[FairfieldLife] Misogyny, Hindu Style

[TurquoiseBee turquoi...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

An article for those who rail against "misogyny" on FFL, but somehow never 
noticed how much of it there was in Maharishi's teachings. I've sent a copy to 
a former friend from the TM days who walked out of the TM movement forever 
after being told by Maharishi that her two Ph.D.s would "make her a better 
conversationalist for when she finally found a husband and got married." 


A Militant Hindu Camp In India Is Training Young Women To Hate Themselves And 
Accept Their Weakness

 
   A Militant Hindu Camp In India Is Training Young ...
"Can you really hide your natural weakness or character as a woman?"  
View on www.buzzfeed.com Preview by Yahoo  

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Jim Carrey's Commencement address at MUM 24 May, 2014

[TurquoiseBee turquoi...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

Thanks to Buck for providing pretty much the ultimate demonstration of "Low 
Standards."

Clearly the only thing it takes to convince some TMers that one is in "Unity 
Consciousness" is the spouting of a few buzzphrases. Now we understand how RC 
became so popular.   




 From: "dhamiltony...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]" 
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Monday, May 26, 2014 1:08 AM
Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Jim Carrey's Commencement address at MUM 24 May, 
2014
 


  
Yes,
I was there too.  Was a tremendous amount of wisdom in Carrey's talk
to the students.  He is clearly awakened and spoke from Unity
consciousness.  Was quite an extraordinary commencement speech.  Rick
Archer should interview him for Batgap about Carrey's awakening experience.  I 
am not familiar with
Carrey's creative work otherwise, he must have been on TV after 10pm.   He's
been in 40 movies?  I may watch some of his creative work now when I
have time away from meditating and keeping livestock. 
 Go forth young graduates, meditate and well act,
-Buck
in the Dome




"Like many of you, I was concerned about going out into the world and doing 
something bigger than myself, until someone smarter than myself made me realize 
that there is nothing bigger than my self. My soul is not contained within the 
limits of my body, my body is contained within the limitlessness of my soul.” - 
Jim Carrey



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M64DbAumW9U

[FairfieldLife] Jihad Will Continue Against America

[jr_...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

So says the supreme leader of Iran.  Obviously, they want to develop a nuclear 
capability.  It's only a matter of time that this will happen.  Iran would 
probably import the nuclear technology from Pakistan, another Muslim country 
with a nuclear threat.  But I have the feeling the Israelis already have 
contingency plans to make a pre-emptive strike to destroy the Iranian 
facilities that are making these nuclear weapons.  Can you imagine what would 
happen then in the Middle East?
 

 
http://news.yahoo.com/iran-supreme-leader-jihad-continue-until-america-no-180230486.html
 
http://news.yahoo.com/iran-supreme-leader-jihad-continue-until-america-no-180230486.html

[FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF

[awoelfleba...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

 

---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 Re "TM has negative effects for some people and this keeps getting ignored and 
swept under the rug.": 

 I suspect you are right for "some people" but on any specific problem like 
depression rates; anxiety rates . . . and on the current topic of suicides, the 
only reliable test is to compare TMers with  people who don't meditate but 
otherwise have similar profiles. In the US, suicide is the third leading cause 
of death for young people ages 15 to 24. If it turns out that suicide rates 
among young people who meditate is signifcantly lower it could be used as 
evidence to vindicate the practice of TM.
 

 Only true believers who swallowed the Movement line that TM was a universal 
panacea leading to blissed-out fulfillment for all need revise their beliefs.
 

 Thank you.
 

 
 

---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 

 unsupported??? By what? The suicides happened and keep happening - the whole 
point is that TM has negative effects for some people and this keeps getting 
ignored and swept under the rug. It doesn't always lead to suicide, but I have 
seen it myself a number of times at various Movement facilities especially MIU. 
 

 From: "awoelflebater@... [FairfieldLife]" 
 To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
 Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 12:40 PM
 Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF
 
 
   

 

 
 
 
   

 

MJ writes:
 

 I was talking on the phone last night to a former MIU staff and student friend 
who was telling me about his friend Brian Henchcliff who killed himself back in 
the 80's. It won't go away because you don't like me bringing it up.

 

 Let's  just put it this way with regard to your theories on suicide and TM: I 
think your objectivity is lacking, your logic is superficial and your 
conclusions unsupported. 
 

 

 
 














 


 











 


 












 













 


 











   

 

 
 

---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 

 unsupported??? By what? The suicides happened and keep happening - the whole 
point is that TM has negative effects for some people and this keeps getting 
ignored and swept under the rug. It doesn't always lead to suicide, but I have 
seen it myself a number of times at various Movement facilities especially MIU. 
 

 From: "awoelflebater@... [FairfieldLife]" 
 To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
 Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 12:40 PM
 Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF
 
 
   

 

 
 
 
   

 

MJ writes:
 

 I was talking on the phone last night to a former MIU staff and student friend 
who was telling me about his friend Brian Henchcliff who killed himself back in 
the 80's. It won't go away because you don't like me bringing it up.

 

 Let's  just put it this way with regard to your theories on suicide and TM: I 
think your objectivity is lacking, your logic is superficial and your 
conclusions unsupported. 
 

 

 
 














 


 











 


 












 













 


 

[FairfieldLife] Re: Maharishi devotee strikes at heart of capital punishment

[s3raph...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

Re "The problem with *rehabilitation* is, that you have to want to be 
rehabilitated. Not very likely if you've grown up as the scum of the earth, 
which most people are that commit heinous crimes. Not impossible, just not 
probable. At what cost and what guarantees the rehabilitation works.": 

 I share your skepticism but to give David Lynch his due he's trying to 
introduce TM programs into the prison system and that could have an effect on 
at least *some* inmates. 
 It doesn't help of course that US prisons are bywords in brutality and need 
root and branch reform.
 

---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 The problem with *rehabilitation* is, that you have to want to be 
rehabilitated. Not very likely if you've grown up as the scum of the earth, 
which most people are that commit heinous crimes. Not impossible, just not 
probable. At what cost and what guarantees the rehabilitation works.
 


 On Sunday, May 25, 2014 9:06 AM, "Bhairitu noozguru@... [FairfieldLife]" 
 wrote:
 
 

   
 Duh, charge admission.
 
 On 05/25/2014 07:32 AM, 'Richard J. Williams' punditster@... 
mailto:punditster@... [FairfieldLife] wrote:

   On 5/24/2014 2:22 PM, Bhairitu noozguru@... mailto:noozguru@... 
[FairfieldLife] wrote:
 > But I'm opposed to the death penalty anyway. Just put them in a 
 > "petting zoo". :-D 
 >
 How much would that cost the state or U.S. taxpayer? Go figure.
 
 ---
 This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus 
protection is active.
 http://www.avast.com/ http://www.avast.com/
 



 

 


 

[FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF

[s3raph...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

Re "TM has negative effects for some people and this keeps getting ignored and 
swept under the rug.": 

 I suspect you are right for "some people" but on any specific problem like 
depression rates; anxiety rates . . . and on the current topic of suicides, the 
only reliable test is to compare TMers with  people who don't meditate but 
otherwise have similar profiles. In the US, suicide is the third leading cause 
of death for young people ages 15 to 24. If it turns out that suicide rates 
among young people who meditate is signifcantly lower it could be used as 
evidence to vindicate the practice of TM.
 

 Only true believers who swallowed the Movement line that TM was a universal 
panacea leading to blissed-out fulfillment for all need revise their beliefs.
 

 

 
 

---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 

 unsupported??? By what? The suicides happened and keep happening - the whole 
point is that TM has negative effects for some people and this keeps getting 
ignored and swept under the rug. It doesn't always lead to suicide, but I have 
seen it myself a number of times at various Movement facilities especially MIU. 
 

 From: "awoelflebater@... [FairfieldLife]" 
 To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
 Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 12:40 PM
 Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF
 
 
   

 

 
 
 
   

 

MJ writes:
 

 I was talking on the phone last night to a former MIU staff and student friend 
who was telling me about his friend Brian Henchcliff who killed himself back in 
the 80's. It won't go away because you don't like me bringing it up.

 

 Let's  just put it this way with regard to your theories on suicide and TM: I 
think your objectivity is lacking, your logic is superficial and your 
conclusions unsupported. 
 

 

 
 














 


 











 


 












 













 


 











   

 

 
 

---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 

 unsupported??? By what? The suicides happened and keep happening - the whole 
point is that TM has negative effects for some people and this keeps getting 
ignored and swept under the rug. It doesn't always lead to suicide, but I have 
seen it myself a number of times at various Movement facilities especially MIU. 
 

 From: "awoelflebater@... [FairfieldLife]" 
 To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
 Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 12:40 PM
 Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF
 
 
   

 

 
 
 
   

 

MJ writes:
 

 I was talking on the phone last night to a former MIU staff and student friend 
who was telling me about his friend Brian Henchcliff who killed himself back in 
the 80's. It won't go away because you don't like me bringing it up.

 

 Let's  just put it this way with regard to your theories on suicide and TM: I 
think your objectivity is lacking, your logic is superficial and your 
conclusions unsupported. 
 

 

 
 














 


 











 


 












 













 


 

Re: [FairfieldLife] Chocolate King Wins in the Ukraine

[Michael Jackson mjackso...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

A quote from the article:


In the eastern Donbass coalfield, where militants ensured polling 
stations were closed to some 10 percent of the national electorate, 
rebels scoffed at the "fascist junta" and announced a plan to "cleanse" 
their "people's republic" of "enemy troops". A minister in Kiev said in 
turn its forces would renew their "anti-terrorist operation" after a 
truce during the polling.

And idiot Nabby and Buck claim the "transformation" is due to yogic flyers and 
purusha in the area. And some of you don't believe there are mind numbed true 
blue ru's out there???





 From: "jr_...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]" 
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 9:52 PM
Subject: [FairfieldLife] Chocolate King Wins in the Ukraine
 


  
If he can solve the country's problem, it can be called "Chocolate Diplomacy".

http://news.yahoo.com/ukraine-votes-fear-war-stalk-russia-border-zone-011339495.html

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Pondering the non-TM-related issue of suicide

[steve.sun...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

Thanks. She wanted a smaller college for him.  The big state college didn't 
work out so well for the oldest.
 

---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 Steve, they look like really nice young adults. And Univ of Dayton isn't so 
far away (-:

 


 On Sunday, May 25, 2014 8:07 PM, "steve.sundur@... [FairfieldLife]" 
 wrote:
 
 

   The graduate and the daughter.
 

 

 
 

---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 

 

 

 Thanks.  It was a nice ceremony.
 

 He scored a 29 on his ACT, and got some good money from University of Dayton, 
so that is where he is going.
 

 

 

 

 





 
  


 


 

[FairfieldLife] Chocolate King Wins in the Ukraine

[jr_...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

If he can solve the country's problem, it can be called "Chocolate Diplomacy".
 

 
http://news.yahoo.com/ukraine-votes-fear-war-stalk-russia-border-zone-011339495.html
 
http://news.yahoo.com/ukraine-votes-fear-war-stalk-russia-border-zone-011339495.html

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Pondering the non-TM-related issue of suicide

[Share Long sharelon...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

Steve, they look like really nice young adults. And Univ of Dayton isn't so far 
away (-:



On Sunday, May 25, 2014 8:07 PM, "steve.sun...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]" 
 wrote:
 


  
The graduate and the daughter.






---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :






Thanks.  It was a nice ceremony.

He scored a 29 on his ACT, and got some good money from University of Dayton, 
so that is where he is going.







 

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Pondering the non-TM-related issue of suicide

[steve.sun...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

The graduate and the daughter. 

 

 
 

---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 

 

 

 Thanks.  It was a nice ceremony.
 

 He scored a 29 on his ACT, and got some good money from University of Dayton, 
so that is where he is going.
 

 

 

 

 




 
  

Re: [FairfieldLife] Jim Carrey's Commencement address at MUM 24 May, 2014

[Share Long sharelon...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

More in the press about Jim Carrey's commencement address:

Jim Carrey wise beyond his wiseguy ways | KCRG-TV9 | Cedar Rapids, Iowa News, 
Sports, and Weather
 
   Jim Carrey wise beyond his wiseguy ways | KCRG-TV9 ...
Hollywood funnyman gives commencement address in Fairfield By Diana Nollen, The 
Gazette FAIRFIELDWow! What an honor to have Jim Ca...  
View on www.kcrg.com Preview by Yahoo  
 


On Sunday, May 25, 2014 3:11 PM, "lengli...@cox.net [FairfieldLife]" 
 wrote:
 


  
"Like many of you, I was concerned about going out into the world and doing 
something bigger than myself, until someone smarter than myself made me realize 
that there is nothing bigger than my self. My soul is not contained within the 
limits of my body, my body is contained within the limitlessness of my soul.” - 
Jim Carrey



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M64DbAumW9U

[FairfieldLife] Re: Jim Carrey's Commencement address at MUM 24 May, 2014

[awoelfleba...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

 

---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 Yes, I was there too. Was a tremendous amount of wisdom in Carrey's talk to 
the students. He is clearly awakened and spoke from Unity consciousness. Was 
quite an extraordinary commencement speech. Rick Archer should interview him 
for Batgap about Carrey's awakening experience. I am not familiar with Carrey's 
creative work otherwise, he must have been on TV after 10pm. He's been in 40 
movies? I may watch some of his creative work now when I have time away from 
meditating and keeping livestock. 
  Go forth young graduates, meditate and well act,
 -Buck in the Dome
 

 That explains it! Jim Carrey is in unity. No wonder he can move his face 
around like he does and is just so darn full of energy.
 

 

 

 

 

 "Like many of you, I was concerned about going out into the world and doing 
something bigger than myself, until someone smarter than myself made me realize 
that there is nothing bigger than my self. My soul is not contained within the 
limits of my body, my body is contained within the limitlessness of my soul.” - 
Jim Carrey
 

 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M64DbAumW9U 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M64DbAumW9U

 

 

 

[FairfieldLife] Post Count Mon 26-May-14 00:15:04 UTC

[FFL PostCount ffl.postco...@gmail.com [FairfieldLife]]

Fairfield Life Post Counter
===
Start Date (UTC): 05/24/14 00:00:00
End Date (UTC): 05/31/14 00:00:00
195 messages as of (UTC) 05/25/14 23:08:16

 28 awoelflebater
 27 steve.sundur
 25 Michael Jackson mjackson74
 22 Share Long sharelong60
 21 'Richard J. Williams' punditster
 12 salyavin808 
 10 TurquoiseBee turquoiseb
 10 Bhairitu noozguru
  9 dhamiltony2k5
  5 nablusoss1008 
  4 Mike Dixon mdixon.6569
  3 s3raphita
  3 authfriend
  3 LEnglish5
  2 punditster
  2 merudanda 
  2 jr_esq
  2 fleetwood_macncheese
  1 geezerfreak
  1 feste37 
  1 emilymaenot
  1 cardemaister
  1 azgrey 
Posters: 23
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For more information on Time Zones: www.worldtimezone.com 

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Pondering the non-TM-related issue of suicide

[lengli...@cox.net [FairfieldLife]]

What would be the explanation for TM itself bringing about suicide? 

 Yes, everyone has noticed that on extended rounding, people tend to get... 
odd... and people with severe mental problems likely shouldn't be doing 
extended rounding.
 

 There's also a known anxiety disorder, Relaxation Induced Anxiety, which is 
where ANY kind of relaxation can cause what we TMers sometimes call 
"unstressing," and such people obviously shouldn't be doing TM without medical 
supervision, if at all.
 

 There may be specific kinds of depression where TM makes things worse, as 
well. Don't know of any research on it, but some depressions seem to be 
associated with higher levels of alpha EEG, so it isn't a rocket science to be 
at least somewhat concerned, but I believe that TM teachers try to avoid 
teaching people under medical supervision for mental disorders without talking 
to doctors, or is that not the case?

 

 There's also a really sad situation, brought about by MMY's attitude in later 
life, and/or a New Age attitude, that Doctors and/or Modern Medicine, are Very 
Bad™ and some TMers avoid seeking medical help when they need it, whether it is 
mental or physical or both.
 

 

 

 

 Any of the above scenarios might be a a situation where TM is a contributing 
factor to suicide.
 

 

 Do you have in mind some other situation?
 

 

 

 L
 

 

---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 Michael, you really need to get a life other than this anti TM campaign.  It's 
not a matter of whether to stay silent or not on an issue.  You are stuck in a 
simplistic understanding about the whole organization.  Sorry to sound so 
condescending, but no other way to see it, I'm afraid. 
 

---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 

 Question - how can it be ok for D Lynch, Jim Carrey, that jackass Russel Brand 
and all the TM fanatics like Bob Roth and Ken Chawkin to absolutely claim that 
all things good come from TM, that everything good in a TM'ers life came from 
TM, that all their achievements can be traced to TM practice, yet anything 
untoward happens and there's an excuse? Why can't unpleasant things be equally 
attributed to TM and TMSP?

 From: "dhamiltony2k5@... [FairfieldLife]" 
 To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
 Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 9:49 AM
 Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Pondering the non-TM-related issue of suicide
 
 
   Turquoiseb, Good observations and good thoughtful post that adds to the 
discussion, thanks.
 -Buck
 

 For some gung-ho locally of their own making there can potentially be a lot of 
pressure around some expectations of 'enlightenment'. As a set up, sort of like 
the young girl who in her salutatorian graduation speech to the students 
yesterday set up 'enlightenment'. From that some could have troubles with a 
personal dissonance of their own that they possibly are not up there with 
'enlightenment' or possibly not made much progress along the way. Their lack of 
'enlightenment' even though they practice and possibly have some awakening but 
may be not up there enough by standard hoped for. It seems some people possibly 
more prone to depression or just less mature can also be triggered down on 
themselves over reflections of low, slow or poor progress in awakening towards 
what all is projected as a full 'enlightenment'. May be as something 
spiritually more than just, 'Be here Now' awakenings towards a spiritual 
depression related to expectations about where is that big 'enlightenment', 
like with invincibility? Words. Some people. 
 No doubt some complete anti-TM people like MJ here will seize and jump all 
over this line of thought deducting it is all about TM. Of course it is not 
that simple. Spiritual depression is written about all through time. There can 
also be lots of side effects of just seeking allotropic help in medication too, 
like warnings on prescription bottles about quick thoughts of suicide that get 
acted on. Or in vodka.  It is not simple.  We all should be feeling vigilant 
around this and willing to be pro-active, like choosing [as Jim Carrey, as we 
learned at commencement, for instance] to give love as attention to people 
around us.  Healing.  Everyone. And, an effective transcending quiet time can 
be of quite helpful use too in that. 
 -Buck in the Dome   

 

 turquoiseb writes:

 


 Really. This issue really IS not related to TM or any other belief system in 
my mind, because I've been on the survivor side of suicide a couple of times 
and gotten to experience the emotional and karmic ripples that emanate from it. 

 
I know that there are some here who are opposed to suicide for religious 
reasons. They may claim not to be, but whether they call it the "wrath of God" 
awaiting the suicidee or the terrible karmic consequences awaiting him, the 
bottom line is that they can been conditioned to believe that it's WRONG. And 
that Bad Shit will happen in the afterlife to those who do this WRONG thing. 

I'm not drawn that way, and never ha

[FairfieldLife] Re: Jim Carrey's Commencement address at MUM 24 May, 2014

[dhamiltony...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

Yes, I was there too. Was a tremendous amount of wisdom in Carrey's talk to the 
students. He is clearly awakened and spoke from Unity consciousness. Was quite 
an extraordinary commencement speech. Rick Archer should interview him for 
Batgap about Carrey's awakening experience. I am not familiar with Carrey's 
creative work otherwise, he must have been on TV after 10pm. He's been in 40 
movies? I may watch some of his creative work now when I have time away from 
meditating and keeping livestock. 
  Go forth young graduates, meditate and well act,
 -Buck in the Dome
 

 "Like many of you, I was concerned about going out into the world and doing 
something bigger than myself, until someone smarter than myself made me realize 
that there is nothing bigger than my self. My soul is not contained within the 
limits of my body, my body is contained within the limitlessness of my soul.” - 
Jim Carrey
 

 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M64DbAumW9U 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M64DbAumW9U

 

 

 

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Pondering the non-TM-related issue of suicide

[steve.sun...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

You get called out on inaccuracies pretty regularly.  You can go back and find 
them yourself, or not.
 

---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 

 you are wearing blinders and are being willfully ignorant of what the TMO is 
all about.

 From: "steve.sundur@... [FairfieldLife]" 
 To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
 Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 5:27 PM
 Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Pondering the non-TM-related issue of suicide
 
 
   Michael, you really need to get a life other than this anti TM campaign.  
It's not a matter of whether to stay silent or not on an issue.  You are stuck 
in a simplistic understanding about the whole organization.  Sorry to sound so 
condescending, but no other way to see it, I'm afraid. 

 

---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 

 Question - how can it be ok for D Lynch, Jim Carrey, that jackass Russel Brand 
and all the TM fanatics like Bob Roth and Ken Chawkin to absolutely claim that 
all things good come from TM, that everything good in a TM'ers life came from 
TM, that all their achievements can be traced to TM practice, yet anything 
untoward happens and there's an excuse? Why can't unpleasant things be equally 
attributed to TM and TMSP?

