra different. You personally prefer the pronunciation of Maharishi, who must have been the one who gave the mantra to Lillian in the first place, so it is of course completely right of you to adopt that pronunciation. It is the same mantra, so you didn't 'construct' it. It is completely okay you repeat, a you remember it from Maharishi, of course. Makes sense to me, but sometimes the most obvious things can be difficult to see... And I have stopped meditating regularly because of this. The old vibrant vitality in my meditation practice is just not there any more (again, incorrect mantra ?? ). IMHO you should not force yourself to meditate. I do meditate myself, but I don't use the TM mantra anymore. IMHO you should meditate with the mantra or word that inspires you most. Don't force yourself, do it when you are inspired to do it. This is not a TM advice, but my personal advice. Meditation will come completely by itself and spontaneous with time. Same with the sidhis that I practiced for so many years-- at a certain point my inner feeling was that practicing them felt like an inner imposition, a contrived prison of obligatory practice that I kept perpetuating, and FOR WHOM was I doing this ? I stopped the sidhis because I felt they were not constructive, life-supporting, energetic, fun, vibrant, etc. I really only did them forever out of a sense of deference to Maharishi's (great seer's) direction... I also stopped the siddhis, as I didn't feel any difference anymore when doing it, or when not doing it. If you feel they are helpful, do it, but if you do it only to please Maharishi it is useless. You might also, as an alternative, only practice the siddhis you are drawn to, which you feel do enrich you, and skip the rest. Again, what you say makes sense ... BTW, the Age of Enlightenment technique I received personally from Maharishi on my first 6-month course ( pre-sidhis ) I do find very profound and amazing. Exactly. Do just the practices that enrich you and leave the rest. Right. We are experimental pawns no more... For me this long TMO journey has always been --- take what works and ignore the rest. But over the years the scale has been really leaning over to the insane side of things--- completely lacking in the TMO having a sincere heart filled with compassion, sincerity and fairness. The perfection I used to project onto Maharishi was naieve of me. Yet life is always that way-- what are you going to focus on in all one's interactions with people ? The positive or the negative. Everyone, beautiful Maharishi, too, and me as well, has aspects of good and evil
[FairfieldLife] Re: My TM mantra dilemna--- help requested...
Lilian Rosen was a character. I know of one TM teacher who went to her for an advanced technique. When she asked him what his mantra was, and he told her, she exploded, saying that was impossible, he could not have learned that yet. Well, it turned out that MMY himself had given this teacher that very mantra she yelled about. The teacher walked out.. refusing to have anything to dow ith learning anything from Lilian. But getting to your problem: I am not sure what to suggest, since I am not exactly sure I follow your description of the problem. But you could write to Tony Nader and ask what he suggests. It might even mean talking with one of the current advanced technique teachers (hopefully no fee would be charged). You might get an answer. If you get no response, I would say that if you think you know the exact seed mantra you are to be using and it is merely a question of pronunciation, then go with MMY's pronunciation, not Lilian's. MMY's pronunciation as you were told on TTC and also his pronunciation from when he himself initiated you or gave you your own list of mantras. I too got initiated by MMY for my 2nd technique and loved that mantra and experiences. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu noozguru@... wrote: On 06/17/2012 01:04 PM, stevelf wrote: I am an MIU grad, executive governor, 40-year TMeditator with a personal mantra dilemna and am in need of some help. Thank you for reading the following. It's a bit convoluted and redundant, but only because I am striving for clarity... My brief mantra history: I was initiated (for $45.) in 1972 at Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont. A year Iater I was on TTC in Engelberg, Suisse. Then on my 6-month course in 1976 I received my 1st advanced technique from Maharishi. Two years later I received my 2nd a.t. from Lillian (quickest-puja-in-the-world) Rosen at MIU. When I received all the TM teaching mantras from Maharishi at the end of TTC from Maharishi directly, I was surprired to see that my 1st mantra I received from my initiator was different from any M. gave me. When M. gave me my first a.t. in '76, all was remedied because what he gave me I found delightful, smooth-sailing, easy. comfortable, a good fit, etc., and the core bija sound of the mantra matched what he (Maharishi) had imparted in the group of mantras he (Maharishi) had imparted to me at the end of TTC. But then when Lillian gave me my 2nd technique, again the pronunciation of her bestowed to me seed mantra was different from the group of teaching seed mantras Maharishi gave me to teach with. I know that different teachers, male and female, were given slightly different mantras, also depending on what year they were made initiators. Here is my specific dilemna: having seen online the mantra charts for advanced techniques on several websites over the years, I see the correct spelling of my seed 2nd tecnique mantra that Lillian gave me... but her pronunciation of it is quite different (as I said above) from the group of mantras Maharishi gave me to impart when teaching. Advanced technique mantras are longer, of course, but it's the seed part I am referring to. My subjective feeling is I never liked what Lillian gave me (as an aside, nor her demeanor). The pronunciation somehow seems wrong or contrived, not sleek and smooth. I really have no way to have my present advanced technique mantra checked other than looking online. I could, and have a bit, experiment with the pronunciation to match what I received from Maharishi, but there-in lies my dilemna... I could, but am hesitant to, make up my own mantra. to reiterate: this ( wrong?? ) mantra I have been using for so many years seems flat, contrived, boring, etc.. And I have stopped meditating regularly because of this. The old vibrant vitality in my meditation practice is just not there any more (again, incorrect mantra ?? ). Same with the sidhis that I practiced for so many years-- at a certain point my inner feeling was that practicing them felt like an inner imposition, a contrived prison of obligatory practice that I kept perpetuating, and FOR WHOM was I doing this ? I stopped the sidhis because I felt they were not constructive, life-supporting, energetic, fun, vibrant, etc. I really only did them forever out of a sense of deference to Maharishi's (great seer's) direction... BTW, the Age of Enlightenment technique I received personally from Maharishi on my first 6-month course ( pre-sidhis ) I do find very profound and amazing. . So, thank you for reading ! Please be kind and constructive as I am very sincere in my posting this. I have lurked for several years here and have occasionally posted. I would really like to see all the disparity I have witnessed here coalesce into a positive channel to help