 From: "dhamiltony2k5@... [FairfieldLife]" 
 To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
 Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 9:49 AM
 Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Pondering the non-TM-related issue of suicide
 
 
   Turquoiseb, Good observations and good thoughtful post that adds to the 
discussion, thanks.
 -Buck
 

 For some gung-ho locally of their own making there can potentially be a lot of 
pressure around some expectations of 'enlightenment'. As a set up, sort of like 
the young girl who in her salutatorian graduation speech to the students 
yesterday set up 'enlightenment'. From that some could have troubles with a 
personal dissonance of their own that they possibly are not up there with 
'enlightenment' or possibly not made much progress along the way. Their lack of 
'enlightenment' even though they practice and possibly have some awakening but 
may be not up there enough by standard hoped for. It seems some people possibly 
more prone to depression or just less mature can also be triggered down on 
themselves over reflections of low, slow or poor progress in awakening towards 
what all is projected as a full 'enlightenment'. May be as something 
spiritually more than just, 'Be here Now' awakenings towards a spiritual 
depression related to expectations about where is that big 'enlightenment', 
like with invincibility? Words. Some people. 
 No doubt some complete anti-TM people like MJ here will seize and jump all 
over this line of thought deducting it is all about TM. Of course it is not 
that simple. Spiritual depression is written about all through time. There can 
also be lots of side effects of just seeking allotropic help in medication too, 
like warnings on prescription bottles about quick thoughts of suicide that get 
acted on. Or in vodka.  It is not simple.  We all should be feeling vigilant 
around this and willing to be pro-active, like choosing [as Jim Carrey, as we 
learned at commencement, for instance] to give love as attention to people 
around us.  Healing.  Everyone. And, an effective transcending quiet time can 
be of quite helpful use too in that. 
 -Buck in the Dome   

 

 turquoiseb writes:

 


 Really. This issue really IS not related to TM or any other belief system in 
my mind, because I've been on the survivor side of suicide a couple of times 
and gotten to experience the emotional and karmic ripples that emanate from it. 

 
I know that there are some here who are opposed to suicide for religious 
reasons. They may claim not to be, but whether they call it the "wrath of God" 
awaiting the suicidee or the terrible karmic consequences awaiting him, the 
bottom line is that they can been conditioned to believe that it's WRONG. And 
that Bad Shit will happen in the afterlife to those who do this WRONG thing. 

I'm not drawn that way, and never have been. I think that in some situations, 
suicide can be a viable and graceful option available to those who have few 
others. Terminal illnesses in which their "last few days" can be reliably be 
predicted to be 24/7 pain is one such situation. The country I currently live 
in believes similarly, and offers physician-assisted suicide as an option to 
the terminally ill. 

At the same time, they *don't* offer it to someone who is feeling down because 
he never had any luck with women and was still a virgin at 22. The doctors who 
run the assisted-suicide centers are skilled at detecting such people, and 
referring them to a similarly-paid-for-by-their-affordable-health-insurance 
psychiatrist or social worker. If this option had been present in Isla Vista 
(original home of MIU) recently, several more people would still be alive today.

I find it interesting that this suicide talk comes up just after a digression 
dealing with people's preferred met

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF

[awoelfleba...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

 

---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 

 unsupported??? By what? The suicides happened and keep happening - the whole 
point is that TM has negative effects for some people and this keeps getting 
ignored and swept under the rug. It doesn't always lead to suicide, but I have 
seen it myself a number of times at various Movement facilities especially MIU. 
 

 

 Who is ignoring suicides? Not you, not me, not the friends and families. "TM's 
Negative effects" is a general statement unsupported here. When you find out 
this current suicide's medical history, his mental condition for the last ten 
years, get an inside track on his personal life and what he communicated to 
family and friends and professionals in his last months on Earth get back to 
me. 

 From: "awoelflebater@... [FairfieldLife]" 
 To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
 Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 12:40 PM
 Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF
 
 
   

 

 
 
 
   

 

MJ writes:
 

 I was talking on the phone last night to a former MIU staff and student friend 
who was telling me about his friend Brian Henchcliff who killed himself back in 
the 80's. It won't go away because you don't like me bringing it up.

 

 Let's  just put it this way with regard to your theories on suicide and TM: I 
think your objectivity is lacking, your logic is superficial and your 
conclusions unsupported. 
 

 

 
 














 


 











 


 












 













 


 

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Maharishi devotee strikes at heart of capital punishment

[Mike Dixon mdixon.6...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

The problem with *rehabilitation* is, that you have to want to be 
rehabilitated. Not very likely if you've grown up as the scum of the earth, 
which most people are that commit heinous crimes. Not impossible, just not 
probable. At what cost and what guarantees the rehabilitation works. 


On Sunday, May 25, 2014 9:06 AM, "Bhairitu noozg...@sbcglobal.net 
[FairfieldLife]"  wrote:
  


  
Duh, charge admission.

On 05/25/2014 07:32 AM, 'Richard J. Williams' pundits...@gmail.com 
[FairfieldLife] wrote:
 
  
>On 5/24/2014 2:22 PM, Bhairitu noozg...@sbcglobal.net [FairfieldLife] wrote:
>> But I'm opposed to the death penalty anyway. Just put
  them in a 
>> "petting zoo". :-D 
>>
>How much would that cost the state or U.S. taxpayer? Go
  figure.
>
>---
>This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus 
>protection is active.
>http://www.avast.com/
>
>   
 
 

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Pondering the non-TM-related issue of suicide

[Michael Jackson mjackso...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

you are wearing blinders and are being willfully ignorant of what the TMO is 
all about.



 From: "steve.sun...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]" 
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 5:27 PM
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Pondering the non-TM-related issue of suicide
 


  
Michael, you really need to get a life other than this anti TM campaign.  It's 
not a matter of whether to stay silent or not on an issue.  You are stuck in a 
simplistic understanding about the whole organization.  Sorry to sound so 
condescending, but no other way to see it, I'm afraid.



---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :




Question - how can it be ok for D Lynch, Jim Carrey, that jackass Russel Brand 
and all the TM fanatics like Bob Roth and Ken Chawkin to absolutely claim that 
all things good come from TM, that everything good in a TM'ers life came from 
TM, that all their achievements can be traced to TM practice, yet anything 
untoward happens and there's an excuse? Why can't unpleasant things be equally 
attributed to TM and TMSP?



 From: "dhamiltony2k5@... [FairfieldLife]" 
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 9:49 AM
Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Pondering the non-TM-related issue of suicide



 
Turquoiseb, Good observations and good thoughtful post that adds to the 
discussion, thanks.
-Buck

For
some gung-ho locally of their own making there can potentially be a
lot of pressure around some expectations of  'enlightenment'.
As a set up, sort of like the young girl who in her salutatorian
graduation speech to the students yesterday set up 'enlightenment'.
>From that some could have troubles with a personal dissonance of
their own that they possibly are not up there with 'enlightenment' or possibly
not made much progress along the way.  Their lack of 'enlightenment'
even though they practice and possibly have some awakening but may be
not up there enough by standard hoped for.  It seems some people
possibly more prone to depression or just less mature can also be
triggered down on themselves over reflections of low, slow or poor
progress in awakening towards what all is projected as a full
'enlightenment'.  May be as something spiritually more than just, 'Be
here Now' awakenings towards a spiritual depression related to
expectations about where is that big 'enlightenment', like with
invincibility?  Words. Some people. 
No
doubt some complete anti-TM people like MJ here will seize and jump all
over this line of thought deducting it is all about TM.  Of course it
is not that simple.  Spiritual depression is written about all
through time.  There can also be lots of side effects of just seeking
allotropic help in medication too, like warnings on prescription
bottles about quick thoughts of suicide that get acted on.  Or in
vodka.  It is not simple.  We all should be feeling vigilant around this and 
willing to
be pro-active, like choosing [as Jim Carrey, as we learned at
commencement, for instance] to give love as attention to people
around us.  Healing.  Everyone. And, an effective transcending quiet time can 
be of quite helpful use too in that. 
-Buck
in the Dome   

turquoiseb writes:



Really. This issue really IS not related to TM or any other belief system in my 
mind, because I've been on the survivor side of suicide a couple of times and 
gotten to experience the emotional and karmic ripples that emanate from it. 

I know that there are some here who are opposed to suicide for religious 
reasons. They may claim not to be, but whether they call it the "wrath of God" 
awaiting the suicidee or the terrible karmic consequences awaiting him, the 
bottom line is that they can been conditioned to believe that it's WRONG. And 
that Bad Shit will happen in the afterlife to those who do this WRONG thing. 

I'm not drawn that way,
and never have been. I think that in some situations, suicide can be a viable 
and graceful option available to those who have few others. Terminal illnesses 
in which their "last few days" can be reliably be predicted to be 24/7 pain is 
one such situation. The country I currently live in believes similarly, and 
offers physician-assisted suicide as an option to the terminally ill. 

At the same time, they *don't* offer it to someone who is feeling down because 
he never had any luck with women and was still a virgin at 22. The doctors who 
run the assisted-suicide centers are skilled at detecting such people, and 
referring them to a similarly-paid-for-by-their-affordable-health-insurance 
psychiatrist or social worker. If this option had been present in Isla Vista 
(original home of MIU) recently, several more people would still be alive today.

I find it interesting that this
suicide talk comes up just after a digression dealing with people's preferred 
methods of going out. Parsing them, I found that beheading scored high on some 
people's Kick The Bucket List. Others pre

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF

[Michael Jackson mjackso...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

what blatant inaccuracy you are talking about?



 From: "steve.sun...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]" 
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 5:19 PM
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF
 


  
you contradict yourself in a matter of two sentences and are too dimwitted to 
realize it.

or harboring a bias bordering on hatred

and let's face it, what makes you go vocal on any opportunity to impugn TM - 
any negative comment, from any source, vetted, or unvetted

and what do you do when caught in a blatant inaccuracy?  

Go silent



---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :


you don't know anything about his life either or what led him to suicide, nor 
do any of us know what caused Serenity to do so last year, or my friend Mark 
Totten, or any of the other siddhas/governors/purushas who have killed 
themselves over the years - the common denominator is long term TM and TMSP 
practice and I said before I won't be silent on this issue.




 From: "awoelflebater@... [FairfieldLife]"

To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 9:27 AM
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF



 




---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :


I've been staying out of this, and will continue to do so, but I have to point 
out the eagerness with which several people have pounced on the brain 
injury/coma thing. It's almost as if you can feel them relax and say to 
themselves, "Whew! There is some kind of *excuse* that I can glom onto so that 
I don't have to deal with the possibility that this is yet another in a rather 
long list of TM movement suicides, and thus a
potential source of cognitive dissonance for me. It's good to have this excuse, 
so I don't have to 'go there'." 


>From my staying-out-of-it-so-far point of view Michael is not overreacting to 
>Yet Another Suicide by implying that it is linked with TM any more than 
>several others here are knee-jerk overreacting to the same suicide by implying 
>that it is not. It
is absolutely LUDICROUS to pretend that TM has not promised a world and a 
society in which problems simply cannot happen. It is similarly LUDICROUS to 
pretend that anyone who does develop emotional problems within a TM-only 
community will be provided adequate mental health care for them. It has never 
happened and it will never
happen, because providing the care in the first place will be perceived by 
those in charge as "having doubts" about TM being the panacea they believe it 
is. 

I'll tell you what is ludicrous and that is that this young man is barely cold 
and opportunists, who know nothing about him and his life, are using him to 
further their anti-whatever agenda. I don't give a shit about TM or The 
Movement. What I give a shit about is for others who are not immediate family 
members to shut the fuck up
and mind their own damn business. Period.





 From: "steve.sundur@... [FairfieldLife]" 
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 6:05 AM
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF



 
Michael, to the rest of the world, the fact that he sustained a serious brain 
injury two years ago, puts the whole issue in a different light, whether you 
wish to acknowledge this or not.

You have amply demonstrated that you are capable of tying TM to most any 
negative event, whether it makes sense or not.







---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :


Given the fact that it comes about a year after another siddha suicide and on 
the heels of many other suicides and attempted suicides by siddhas and 
governors, I think the whole thing needs to be looked at squarely and honestly. 
I won't be silenced about this. Of all the crap there is about the disconnect 
between what Marshy and the Movement advertise and the reality of what they and
TM actually deliver, this bother me the most. If you don't want to deal with it 
Feste, then don't, but I won't be silent about this. 




 From: feste37 
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Saturday, May 24, 2014 10:10 PM
Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF



 
The post from Sheer-el from when he was an MSAE student was about 10 years ago, 
I think. 

He did suffer a serious injury about two years ago. He was in a coma for a 
while, I believe. I did hear that it was some kind of brain injury. I wonder if 
that injury affected him in some way that no one knew about. 

This is a tragedy for the family and for Fairfield. I do think that people 
should not use it on this board to push their anti-TM views. It's not 
appropriate, particularly as we know nothing of the circumstances in this case. 





---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :



>
>Sheer-el Cohen. He was employed at the Raj. Apparently this happened 
>yesterday.
>
>
>http://www.8000now.com/audiotext/Sheer-elCohenTex

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF

[Michael Jackson mjackso...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

unsupported??? By what? The suicides happened and keep happening - the whole 
point is that TM has negative effects for some people and this keeps getting 
ignored and swept under the rug. It doesn't always lead to suicide, but I have 
seen it myself a number of times at various Movement facilities especially MIU. 
 



 From: "awoelfleba...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]" 
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 12:40 PM
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF
 


  









 




MJ writes:



I was talking on the phone last night to a former MIU staff and student friend 
who was telling me about his friend Brian Henchcliff who killed himself back in 
the 80's. It won't go away because you don't like me bringing it up.


Let's  just put it this way with regard to your theories on suicide and TM: I 
think your objectivity is lacking, your logic is superficial and your 
conclusions unsupported. 

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Pondering the non-TM-related issue of suicide

[steve.sun...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

 

 

 Thanks.  It was a nice ceremony.
 

 He scored a 29 on his ACT, and got some good money from University of Dayton, 
so that is where he is going.
 

 

 

 

 

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: The three words that would have changed everything

[steve.sun...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

Okay, you obviously were privy to private conversations. 

 I am not trying to impugn Earl.  
 

 I am just saying that there is a context in which the comments were made.  He 
also said in that same expose that MMY sucked the vital life of his students, 
or something to that effect.  My apologies if I got that wrong.
 

 It was an odd letter, but for the record, I've always found Earl to be a 
pretty level headed fellow.  
 

   
 

---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 From: "steve.sundur@... [FairfieldLife]" 
 To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
 Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 7:12 PM
 Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: The three words that would have changed everything
 
 
   Barry, it is sort of funny, that you have become such a MMY scholar or 
critic, sort of in the same way that someone is a Van Gogh scholar, or maybe a 
Thomas Jefferson scholar.
 But do you feel it might be wise to make some sort of caveat about one 
person's report about what MMY was alleged to have said?
 

 BTW, I know Earl from the early days.  I always liked him.
 

 But certainly he became quite disillusioned.  You present what he reported in 
that private conversation as if it was irrefutable fact.  
 

 Maybe three qualifying words would be useful, according to Earl, "MMY 
allegedly said".


It is possibly more credible to me, because I've been in small rooms in which 
Maharishi said similar things. What was said in public was not necessarily what 
he said in private. I can *certainly* agree with Earl's comments that Maharishi 
dissed his own students and talked of their gullibility and their stupidity 
when in private. I left long before there even *was* a so-called "Maharishi 
Effect," but he used to say the same things about its predecessor meme, in 
which he had claimed that if 1% (or later, even smaller percentages) of the 
population practiced TM, the result would be world peace. In private, he would 
often say that he *had no idea* whether this would happen or not. 

I have been in similar situations in which he was being interviewed by a person 
from the press, and said during the interview things that I *knew* to be lies. 
Afterwards he'd joke about it, as if they simply weren't worth telling the 
truth to.

You DO know, do you not, that attempting to "write off" the source of something 
you don't want to believe about a spiritual teacher by impugning the veracity 
of the person who said it and suggesting that the source is "disillusioned" is 
one of the primary tactics of a cult. I would suggest that the primary way in 
which Earl Kaplan was "disillusioned" was that experience taught him to abandon 
many of the illusions he'd had about Maharishi.  
 


 

---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 Thinking back on it, there are three words that I cannot remember Maharishi 
ever using, in "live" lectures, on video-and audio-tapes, and in his books. 
Those three words, which *could* have been used to preface something he was 
about to say, are "I believe that..." 

Instead, he said stuff as if the fact that he believed it made it not only 
true, but Truth. And he *presented* the things he taught that way. They were 
never "in my opinion" or "according to what I believe," but Truth. He often 
implied that they were not only Truth but Eternal Universal Cosmic Truth, piped 
to him directly from the Home Of All Knowledge. 

And people *bought* them as such. They may claim -- years later and now 
embarrassed by many of the things that they once believed were Truth -- that 
they didn't, but let's face it...anyone who was invested enough to become a TM 
teacher bought them lock, stock and barrel *AS* Truth. Then they went out and 
taught them to others *AS* Truth. 

I believe that it would have been better in the long run if he had just been 
honest about the things he taught and presented them as what they were -- 
things he believed. Heck, it would have been better even knowing as we do now 
that he didn't even *really* believe that some of the things he said were true. 
His admission to Earl Kaplan that he didn't know whether the ME would really 
have any effect or not shows that. But I can accept that he really *did* 
believe many of the bullshit superstitions and personal opinions and 
speculations he presented to the world as Truth. 

I just think it would have been better for all concerned if he had presented 
them *AS* "things I believe" rather than claiming or implying that they were 
Truth. Prefacing them with "I believe that..." would have been a more honest 
way of teaching. 





 







 


 

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF

[steve.sun...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

and you know this because the last time you were on campus was 20 years ago? 

 do I have that right?
 

 or tell me then, how long ago was it?
 

---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 

 go on campus and get real - that's where the True Believers are

 From: "Share Long sharelong60@... [FairfieldLife]" 

 To: "FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com"  
 Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 11:35 AM
 Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF
 
 
   Michael, you obviously have not been to Fairfield in a long time if you 
think there are *TONS* of long term TMers here who are what turq calls TBers. 
It's simply not the case. And why? IMO because TM increases field independence! 
By its very nature, TM prevents the creation of TBers and a cult. Go figure!

 


 On Sunday, May 25, 2014 10:03 AM, "Michael Jackson mjackson74@... 
[FairfieldLife]"  wrote:
 
 

   
Yes, it is true that from the outset the vision of possibilities offered was an 
Ideal Society, Full Potential, etc.  But who, at any time did not put that in 
some kind of perspective and make an internal adjustment of what was actually 
possible, and what was laid out as grand plan.  And as has been mentioned 
previously, the founder of the movement, may have believed that it was 
possible.  

 

 Steve, you are truly living with blinders on if you do not realize and 
recognize there are TONS of people who swallow the TMO's schtick hook, line and 
sinker - lots of them live and work at MUM.  They are the ones who were so 
shocked when the pundits rioted a few weeks ago. 

 

 From: "steve.sundur@... [FairfieldLife]" 
 To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
 Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 9:02 AM
 Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF
 
 
   

 ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 I've been staying out of this, and will continue to do so, but I have to point 
out the eagerness with which several people have pounced on the brain 
injury/coma thing. It's almost as if you can feel them relax and say to 
themselves, "Whew! There is some kind of *excuse* that I can glom onto so that 
I don't have to deal with the possibility that this is yet another in a rather 
long list of TM movement suicides, and thus a potential source of cognitive 
dissonance for me. It's good to have this excuse, so I don't have to 'go 
there'." 

 

 I guess you're are doing what what most extreme partisans do. You play 
whatever side of the issue suits you at the time.  And then, if it were to suit 
you to play a different side, you'd flip the argument. Ignore the obvious fact, 
that there are mitigating circumstances and assume that anyone who factors in 
the injury and coma is just doing so to deflect some other issue.  What you 
conveniently miss, is that it was Michael who from the outset was the one 
glomming onto a cause.
 

 
 From my staying-out-of-it-so-far point of view Michael is not overreacting to 
Yet Another Suicide by implying that it is linked with TM any more than several 
others here are knee-jerk overreacting to the same suicide by implying that it 
is not. It is absolutely LUDICROUS to pretend that TM has not promised a world 
and a society in which problems simply cannot happen. It is similarly LUDICROUS 
to pretend that anyone who does develop emotional problems within a TM-only 
community will be provided adequate mental health care for them. It has never 
happened and it will never happen, because providing the care in the first 
place will be perceived by those in charge as "having doubts" about TM being 
the panacea they believe it is. 
 

 Yes, it is true that from the outset the vision of possibilities offered was 
an Ideal Society, Full Potential, etc.  But who, at any time did not put that 
in some kind of perspective and make an internal adjustment of what was 
actually possible, and what was laid out as grand plan.  And as has been 
mentioned previously, the founder of the movement, may have believed that it 
was possible.  
 

 And it is quite an assumption you make about seeking outside intervention to 
help with emotional issues.  You might as well admit, that you have no idea if 
this is true, having left the movement over 40 years ago.  Doesn't that sound a 
little ridiculous!


 

 From: "steve.sundur@... [FairfieldLife]" 
 To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
 Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 6:05 AM
 Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF
 
 
   Michael, to the rest of the world, the fact that he sustained a serious 
brain injury two years ago, puts the whole issue in a different light, whether 
you wish to acknowledge this or not.
 

 You have amply demonstrated that you are capable of tying TM to most any 
negative event, whether it makes sense or not.
 

 


 
 ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 Given the fact that it comes about a year after another siddha suicide and on 
the heels of many other suicides and attempted suicides by siddhas and 
governors, I think the whole thing needs to be looke

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF

[steve.sun...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

As Ronald Reagan once said, "There he goes again".  I figure you'd play the 
Cult Apologist card, or some variation thereof.  At least you are right on 
schedule, Michael.  But couldya please be not some damned predictable.  Really!
 

---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 

 Steve you are coming close to be as much of a blabberer as WIlly Tex - I am 
hardly a pariah, I am one of many former TM'ers who speak up. You want to 
create fantasy about who I am and why I do what I do, go ahead.

 From: "steve.sundur@... [FairfieldLife]" 
 To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
 Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 10:25 AM
 Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF
 
 
   Michael,
 

 You have a fantasy that people don't want you to bring up instances of suicide 
or other problems in the TMO.  Maybe take a look at this seeming need of yours 
to be some kind of pariah standing up the menacing TMO machine.
 

 If you don't like feedback in the form of facts, or other circumstances that 
go against you narrative, perhaps you are on the wrong forum.
 

 And of course, the default, "CULT APOLOGIST, CULT APOLOGIST, is just a 
convenient distraction.
 

---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 Thanks Barry - and I will add, again, that on the Remembering Serenity 
facebook page, dedicated to the siddha lady who took her own life last year, a 
former MUM student posted this:
 

 
 . ever since I was a student at MUM (I started in 2008) students have 
requested this dialog and attempted to organize events, but were shut down 
repeatedly and with benign intentions to "protect our consciousness" (actual 
policy wording) .
 

 So Ann, Feste, Steve and Buck, ignore, defend, and make excuses all you like, 
revile me all you like but these TM suicides have been around since the 1960's 
and they aren't gonna go away. Talk to some of the people who were on the old 
course where heavy unstressing was rampant and see if you can get the idea that 
maybe TM DOES have effects that can lead to extreme consequences. 

 

 I was talking on the phone last night to a former MIU staff and student friend 
who was telling me about his friend Brian Henchcliff who killed himself back in 
the 80's. It won't go away because you don't like me bringing it up.

 

 From: "TurquoiseBee turquoiseb@... [FairfieldLife]" 

 To: "FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com"  
 Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 1:23 AM
 Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF
 
 
   I've been staying out of this, and will continue to do so, but I have to 
point out the eagerness with which several people have pounced on the brain 
injury/coma thing. It's almost as if you can feel them relax and say to 
themselves, "Whew! There is some kind of *excuse* that I can glom onto so that 
I don't have to deal with the possibility that this is yet another in a rather 
long list of TM movement suicides, and thus a potential source of cognitive 
dissonance for me. It's good to have this excuse, so I don't have to 'go 
there'." 

 

 From my staying-out-of-it-so-far point of view Michael is not overreacting to 
Yet Another Suicide by implying that it is linked with TM any more than several 
others here are knee-jerk overreacting to the same suicide by implying that it 
is not. It is absolutely LUDICROUS to pretend that TM has not promised a world 
and a society in which problems simply cannot happen. It is similarly LUDICROUS 
to pretend that anyone who does develop emotional problems within a TM-only 
community will be provided adequate mental health care for them. It has never 
happened and it will never happen, because providing the care in the first 
place will be perceived by those in charge as "having doubts" about TM being 
the panacea they believe it is. 


 

 From: "steve.sundur@... [FairfieldLife]" 
 To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
 Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 6:05 AM
 Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF
 
 
   Michael, to the rest of the world, the fact that he sustained a serious 
brain injury two years ago, puts the whole issue in a different light, whether 
you wish to acknowledge this or not.
 

 You have amply demonstrated that you are capable of tying TM to most any 
negative event, whether it makes sense or not.
 

 


 
 ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 Given the fact that it comes about a year after another siddha suicide and on 
the heels of many other suicides and attempted suicides by siddhas and 
governors, I think the whole thing needs to be looked at squarely and honestly. 
I won't be silenced about this. Of all the crap there is about the disconnect 
between what Marshy and the Movement advertise and the reality of what they and 
TM actually deliver, this bother me the most. If you don't want to deal with it 
Feste, then don't, but I won't be silent about this. 

 

 From: feste37 
 To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
 Sent: Saturday, May 24, 2014 10:10 PM
 Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF
 
 
 

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: The cognitive dissonance of suicide

[steve.sun...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

Is he Michael? I guess no, "In my opinion" needed.  Funny how that works 
doesn't it.  When you agree with someone, well what they say is just obviously 
the truth, and okay to present it as such. 

 But then, be sure and make a big stink when an opposing point of view, 
neglects to include these three works.
 

 Piece of work.  Piece uvvv work!
 

---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 He is actually quite accurate in his assertions. 

 From: "steve.sundur@... [FairfieldLife]" 
 To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
 Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 10:07 AM
 Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: The cognitive dissonance of suicide
 
 
   What a presumption you make about how the TM community reacts to such an 
event.
 

 As Share mentioned a few days ago, you have been removed to any involvement 
for going on 40 years.
 

 You view from a distance, as the rest of us do, what Bobby Roth, or DL, or JH 
say about TM and what it has to offer.  You can offer an opinion about whether 
it makes any sense.
 

 But most everything else you say about this suicide is just pure speculation, 
and really an intent to put the worst possible spin on it.
 

 
 ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 
 
OK, I'm not going to stay out of this at all. I'm going to rap about it. And 
one of the reasons is that I think my life experience -- both personal and with 
the study of cults/spiritual communities -- offers me a few insights into the 
issue of suicide. 

Few events provoke more cognitive dissonance than the suicide of a friend, 
family member, or member of "our" community. If they knew the person, the 
survivors are stuck with questions like "Why didn't I notice?" or "Could I have 
*done* something to prevent this?" 

Worse, in tight-knit communities -- ESPECIALLY those of the spiritual Jkind -- 
there is also often a suppressed and carefully hidden sense of ANGER towards 
the person who committed suicide. "How could he/she have done this? Didn't 
he/she know that by doing this they would be 'letting down the team?'" 

Suicide within spiritual communities is almost ALWAYS viewed that way, 
especially if the community has been carefully indoctrinated for decades into 
believing how "special" they are, and how "These sorts of things just don't 
happen here, because of ." 

The first reaction among those whose sense of elitism and "betterness" has just 
been challenged by the suicide of a colleague is almost always what it was here 
on FFL -- to search for some "reason" for the suicide, to make *themselves* 
feel better. They're hoping for some kind of "out," like "brain damage" or "the 
prospect of facing a terminal illness" so that they can continue to think of 
themselves and their group as elite. They can think, "Oh, now that I understand 
the *reason* he/she did this, I can relax, because it doesn't impact the myth 
of our superiority and elitism in any way. The person who did this was an 
*exception*." The community thus gloms onto the *excuse*, and relaxes. 

But, and speaking from some experience, this is all bullshit. The community to 
some extent CAUSES the suicide, by creating an environment in which the victim 
feels that they can't talk about their problems, because the mere fact of 
admitting to *having* problems would cast doubt upon the myth of "specialness" 
and "freedom from such problems" that the whole community believes in and 
pretends is actually true. 

One can always come up with "reasons" for suicide, but they're always excuses 
that serve the living, not the dead. Me, I've dealt with suicide close-up a 
couple of times, having had both a brother and a spiritual teacher who checked 
themselves out. In both cases I can cite "excuses" that I feel were partly to 
blame. In my brother's case, he was a closet alcoholic in a culture full of 
closet alcoholics (the American South), all of whom were busy most of the time 
pretending not to be alcoholics. That's why he was able to get away with being 
one for much of his life. No one noticed that he was having more serious 
problems than being a drunk, because most of the people around him were so 
drunk so much of the time. In the case of Rama - Fred Lenz, I know for a fact 
that part of his decision to commit suicide was chemically induced. He had 
developed an addiction to Valium, and being the "I can handle it" kinda guy he 
was, he decided to quit taking the drug "cold turkey." It says right on the 
label never to do this, *because of the danger of suicide*, but he figured he 
could "handle it." Three days later, he was dead, a suicide. 

So yes, there were excuses. And yes, they serve to make the survivors feel 
better, and a little less guilty about not having noticed that these people 
were so close to the edge. But they're bullshit in spiritual groups because the 
excuses are a way of avoiding cognitive dissonance so that they don't have to 
deal with the heart of the problem. 

The common denominator in many suicides is the person feeling eith

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Pondering the non-TM-related issue of suicide

[Share Long sharelon...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

Steve, congratulations on your son's graduation. I hope it was a wonderful 
ceremony. The Opera House sounds like a pretty cool venue. Has he selected a 
college yet?

Good that your Dad had a peaceful passing and that you all found him so soon. 
My big regret is that my SO and I did not say "I love you" much. So now I say 
it whenever I sign off with a loved one.




On Sunday, May 25, 2014 12:22 PM, "steve.sun...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]" 
 wrote:
 


  
Thanks Share.  I'm heading to my son's graduation from HS at the Peabody Opera 
house.  Will catch up later on. (-:

On the Saturday my dad died, I had talked to him the night before, and because 
he had leftovers we decided not to go out for dinner,or for me to bring 
anything over.

Then on Saturday, I just got kind of lazy and didn't call him all day.  
Typically during the week I would not talk to him during the day as he had a 
care giver.

But then about 6:00, my wife and I were at a HS football game and I turned to 
her and said, I better call him, as I hadn't heard from him all day.  After not 
reaching him after numerous tries, I said we better leave.

We found him in bed, passed away with a relatively calm expression on his face. 
 I was glad that he appeared to have a peaceful death, in this sleep.

I called the police, and the kinda funny thing was, that the coroner started to 
question me, like where I had been etc.  This,even though they had been to his 
house on a couple of occasions when he had some scares.



---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :


Steve, just to say that I appreciate so much of what you posted today. So 
balanced and at peace with the human condition. I think that is what I treasure 
most in your posts. 


My SO died of a heart attack the day after our last 2 phone calls. In that last 
phone call he reported having gone for a walk and experiencing chest and arm 
pain. I suggested that he, just to be safe, go to an emergency room. But he 
didn't and the next day he died, age 46, with no family
history of heart disease. 


Sometimes I still feel guilty that I wasn't convincing enough to get him to go 
to the ER.

Because he was interested in the bardo and between live, etc., I've read a bit 
about that. One thing the *experts *say is that souls
basically are given a choice whether to have an easy life or a life focused on 
learning lessons and growing.

That might be true. I don't know for sure. But I'm pretty sure that no one can 
fathom all that's involved in any one soul's path of evolution. Or even just 
the choices of one lifetime!




On Sunday, May 25, 2014 9:52 AM, "steve.sundur@... [FairfieldLife]" 
 wrote:



 
A nice rap. 

---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :


Really. This issue really IS not related to TM or any other belief system in my 
mind, because I've been on the survivor side of suicide a couple of times and 
gotten to experience the emotional and karmic ripples that emanate from it. 

I know that there
are some here who are opposed to suicide for religious reasons. They may claim 
not to be, but whether they call it the "wrath of God" awaiting the suicidee or 
the terrible karmic consequences awaiting him, the bottom line is that they can 
been conditioned to believe that it's WRONG. And that Bad Shit will happen in 
the afterlife to those who do this WRONG thing. 

I'm not drawn that way,
and never have been. I think that in some situations, suicide can be a viable 
and graceful option available to those who have few others. Terminal illnesses 
in which their "last few days" can be reliably be predicted to be 24/7 pain is 
one such situation. The country I currently live in believes similarly, and 
offers physician-assisted suicide as an option to the terminally ill. 

At the same time, they *don't* offer it to someone who is feeling down because 
he never had any luck with women and was still a virgin at 22. The doctors who 
run the assisted-suicide centers are skilled at detecting such people, and 
referring them to a similarly-paid-for-by-their-affordable-health-insurance 
psychiatrist or social worker. If this option had been present in Isla Vista 
(original home of MIU) recently, several more people would still be alive today.

I find it interesting that this
suicide talk comes up just after a digression dealing with people's preferred 
methods of going out. Parsing them, I found that beheading scored high on some 
people's Kick The Bucket List. Others preferred being "put to sleep," as their 
pets are. 

For me, the best method of checking oneself out I've ever heard came from a 
friend I met in the Rama trip. He had worked as a biologist, and thus with a 
poison called tetrodotoxin. It comes from the Japanese fugu fish, and is a 
powerful nerve toxin. We kinda know its subjective effects because the Japanese 
actually consider fugu fish a delicacy, and eat it. This all goes well if the 
delicacy is prepared properly by a master sushi chef. If it's a lesser chef, 
sometimes t

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Pondering the non-TM-related issue of suicide

[steve.sun...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

Michael, you really need to get a life other than this anti TM campaign.  It's 
not a matter of whether to stay silent or not on an issue.  You are stuck in a 
simplistic understanding about the whole organization.  Sorry to sound so 
condescending, but no other way to see it, I'm afraid. 
 

---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 

 Question - how can it be ok for D Lynch, Jim Carrey, that jackass Russel Brand 
and all the TM fanatics like Bob Roth and Ken Chawkin to absolutely claim that 
all things good come from TM, that everything good in a TM'ers life came from 
TM, that all their achievements can be traced to TM practice, yet anything 
untoward happens and there's an excuse? Why can't unpleasant things be equally 
attributed to TM and TMSP?

 From: "dhamiltony2k5@... [FairfieldLife]" 
 To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
 Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 9:49 AM
 Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Pondering the non-TM-related issue of suicide
 
 
   Turquoiseb, Good observations and good thoughtful post that adds to the 
discussion, thanks.
 -Buck
 

 For some gung-ho locally of their own making there can potentially be a lot of 
pressure around some expectations of 'enlightenment'. As a set up, sort of like 
the young girl who in her salutatorian graduation speech to the students 
yesterday set up 'enlightenment'. From that some could have troubles with a 
personal dissonance of their own that they possibly are not up there with 
'enlightenment' or possibly not made much progress along the way. Their lack of 
'enlightenment' even though they practice and possibly have some awakening but 
may be not up there enough by standard hoped for. It seems some people possibly 
more prone to depression or just less mature can also be triggered down on 
themselves over reflections of low, slow or poor progress in awakening towards 
what all is projected as a full 'enlightenment'. May be as something 
spiritually more than just, 'Be here Now' awakenings towards a spiritual 
depression related to expectations about where is that big 'enlightenment', 
like with invincibility? Words. Some people. 
 No doubt some complete anti-TM people like MJ here will seize and jump all 
over this line of thought deducting it is all about TM. Of course it is not 
that simple. Spiritual depression is written about all through time. There can 
also be lots of side effects of just seeking allotropic help in medication too, 
like warnings on prescription bottles about quick thoughts of suicide that get 
acted on. Or in vodka.  It is not simple.  We all should be feeling vigilant 
around this and willing to be pro-active, like choosing [as Jim Carrey, as we 
learned at commencement, for instance] to give love as attention to people 
around us.  Healing.  Everyone. And, an effective transcending quiet time can 
be of quite helpful use too in that. 
 -Buck in the Dome   

 

 turquoiseb writes:

 


 Really. This issue really IS not related to TM or any other belief system in 
my mind, because I've been on the survivor side of suicide a couple of times 
and gotten to experience the emotional and karmic ripples that emanate from it. 

 
I know that there are some here who are opposed to suicide for religious 
reasons. They may claim not to be, but whether they call it the "wrath of God" 
awaiting the suicidee or the terrible karmic consequences awaiting him, the 
bottom line is that they can been conditioned to believe that it's WRONG. And 
that Bad Shit will happen in the afterlife to those who do this WRONG thing. 

I'm not drawn that way, and never have been. I think that in some situations, 
suicide can be a viable and graceful option available to those who have few 
others. Terminal illnesses in which their "last few days" can be reliably be 
predicted to be 24/7 pain is one such situation. The country I currently live 
in believes similarly, and offers physician-assisted suicide as an option to 
the terminally ill. 

At the same time, they *don't* offer it to someone who is feeling down because 
he never had any luck with women and was still a virgin at 22. The doctors who 
run the assisted-suicide centers are skilled at detecting such people, and 
referring them to a similarly-paid-for-by-their-affordable-health-insurance 
psychiatrist or social worker. If this option had been present in Isla Vista 
(original home of MIU) recently, several more people would still be alive today.

I find it interesting that this suicide talk comes up just after a digression 
dealing with people's preferred methods of going out. Parsing them, I found 
that beheading scored high on some people's Kick The Bucket List. Others 
preferred being "put to sleep," as their pets are. 

For me, the best method of checking oneself out I've ever heard came from a 
friend I met in the Rama trip. He had worked as a biologist, and thus with a 
poison called tetrodotoxin. It comes from the Japanese fugu fish, and is a 
powerful nerve toxin. We kinda know its subjective

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF

[steve.sun...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

you contradict yourself in a matter of two sentences and are too dimwitted to 
realize it. 

 or harboring a bias bordering on hatred
 

 and let's face it, what makes you go vocal on any opportunity to impugn TM - 
any negative comment, from any source, vetted, or unvetted
 

 and what do you do when caught in a blatant inaccuracy?  
 

 Go silent
 

---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 you don't know anything about his life either or what led him to suicide, nor 
do any of us know what caused Serenity to do so last year, or my friend Mark 
Totten, or any of the other siddhas/governors/purushas who have killed 
themselves over the years - the common denominator is long term TM and TMSP 
practice and I said before I won't be silent on this issue.

 

 From: "awoelflebater@... [FairfieldLife]" 
 To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
 Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 9:27 AM
 Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF
 
 
   

 

---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 I've been staying out of this, and will continue to do so, but I have to point 
out the eagerness with which several people have pounced on the brain 
injury/coma thing. It's almost as if you can feel them relax and say to 
themselves, "Whew! There is some kind of *excuse* that I can glom onto so that 
I don't have to deal with the possibility that this is yet another in a rather 
long list of TM movement suicides, and thus a potential source of cognitive 
dissonance for me. It's good to have this excuse, so I don't have to 'go 
there'." 

 

 From my staying-out-of-it-so-far point of view Michael is not overreacting to 
Yet Another Suicide by implying that it is linked with TM any more than several 
others here are knee-jerk overreacting to the same suicide by implying that it 
is not. It is absolutely LUDICROUS to pretend that TM has not promised a world 
and a society in which problems simply cannot happen. It is similarly LUDICROUS 
to pretend that anyone who does develop emotional problems within a TM-only 
community will be provided adequate mental health care for them. It has never 
happened and it will never happen, because providing the care in the first 
place will be perceived by those in charge as "having doubts" about TM being 
the panacea they believe it is. 
 

 I'll tell you what is ludicrous and that is that this young man is barely cold 
and opportunists, who know nothing about him and his life, are using him to 
further their anti-whatever agenda. I don't give a shit about TM or The 
Movement. What I give a shit about is for others who are not immediate family 
members to shut the fuck up and mind their own damn business. Period.


 

 From: "steve.sundur@... [FairfieldLife]" 
 To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
 Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 6:05 AM
 Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF
 
 
   Michael, to the rest of the world, the fact that he sustained a serious 
brain injury two years ago, puts the whole issue in a different light, whether 
you wish to acknowledge this or not.
 

 You have amply demonstrated that you are capable of tying TM to most any 
negative event, whether it makes sense or not.
 

 


 
 ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 Given the fact that it comes about a year after another siddha suicide and on 
the heels of many other suicides and attempted suicides by siddhas and 
governors, I think the whole thing needs to be looked at squarely and honestly. 
I won't be silenced about this. Of all the crap there is about the disconnect 
between what Marshy and the Movement advertise and the reality of what they and 
TM actually deliver, this bother me the most. If you don't want to deal with it 
Feste, then don't, but I won't be silent about this. 

 

 From: feste37 
 To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
 Sent: Saturday, May 24, 2014 10:10 PM
 Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF
 
 
   The post from Sheer-el from when he was an MSAE student was about 10 years 
ago, I think. 

He did suffer a serious injury about two years ago. He was in a coma for a 
while, I believe. I did hear that it was some kind of brain injury. I wonder if 
that injury affected him in some way that no one knew about. 

This is a tragedy for the family and for Fairfield. I do think that people 
should not use it on this board to push their anti-TM views. It's not 
appropriate, particularly as we know nothing of the circumstances in this case. 

 


 

---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 
 

 Sheer-el Cohen. He was employed at the Raj. Apparently this happened yesterday.
 

 http://www.8000now.com/audiotext/Sheer-elCohenText.htm 
http://www.8000now.com/audiotext/Sheer-elCohenText.htm


 


 





 


 
















 


 












 


 

[FairfieldLife] Jim Carrey's Commencement address at MUM 24 May, 2014

[lengli...@cox.net [FairfieldLife]]

"Like many of you, I was concerned about going out into the world and doing 
something bigger than myself, until someone smarter than myself made me realize 
that there is nothing bigger than my self. My soul is not contained within the 
limits of my body, my body is contained within the limitlessness of my soul.” - 
Jim Carrey

 

 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M64DbAumW9U 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M64DbAumW9U

 

 

 

[FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF

[cardemais...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

Just my  two cents:

Could it be that some TMers feel, at least subconsciously, like, say, 386's 
trying
to run programs written for, say, Pentiums. 

They might well think that getting a fresh flesh nervous system could speed up
their spirittual evolution, or stuff...

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: The three words that would have changed everything

[TurquoiseBee turquoi...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

From: "steve.sun...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]" 

To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 7:12 PM
Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: The three words that would have changed everything
 


  
Barry, it is sort of funny, that you have become such a MMY scholar or critic, 
sort of in the same way that someone is a Van Gogh scholar, or maybe a Thomas 
Jefferson scholar.
But do you feel it might be wise to make some sort of caveat about one person's 
report about what MMY was alleged to have said?

BTW, I know Earl from the early days.  I always liked him.

But certainly he became quite disillusioned.  You present what he reported in 
that private conversation as if it was irrefutable fact.  

Maybe three qualifying words would be useful, according to Earl, "MMY allegedly 
said".


It is possibly more credible to me, because I've been in small rooms in which 
Maharishi said similar things. What was said in public was not necessarily what 
he said in private. I can *certainly* agree with Earl's comments that Maharishi 
dissed his own students and talked of their gullibility and their stupidity 
when in private. I left long before there even *was* a so-called "Maharishi 
Effect," but he used to say the same things about its predecessor meme, in 
which he had claimed that if 1% (or later, even smaller percentages) of the 
population practiced TM, the result would be world peace. In private, he would 
often say that he *had no idea* whether this would happen or not. 

I have been in similar situations in which he was being interviewed by a person 
from the press, and said during the interview things that I *knew* to be lies. 
Afterwards he'd joke about it, as if they simply weren't worth telling the 
truth to.