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: My TM mantra dilemna--- help requested...
On 06/17/2012 06:43 PM, stevelf wrote: my comments below I had confusion over my advanced technique too which MMY gave me on TTC but so did about 1/2 the plane of folks returning from TTC. Many could either not remember at all or not remember clearly. A few years later I just learned something else and have been happy ever since. BTW, I wrote MMY twice for a mantra check but never heard back. Learning something else is not that big a deal since many other paths have mantras for the public that are as strong as the advanced technique (yes it is those paths first technique). I am curious what specific other paths you are referring to. The curious thing about advanced techniques is that (according to what I have seen on some websites) the difference between the advanced techniques is pretty minimal-- just some added shri's and namah's in different #'s with the same core bija mantra in between... hold on, I think some lightning just hit my house how strange, there's not a cloud in the sky.. Ones you probably should have read up on or met people who practiced them. :-D Or did you just stick to the straight and narrow TM path? The advanced technique is just a Saraswati mantra. I even had a professor of astrology at Benares Hindu University recommend the same mantra to me after he looked at my horoscope. Some people might do better with a Shiva mantra and others with a mantra for Ram. There are lots of mantras. Short beejs like the first technique work because they are short and about anyone can give them. The longer ones, even though easily learned, require a jump start by a teacher who knows how to do that. In fact MMY started out that way. My replacement mantra was simply Shiva mantra or Om Nama Shivaya. A friend gave me a small card that Muktananda had zapped with that mantra printed on it. That's basically what his school (Kashmiri Shaivism) taught. It worked very well. I learned a guru mantra from my tantra teacher as well as how to charge a mantra and teach someone using shaktipat. With TM you only scratched the surface and if you are a true seeker there is much more to discover.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Pyramid Code Revealed
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Susan wayback71@... wrote: John, if you are interested in this idea and ancient Egyptian civilization and its spiritual knowledge, see if you can find the book called Initiation by Elizabeth Haich. I think she is dead now, but she wrote the book sometime in the 1960's at the request of several of her students. She was a German pianist, had a family, and since childhood had many spontaneous spiritual experiences which she did not really understand. She was guided by a Master who appeared to her in her awarenss only. As an adult, she began to recall a past life in Egypt, and her own initiation at one of the temples. A good portion of the book is about that past life of hers in Egypt. She says the pyramids and some temples were definitely used to raise the consciousness of well trained students, males and females. She, however, made a mistake and had a bad result. But her writings about life during that era are fascinating. According to Haich, it was a very very spiritual civilization in Egypt, and they had serious training for aspirants to higher states of consciousness. Among other things, she claimed that she had been trained, just as a normal part of her daily life, to communicate with lions and tigers (they roamed the grounds of her family estate). They did not attack her because of this. Anyway, it is an engrossing read (I read it in 1971, so I can only hope it is still engrossing) and an amazing story. Her descriptions of higher states of consciousness as she evolved in her life of the 1920-50's pretty much match MMY's stages. She is one of those people who as a young person spontaneously began doing yoga postures without ever having seen or read of them. She was from a wealthy German family - and I think she had to leave during Hitler's time. I know Barnes and Noble has it, but it costs $32.75. Maybe you can find it elsewhere for less, or get a used copy. Susan, Thanks for the recommendation. I'll look up the book an read it. Nonetheless, it is fascinationg to see this video clip because it ties in with the commentaries of Srila Prabhupada in the Srimad Bhagavatam about the ancient rulers of Egypt. He said that these rulers came from India who had escaped the wrath of Parasuraman, the ax-wielding incarnation of Vishnu. As you may have watched in the video, the ancient Egyptians had similar knowledge as those of ancient India. They knew astronomy and astrological concepts to regulate their time and activities. They knew the various chakras in the body. They diagnosed and healed diseases by sound. They used hallugenic drugs to induce altered states of consciousness. I'm beginning to suspect that the ancient Egyptians used the Giza pyramid to chant mantras for healing the body and for raising the consciousness on a global scale. If so, maybe some TMers should meditate and chant inside this pyramid to enhance the Maharishi Effect. :) JR --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, John jr_esq@ wrote: The author believes that the Giza pyramid in Egypt was a consciousness machine. It was designed to maintain the global consciousness of human beings at a high level during the silver age or yuga. This brings one of the experts to believe that the pyramids of Egypt may have been built 36,000 years ago, which is derived by using the vedic measurement of time. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqaMrPaisYEfeature=g-vrec
[FairfieldLife] Re: My TM mantra dilemna--- help requested...