You DO know, do you not, that attempting to "write off" the source of something 
you don't want to believe about a spiritual teacher by impugning the veracity 
of the person who said it and suggesting that the source is "disillusioned" is 
one of the primary tactics of a cult. I would suggest that the primary way in 
which Earl Kaplan was "disillusioned" was that experience taught him to abandon 
many of the illusions he'd had about Maharishi.  





---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :


Thinking back on it, there are three words that I cannot remember Maharishi 
ever using, in "live" lectures, on video-and audio-tapes, and in his books. 
Those three words, which *could* have been used to preface something he was 
about to say, are "I believe that..." 

Instead, he said stuff as if the fact that he believed it made it not only 
true, but Truth. And he *presented* the things he taught that way. They were 
never "in my opinion" or "according to what I believe," but Truth. He often 
implied that they were not only Truth but Eternal Universal Cosmic Truth, piped 
to him directly from the Home Of All Knowledge. 

And people *bought*
them as such. They may claim -- years later and now embarrassed by many of the 
things that they once believed were Truth -- that they didn't, but let's face 
it...anyone who was invested enough to become a TM teacher bought them lock, 
stock and barrel *AS* Truth. Then they went out and taught them to others *AS* 
Truth. 

I believe that it would have been better in the long run if he had just been 
honest about the things he taught and presented them as what they were -- 
things he believed. Heck, it would have been better even knowing as we do now 
that he didn't even *really* believe that some of the things he said were true. 
His admission to Earl Kaplan that he didn't know whether the ME would really 
have any effect or not shows that. But I can accept that he really *did* 
believe many of the bullshit superstitions and personal opinions and 
speculations he presented to the world as Truth. 

I just think it would have been better for all concerned if he had presented 
them *AS* "things I believe" rather than claiming or implying that they were 
Truth. Prefacing them with "I believe that..." would have been a more honest 
way of teaching. 

[FairfieldLife] Happy Towel Day, Hoopy Froods!

[azgrey]

Don't panic.

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Pondering the non-TM-related issue of suicide

[steve.sun...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

Thanks Share.  I'm heading to my son's graduation from HS at the Peabody Opera 
house.  Will catch up later on. (-: 

 On the Saturday my dad died, I had talked to him the night before, and because 
he had leftovers we decided not to go out for dinner,or for me to bring 
anything over.
 

 Then on Saturday, I just got kind of lazy and didn't call him all day.  
Typically during the week I would not talk to him during the day as he had a 
care giver.
 

 But then about 6:00, my wife and I were at a HS football game and I turned to 
her and said, I better call him, as I hadn't heard from him all day.  After not 
reaching him after numerous tries, I said we better leave.
 

 We found him in bed, passed away with a relatively calm expression on his 
face.  I was glad that he appeared to have a peaceful death, in this sleep.
 

 I called the police, and the kinda funny thing was, that the coroner started 
to question me, like where I had been etc.  This,even though they had been to 
his house on a couple of occasions when he had some scares.
 

---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 Steve, just to say that I appreciate so much of what you posted today. So 
balanced and at peace with the human condition. I think that is what I treasure 
most in your posts. 

 

 My SO died of a heart attack the day after our last 2 phone calls. In that 
last phone call he reported having gone for a walk and experiencing chest and 
arm pain. I suggested that he, just to be safe, go to an emergency room. But he 
didn't and the next day he died, age 46, with no family history of heart 
disease. 

 

 Sometimes I still feel guilty that I wasn't convincing enough to get him to go 
to the ER.
 

 Because he was interested in the bardo and between live, etc., I've read a bit 
about that. One thing the *experts *say is that souls basically are given a 
choice whether to have an easy life or a life focused on learning lessons and 
growing.
 

 That might be true. I don't know for sure. But I'm pretty sure that no one can 
fathom all that's involved in any one soul's path of evolution. Or even just 
the choices of one lifetime!


 


 On Sunday, May 25, 2014 9:52 AM, "steve.sundur@... [FairfieldLife]" 
 wrote:
 
 

   A nice rap. 
 

 ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 Really. This issue really IS not related to TM or any other belief system in 
my mind, because I've been on the survivor side of suicide a couple of times 
and gotten to experience the emotional and karmic ripples that emanate from it. 

I know that there are some here who are opposed to suicide for religious 
reasons. They may claim not to be, but whether they call it the "wrath of God" 
awaiting the suicidee or the terrible karmic consequences awaiting him, the 
bottom line is that they can been conditioned to believe that it's WRONG. And 
that Bad Shit will happen in the afterlife to those who do this WRONG thing. 

I'm not drawn that way, and never have been. I think that in some situations, 
suicide can be a viable and graceful option available to those who have few 
others. Terminal illnesses in which their "last few days" can be reliably be 
predicted to be 24/7 pain is one such situation. The country I currently live 
in believes similarly, and offers physician-assisted suicide as an option to 
the terminally ill. 

At the same time, they *don't* offer it to someone who is feeling down because 
he never had any luck with women and was still a virgin at 22. The doctors who 
run the assisted-suicide centers are skilled at detecting such people, and 
referring them to a similarly-paid-for-by-their-affordable-health-insurance 
psychiatrist or social worker. If this option had been present in Isla Vista 
(original home of MIU) recently, several more people would still be alive today.

I find it interesting that this suicide talk comes up just after a digression 
dealing with people's preferred methods of going out. Parsing them, I found 
that beheading scored high on some people's Kick The Bucket List. Others 
preferred being "put to sleep," as their pets are. 

For me, the best method of checking oneself out I've ever heard came from a 
friend I met in the Rama trip. He had worked as a biologist, and thus with a 
poison called tetrodotoxin. It comes from the Japanese fugu fish, and is a 
powerful nerve toxin. We kinda know its subjective effects because the Japanese 
actually consider fugu fish a delicacy, and eat it. This all goes well if the 
delicacy is prepared properly by a master sushi chef. If it's a lesser chef, 
sometimes the gourmets die, right there in the restaurant. It happens more 
often than you might imagine...the Japanese are an odd people. 

Occasionally, however, someone gets a big mouthful of tetrodotoxin and 
survives. So they can tell us what almost dying from it was like. What it does 
is shut down sensations from the bodily functions while leaving the mind 
completely alert. This appealed to my Rama-group friend, because he 

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF

[steve.sun...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

Sure Michael, you are in the know about all this I presume.  When was it again 
that you left MIU.
 

---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 
Yes, it is true that from the outset the vision of possibilities offered was an 
Ideal Society, Full Potential, etc.  But who, at any time did not put that in 
some kind of perspective and make an internal adjustment of what was actually 
possible, and what was laid out as grand plan.  And as has been mentioned 
previously, the founder of the movement, may have believed that it was 
possible.  

 

 Steve, you are truly living with blinders on if you do not realize and 
recognize there are TONS of people who swallow the TMO's schtick hook, line and 
sinker - lots of them live and work at MUM.  They are the ones who were so 
shocked when the pundits rioted a few weeks ago. 

 

 From: "steve.sundur@... [FairfieldLife]" 
 To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
 Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 9:02 AM
 Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF
 
 
   

 ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 I've been staying out of this, and will continue to do so, but I have to point 
out the eagerness with which several people have pounced on the brain 
injury/coma thing. It's almost as if you can feel them relax and say to 
themselves, "Whew! There is some kind of *excuse* that I can glom onto so that 
I don't have to deal with the possibility that this is yet another in a rather 
long list of TM movement suicides, and thus a potential source of cognitive 
dissonance for me. It's good to have this excuse, so I don't have to 'go 
there'." 

 

 I guess you're are doing what what most extreme partisans do. You play 
whatever side of the issue suits you at the time.  And then, if it were to suit 
you to play a different side, you'd flip the argument. Ignore the obvious fact, 
that there are mitigating circumstances and assume that anyone who factors in 
the injury and coma is just doing so to deflect some other issue.  What you 
conveniently miss, is that it was Michael who from the outset was the one 
glomming onto a cause.
 

 
 From my staying-out-of-it-so-far point of view Michael is not overreacting to 
Yet Another Suicide by implying that it is linked with TM any more than several 
others here are knee-jerk overreacting to the same suicide by implying that it 
is not. It is absolutely LUDICROUS to pretend that TM has not promised a world 
and a society in which problems simply cannot happen. It is similarly LUDICROUS 
to pretend that anyone who does develop emotional problems within a TM-only 
community will be provided adequate mental health care for them. It has never 
happened and it will never happen, because providing the care in the first 
place will be perceived by those in charge as "having doubts" about TM being 
the panacea they believe it is. 
 

 Yes, it is true that from the outset the vision of possibilities offered was 
an Ideal Society, Full Potential, etc.  But who, at any time did not put that 
in some kind of perspective and make an internal adjustment of what was 
actually possible, and what was laid out as grand plan.  And as has been 
mentioned previously, the founder of the movement, may have believed that it 
was possible.  
 

 And it is quite an assumption you make about seeking outside intervention to 
help with emotional issues.  You might as well admit, that you have no idea if 
this is true, having left the movement over 40 years ago.  Doesn't that sound a 
little ridiculous!


 

 From: "steve.sundur@... [FairfieldLife]" 
 To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
 Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 6:05 AM
 Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF
 
 
   Michael, to the rest of the world, the fact that he sustained a serious 
brain injury two years ago, puts the whole issue in a different light, whether 
you wish to acknowledge this or not.
 

 You have amply demonstrated that you are capable of tying TM to most any 
negative event, whether it makes sense or not.
 

 


 
 ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 Given the fact that it comes about a year after another siddha suicide and on 
the heels of many other suicides and attempted suicides by siddhas and 
governors, I think the whole thing needs to be looked at squarely and honestly. 
I won't be silenced about this. Of all the crap there is about the disconnect 
between what Marshy and the Movement advertise and the reality of what they and 
TM actually deliver, this bother me the most. If you don't want to deal with it 
Feste, then don't, but I won't be silent about this. 

 

 From: feste37 
 To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
 Sent: Saturday, May 24, 2014 10:10 PM
 Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF
 
 
   The post from Sheer-el from when he was an MSAE student was about 10 years 
ago, I think. 

He did suffer a serious injury about two years ago. He was in a coma for a 
while, I believe. I did hear that it was some kind of brain inju

[FairfieldLife] Re: The three words that would have changed everything

[steve.sun...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

Barry, it is sort of funny, that you have become such a MMY scholar or critic, 
sort of in the same way that someone is a Van Gogh scholar, or maybe a Thomas 
Jefferson scholar. 

 But do you feel it might be wise to make some sort of caveat about one 
person's report about what MMY was alleged to have said?
 

 BTW, I know Earl from the early days.  I always liked him.
 

 But certainly he became quite disillusioned.  You present what he reported in 
that private conversation as if it was irrefutable fact.  
 

 Maybe three qualifying words would be useful, according to Earl, "MMY 
allegedly said".
 

---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 Thinking back on it, there are three words that I cannot remember Maharishi 
ever using, in "live" lectures, on video-and audio-tapes, and in his books. 
Those three words, which *could* have been used to preface something he was 
about to say, are "I believe that..." 

Instead, he said stuff as if the fact that he believed it made it not only 
true, but Truth. And he *presented* the things he taught that way. They were 
never "in my opinion" or "according to what I believe," but Truth. He often 
implied that they were not only Truth but Eternal Universal Cosmic Truth, piped 
to him directly from the Home Of All Knowledge. 

And people *bought* them as such. They may claim -- years later and now 
embarrassed by many of the things that they once believed were Truth -- that 
they didn't, but let's face it...anyone who was invested enough to become a TM 
teacher bought them lock, stock and barrel *AS* Truth. Then they went out and 
taught them to others *AS* Truth. 

I believe that it would have been better in the long run if he had just been 
honest about the things he taught and presented them as what they were -- 
things he believed. Heck, it would have been better even knowing as we do now 
that he didn't even *really* believe that some of the things he said were true. 
His admission to Earl Kaplan that he didn't know whether the ME would really 
have any effect or not shows that. But I can accept that he really *did* 
believe many of the bullshit superstitions and personal opinions and 
speculations he presented to the world as Truth. 

I just think it would have been better for all concerned if he had presented 
them *AS* "things I believe" rather than claiming or implying that they were 
Truth. Prefacing them with "I believe that..." would have been a more honest 
way of teaching. 





 

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF

[authfri...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

I was not asking just about the two cases you happen to know about. The issue 
is the attitude of the community toward treatment of mental health issues, and 
how that affects the willingness of people with such problems to seek help. Do 
family and friends encourage and support the person getting treatment? Do they 
recommend it even if the person is reluctant? Are there people in the community 
who stigmatize it? How available is it (wait times for an appointment?), and 
how effective is it? How many counselors are there, what are their 
qualifications, and are they themselves TB TMers? 

 
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 Judy, mental health counseling is available in FF. Some counselors use a 
sliding scale. OTOH, in 2 of the cases I'd say that cost of therapy would not 
be an issue. Also in those 2 cases, the parents were and are not what I would 
call TM TBers. So no stigma about seeking help in that regard. 

 


 On Sunday, May 25, 2014 10:45 AM, "authfriend@... [FairfieldLife]" 
 wrote:
 
 

   The important question is not why did the person commit suicide, but rather, 
did they feel free to seek help, and were mental health counseling and 
treatment easily available (and affordable), without stigma?
 

 ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 Probably even the people who knew these individuals in person for a long time 
realize that on some level, they also don't know what really happened. And I 
think it's actually quite irresponsible to pin it on long term TM practice. 
Because such thinking might cause someone to ignore other significant factors, 
such as postpartum depression for example. 

 


 On Sunday, May 25, 2014 10:06 AM, "Michael Jackson mjackson74@... 
[FairfieldLife]"  wrote:
 
 

   you don't know anything about his life either or what led him to suicide, 
nor do any of us know what caused Serenity to do so last year, or my friend 
Mark Totten, or any of the other siddhas/governors/purushas who have killed 
themselves over the years - the common denominator is long term TM and TMSP 
practice and I said before I won't be silent on this issue.

 
















 


 

[FairfieldLife] Re: Great Comment

[awoelfleba...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

 

---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 Ann, 

 One can say guns should be prohibited.  But the second amendment of the US 
Constitution gives the individual the right to bear arms.  With a strong NRA 
lobby in Washington DC, I don't believe this amendment can be erased from the 
books any time soon.
 

 And many will die and suffer for it.

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF

[awoelfleba...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

 

 
 
 
   

 

MJ writes:
 

 I was talking on the phone last night to a former MIU staff and student friend 
who was telling me about his friend Brian Henchcliff who killed himself back in 
the 80's. It won't go away because you don't like me bringing it up.

 

 Let's  just put it this way with regard to your theories on suicide and TM: I 
think your objectivity is lacking, your logic is superficial and your 
conclusions unsupported. 
 

 

 
 














 


 











 


 












 


 

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF

[Share Long sharelon...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

The two FF suicides with which I'm more familiar did not have contact with 
people on campus.



On Sunday, May 25, 2014 11:18 AM, "Michael Jackson mjackso...@yahoo.com 
[FairfieldLife]"  wrote:
 


  


go on campus and get real - that's where the True Believers are



 From: "Share Long sharelon...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]" 

To: "FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com"  
Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 11:35 AM
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF
 


  
Michael, you obviously have not been to Fairfield in a long time if you think 
there are *TONS* of long term TMers here who are what turq calls TBers. It's 
simply not the case. And why? IMO because TM increases field independence! By 
its very nature, TM prevents the creation of TBers and a cult. Go figure!



On Sunday, May 25, 2014 10:03 AM, "Michael Jackson mjackso...@yahoo.com 
[FairfieldLife]"  wrote:
 


  

Yes, it is true that from the outset the vision of possibilities offered was an 
Ideal Society, Full Potential, etc.  But who, at any time did not 
put that in some kind of perspective and make an internal adjustment of 
what was actually possible, and what was laid out as grand plan.  And as has 
been mentioned previously, the founder of the movement, may have 
believed that it was possible.  


Steve, you are truly living with blinders on if you do not realize and 
recognize there are TONS of people who swallow the TMO's schtick hook, line and 
sinker - lots of them live and work at MUM.  They are the ones who were so 
shocked when the pundits rioted a few weeks ago. 




 From: "steve.sun...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]" 
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 9:02 AM
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF
 


  


---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :


I've been staying out of this, and will continue to do so, but I have to point 
out the eagerness with which several people have pounced on the brain 
injury/coma thing. It's almost as if you can feel them relax and say to 
themselves, "Whew! There is some kind of *excuse* that I can glom onto so that 
I don't have to deal with the possibility that this is yet another in a rather 
long list of TM movement suicides, and thus a potential source of cognitive 
dissonance for me. It's good to have this excuse, so I don't have to 'go 
there'." 


I guess you're are doing what what most extreme partisans do. You play whatever 
side of the issue suits you at the time.  And then, if it were to suit you to 
play a different side, you'd flip the argument. Ignore the obvious fact, that 
there are mitigating circumstances and assume that anyone who factors in the 
injury and coma is just doing so to deflect some other issue.  What you 
conveniently miss, is that it was Michael who from the outset was the one 
glomming onto a cause.

>From my staying-out-of-it-so-far point of view Michael is not overreacting to 
>Yet Another Suicide by implying that it is linked with TM any more than 
>several others here are knee-jerk overreacting to the same suicide by implying 
>that it is not. It is absolutely LUDICROUS to pretend that TM has not promised 
>a world and a society in which problems simply cannot happen. It is similarly 
>LUDICROUS to pretend that anyone who does develop emotional problems within a 
>TM-only community will be provided adequate mental health care for them. It 
>has never happened and it will never
happen, because providing the care in the first place will be perceived by 
those in charge as "having doubts" about TM being the panacea they believe it 
is. 

Yes, it is true that from the outset the vision of possibilities offered was an 
Ideal Society, Full Potential, etc.  But who, at any time did not put that in 
some kind of perspective and make an internal adjustment of what was actually 
possible, and what was laid out as grand plan.  And as has been mentioned 
previously, the founder of the movement, may have believed that it was 
possible.  

And it is quite an assumption you make about seeking outside intervention to 
help with emotional issues.  You might as well admit, that you have no idea if 
this is true, having left the movement over 40 years ago.  Doesn't that sound a 
little ridiculous!





 From: "steve.sundur@... [FairfieldLife]" 
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 6:05 AM
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF



 
Michael, to the rest of the world, the fact that he sustained a serious brain 
injury two years ago, puts the whole issue in a different light, whether you 
wish to acknowledge this or not.

You have amply demonstrated that you are capable of tying TM to most any 
negative event, whether it makes sense or not.







---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :


Given the fact that it comes about a year after another siddha suicide and on 
the heels of many other suicides 

Re: [FairfieldLife] Bravo for the season finale of "Hannibal"

[TurquoiseBee turquoi...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

Agreed. One of the ballsiest TV episodes ever, willing to take on nearly every 
television convention and preconception and fuck with it. The show is 
*definitely* too dark for many here, but it's brilliant. 




 From: "Bhairitu noozg...@sbcglobal.net [FairfieldLife]" 

To: "FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com"  
Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 6:24 PM
Subject: [FairfieldLife] Bravo for the season finale of "Hannibal"
 


  
Wow! This was one great final episode of the season.  Bryan Fuller 
knocked it out of the ballpark.  I won't go into specifics for those who 
haven't seen it but it followed a trend occurring in other series these 
days, mainly the premium channel ones.  I suspect however this show is 
too dark for many of the folks here.

Re: [FairfieldLife] Great Comment

[Bhairitu noozg...@sbcglobal.net [FairfieldLife]]

Except he killed his first three victims with a knife (they weren't 
discovered until later).  If guns were banned he would have bought one 
from someone selling them out of a car trunk or back of a van.  After 
all pot is illegal in most states yet people still find a way to buy it.


Banning guns is NOT the solution.  There are deeper problems.

On 05/25/2014 09:01 AM, awoelfleba...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] wrote:


I saw this on FB, Edg posted it from Michael Moore. Really good comment:

Michael Moore 



With due respect to those who are asking me to comment on last night's 
tragic mass shooting at UCSB in Isla Vista, CA -- I no longer have 
anything to say about what is now part of normal American life. 
Everything I have to say about this, I said it 12 years ago: We are a 
people easily manipulated by fear which causes us to arm ourselves 
with a quarter BILLION guns in our homes that are often easily 
accessible to young people, burglars, the mentally ill and anyone who 
momentarily snaps. We are a nation founded in violence, grew our 
borders through violence, and allow men in power to use violence 
around the world to further our so-called American (corporate) 
"interests." The gun, not the eagle, is our true national symbol. 
While other countries have more violent pasts (Germany, Japan), more 
guns per capita in their homes (Canada [mostly hunting guns]), and the 
kids in most other countries watch the same violent movies and play 
the same violent video games that our kids play, no one even comes 
close to killing as many of its own citizens on a daily basis as we do 
-- and yet we don't seem to want to ask ourselves this simple 
question: "Why us? What is it about US?" Nearly all of our mass 
shootings are by angry or disturbed white males. None of them are 
committed by the majority gender, women. Hmmm, why is that? Even when 
90% of the American public calls for stronger gun laws, Congress 
refuses -- and then we the people refuse to remove them from office. 
So the onus is on us, all of us. We won't pass the necessary laws, but 
more importantly we won't consider why this happens here all the time. 
When the NRA says, "Guns don't kill people -- people kill people," 
they've got it half-right. Except I would amend it to this: "Guns 
don't kill people -- Americans kill people." Enjoy the rest of your 
day, and rest assured this will all happen again very soon.

[FairfieldLife] Re: Great Comment

[jr_...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

Ann, 

 One can say guns should be prohibited.  But the second amendment of the US 
Constitution gives the individual the right to bear arms.  With a strong NRA 
lobby in Washington DC, I don't believe this amendment can be erased from the 
books any time soon.

[FairfieldLife] Bravo for the season finale of "Hannibal"

[Bhairitu noozg...@sbcglobal.net [FairfieldLife]]

Wow! This was one great final episode of the season.  Bryan Fuller 
knocked it out of the ballpark.  I won't go into specifics for those who 
haven't seen it but it followed a trend occurring in other series these 
days, mainly the premium channel ones.  I suspect however this show is 
too dark for many of the folks here.

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF

[awoelfleba...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

 

---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 you don't know anything about his life either or what led him to suicide, nor 
do any of us know what caused Serenity to do so last year, or my friend Mark 
Totten, or any of the other siddhas/governors/purushas who have killed 
themselves over the years - the common denominator is long term TM and TMSP 
practice and I said before I won't be silent on this issue.

 

 No you won't. But how about allowing a little time to pass or a few more 
relevant details to come before you keep tooting your horn. As much as you 
might think you are helping others, I am sure the family would, if they knew 
there was this discussion going on, prefer you to shut up.
 

 From: "awoelflebater@... [FairfieldLife]" 
 To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
 Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 9:27 AM
 Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF
 
 
   

 

---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 I've been staying out of this, and will continue to do so, but I have to point 
out the eagerness with which several people have pounced on the brain 
injury/coma thing. It's almost as if you can feel them relax and say to 
themselves, "Whew! There is some kind of *excuse* that I can glom onto so that 
I don't have to deal with the possibility that this is yet another in a rather 
long list of TM movement suicides, and thus a potential source of cognitive 
dissonance for me. It's good to have this excuse, so I don't have to 'go 
there'." 

 

 From my staying-out-of-it-so-far point of view Michael is not overreacting to 
Yet Another Suicide by implying that it is linked with TM any more than several 
others here are knee-jerk overreacting to the same suicide by implying that it 
is not. It is absolutely LUDICROUS to pretend that TM has not promised a world 
and a society in which problems simply cannot happen. It is similarly LUDICROUS 
to pretend that anyone who does develop emotional problems within a TM-only 
community will be provided adequate mental health care for them. It has never 
happened and it will never happen, because providing the care in the first 
place will be perceived by those in charge as "having doubts" about TM being 
the panacea they believe it is. 
 

 I'll tell you what is ludicrous and that is that this young man is barely cold 
and opportunists, who know nothing about him and his life, are using him to 
further their anti-whatever agenda. I don't give a shit about TM or The 
Movement. What I give a shit about is for others who are not immediate family 
members to shut the fuck up and mind their own damn business. Period.


 

 From: "steve.sundur@... [FairfieldLife]" 
 To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
 Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 6:05 AM
 Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF
 
 
   Michael, to the rest of the world, the fact that he sustained a serious 
brain injury two years ago, puts the whole issue in a different light, whether 
you wish to acknowledge this or not.
 

 You have amply demonstrated that you are capable of tying TM to most any 
negative event, whether it makes sense or not.
 

 


 
 ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 Given the fact that it comes about a year after another siddha suicide and on 
the heels of many other suicides and attempted suicides by siddhas and 
governors, I think the whole thing needs to be looked at squarely and honestly. 
I won't be silenced about this. Of all the crap there is about the disconnect 
between what Marshy and the Movement advertise and the reality of what they and 
TM actually deliver, this bother me the most. If you don't want to deal with it 
Feste, then don't, but I won't be silent about this. 

 

 From: feste37 
 To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
 Sent: Saturday, May 24, 2014 10:10 PM
 Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF
 
 
   The post from Sheer-el from when he was an MSAE student was about 10 years 
ago, I think. 

He did suffer a serious injury about two years ago. He was in a coma for a 
while, I believe. I did hear that it was some kind of brain injury. I wonder if 
that injury affected him in some way that no one knew about. 

This is a tragedy for the family and for Fairfield. I do think that people 
should not use it on this board to push their anti-TM views. It's not 
appropriate, particularly as we know nothing of the circumstances in this case. 

 


 

---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 
 

 Sheer-el Cohen. He was employed at the Raj. Apparently this happened yesterday.
 

 http://www.8000now.com/audiotext/Sheer-elCohenText.htm 
http://www.8000now.com/audiotext/Sheer-elCohenText.htm


 


 





 


 
















 


 












 


 

Re: [FairfieldLife] Pondering the non-TM-related issue of suicide

[Bhairitu noozg...@sbcglobal.net [FairfieldLife]]

On 05/25/2014 05:06 AM, TurquoiseBee turquoi...@yahoo.com 
[FairfieldLife] wrote:


At the same time, they *don't* offer it to someone who is feeling down 
because he never had any luck with women and was still a virgin at 22. 
The doctors who run the assisted-suicide centers are skilled at 
detecting such people, and referring them to a 
similarly-paid-for-by-their-affordable-health-insurance psychiatrist 
or social worker. If this option had been present in Isla Vista 
(original home of MIU) recently, several more people would still be 
alive today.




As you can quite imagine this has been a big topic on talk radio this 
weekend. Thing is this miss a point in discussing it.  The kid thought 
everyone but him was getting laid.  They aren't, but American television 
and movies would give one that impression.  Some of us growing up knew 
right away that the jocks in school bragging about their "conquests" 
when we knew it was all fiction.  Besides that thing between your legs 
could get you in a lot of trouble as it did some friends who had to drop 
out of school and marry.


To top it off his dad is in the entertainment business and should have 
explained to him that they put a lot of sex (and violence) in TV and 
movies to get people to watch.

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF

[Michael Jackson mjackso...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

go on campus and get real - that's where the True Believers are



 From: "Share Long sharelon...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]" 

To: "FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com"  
Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 11:35 AM
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF
 


  
Michael, you obviously have not been to Fairfield in a long time if you think 
there are *TONS* of long term TMers here who are what turq calls TBers. It's 
simply not the case. And why? IMO because TM increases field independence! By 
its very nature, TM prevents the creation of TBers and a cult. Go figure!



On Sunday, May 25, 2014 10:03 AM, "Michael Jackson mjackso...@yahoo.com 
[FairfieldLife]"  wrote:
 


  

Yes, it is true that from the outset the vision of possibilities offered was an 
Ideal Society, Full Potential, etc.  But who, at any time did not 
put that in some kind of perspective and make an internal adjustment of 
what was actually possible, and what was laid out as grand plan.  And as has 
been mentioned previously, the founder of the movement, may have 
believed that it was possible.  


Steve, you are truly living with blinders on if you do not realize and 
recognize there are TONS of people who swallow the TMO's schtick hook, line and 
sinker - lots of them live and work at MUM.  They are the ones who were so 
shocked when the pundits rioted a few weeks ago. 




 From: "steve.sun...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]" 
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 9:02 AM
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF
 


  


---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :


I've been staying out of this, and will continue to do so, but I have to point 
out the eagerness with which several people have pounced on the brain 
injury/coma thing. It's almost as if you can feel them relax and say to 
themselves, "Whew! There is some kind of *excuse* that I can glom onto so that 
I don't have to deal with the possibility that this is yet another in a rather 
long list of TM movement suicides, and thus a potential source of cognitive 
dissonance for me. It's good to have this excuse, so I don't have to 'go 
there'." 


I guess you're are doing what what most extreme partisans do. You play whatever 
side of the issue suits you at the time.  And then, if it were to suit you to 
play a different side, you'd flip the argument. Ignore the obvious fact, that 
there are mitigating circumstances and assume that anyone who factors in the 
injury and coma is just doing so to deflect some other issue.  What you 
conveniently miss, is that it was Michael who from the outset was the one 
glomming onto a cause.

>From my staying-out-of-it-so-far point of view Michael is not overreacting to 
>Yet Another Suicide by implying that it is linked with TM any more than 
>several others here are knee-jerk overreacting to the same suicide by implying 
>that it is not. It is absolutely LUDICROUS to pretend that TM has not promised 
>a world and a society in which problems simply cannot happen. It is similarly 
>LUDICROUS to pretend that anyone who does develop emotional problems within a 
>TM-only community will be provided adequate mental health care for them. It 
>has never happened and it will never
happen, because providing the care in the first place will be perceived by 
those in charge as "having doubts" about TM being the panacea they believe it 
is. 

Yes, it is true that from the outset the vision of possibilities offered was an 
Ideal Society, Full Potential, etc.  But who, at any time did not put that in 
some kind of perspective and make an internal adjustment of what was actually 
possible, and what was laid out as grand plan.  And as has been mentioned 
previously, the founder of the movement, may have believed that it was 
possible.  

And it is quite an assumption you make about seeking outside intervention to 
help with emotional issues.  You might as well admit, that you have no idea if 
this is true, having left the movement over 40 years ago.  Doesn't that sound a 
little ridiculous!





 From: "steve.sundur@... [FairfieldLife]" 
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 6:05 AM
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF



 
Michael, to the rest of the world, the fact that he sustained a serious brain 
injury two years ago, puts the whole issue in a different light, whether you 
wish to acknowledge this or not.

You have amply demonstrated that you are capable of tying TM to most any 
negative event, whether it makes sense or not.







---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :


Given the fact that it comes about a year after another siddha suicide and on 
the heels of many other suicides and attempted suicides by siddhas and 
governors, I think the whole thing needs to be looked at squarely and honestly. 
I won't be silenced about this. Of all the crap there is about the disconnect 
bet

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF

[Bhairitu noozg...@sbcglobal.net [FairfieldLife]]

On 05/25/2014 12:54 AM, salyavin808 wrote:





---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :




---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

On 05/24/2014 06:41 PM, awoelflebater@...  
[FairfieldLife] wrote:






---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
, 
 wrote :

Michael,

You just miss the point.  I am no great TM defender.  But you
start with a misguided notion of what the practice of TM is
capable of doing.  And on that basis you make connections
about what problems can be attributed to the practice of TM.

There are many things I think are out of whack in regards the
TMO culture, but I know, from experience, with my own 21 year
old son, that this is a difficult period of ones life to
navigate, with or without the practice of TM.

And from my own difficult adolescence, the most the practice
of TM was able to do for me was give me a few minutes of
respite each day.

I would wager, (or at least hope), that any parent within the
TMO culture who felt they had a child at risk would take any
necessary steps to address that risk.

I knew the parents, or at least the father of the boy who
committed suicide a few years ago, Daniel S. He did not live
in any kind of fantasy world about TM.

You make this silly statement that if my beliefs are so
strong, I should consider working full time for the movement.
 To me that points out a blind spot in that you seem to have
taken every claim made about TM at face value, never figuring
in a discount that most people would naturally take.

And when it fell short, you developed a vendetta.

This has been my point all along. I don't think it is about
taking the TM promises so literally - it is all so literal
how MJ is 'reading' these claims and then presenting them as
proof that TM doesn't work. It's almost as if he believes
that those who practice TM are incapable of making a mistake
or being sad or getting divorced. Come on. Get a grip. No one
believes that just by learning a meditation technique that
you are going to become super-human, infallible and perfect.
And no one is buying the fact that because a meditator has
decided to end their life that it completely invalidates the
entire TM practice and condemns the Movement as being one big
fraud. The world is never so black and white.

But that was the promise, do you remember the Science of
Being book? Apparently TM is better than psychiatry because
it solves problems on the level of the all powerful unified
field and not on the level of thoughts and emotions - which
are obviously shallow in comparison. This is standard SCI
thinking and TM teachers to this day will parrot it,
championing TM over regular therapies.

I think the trouble starts when people take Marshy and the
TMO at their word and ignore their own emotions, it's easy to
backtrack after a disaster and claim that it wasn't supposed
to be taken seriously but people do. As we all know, it isn't
/better/ than other therapies so they should scrap the
superiority complex and stop all this "invincibility" nonsense.

MJ isn't /reading /these claims anymore than I was when I
pointed out that someone going postal with an AK47 during a
World Peace Assembly doesn't /skew/ the results, it /is/ the
results.

The drug doesn't work so they should change the marketing
strategy to something a bit more realistic. It's not
unreasonable to say it.




Samskaras still will be there and play out even in
enlightenment. Otherwise enlightened people would just be a
blob doing nothing. Maharishi made a mistake giving the
impression that enlightened people would be perfect when
Indian philosophy says otherwise. Enlightened people just
experience things from a different perspective.

And just what is that supposed to mean? Is god still moving in
mysterious ways?

Your trouble is you want to have it all ways, he's the best
teacher ever when he's right but when he's wrong it's because
he has a different perspective? This is cognitive dissonance
in all its unfortunate and glory.



A wee bit of confusion here.  MMY often just regurgitated standard 
Indian yogic philosophy.  Nothing wrong with that.  Most westerners 
weren't familiar with it.  Whether he intended it or not however most 
westerners got the idea that enlightened people would behave 
"perfectly".  They don't.  What I said above is something that my tantra 
guru pointed out and in 

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Maharishi devotee strikes at heart of capital punishment

[Bhairitu noozg...@sbcglobal.net [FairfieldLife]]

Duh, charge admission.

On 05/25/2014 07:32 AM, 'Richard J. Williams' pundits...@gmail.com 
[FairfieldLife] wrote:


On 5/24/2014 2:22 PM, Bhairitu noozg...@sbcglobal.net [FairfieldLife] 
wrote:

> But I'm opposed to the death penalty anyway. Just put them in a
> "petting zoo". :-D
>
How much would that cost the state or U.S. taxpayer? Go figure.

---
This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus 
protection is active.

http://www.avast.com

[FairfieldLife] Great Comment

[awoelfleba...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

I saw this on FB, Edg posted it from Michael Moore. Really good comment:
 
 Michael Moore https://www.facebook.com/mmflint/posts/10152065762191857?fref=nf

 With due respect to those who are asking me to comment on last night's tragic 
mass shooting at UCSB in Isla Vista, CA -- I no longer have anything to say 
about what is now part of normal American life. Everything I have to say about 
this, I said it 12 years ago: We are a people easily manipulated by fear which 
causes us to arm ourselves with a quarter BILLION guns in our homes that are 
often easily accessible to young people, burglars, the mentally ill and anyone 
who momentarily snaps. We are a nation founded in violence, grew our borders 
through violence, and allow men in power to use violence around the world to 
further our so-called American (corporate) "interests." The gun, not the eagle, 
is our true national symbol. While other countries have more violent pasts 
(Germany, Japan), more guns per capita in their homes (Canada [mostly hunting 
guns]), and the kids in most other countries watch the same violent movies and 
play the same violent video games that our kids play, no one even comes close 
to killing as many of its own citizens on a daily basis as we do -- and yet we 
don't seem to want to ask ourselves this simple question: "Why us? What is it 
about US?" Nearly all of our mass shootings are by angry or disturbed white 
males. None of them are committed by the majority gender, women. Hmmm, why is 
that? Even when 90% of the American public calls for stronger gun laws, 
Congress refuses -- and then we the people refuse to remove them from office. 
So the onus is on us, all of us. We won't pass the necessary laws, but more 
importantly we won't consider why this happens here all the time. When the NRA 
says, "Guns don't kill people -- people kill people," they've got it 
half-right. Except I would amend it to this: "Guns don't kill people -- 
Americans kill people." Enjoy the rest of your day, and rest assured this will 
all happen again very soon.







 

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF

[Share Long sharelon...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

Judy, mental health counseling is available in FF. Some counselors use a 
sliding scale. OTOH, in 2 of the cases I'd say that cost of therapy would not 
be an issue. Also in those 2 cases, the parents were and are not what I would 
call TM TBers. So no stigma about seeking help in that regard. 



On Sunday, May 25, 2014 10:45 AM, "authfri...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]" 
 wrote:
 


  
The important question is not why did the person commit suicide, but rather, 
did they feel free to seek help, and were mental health counseling and 
treatment easily available (and affordable), without stigma?

---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :


Probably even the people who knew these individuals in person for a long time 
realize that on some level, they also don't know what really happened. And I 
think it's actually quite irresponsible to pin it on long term TM practice. 
Because such thinking might cause someone to ignore other significant factors, 
such as postpartum depression for example. 



On Sunday, May 25, 2014 10:06 AM, "Michael Jackson mjackson74@... 
[FairfieldLife]"
 wrote:



 
you don't know anything about his life either or what led him to suicide, nor 
do any of us know what caused Serenity to do so last year, or my friend Mark 
Totten, or any of the other siddhas/governors/purushas who have killed 
themselves over the years - the common denominator is long term TM and TMSP 
practice and I said before I won't be silent on this issue.

[FairfieldLife] Re: The cognitive dissonance of suicide

[emilymae...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

Barry, I am sorry about your brother, long ago as it may have been.  This, 
below, is from today's Seattle Times. 

 "When I was about to graduate from college, I was puffed up in a bubble of 
self-importance. I know this because my uncle came along and popped it.  We 
were at some family gathering when he appeared at my elbow to ask out of the 
corner of his mouth, in the Jersey City accent of his youth, if I thought the 
Westneat family was “special.” I don’t remember what I said, but I’m a child of 
the ’70s, era of Free to Be, You and Me. Everyone was special, right? “We 
aren’t, we’re mediocre,” he said. “Maybe we’ve done some things, but they 
weren’t important things. We’re more mediocre than we think we are. Don’t 
forget that.” Holy commencement address! My uncle walked off and probably 
thought nothing of it. But I was electrified. When you’re that age you just 
want someone to say anything to you that’s not a cliché. But also I was a 
little put out. Who was this geezer to call me mediocre?"
 

 A gift to me from a member of the greatest generation 
http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2023691061_westneat25xml.html

 
 
 http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2023691061_westneat25xml.html 
 
 A gift to me from a member of the greatest generation 
http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2023691061_westneat25xml.html My last 
link to the greatest generation died last week.
 
 
 
 View on seattletimes.com 
http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2023691061_westneat25xml.html 
 Preview by Yahoo 
 
 
  
 

---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 
OK, I'm not going to stay out of this at all. I'm going to rap about it. And 
one of the reasons is that I think my life experience -- both personal and with 
the study of cults/spiritual communities -- offers me a few insights into the 
issue of suicide. 

Few events provoke more cognitive dissonance than the suicide of a friend, 
family member, or member of "our" community. If they knew the person, the 
survivors are stuck with questions like "Why didn't I notice?" or "Could I have 
*done* something to prevent this?" 

Worse, in tight-knit communities -- ESPECIALLY those of the spiritual kind -- 
there is also often a suppressed and carefully hidden sense of ANGER towards 
the person who committed suicide. "How could he/she have done this? Didn't 
he/she know that by doing this they would be 'letting down the team?'" 

Suicide within spiritual communities is almost ALWAYS viewed that way, 
especially if the community has been carefully indoctrinated for decades into 
believing how "special" they are, and how "These sorts of things just don't 
happen here, because of ." 

The first reaction among those whose sense of elitism and "betterness" has just 
been challenged by the suicide of a colleague is almost always what it was here 
on FFL -- to search for some "reason" for the suicide, to make *themselves* 
feel better. They're hoping for some kind of "out," like "brain damage" or "the 
prospect of facing a terminal illness" so that they can continue to think of 
themselves and their group as elite. They can think, "Oh, now that I understand 
the *reason* he/she did this, I can relax, because it doesn't impact the myth 
of our superiority and elitism in any way. The person who did this was an 
*exception*." The community thus gloms onto the *excuse*, and relaxes. 

But, and speaking from some experience, this is all bullshit. The community to 
some extent CAUSES the suicide, by creating an environment in which the victim 
feels that they can't talk about their problems, because the mere fact of 
admitting to *having* problems would cast doubt upon the myth of "specialness" 
and "freedom from such problems" that the whole community believes in and 
pretends is actually true. 

One can always come up with "reasons" for suicide, but they're always excuses 
that serve the living, not the dead. Me, I've dealt with suicide close-up a 
couple of times, having had both a brother and a spiritual teacher who checked 
themselves out. In both cases I can cite "excuses" that I feel were partly to 
blame. In my brother's case, he was a closet alcoholic in a culture full of 
closet alcoholics (the American South), all of whom were busy most of the time 
pretending not to be alcoholics. That's why he was able to get away with being 
one for much of his life. No one noticed that he was having more serious 
problems than being a drunk, because most of the people around him were so 
drunk so much of the time. In the case of Rama - Fred Lenz, I know for a fact 
that part of his decision to commit suicide was chemically induced. He had 
developed an addiction to Valium, and being the "I can handle it" kinda guy he 
was, he decided to quit taking the drug "cold turkey." It says right on the 
label never to do this, *because of the danger of suicide*, but he figured he 
could "handle it." Three days later, he was dead, a suicide. 

So yes, there were excuses. And yes, they

[FairfieldLife] David Cronenberg's MAPS TO THE STARS

[nablusoss1008]

Our own film-critic only likes B-movies and crappy TV-entertainment but others 
might find this interesting:
 Inspired by the promotional materials of David Cronenberg’s new film and where 
it takes place, Abbie Saunders started drawing connections between Cronenberg 
and David Lynch, and how Lynch, in three of films of an informal trilogy, has 
defined Los Angeles on film. 
 Mapping David Lynch's LA Noir Nightmare in David Cronenberg's MAPS TO THE 
STARS (Part 2) 
http://www.veritefilmmag.com/blog/part-two-the-role-of-the-actress-and-narrative-appropriation
 
 
 
http://www.veritefilmmag.com/blog/part-two-the-role-of-the-actress-and-narrative-appropriation
 
 
 Mapping David Lynch's LA Noir Nightmare in David Cro... 
http://www.veritefilmmag.com/blog/part-two-the-role-of-the-actress-and-narrative-appropriation
 In David Cronenberg’s upcoming Maps to the Stars, desperate actress Havana 
(Julianne Moore) is the latest embodiment of one of the pillars of Los Angeles 
noir...
 