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Mike Dixon mdixon.6569@... wrote: Dit-dit-dit-dittos Steve! I've had the exact same frustration for the exact same reasons! There is a very subtle difference in how Lillian pronounced a certain bija and how any other Adv.Tech teacher would pronounce it, especially the Indians. Lillian's was not smooth and easy, more twisted, requiring effort. I did get used to it though and eventually started having nice experiences. Sincere thanks, Mikethis has kinda been a big deal to me over the years. I felt something was off with Lillian's mantra pronunciation, yet she was the supposed teacher that I was to respect in Maharishi's tradition... It was only years later (as I have said), when perusing some renegade websites that I noticed the spelling of the bija in question was the same, yet her pronunciation was quite awkwardly different (from what Maharishi gave me personally). And yet (on that website) the mantra list for me being a male and made an initiator in 1972 was right on. And their advanced technique list was a first for me to see, so it was all a bit of a surprise. A very frustrating surprise at that. Some might say the confusion comes from my snooping around, but, we are not victims anymore with silly secrets and misdirected and inappropriate loyalties when it comes TO OUR PERSONAL EVOLUTION... I appreciate you reply and you have freed me from my inner isolation. Thank you !
[FairfieldLife] Re: My TM mantra dilemna--- help requested...
my comments in between below Ones you probably should have read up on or met people who practiced them. :-D You are absolutely right... and THAT I certainly have (to the best of my ability...) over my 58 years and travelling around this beautiful world over ten times by off-road mountain bike .mostly through SE Asia Or did you just stick to the straight and narrow TM path? That is so cute and I mean that in a loving way My practice for SO many years was what MMY recommended after my AEGTC (Age of Enlightenment Governor Training Course...). I am open to getting in the domes again so I will not enumerate my spiritual endeavors here and now. The advanced technique is just a Saraswati mantra. I even had a professor of astrology at Benares Hindu University recommend the same mantra to me after he looked at my horoscope. Some people might do better with a Shiva mantra and others with a mantra for Ram. There are lots of mantras. Short beejs like the first technique work because they are short and about anyone can give them. The longer ones, even though easily learned, require a jump start by a teacher who knows how to do that. In fact MMY started out that way. My first experiment in meditation was in 1971 with Om Aum Um Vahra Guru Padme Siddhi Om--- straight out of Ram Dass's Be Here Now, when attending Goddard College later. I lived in the TM dorm there. Having travelled for many months throughout Nepal I, of course, came upon their traditional Om mane Padme Om', and later Amma's (or whoever's) Om Nama Shivaya. My replacement mantra was simply Shiva mantra or Om Nama Shivaya. A friend gave me a small card that Muktananda had zapped with that mantra printed on it. That's basically what his school (Kashmiri Shaivism) taught. It worked very well. I learned a guru mantra from my tantra teacher as well as how to charge a mantra and teach someone using shaktipat. With TM you only scratched the surface and if you are a true seeker there is much more to discover. that is beautiful I love discovering things. thank you...