 
 
 View on www.veritefilmmag.com 
http://www.veritefilmmag.com/blog/part-two-the-role-of-the-actress-and-narrative-appropriation
 
 Preview by Yahoo 
 
 
 

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF

[authfri...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

The important question is not why did the person commit suicide, but rather, 
did they feel free to seek help, and were mental health counseling and 
treatment easily available (and affordable), without stigma? 

 ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 Probably even the people who knew these individuals in person for a long time 
realize that on some level, they also don't know what really happened. And I 
think it's actually quite irresponsible to pin it on long term TM practice. 
Because such thinking might cause someone to ignore other significant factors, 
such as postpartum depression for example. 

 


 On Sunday, May 25, 2014 10:06 AM, "Michael Jackson mjackson74@... 
[FairfieldLife]"  wrote:
 
 

   you don't know anything about his life either or what led him to suicide, 
nor do any of us know what caused Serenity to do so last year, or my friend 
Mark Totten, or any of the other siddhas/governors/purushas who have killed 
themselves over the years - the common denominator is long term TM and TMSP 
practice and I said before I won't be silent on this issue.

 

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF

[Share Long sharelon...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

Michael, you obviously have not been to Fairfield in a long time if you think 
there are *TONS* of long term TMers here who are what turq calls TBers. It's 
simply not the case. And why? IMO because TM increases field independence! By 
its very nature, TM prevents the creation of TBers and a cult. Go figure!



On Sunday, May 25, 2014 10:03 AM, "Michael Jackson mjackso...@yahoo.com 
[FairfieldLife]"  wrote:
 


  

Yes, it is true that from the outset the vision of possibilities offered was an 
Ideal Society, Full Potential, etc.  But who, at any time did not 
put that in some kind of perspective and make an internal adjustment of 
what was actually possible, and what was laid out as grand plan.  And as has 
been mentioned previously, the founder of the movement, may have 
believed that it was possible.  


Steve, you are truly living with blinders on if you do not realize and 
recognize there are TONS of people who swallow the TMO's schtick hook, line and 
sinker - lots of them live and work at MUM.  They are the ones who were so 
shocked when the pundits rioted a few weeks ago. 




 From: "steve.sun...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]" 
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 9:02 AM
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF
 


  


---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :


I've been staying out of this, and will continue to do so, but I have to point 
out the eagerness with which several people have pounced on the brain 
injury/coma thing. It's almost as if you can feel them relax and say to 
themselves, "Whew! There is some kind of *excuse* that I can glom onto so that 
I don't have to deal with the possibility that this is yet another in a rather 
long list of TM movement suicides, and thus a potential source of cognitive 
dissonance for me. It's good to have this excuse, so I don't have to 'go 
there'." 


I guess you're are doing what what most extreme partisans do. You play whatever 
side of the issue suits you at the time.  And then, if it were to suit you to 
play a different side, you'd flip the argument. Ignore the obvious fact, that 
there are mitigating circumstances and assume that anyone who factors in the 
injury and coma is just doing so to deflect some other issue.  What you 
conveniently miss, is that it was Michael who from the outset was the one 
glomming onto a cause.

>From my staying-out-of-it-so-far point of view Michael is not overreacting to 
>Yet Another Suicide by implying that it is linked with TM any more than 
>several others here are knee-jerk overreacting to the same suicide by implying 
>that it is not. It is absolutely LUDICROUS to pretend that TM has not promised 
>a world and a society in which problems simply cannot happen. It is similarly 
>LUDICROUS to pretend that anyone who does develop emotional problems within a 
>TM-only community will be provided adequate mental health care for them. It 
>has never happened and it will never
happen, because providing the care in the first place will be perceived by 
those in charge as "having doubts" about TM being the panacea they believe it 
is. 

Yes, it is true that from the outset the vision of possibilities offered was an 
Ideal Society, Full Potential, etc.  But who, at any time did not put that in 
some kind of perspective and make an internal adjustment of what was actually 
possible, and what was laid out as grand plan.  And as has been mentioned 
previously, the founder of the movement, may have believed that it was 
possible.  

And it is quite an assumption you make about seeking outside intervention to 
help with emotional issues.  You might as well admit, that you have no idea if 
this is true, having left the movement over 40 years ago.  Doesn't that sound a 
little ridiculous!





 From: "steve.sundur@... [FairfieldLife]" 
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 6:05 AM
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF



 
Michael, to the rest of the world, the fact that he sustained a serious brain 
injury two years ago, puts the whole issue in a different light, whether you 
wish to acknowledge this or not.

You have amply demonstrated that you are capable of tying TM to most any 
negative event, whether it makes sense or not.







---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :


Given the fact that it comes about a year after another siddha suicide and on 
the heels of many other suicides and attempted suicides by siddhas and 
governors, I think the whole thing needs to be looked at squarely and honestly. 
I won't be silenced about this. Of all the crap there is about the disconnect 
between what Marshy and the Movement advertise and the reality of what they and 
TM actually deliver, this bother me the most. If you don't want to deal with it 
Feste, then don't, but I won't be silent about this. 




 From: feste37 
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.co

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF

[Share Long sharelon...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

Probably even the people who knew these individuals in person for a long time 
realize that on some level, they also don't know what really happened. And I 
think it's actually quite irresponsible to pin it on long term TM practice. 
Because such thinking might cause someone to ignore other significant factors, 
such as postpartum depression for example. 



On Sunday, May 25, 2014 10:06 AM, "Michael Jackson mjackso...@yahoo.com 
[FairfieldLife]"  wrote:
 


  
you don't know anything about his life either or what led him to suicide, nor 
do any of us know what caused Serenity to do so last year, or my friend Mark 
Totten, or any of the other siddhas/governors/purushas who have killed 
themselves over the years - the common denominator is long term TM and TMSP 
practice and I said before I won't be silent on this issue.




 From: "awoelfleba...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]" 
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 9:27 AM
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF
 


  




---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :


I've been staying out of this, and will continue to do so, but I have to point 
out the eagerness with which several people have pounced on the brain 
injury/coma thing. It's almost as if you can feel them relax and say to 
themselves, "Whew! There is some kind of *excuse* that I can glom onto so that 
I don't have to deal with the possibility that this is yet another in a rather 
long list of TM movement suicides, and thus a potential source of cognitive 
dissonance for me. It's good to have this excuse, so I don't have to 'go 
there'." 


>From my staying-out-of-it-so-far point of view Michael is not overreacting to 
>Yet Another Suicide by implying that it is linked with TM any more than 
>several others here are knee-jerk overreacting to the same suicide by implying 
>that it is not. It is absolutely LUDICROUS to pretend that TM has not promised 
>a world and a society in which problems simply cannot happen. It is similarly 
>LUDICROUS to pretend that anyone who does develop emotional problems within a 
>TM-only community will be provided adequate mental health care for them. It 
>has never happened and it will never
happen, because providing the care in the first place will be perceived by 
those in charge as "having doubts" about TM being the panacea they believe it 
is. 

I'll tell you what is ludicrous and that is that this young man is barely cold 
and opportunists, who know nothing about him and his life, are using him to 
further their anti-whatever agenda. I don't give a shit about TM or The 
Movement. What I give a shit about is for others who are not immediate family 
members to shut the fuck up and mind their own damn business. Period.





 From: "steve.sundur@... [FairfieldLife]" 
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 6:05 AM
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF



 
Michael, to the rest of the world, the fact that he sustained a serious brain 
injury two years ago, puts the whole issue in a different light, whether you 
wish to acknowledge this or not.

You have amply demonstrated that you are capable of tying TM to most any 
negative event, whether it makes sense or not.







---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :


Given the fact that it comes about a year after another siddha suicide and on 
the heels of many other suicides and attempted suicides by siddhas and 
governors, I think the whole thing needs to be looked at squarely and honestly. 
I won't be silenced about this. Of all the crap there is about the disconnect 
between what Marshy and the Movement advertise and the reality of what they and 
TM actually deliver, this bother me the most. If you don't want to deal with it 
Feste, then don't, but I won't be silent about this. 




 From: feste37 
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Saturday, May 24, 2014 10:10 PM
Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF



 
The post from Sheer-el from when he was an MSAE student was about 10 years ago, 
I think. 

He did suffer a serious injury about two years ago. He was in a coma for a 
while, I believe. I did hear that it was some kind of brain injury. I wonder if 
that injury affected him in some way that no one knew about. 

This is a tragedy for the family and for Fairfield. I do think that people 
should not use it on this board to push their anti-TM views. It's not 
appropriate, particularly as we know nothing of the circumstances in this case. 





---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :




Sheer-el Cohen. He was employed at the Raj. Apparently this happened 
yesterday.


http://www.8000now.com/audiotext/Sheer-elCohenText.htm

>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Pondering the non-TM-related issue of suicide

[Share Long sharelon...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

Michael, I don't think that any of these people are saying that all good things 
come from TM. I think the essence of the teaching, and I'm not a TM teacher, is 
that all good things come from Being, or whatever one wants to call it, and 
that TM is the most reliable way to contact Being on a regular basis.

As for explaining what happens during human life, I think you're wrongly 
labeling useful knowledge as excuses.

And as I said earlier, I think you and turq, etc. have thrown out the baby with 
the bath water.




On Sunday, May 25, 2014 10:10 AM, "Michael Jackson mjackso...@yahoo.com 
[FairfieldLife]"  wrote:
 


  


Question - how can it be ok for D Lynch, Jim Carrey, that jackass Russel Brand 
and all the TM fanatics like Bob Roth and Ken Chawkin to absolutely claim that 
all things good come from TM, that everything good in a TM'ers life came from 
TM, that all their achievements can be traced to TM practice, yet anything 
untoward happens and there's an excuse? Why can't unpleasant things be equally 
attributed to TM and TMSP?



 From: "dhamiltony...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]" 
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 9:49 AM
Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Pondering the non-TM-related issue of suicide
 


  
Turquoiseb, Good observations and good thoughtful post that adds to the 
discussion, thanks.
-Buck

For
some gung-ho locally of their own making there can potentially be a
lot of pressure around some expectations of  'enlightenment'. 
As a set up, sort of like the young girl who in her salutatorian
graduation speech to the students yesterday set up 'enlightenment'. 
>From that some could have troubles with a personal dissonance of
their own that they possibly are not up there with 'enlightenment' or possibly
not made much progress along the way.  Their lack of 'enlightenment'
even though they practice and possibly have some awakening but may be
not up there enough by standard hoped for.  It seems some people
possibly more prone to depression or just less mature can also be
triggered down on themselves over reflections of low, slow or poor
progress in awakening towards what all is projected as a full
'enlightenment'.  May be as something spiritually more than just, 'Be
here Now' awakenings towards a spiritual depression related to
expectations about where is that big 'enlightenment', like with
invincibility?  Words. Some people.  
No
doubt some complete anti-TM people like MJ here will seize and jump all
over this line of thought deducting it is all about TM.  Of course it
is not that simple.  Spiritual depression is written about all
through time.  There can also be lots of side effects of just seeking
allotropic help in medication too, like warnings on prescription
bottles about quick thoughts of suicide that get acted on.  Or in
vodka.  It is not simple.  We all should be feeling vigilant around this and 
willing to
be pro-active, like choosing [as Jim Carrey, as we learned at
commencement, for instance] to give love as attention to people
around us.  Healing.  Everyone. And, an effective transcending quiet time can 
be of quite helpful use too in that. 
-Buck
in the Dome    

turquoiseb writes:



Really. This issue really IS not related to TM or any other belief system in my 
mind, because I've been on the survivor side of suicide a couple of times and 
gotten to experience the emotional and karmic ripples that emanate from it. 

I know that there are some here who are opposed to suicide for religious 
reasons. They may claim not to be, but whether they call it the "wrath of God" 
awaiting the suicidee or the terrible karmic consequences awaiting him, the 
bottom line is that they can been conditioned to believe that it's WRONG. And 
that Bad Shit will happen in the afterlife to those who do this WRONG thing. 

I'm not drawn that way,
and never have been. I think that in some situations, suicide can be a viable 
and graceful option available to those who have few others. Terminal illnesses 
in which their "last few days" can be reliably be predicted to be 24/7 pain is 
one such situation. The country I currently live in believes similarly, and 
offers physician-assisted suicide as an option to the terminally ill. 

At the same time, they *don't* offer it to someone who is feeling down because 
he never had any luck with women and was still a virgin at 22. The doctors who 
run the assisted-suicide centers are skilled at detecting such people, and 
referring them to a similarly-paid-for-by-their-affordable-health-insurance 
psychiatrist or social worker. If this option had been present in Isla Vista 
(original home of MIU) recently, several more people would still be alive today.

I find it interesting that this
suicide talk comes up just after a digression dealing with people's preferred 
methods of going out. Parsing them, I found that beheading scored high on some 
people's Kick The Bucket List. Others preferred being "put to sleep," as

[FairfieldLife] Perfect!

[TurquoiseBee turquoi...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

This is a sculpture by Issac Cordal in Berlin, titled "Politicians discussing 
global warming."

Re: [FairfieldLife] The three words that would have changed everything

[Share Long sharelon...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

turq, I think Maharishi was speaking from experience therefore it was not 
appropriate for him to say that he was explaining his beliefs! And he also 
encouraged everyone else to go by their own experience. He offered knowledge as 
a way to understand experience and supplement it rather than to replace it. 



On Sunday, May 25, 2014 10:00 AM, "TurquoiseBee turquoi...@yahoo.com 
[FairfieldLife]"  wrote:
 


  
Thinking back on it, there are three words that I cannot remember Maharishi 
ever using, in "live" lectures, on video-and audio-tapes, and in his books. 
Those three words, which *could* have been used to preface something he was 
about to say, are "I believe that..." 

Instead, he said stuff as if the fact that he believed it made it not only 
true, but Truth. And he *presented* the things he taught that way. They were 
never "in my opinion" or "according to what I believe," but Truth. He often 
implied that they were not only Truth but Eternal Universal Cosmic Truth, piped 
to him directly from the Home Of All Knowledge. 

And people *bought*
 them as such. They may claim -- years later and now embarrassed by many of the 
things that they once believed were Truth -- that they didn't, but let's face 
it...anyone who was invested enough to become a TM teacher bought them lock, 
stock and barrel *AS* Truth. Then they went out and taught them to others *AS* 
Truth. 

I believe that it would have been better in the long run if he had just been 
honest about the things he taught and presented them as what they were -- 
things he believed. Heck, it would have been better even knowing as we do now 
that he didn't even *really* believe that some of the things he said were true. 
His admission to Earl Kaplan that he didn't know whether the ME would really 
have any effect or not shows that. But I can accept that he really *did* 
believe many of the bullshit superstitions and personal opinions and 
speculations he presented to the world as Truth. 

I just think it would have been better for all concerned if he had presented 
them *AS* "things I believe" rather than claiming or implying that they were 
Truth. Prefacing them with "I believe that..." would have been a more honest 
way of teaching. 

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF

[Michael Jackson mjackso...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

Steve you are coming close to be as much of a blabberer as WIlly Tex - I am 
hardly a pariah, I am one of many former TM'ers who speak up. You want to 
create fantasy about who I am and why I do what I do, go ahead.



 From: "steve.sun...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]" 
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 10:25 AM
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF
 


  
Michael,

You have a fantasy that people don't want you to bring up instances of suicide 
or other problems in the TMO.  Maybe take a look at this seeming need of yours 
to be some kind of pariah standing up the menacing TMO machine.

If you don't like feedback in the form of facts, or other circumstances that go 
against you narrative, perhaps you are on the wrong forum.

And of course, the default, "CULT APOLOGIST, CULT APOLOGIST, is just a 
convenient distraction.



---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :


Thanks Barry - and I will add, again, that on the Remembering Serenity facebook 
page, dedicated to the siddha lady who took her own life last year, a former 
MUM student posted this:


. ever since I was a student at MUM (I started in 2008) students have
requested this dialog and attempted to organize events, but were shut
down repeatedly and with benign intentions to "protect our
consciousness" (actual policy wording) .

So Ann, Feste, Steve and Buck, ignore, defend, and make excuses all you like, 
revile me all you like but these TM suicides have been around since the 1960's 
and they aren't gonna go away. Talk to some of the people who were on the old 
course where heavy unstressing was rampant and see if you can get the idea that 
maybe TM DOES have effects that can lead to extreme consequences. 


I was talking on the phone last night to a former MIU staff and student friend 
who was telling me about his friend Brian Henchcliff who killed himself back in 
the 80's. It won't go away because you don't like me bringing it up.




 From: "TurquoiseBee turquoiseb@... [FairfieldLife]" 

To: "FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com"  
Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 1:23 AM
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF



 
I've been staying out of this, and will continue to do so, but I have to point 
out the eagerness with which several people have pounced on the brain 
injury/coma thing. It's almost as if you can feel them relax and say to 
themselves, "Whew! There is some kind of *excuse* that I can glom onto so that 
I don't have to deal with the possibility that this is yet another in a rather 
long list of TM movement suicides, and thus a potential source of cognitive 
dissonance for me. It's good to have this excuse, so I don't have to 'go 
there'." 


>From my staying-out-of-it-so-far point of view Michael is not overreacting to 
>Yet Another Suicide by implying that it is linked with TM any more than 
>several others here are knee-jerk overreacting to the same suicide by implying 
>that it is not. It is absolutely LUDICROUS to pretend that TM has not promised 
>a world and a society in which problems simply cannot
happen. It is similarly LUDICROUS to pretend that anyone who does develop 
emotional problems within a TM-only community will be provided adequate mental 
health care for them. It has never happened and it will never
happen, because providing the care in the first place will be perceived by 
those in charge as "having doubts" about TM being the panacea they believe it 
is. 





 From: "steve.sundur@... [FairfieldLife]" 
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 6:05 AM
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF



 
Michael, to the rest of the world, the fact that he sustained a serious brain 
injury two years ago, puts the whole issue in a different light, whether you 
wish to acknowledge this or not.

You have amply demonstrated that you are capable of tying TM to most any 
negative event, whether it makes sense or not.







---In
FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :


Given the fact that it comes about a year after another siddha suicide and on 
the heels of many other suicides and attempted suicides by siddhas and 
governors, I think the whole thing needs to be looked at squarely and honestly. 
I won't be silenced about this. Of all the crap there is about the disconnect 
between what Marshy and the Movement advertise and the reality of what they and 
TM actually deliver, this bother me the most. If you don't want to deal with it 
Feste, then don't, but I won't be silent about this. 




 From: feste37 
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Saturday, May 24, 2014 10:10 PM
Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF



 
The post from Sheer-el from when he was an MSAE student was about 10 years ago, 
I think. 

He did suffer a serious injury about two years ago. He was in a coma for a 
while, I believe. I did 

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: The cognitive dissonance of suicide

[Michael Jackson mjackso...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

He is actually quite accurate in his assertions. 



 From: "steve.sun...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]" 
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 10:07 AM
Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: The cognitive dissonance of suicide
 


  
What a presumption you make about how the TM community reacts to such an event.

As Share mentioned a few days ago, you have been removed to any involvement for 
going on 40 years.

You view from a distance, as the rest of us do, what Bobby Roth, or DL, or JH 
say about TM and what it has to offer.  You can offer an opinion about whether 
it makes any sense.

But most everything else you say about this suicide is just pure speculation, 
and really an intent to put the worst possible spin on it.



---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :




OK, I'm not going to stay out of this at all. I'm going to rap about it. And 
one of the reasons is that I think my life experience -- both personal and with 
the study of cults/spiritual communities -- offers me a few insights into the 
issue of suicide. 

Few events provoke more cognitive dissonance than the suicide of a friend, 
family member, or member of "our" community. If they knew the person, the 
survivors are stuck with questions like "Why didn't I notice?" or "Could I have 
*done* something to prevent this?" 

Worse, in tight-knit communities -- ESPECIALLY those of the spiritual Jkind -- 
there is also often a
suppressed and carefully hidden sense of ANGER towards the person who committed 
suicide. "How could he/she have done this? Didn't he/she know that by doing 
this they would be 'letting down the team?'" 

Suicide within spiritual communities is almost ALWAYS viewed that way, 
especially if the community has been carefully indoctrinated for decades into 
believing how "special" they are, and how "These sorts of things just don't 
happen here, because of ." 

The first reaction among those whose sense of elitism and "betterness" has just 
been challenged by the suicide of a colleague is almost always what it was here 
on FFL -- to search for some "reason" for the suicide, to make *themselves* 
feel better. They're hoping for some kind of "out," like "brain damage" or "the 
prospect of facing a terminal illness" so
that they can continue to think of themselves and their group as elite. They 
can think, "Oh, now that I understand the *reason* he/she did this, I can 
relax, because it doesn't impact the myth of our superiority and elitism in any 
way. The person who did this was an *exception*." The community thus gloms onto 
the *excuse*, and relaxes. 

But, and speaking from some experience, this is all bullshit. The community to 
some extent CAUSES the suicide, by creating an environment in which the victim 
feels that they can't talk about their problems, because the mere fact of 
admitting to *having* problems would cast doubt upon the myth of "specialness" 
and "freedom from such problems" that the whole community believes in and 
pretends is actually true. 

One can always come up with "reasons" for suicide, but they're always excuses 
that serve the living, not the dead. Me, I've dealt
with suicide close-up a couple of times, having had both a brother and a 
spiritual teacher who checked themselves out. In both cases I can cite 
"excuses" that I feel were partly to blame. In my brother's case, he was a 
closet alcoholic in a culture full of closet alcoholics (the American South), 
all of whom were busy most of the time pretending not to be alcoholics. That's 
why he was able to get away with being one for much of his life. No one noticed 
that he was having more serious problems than being a drunk, because most of 
the people around him were so drunk so much of the time. In the case of Rama - 
Fred Lenz, I know for a fact that part of his decision to commit suicide was 
chemically induced. He had developed an addiction to Valium, and being the "I 
can handle it" kinda guy he was, he decided to quit taking the drug "cold 
turkey." It says right on the label never to do this, *because of the danger of 
suicide*, but he figured he could "handle it."
Three days later, he was dead, a suicide. 

So yes, there were excuses. And yes, they serve to make the survivors feel 
better, and a little less guilty about not having noticed that these people 
were so close to the edge. But they're bullshit in spiritual groups because the 
excuses are a way of avoiding cognitive dissonance so that they don't have to 
deal with the heart of the problem. 

The common denominator in many suicides is the person feeling either *guilty* 
about their problems and being afraid to "bring shame upon" a group they feel 
part of (family, church, cult), or *unable to talk to anyone* in the group 
because no one in it wants to hear that they have problems. In spiritual 
groups, both of these factors are very common. With regard to the TMO, there is 
simply no question that it is an organization built on d

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF

[Michael Jackson mjackso...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

I know you don't hate me but you still attribute my motivation to an erroneous 
assumption as to why I do what I do and since I have corrected that assumption 
in past posts and you still assume it, I won't address it again.



 From: "awoelfleba...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]" 
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 9:43 AM
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF
 


  




---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :


Thanks Barry - and I will add, again, that on the Remembering Serenity facebook 
page, dedicated to the siddha lady who took her own life last year, a former 
MUM student posted this:


. ever since I was a student at MUM (I started in 2008) students have
requested this dialog and attempted to organize events, but were shut
down repeatedly and with benign intentions to "protect our
consciousness" (actual policy wording) .

So Ann, Feste, Steve and Buck, ignore, defend, and make excuses all you like, 
revile me all you like but these TM suicides have been around since the 1960's 
and they aren't gonna go away. Talk to some of the people who were on the old 
course where heavy unstressing was rampant and see if you can get the idea that 
maybe TM DOES have effects that can lead to extreme consequences. 


MJ, I don't revile you and that's because I simply don't care about TM and the 
Movement. I just think that you are far too simplistic in your arguments and 
that you carry around an inordinate amount of grudge for your mistreatment at 
the hands of certain assholes who treated you like dirt while working at MIU. 
That you have made it your life's mission to continue to carry the banner of 
"TM is a Sham" is sort of silly to me, but then it's your life. Nevertheless, 
that's my opinion but I hardly hate you for it.

I was talking on the phone last night to a former MIU staff and student friend 
who was telling me about his friend Brian Henchcliff who killed himself back in 
the 80's. It won't go away because you don't like me bringing it up.


Like I said too many times already (and here is where your simplistic 
interpretation of the promises of TM lie) people, no matter what they do for a 
living, what meditation they practice, what cereal they eat in the morning or 
what aftershave they use will still, statistically, fall prey to mishap, 
disease, psychiatric troubles and death. Apparently at one time you believed 
all that TM supposedly promised and are now disappointed, seemingly, because 
you thought by doing TM you would live forever, never become diseased or ever 
trip on a crack in the sidewalk because every law of nature would be at your 
beck and call. Oky.



 From: "TurquoiseBee turquoiseb@... [FairfieldLife]" 

To: "FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com"  
Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 1:23 AM
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF



 
I've been staying out of this, and will continue to do so, but I have to point 
out the eagerness with which several people have pounced on the brain 
injury/coma thing. It's almost as if you can feel them relax and say to 
themselves, "Whew! There is some kind of *excuse* that I can glom onto so that 
I don't have to deal with the possibility that this is yet another in a rather 
long list of TM movement suicides, and thus a potential source of cognitive 
dissonance for me. It's good to have this excuse, so I don't have to 'go 
there'." 


>From my staying-out-of-it-so-far point of view Michael is not overreacting to 
>Yet Another Suicide by implying that it is linked with TM any more than 
>several others here are knee-jerk overreacting to the same suicide by implying 
>that it is not. It is absolutely LUDICROUS to pretend that TM has not promised 
>a world and a society in which problems simply cannot
happen. It is similarly LUDICROUS to pretend that anyone who does develop 
emotional problems within a TM-only community will be provided adequate mental 
health care for them. It has never happened and it will never
happen, because providing the care in the first place will be perceived by 
those in charge as "having doubts" about TM being the panacea they believe it 
is. 





 From: "steve.sundur@... [FairfieldLife]" 
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 6:05 AM
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF



 
Michael, to the rest of the world, the fact that he sustained a serious brain 
injury two years ago, puts the whole issue in a different light, whether you 
wish to acknowledge this or not.

You have amply demonstrated that you are capable of tying TM to most any 
negative event, whether it makes sense or not.







---In
FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :


Given the fact that it comes about a year after another siddha suicide and on 
the heels of many other suicides and attempted suicides by siddhas and 
governors, I think the whole thing needs to be 

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Pondering the non-TM-related issue of suicide

[Michael Jackson mjackso...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

Question - how can it be ok for D Lynch, Jim Carrey, that jackass Russel Brand 
and all the TM fanatics like Bob Roth and Ken Chawkin to absolutely claim that 
all things good come from TM, that everything good in a TM'ers life came from 
TM, that all their achievements can be traced to TM practice, yet anything 
untoward happens and there's an excuse? Why can't unpleasant things be equally 
attributed to TM and TMSP?



 From: "dhamiltony...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]" 
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 9:49 AM
Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Pondering the non-TM-related issue of suicide
 


  
Turquoiseb, Good observations and good thoughtful post that adds to the 
discussion, thanks.
-Buck

For
some gung-ho locally of their own making there can potentially be a
lot of pressure around some expectations of  'enlightenment'. 
As a set up, sort of like the young girl who in her salutatorian
graduation speech to the students yesterday set up 'enlightenment'. 
>From that some could have troubles with a personal dissonance of
their own that they possibly are not up there with 'enlightenment' or possibly
not made much progress along the way.  Their lack of 'enlightenment'
even though they practice and possibly have some awakening but may be
not up there enough by standard hoped for.  It seems some people
possibly more prone to depression or just less mature can also be
triggered down on themselves over reflections of low, slow or poor
progress in awakening towards what all is projected as a full
'enlightenment'.  May be as something spiritually more than just, 'Be
here Now' awakenings towards a spiritual depression related to
expectations about where is that big 'enlightenment', like with
invincibility?  Words. Some people.  
No
doubt some complete anti-TM people like MJ here will seize and jump all
over this line of thought deducting it is all about TM.  Of course it
is not that simple.  Spiritual depression is written about all
through time.  There can also be lots of side effects of just seeking
allotropic help in medication too, like warnings on prescription
bottles about quick thoughts of suicide that get acted on.  Or in
vodka.  It is not simple.  We all should be feeling vigilant around this and 
willing to
be pro-active, like choosing [as Jim Carrey, as we learned at
commencement, for instance] to give love as attention to people
around us.  Healing.  Everyone. And, an effective transcending quiet time can 
be of quite helpful use too in that. 
-Buck
in the Dome    

turquoiseb writes:



Really. This issue really IS not related to TM or any other belief system in my 
mind, because I've been on the survivor side of suicide a couple of times and 
gotten to experience the emotional and karmic ripples that emanate from it. 

I know that there are some here who are opposed to suicide for religious 
reasons. They may claim not to be, but whether they call it the "wrath of God" 
awaiting the suicidee or the terrible karmic consequences awaiting him, the 
bottom line is that they can been conditioned to believe that it's WRONG. And 
that Bad Shit will happen in the afterlife to those who do this WRONG thing. 

I'm not drawn that way,
and never have been. I think that in some situations, suicide can be a viable 
and graceful option available to those who have few others. Terminal illnesses 
in which their "last few days" can be reliably be predicted to be 24/7 pain is 
one such situation. The country I currently live in believes similarly, and 
offers physician-assisted suicide as an option to the terminally ill. 

At the same time, they *don't* offer it to someone who is feeling down because 
he never had any luck with women and was still a virgin at 22. The doctors who 
run the assisted-suicide centers are skilled at detecting such people, and 
referring them to a similarly-paid-for-by-their-affordable-health-insurance 
psychiatrist or social worker. If this option had been present in Isla Vista 
(original home of MIU) recently, several more people would still be alive today.

I find it interesting that this
suicide talk comes up just after a digression dealing with people's preferred 
methods of going out. Parsing them, I found that beheading scored high on some 
people's Kick The Bucket List. Others preferred being "put to sleep," as their 
pets are. 

For me, the best method of checking oneself out I've ever heard came from a 
friend I met in the Rama trip. He had worked as a biologist, and thus with a 
poison called tetrodotoxin. It comes from the Japanese fugu fish, and is a 
powerful nerve toxin. We kinda know its subjective effects because the Japanese 
actually consider fugu fish a delicacy, and eat it. This all goes well if the 
delicacy is prepared properly by a master sushi chef. If it's a lesser chef, 
sometimes the gourmets die, right there in the restaurant. It happens more 
often than you might imagine...the Japanese are an odd people. 

[FairfieldLife] At the heart of the Ukraine conflict?

[pundits...@gmail.com [FairfieldLife]]

"Is the Kyiv government riven with fascists, or is an imperial Putin simply 
determined to recreate the Soviet Union?"

'At the heart of the Ukraine conflict is a conflict about what actually 
happened'
At the heart of the Ukraine conflict is a conflict about what actually happened 
http://qz.com/213318/at-the-heart-of-the-ukraine-conflict-is-a-conflict-about-what-actually-happened/
 
 
 
http://qz.com/213318/at-the-heart-of-the-ukraine-conflict-is-a-conflict-about-what-actually-happened/
 
 
 At the heart of the Ukraine conflict is a conflict about... 
http://qz.com/213318/at-the-heart-of-the-ukraine-conflict-is-a-conflict-about-what-actually-happened/
 Today's Ukraine presidential election, coming three months after the flight of 
president Viktor Yanukovych to Russia, will bring clarity to one side of the 
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 View on qz.com 
http://qz.com/213318/at-the-heart-of-the-ukraine-conflict-is-a-conflict-about-what-actually-happened/
 
 Preview by Yahoo 
 
 
 

Re: [FairfieldLife] The cognitive dissonance of suicide

['Richard J. Williams' pundits...@gmail.com [FairfieldLife]]

On 5/25/2014 1:35 AM, TurquoiseBee turquoi...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] 
wrote:

The problem as I see it w.r.t. TM and the TMO is elitism.

>
Never pass up a tragedy like suicide if that can help you win a debate 
about religion.


Questions:

Can anyone define "TMO"?
Can anyone define "TM"?

Other questions:

Is the practice of TM elitism?
Is there elitism in the TMO?
Are there any elitists posting to FFL?
Why is it almost always all about Judy?
Why do we have to almost always figure things out?


---
This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection 
is active.
http://www.avast.com

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF

[Michael Jackson mjackso...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

you don't know anything about his life either or what led him to suicide, nor 
do any of us know what caused Serenity to do so last year, or my friend Mark 
Totten, or any of the other siddhas/governors/purushas who have killed 
themselves over the years - the common denominator is long term TM and TMSP 
practice and I said before I won't be silent on this issue.




 From: "awoelfleba...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]" 
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 9:27 AM
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF
 


  




---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :


I've been staying out of this, and will continue to do so, but I have to point 
out the eagerness with which several people have pounced on the brain 
injury/coma thing. It's almost as if you can feel them relax and say to 
themselves, "Whew! There is some kind of *excuse* that I can glom onto so that 
I don't have to deal with the possibility that this is yet another in a rather 
long list of TM movement suicides, and thus a potential source of cognitive 
dissonance for me. It's good to have this excuse, so I don't have to 'go 
there'." 


>From my staying-out-of-it-so-far point of view Michael is not overreacting to 
>Yet Another Suicide by implying that it is linked with TM any more than 
>several others here are knee-jerk overreacting to the same suicide by implying 
>that it is not. It is absolutely LUDICROUS to pretend that TM has not promised 
>a world and a society in which problems simply cannot happen. It is similarly 
>LUDICROUS to pretend that anyone who does develop emotional problems within a 
>TM-only community will be provided adequate mental health care for them. It 
>has never happened and it will never
happen, because providing the care in the first place will be perceived by 
those in charge as "having doubts" about TM being the panacea they believe it 
is. 

I'll tell you what is ludicrous and that is that this young man is barely cold 
and opportunists, who know nothing about him and his life, are using him to 
further their anti-whatever agenda. I don't give a shit about TM or The 
Movement. What I give a shit about is for others who are not immediate family 
members to shut the fuck up and mind their own damn business. Period.





 From: "steve.sundur@... [FairfieldLife]" 
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 6:05 AM
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF



 
Michael, to the rest of the world, the fact that he sustained a serious brain 
injury two years ago, puts the whole issue in a different light, whether you 
wish to acknowledge this or not.

You have amply demonstrated that you are capable of tying TM to most any 
negative event, whether it makes sense or not.







---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :


Given the fact that it comes about a year after another siddha suicide and on 
the heels of many other suicides and attempted suicides by siddhas and 
governors, I think the whole thing needs to be looked at squarely and honestly. 
I won't be silenced about this. Of all the crap there is about the disconnect 
between what Marshy and the Movement advertise and the reality of what they and 
TM actually deliver, this bother me the most. If you don't want to deal with it 
Feste, then don't, but I won't be silent about this. 




 From: feste37 
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Saturday, May 24, 2014 10:10 PM
Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF



 
The post from Sheer-el from when he was an MSAE student was about 10 years ago, 
I think. 

He did suffer a serious injury about two years ago. He was in a coma for a 
while, I believe. I did hear that it was some kind of brain injury. I wonder if 
that injury affected him in some way that no one knew about. 

This is a tragedy for the family and for Fairfield. I do think that people 
should not use it on this board to push their anti-TM views. It's not 
appropriate, particularly as we know nothing of the circumstances in this case. 





---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :




Sheer-el Cohen. He was employed at the Raj. Apparently this happened 
yesterday.


http://www.8000now.com/audiotext/Sheer-elCohenText.htm

>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Pondering the non-TM-related issue of suicide

[Share Long sharelon...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

Steve, just to say that I appreciate so much of what you posted today. So 
balanced and at peace with the human condition. I think that is what I treasure 
most in your posts. 


My SO died of a heart attack the day after our last 2 phone calls. In that last 
phone call he reported having gone for a walk and experiencing chest and arm 
pain. I suggested that he, just to be safe, go to an emergency room. But he 
didn't and the next day he died, age 46, with no family history of heart 
disease. 


Sometimes I still feel guilty that I wasn't convincing enough to get him to go 
to the ER.

Because he was interested in the bardo and between live, etc., I've read a bit 
about that. One thing the *experts *say is that souls basically are given a 
choice whether to have an easy life or a life focused on learning lessons and 
growing.

That might be true. I don't know for sure. But I'm pretty sure that no one can 
fathom all that's involved in any one soul's path of evolution. Or even just 
the choices of one lifetime!




On Sunday, May 25, 2014 9:52 AM, "steve.sun...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]" 
 wrote:
 


  
A nice rap. 

---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :


Really. This issue really IS not related to TM or any other belief system in my 
mind, because I've been on the survivor side of suicide a couple of times and 
gotten to experience the emotional and karmic ripples that emanate from it. 

I know that there are some here who are opposed to suicide for religious 
reasons. They may claim not to be, but whether they call it the "wrath of God" 
awaiting the suicidee or the terrible karmic consequences awaiting him, the 
bottom line is that they can been conditioned to believe that it's WRONG. And 
that Bad Shit will happen in the afterlife to those who do this WRONG thing. 

I'm not drawn that way,
and never have been. I think that in some situations, suicide can be a viable 
and graceful option available to those who have few others. Terminal illnesses 
in which their "last few days" can be reliably be predicted to be 24/7 pain is 
one such situation. The country I currently live in believes similarly, and 
offers physician-assisted suicide as an option to the terminally ill. 

At the same time, they *don't* offer it to someone who is feeling down because 
he never had any luck with women and was still a virgin at 22. The doctors who 
run the assisted-suicide centers are skilled at detecting such people, and 
referring them to a similarly-paid-for-by-their-affordable-health-insurance 
psychiatrist or social worker. If this option had been present in Isla Vista 
(original home of MIU) recently, several more people would still be alive today.

I find it interesting that this
suicide talk comes up just after a digression dealing with people's preferred 
methods of going out. Parsing them, I found that beheading scored high on some 
people's Kick The Bucket List. Others preferred being "put to sleep," as their 
pets are. 

For me, the best method of checking oneself out I've ever heard came from a 
friend I met in the Rama trip. He had worked as a biologist, and thus with a 
poison called tetrodotoxin. It comes from the Japanese fugu fish, and is a 
powerful nerve toxin. We kinda know its subjective effects because the Japanese 
actually consider fugu fish a delicacy, and eat it. This all goes well if the 
delicacy is prepared properly by a master sushi chef. If it's a lesser chef, 
sometimes the gourmets die, right there in the restaurant. It happens more 
often than you might imagine...the Japanese are an odd people. 

Occasionally, however, someone
gets a big mouthful of tetrodotoxin and survives. So they can tell us what 
almost dying from it was like. What it does is shut down sensations from the 
bodily functions while leaving the mind completely alert. This appealed to my 
Rama-group friend, because he was a big believer in the Tibetan idea of being 
as conscious as, possible when diving into the Bardo. For people who believe 
this, being either so doped up with painkillers that you can't think clearly or 
"being put to sleep" is not a good option because your mind is either not clear 
or not even functioning. So my friend actually *saved* a vial of tetrodotoxin 
for his own use, should he ever feel the need to check himself out in the 
future. 

He has since died, and in one of the most painful manners possible, of 
pancreatic cancer. I was not in touch with him when he was sick, and only heard 
about his death after the fact, but it really wouldn't surprise me
if he checked out by imbibing from his long-saved vial of tetrodotoxin. And if 
he did, I have no problems with this. It was his choice, and if he made it, 
bully for him. 

In other cases, suicide is not such a clear-cut thing. It leaves karmic ripples 
that can harm others. I know that my brother's kids are still fucked up by the 
fact that their father took his own life. I know that I'm still a little fucked 
up by not discovering how ser

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF

[Michael Jackson mjackso...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

Yes, it is true that from the outset the vision of possibilities offered was an 
Ideal Society, Full Potential, etc.  But who, at any time did not 
put that in some kind of perspective and make an internal adjustment of 
what was actually possible, and what was laid out as grand plan.  And as has 
been mentioned previously, the founder of the movement, may have 
believed that it was possible.  


Steve, you are truly living with blinders on if you do not realize and 
recognize there are TONS of people who swallow the TMO's schtick hook, line and 
sinker - lots of them live and work at MUM.  They are the ones who were so 
shocked when the pundits rioted a few weeks ago. 




 From: "steve.sun...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]" 
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 9:02 AM
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF
 


  


---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :


I've been staying out of this, and will continue to do so, but I have to point 
out the eagerness with which several people have pounced on the brain 
injury/coma thing. It's almost as if you can feel them relax and say to 
themselves, "Whew! There is some kind of *excuse* that I can glom onto so that 
I don't have to deal with the possibility that this is yet another in a rather 
long list of TM movement suicides, and thus a potential source of cognitive 
dissonance for me. It's good to have this excuse, so I don't have to 'go 
there'." 


I guess you're are doing what what most extreme partisans do. You play whatever 
side of the issue suits you at the time.  And then, if it were to suit you to 
play a different side, you'd flip the argument. Ignore the obvious fact, that 
there are mitigating circumstances and assume that anyone who factors in the 
injury and coma is just doing so to deflect some other issue.  What you 
conveniently miss, is that it was Michael who from the outset was the one 
glomming onto a cause.

>From my staying-out-of-it-so-far point of view Michael is not overreacting to 
>Yet Another Suicide by implying that it is linked with TM any more than 
>several others here are knee-jerk overreacting to the same suicide by implying 
>that it is not. It is absolutely LUDICROUS to pretend that TM has not promised 
>a world and a society in which problems simply cannot happen. It is similarly 
>LUDICROUS to pretend that anyone who does develop emotional problems within a 
>TM-only community will be provided adequate mental health care for them. It 
>has never happened and it will never
happen, because providing the care in the first place will be perceived by 
those in charge as "having doubts" about TM being the panacea they believe it 
is. 

Yes, it is true that from the outset the vision of possibilities offered was an 
Ideal Society, Full Potential, etc.  But who, at any time did not put that in 
some kind of perspective and make an internal adjustment of what was actually 
possible, and what was laid out as grand plan.  And as has been mentioned 
previously, the founder of the movement, may have believed that it was 
possible.  

And it is quite an assumption you make about seeking outside intervention to 
help with emotional issues.  You might as well admit, that you have no idea if 
this is true, having left the movement over 40 years ago.  Doesn't that sound a 
little ridiculous!





 From: "steve.sundur@... [FairfieldLife]" 
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 6:05 AM
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF



 
Michael, to the rest of the world, the fact that he sustained a serious brain 
injury two years ago, puts the whole issue in a different light, whether you 
wish to acknowledge this or not.

You have amply demonstrated that you are capable of tying TM to most any 
negative event, whether it makes sense or not.







---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :


Given the fact that it comes about a year after another siddha suicide and on 
the heels of many other suicides and attempted suicides by siddhas and 
governors, I think the whole thing needs to be looked at squarely and honestly. 
I won't be silenced about this. Of all the crap there is about the disconnect 
between what Marshy and the Movement advertise and the reality of what they and 
TM actually deliver, this bother me the most. If you don't want to deal with it 
Feste, then don't, but I won't be silent about this. 




 From: feste37 
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Saturday, May 24, 2014 10:10 PM
Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF



 
The post from Sheer-el from when he was an MSAE student was about 10 years ago, 
I think. 

He did suffer a serious injury about two years ago. He was in a coma for a 
while, I believe. I did hear that it was some kind of brain injury. I wonder if 
that injury affected him in some way that no one knew about. 