[FairfieldLife] Re: My TM mantra dilemna--- help requested...
my comments in between yours below... --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Susan wayback71@... wrote: Lilian Rosen was a character. I know of one TM teacher who went to her for an advanced technique. When she asked him what his mantra was, and he told her, she exploded, saying that was impossible, he could not have learned that yet. Well, it turned out that MMY himself had given this teacher that very mantra she yelled about. The teacher walked out.. refusing to have anything to dow ith learning anything from Lilian. I'm not sure if Lillian had learned much about humility- but what do I know.. But getting to your problem: I am not sure what to suggest, since I am not exactly sure I follow your description of the problem. I know upon re-reading it is a bit confusing sorry... :) ! But you could write to Tony Nader and ask what he suggests. It might even mean talking with one of the current advanced technique teachers (hopefully no fee would be charged). You might get an answer. If you get no response, I would say that if you think you know the exact seed mantra you are to be using and it is merely a question of pronunciation, then go with MMY's pronunciation, not Lilian's. MMY's pronunciation as you were told on TTC and also his pronunciation from when he himself initiated you or gave you your own list of mantras. I too got initiated by MMY for my 2nd technique and loved that mantra and experiences. Yes--- WOW! How sweet that was for me, too But following the dangling carrot one ( I...) always thought it could be better.. Now I can look back and laugh laugh laugh at my sweet self for going for MORE... Was it Marek who suggested the I'm sorry-- I forgive you--Thank you-- I love you process ? I love putting one hand on my heart and one facing outward and saying that over-and-over, softly TO MYSELF Thank you, if that was you, Sir Marek. wherever you are... And Thank You, Susan, for your writing in response to me... --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu noozguru@ wrote: On 06/17/2012 01:04 PM, stevelf wrote: I am an MIU grad, executive governor, 40-year TMeditator with a personal mantra dilemna and am in need of some help. Thank you for reading the following. It's a bit convoluted and redundant, but only because I am striving for clarity... My brief mantra history: I was initiated (for $45.) in 1972 at Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont. A year Iater I was on TTC in Engelberg, Suisse. Then on my 6-month course in 1976 I received my 1st advanced technique from Maharishi. Two years later I received my 2nd a.t. from Lillian (quickest-puja-in-the-world) Rosen at MIU. When I received all the TM teaching mantras from Maharishi at the end of TTC from Maharishi directly, I was surprired to see that my 1st mantra I received from my initiator was different from any M. gave me. When M. gave me my first a.t. in '76, all was remedied because what he gave me I found delightful, smooth-sailing, easy. comfortable, a good fit, etc., and the core bija sound of the mantra matched what he (Maharishi) had imparted in the group of mantras he (Maharishi) had imparted to me at the end of TTC. But then when Lillian gave me my 2nd technique, again the pronunciation of her bestowed to me seed mantra was different from the group of teaching seed mantras Maharishi gave me to teach with. I know that different teachers, male and female, were given slightly different mantras, also depending on what year they were made initiators. Here is my specific dilemna: having seen online the mantra charts for advanced techniques on several websites over the years, I see the correct spelling of my seed 2nd tecnique mantra that Lillian gave me... but her pronunciation of it is quite different (as I said above) from the group of mantras Maharishi gave me to impart when teaching. Advanced technique mantras are longer, of course, but it's the seed part I am referring to. My subjective feeling is I never liked what Lillian gave me (as an aside, nor her demeanor). The pronunciation somehow seems wrong or contrived, not sleek and smooth. I really have no way to have my present advanced technique mantra checked other than looking online. I could, and have a bit, experiment with the pronunciation to match what I received from Maharishi, but there-in lies my dilemna... I could, but am hesitant to, make up my own mantra. to reiterate: this ( wrong?? ) mantra I have been using for so many years seems flat, contrived, boring, etc.. And I have stopped meditating regularly because of this. The old vibrant vitality in my meditation practice is just not there any more (again, incorrect mantra ?? ). Same with the sidhis that I practiced for
[FairfieldLife] Re: My TM mantra dilemna--- help requested...
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, stevelf ysoy10li@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: Jeeze louise. This, assuming you are not a troll, fully illustrates my observation that a TM teacher can teach TM properly without ever getting it him or her self. If you can't remember, or at least consciously assimilate, what you are instructed say to meditators about this situation, then go and get checked by an active teacher and let them tell you verbally. L. Jeeze louise, right back at ya, Lawson... there is not much about me that resembles a troll, but I will look into my soul and consider it. Thank you.That troll you referred to would have to be pretty well informed to provide the info that I did in my post, dontchathink...?? A meditator would presumably never know there exists discrepencies in the same TM mantra pronunciations, or, maybe you did not get my post, which BTW surprises me because you seem one of the more astute members here IMHO. But I thank you for your response and advice . Well, the fact that you are hung up on pronunciation of the mantra (or any other aspect of an advanced technique) during meditation suggests to me that you don't get TM, no matter how many times you have taught or checked a person. Whatever is easy. Remember? L.