This is a

Re: [FairfieldLife] The cognitive dissonance of suicide

['Richard J. Williams' pundits...@gmail.com [FairfieldLife]]

On 5/25/2014 1:35 AM, TurquoiseBee turquoi...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] 
wrote:
The community to some extent CAUSES the suicide, by creating an 
environment in which the victim feels that they can't talk about their 
problems, because the mere fact of admitting to *having* problems 
would cast doubt upon the myth of "specialness" and "freedom from such 
problems" that the whole community believes in and pretends is 
actually true. 

>
This might explain why Barry left the Rama group, because he felt he 
couldn't talk about his problems in that environment, because to do so 
would cast doubt on his own specialness and freedom from such problems, 
which he realized was a myth, but which the whole community believed and 
pretended was actually true.


So, over 100 Rama followers went over to be with The Master Da after 
Rama's suicide. It sounds complicated.



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[FairfieldLife] The three words that would have changed everything

[TurquoiseBee turquoi...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

Thinking back on it, there are three words that I cannot remember Maharishi 
ever using, in "live" lectures, on video-and audio-tapes, and in his books. 
Those three words, which *could* have been used to preface something he was 
about to say, are "I believe that..." 

Instead, he said stuff as if the fact that he believed it made it not only 
true, but Truth. And he *presented* the things he taught that way. They were 
never "in my opinion" or "according to what I believe," but Truth. He often 
implied that they were not only Truth but Eternal Universal Cosmic Truth, piped 
to him directly from the Home Of All Knowledge. 

And people *bought* them as such. They may claim -- years later and now 
embarrassed by many of the things that they once believed were Truth -- that 
they didn't, but let's face it...anyone who was invested enough to become a TM 
teacher bought them lock, stock and barrel *AS* Truth. Then they went out and 
taught them to others *AS* Truth. 

I believe that it would have been better in the long run if he had just been 
honest about the things he taught and presented them as what they were -- 
things he believed. Heck, it would have been better even knowing as we do now 
that he didn't even *really* believe that some of the things he said were true. 
His admission to Earl Kaplan that he didn't know whether the ME would really 
have any effect or not shows that. But I can accept that he really *did* 
believe many of the bullshit superstitions and personal opinions and 
speculations he presented to the world as Truth. 

I just think it would have been better for all concerned if he had presented 
them *AS* "things I believe" rather than claiming or implying that they were 
Truth. Prefacing them with "I believe that..." would have been a more honest 
way of teaching. 

[FairfieldLife] Re: Pondering the non-TM-related issue of suicide

[steve.sun...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

A nice rap.  

 ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 Really. This issue really IS not related to TM or any other belief system in 
my mind, because I've been on the survivor side of suicide a couple of times 
and gotten to experience the emotional and karmic ripples that emanate from it. 

I know that there are some here who are opposed to suicide for religious 
reasons. They may claim not to be, but whether they call it the "wrath of God" 
awaiting the suicidee or the terrible karmic consequences awaiting him, the 
bottom line is that they can been conditioned to believe that it's WRONG. And 
that Bad Shit will happen in the afterlife to those who do this WRONG thing. 

I'm not drawn that way, and never have been. I think that in some situations, 
suicide can be a viable and graceful option available to those who have few 
others. Terminal illnesses in which their "last few days" can be reliably be 
predicted to be 24/7 pain is one such situation. The country I currently live 
in believes similarly, and offers physician-assisted suicide as an option to 
the terminally ill. 

At the same time, they *don't* offer it to someone who is feeling down because 
he never had any luck with women and was still a virgin at 22. The doctors who 
run the assisted-suicide centers are skilled at detecting such people, and 
referring them to a similarly-paid-for-by-their-affordable-health-insurance 
psychiatrist or social worker. If this option had been present in Isla Vista 
(original home of MIU) recently, several more people would still be alive today.

I find it interesting that this suicide talk comes up just after a digression 
dealing with people's preferred methods of going out. Parsing them, I found 
that beheading scored high on some people's Kick The Bucket List. Others 
preferred being "put to sleep," as their pets are. 

For me, the best method of checking oneself out I've ever heard came from a 
friend I met in the Rama trip. He had worked as a biologist, and thus with a 
poison called tetrodotoxin. It comes from the Japanese fugu fish, and is a 
powerful nerve toxin. We kinda know its subjective effects because the Japanese 
actually consider fugu fish a delicacy, and eat it. This all goes well if the 
delicacy is prepared properly by a master sushi chef. If it's a lesser chef, 
sometimes the gourmets die, right there in the restaurant. It happens more 
often than you might imagine...the Japanese are an odd people. 

Occasionally, however, someone gets a big mouthful of tetrodotoxin and 
survives. So they can tell us what almost dying from it was like. What it does 
is shut down sensations from the bodily functions while leaving the mind 
completely alert. This appealed to my Rama-group friend, because he was a big 
believer in the Tibetan idea of being as conscious as, possible when diving 
into the Bardo. For people who believe this, being either so doped up with 
painkillers that you can't think clearly or "being put to sleep" is not a good 
option because your mind is either not clear or not even functioning. So my 
friend actually *saved* a vial of tetrodotoxin for his own use, should he ever 
feel the need to check himself out in the future. 

He has since died, and in one of the most painful manners possible, of 
pancreatic cancer. I was not in touch with him when he was sick, and only heard 
about his death after the fact, but it really wouldn't surprise me if he 
checked out by imbibing from his long-saved vial of tetrodotoxin. And if he 
did, I have no problems with this. It was his choice, and if he made it, bully 
for him. 

In other cases, suicide is not such a clear-cut thing. It leaves karmic ripples 
that can harm others. I know that my brother's kids are still fucked up by the 
fact that their father took his own life. I know that I'm still a little fucked 
up by not discovering how serious his problems were and how many of them were 
tied to alcohol until discovering after his death -- hidden in closets and 
under his bed -- dozens of empty half-gallon vodka bottles. That's a real "How 
did we not see this?" moment. I wish I had not lived halfway across the country 
and had been able to be more proactive in trying to get him some treatment. 

In Rama's case, I think his actions fucked up a lot of people, too. Yes, it was 
his choice to check himself out if he was really dying already, and wanted to 
avoid dying slowly in some ghastly hospital (as he claimed, and as many of his 
former students still believe). But he really WASN'T dying. I saw his autopsy 
report. There was nothing systemically wrong with him, OTHER THAN the symptoms 
he chose to interpret as "I'm dying." As it turns out, almost all of those 
symptoms are caused by long-term Valium addiction. 

But I don't have any fantasies about being able to talk him out of it if I had 
still been around at that point. He was as classic an example of Narcissistic 
Personality Disorder as has ever existed, and if he *believed* t

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF

['Richard J. Williams' pundits...@gmail.com [FairfieldLife]]

On 5/24/2014 2:11 PM, Michael Jackson mjackso...@yahoo.com 
[FairfieldLife] wrote:
> they would have to admit that there seemingly ARE "side effects" to 
> long term practice to TM, especially when one is rounding. 
 >
Never pass up a tragedy in order to win a religious debate.

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Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: The Spiritual Teacher Thang

[Share Long sharelon...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

Richard, thank you for all your info about this. I think what you're saying 
here is that basically I must copy the whole post, paste it into the Reply 
window, then delete what I want to delete. As far as I can tell, there is no 
deleting outside of the Reply window.



On Sunday, May 25, 2014 8:35 AM, "'Richard J. Williams' pundits...@gmail.com 
[FairfieldLife]"  wrote:
 


  
On 5/24/2014 12:31 PM, Share Long sharelon...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] 
wrote:
> I just followed your instructions for snipping and it didn't work.
>
>From what I can tell, in Neo you first click on Topics, then scroll
down to the topic you want to read. Next, click on the Topic; scroll
down and click on the down arrow to show all the comments. Copy
the message contents you want to reply to, then click on Reply.

Paste in the text you copied; select and delete any parts of message
you don't want to reply to; break the lines by hitting Enter on your
keyboard. Now, insert a right angle bracket in front of each line
with a final bracket at the bottom of the lines. Next, key in your
reply below the quoted text making sure to break the lines for easy
reading; and then hit Send. It's a little complicated.

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Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Maharishi devotee strikes at heart of capital punishment

['Richard J. Williams' pundits...@gmail.com [FairfieldLife]]

On 5/24/2014 2:22 PM, Bhairitu noozg...@sbcglobal.net [FairfieldLife] wrote:
> But I'm opposed to the death penalty anyway.  Just put them in a 
> "petting zoo". :-D 
 >
How much would that cost the state or U.S. taxpayer? Go figure.

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Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF

['Richard J. Williams' pundits...@gmail.com [FairfieldLife]]

On 5/24/2014 1:57 PM, awoelfleba...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] wrote:
> ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :
 >
OMG! Mr. Freak forgot the attributions. Go figure.

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Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF

[steve.sun...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

Michael, 

 You have a fantasy that people don't want you to bring up instances of suicide 
or other problems in the TMO.  Maybe take a look at this seeming need of yours 
to be some kind of pariah standing up the menacing TMO machine.
 

 If you don't like feedback in the form of facts, or other circumstances that 
go against you narrative, perhaps you are on the wrong forum.
 

 And of course, the default, "CULT APOLOGIST, CULT APOLOGIST, is just a 
convenient distraction.
 

---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 Thanks Barry - and I will add, again, that on the Remembering Serenity 
facebook page, dedicated to the siddha lady who took her own life last year, a 
former MUM student posted this:
 

 
 . ever since I was a student at MUM (I started in 2008) students have 
requested this dialog and attempted to organize events, but were shut down 
repeatedly and with benign intentions to "protect our consciousness" (actual 
policy wording) .
 

 So Ann, Feste, Steve and Buck, ignore, defend, and make excuses all you like, 
revile me all you like but these TM suicides have been around since the 1960's 
and they aren't gonna go away. Talk to some of the people who were on the old 
course where heavy unstressing was rampant and see if you can get the idea that 
maybe TM DOES have effects that can lead to extreme consequences. 

 

 I was talking on the phone last night to a former MIU staff and student friend 
who was telling me about his friend Brian Henchcliff who killed himself back in 
the 80's. It won't go away because you don't like me bringing it up.

 

 From: "TurquoiseBee turquoiseb@... [FairfieldLife]" 

 To: "FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com"  
 Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 1:23 AM
 Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF
 
 
   I've been staying out of this, and will continue to do so, but I have to 
point out the eagerness with which several people have pounced on the brain 
injury/coma thing. It's almost as if you can feel them relax and say to 
themselves, "Whew! There is some kind of *excuse* that I can glom onto so that 
I don't have to deal with the possibility that this is yet another in a rather 
long list of TM movement suicides, and thus a potential source of cognitive 
dissonance for me. It's good to have this excuse, so I don't have to 'go 
there'." 

 

 From my staying-out-of-it-so-far point of view Michael is not overreacting to 
Yet Another Suicide by implying that it is linked with TM any more than several 
others here are knee-jerk overreacting to the same suicide by implying that it 
is not. It is absolutely LUDICROUS to pretend that TM has not promised a world 
and a society in which problems simply cannot happen. It is similarly LUDICROUS 
to pretend that anyone who does develop emotional problems within a TM-only 
community will be provided adequate mental health care for them. It has never 
happened and it will never happen, because providing the care in the first 
place will be perceived by those in charge as "having doubts" about TM being 
the panacea they believe it is. 


 

 From: "steve.sundur@... [FairfieldLife]" 
 To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
 Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 6:05 AM
 Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF
 
 
   Michael, to the rest of the world, the fact that he sustained a serious 
brain injury two years ago, puts the whole issue in a different light, whether 
you wish to acknowledge this or not.
 

 You have amply demonstrated that you are capable of tying TM to most any 
negative event, whether it makes sense or not.
 

 


 
 ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 Given the fact that it comes about a year after another siddha suicide and on 
the heels of many other suicides and attempted suicides by siddhas and 
governors, I think the whole thing needs to be looked at squarely and honestly. 
I won't be silenced about this. Of all the crap there is about the disconnect 
between what Marshy and the Movement advertise and the reality of what they and 
TM actually deliver, this bother me the most. If you don't want to deal with it 
Feste, then don't, but I won't be silent about this. 

 

 From: feste37 
 To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
 Sent: Saturday, May 24, 2014 10:10 PM
 Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF
 
 
   The post from Sheer-el from when he was an MSAE student was about 10 years 
ago, I think. 

He did suffer a serious injury about two years ago. He was in a coma for a 
while, I believe. I did hear that it was some kind of brain injury. I wonder if 
that injury affected him in some way that no one knew about. 

This is a tragedy for the family and for Fairfield. I do think that people 
should not use it on this board to push their anti-TM views. It's not 
appropriate, particularly as we know nothing of the circumstances in this case. 

 


 

---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 
 

 Sheer-el Cohen. He was employed at the Raj. Apparently this happened yesterday.
 

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Maharishi devotee strikes at heart of capital punishment

['Richard J. Williams' pundits...@gmail.com [FairfieldLife]]

On 5/24/2014 10:55 AM, s3raph...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] wrote:
> Whereas if you are executed by firing squad that is clearly an 
> extension of military procedure. 
 >
People are executed every day all over the world when you consider 
targeted assassination using drones and the collateral damage done to 
innocent civilians in war. For me, that's more of an important issue 
than executing guilty and convicted individuals of heinous crimes. In an 
ideal society punishment would consist of rehabilitation, if at all 
possible. But, I cannot honestly say that I'd vote against the execution 
of someone like Adolph Hitler, if that would be an effective deterrent 
to mass genocide.

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Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: The Spiritual Teacher Thang

['Richard J. Williams' pundits...@gmail.com [FairfieldLife]]

On 5/24/2014 2:11 PM, authfri...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] wrote:


BTW, as for attributions, for some reason he doesn't want to admit he 
got attributions wrong, so he's throwing a whole load of bullshit at 
you on that as well.

>
OMG! He got the attribution wrong. Do you have any comments to make on 
the Spiritual Teacher Thang?



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Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF

['Richard J. Williams' pundits...@gmail.com [FairfieldLife]]

On 5/24/2014 10:44 AM, salyavin808 wrote:

Any religious education disturbs me actually,

>
The government should probably close down all the religious schools in 
Great Britain and convert them to secular schools. Then, after a few 
years of indoctrination, the government could close down all the 
churches in England. After that, it would be quite easy to arrest all 
the remaining True Believers and force them into a rehabilitation 
program, or expel them to another country in the Middle East.or India. 
It's just outrageous teaching these young minds creation myths and 
foreign languages in schools! It bothers people when one of the students 
appeals for donations to their school - it is very disturbing these 
students asking for money for school projects like that. Go figure.



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[FairfieldLife] Re: The cognitive dissonance of suicide

[steve.sun...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

What a presumption you make about how the TM community reacts to such an event. 

 As Share mentioned a few days ago, you have been removed to any involvement 
for going on 40 years.
 

 You view from a distance, as the rest of us do, what Bobby Roth, or DL, or JH 
say about TM and what it has to offer.  You can offer an opinion about whether 
it makes any sense.
 

 But most everything else you say about this suicide is just pure speculation, 
and really an intent to put the worst possible spin on it.
 

 
 ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 
 
OK, I'm not going to stay out of this at all. I'm going to rap about it. And 
one of the reasons is that I think my life experience -- both personal and with 
the study of cults/spiritual communities -- offers me a few insights into the 
issue of suicide. 

Few events provoke more cognitive dissonance than the suicide of a friend, 
family member, or member of "our" community. If they knew the person, the 
survivors are stuck with questions like "Why didn't I notice?" or "Could I have 
*done* something to prevent this?" 

Worse, in tight-knit communities -- ESPECIALLY those of the spiritual Jkind -- 
there is also often a suppressed and carefully hidden sense of ANGER towards 
the person who committed suicide. "How could he/she have done this? Didn't 
he/she know that by doing this they would be 'letting down the team?'" 

Suicide within spiritual communities is almost ALWAYS viewed that way, 
especially if the community has been carefully indoctrinated for decades into 
believing how "special" they are, and how "These sorts of things just don't 
happen here, because of ." 

The first reaction among those whose sense of elitism and "betterness" has just 
been challenged by the suicide of a colleague is almost always what it was here 
on FFL -- to search for some "reason" for the suicide, to make *themselves* 
feel better. They're hoping for some kind of "out," like "brain damage" or "the 
prospect of facing a terminal illness" so that they can continue to think of 
themselves and their group as elite. They can think, "Oh, now that I understand 
the *reason* he/she did this, I can relax, because it doesn't impact the myth 
of our superiority and elitism in any way. The person who did this was an 
*exception*." The community thus gloms onto the *excuse*, and relaxes. 

But, and speaking from some experience, this is all bullshit. The community to 
some extent CAUSES the suicide, by creating an environment in which the victim 
feels that they can't talk about their problems, because the mere fact of 
admitting to *having* problems would cast doubt upon the myth of "specialness" 
and "freedom from such problems" that the whole community believes in and 
pretends is actually true. 

One can always come up with "reasons" for suicide, but they're always excuses 
that serve the living, not the dead. Me, I've dealt with suicide close-up a 
couple of times, having had both a brother and a spiritual teacher who checked 
themselves out. In both cases I can cite "excuses" that I feel were partly to 
blame. In my brother's case, he was a closet alcoholic in a culture full of 
closet alcoholics (the American South), all of whom were busy most of the time 
pretending not to be alcoholics. That's why he was able to get away with being 
one for much of his life. No one noticed that he was having more serious 
problems than being a drunk, because most of the people around him were so 
drunk so much of the time. In the case of Rama - Fred Lenz, I know for a fact 
that part of his decision to commit suicide was chemically induced. He had 
developed an addiction to Valium, and being the "I can handle it" kinda guy he 
was, he decided to quit taking the drug "cold turkey." It says right on the 
label never to do this, *because of the danger of suicide*, but he figured he 
could "handle it." Three days later, he was dead, a suicide. 

So yes, there were excuses. And yes, they serve to make the survivors feel 
better, and a little less guilty about not having noticed that these people 
were so close to the edge. But they're bullshit in spiritual groups because the 
excuses are a way of avoiding cognitive dissonance so that they don't have to 
deal with the heart of the problem. 

The common denominator in many suicides is the person feeling either *guilty* 
about their problems and being afraid to "bring shame upon" a group they feel 
part of (family, church, cult), or *unable to talk to anyone* in the group 
because no one in it wants to hear that they have problems. In spiritual 
groups, both of these factors are very common. With regard to the TMO, there is 
simply no question that it is an organization built on decades and decades of 
dogma that portray its members as "special," as "superior," and its environment 
as one in which "these sorts of things just don't happen." Consider how 
difficult it must be to be having mental problems in such an environment. Who 
do you tur

[FairfieldLife] Re: Pondering the non-TM-related issue of suicide

[dhamiltony...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

Turquoiseb, Good observations and good thoughtful post that adds to the 
discussion, thanks. -Buck
 

 For some gung-ho locally of their own making there can potentially be a lot of 
pressure around some expectations of 'enlightenment'. As a set up, sort of like 
the young girl who in her salutatorian graduation speech to the students 
yesterday set up 'enlightenment'. From that some could have troubles with a 
personal dissonance of their own that they possibly are not up there with 
'enlightenment' or possibly not made much progress along the way. Their lack of 
'enlightenment' even though they practice and possibly have some awakening but 
may be not up there enough by standard hoped for. It seems some people possibly 
more prone to depression or just less mature can also be triggered down on 
themselves over reflections of low, slow or poor progress in awakening towards 
what all is projected as a full 'enlightenment'. May be as something 
spiritually more than just, 'Be here Now' awakenings towards a spiritual 
depression related to expectations about where is that big 'enlightenment', 
like with invincibility? Words. Some people. 
 No doubt some complete anti-TM people like MJ here will seize and jump all 
over this line of thought deducting it is all about TM. Of course it is not 
that simple. Spiritual depression is written about all through time. There can 
also be lots of side effects of just seeking allotropic help in medication too, 
like warnings on prescription bottles about quick thoughts of suicide that get 
acted on. Or in vodka.  It is not simple.  We all should be feeling vigilant 
around this and willing to be pro-active, like choosing [as Jim Carrey, as we 
learned at commencement, for instance] to give love as attention to people 
around us.  Healing.  Everyone. And, an effective transcending quiet time can 
be of quite helpful use too in that. 
 -Buck in the Dome

 

 turquoiseb writes:

 Really. This issue really IS not related to TM or any other belief system in 
my mind, because I've been on the survivor side of suicide a couple of times 
and gotten to experience the emotional and karmic ripples that emanate from it. 
 
I know that there are some here who are opposed to suicide for religious 
reasons. They may claim not to be, but whether they call it the "wrath of God" 
awaiting the suicidee or the terrible karmic consequences awaiting him, the 
bottom line is that they can been conditioned to believe that it's WRONG. And 
that Bad Shit will happen in the afterlife to those who do this WRONG thing. 

I'm not drawn that way, and never have been. I think that in some situations, 
suicide can be a viable and graceful option available to those who have few 
others. Terminal illnesses in which their "last few days" can be reliably be 
predicted to be 24/7 pain is one such situation. The country I currently live 
in believes similarly, and offers physician-assisted suicide as an option to 
the terminally ill. 

At the same time, they *don't* offer it to someone who is feeling down because 
he never had any luck with women and was still a virgin at 22. The doctors who 
run the assisted-suicide centers are skilled at detecting such people, and 
referring them to a similarly-paid-for-by-their-affordable-health-insurance 
psychiatrist or social worker. If this option had been present in Isla Vista 
(original home of MIU) recently, several more people would still be alive today.

I find it interesting that this suicide talk comes up just after a digression 
dealing with people's preferred methods of going out. Parsing them, I found 
that beheading scored high on some people's Kick The Bucket List. Others 
preferred being "put to sleep," as their pets are. 

For me, the best method of checking oneself out I've ever heard came from a 
friend I met in the Rama trip. He had worked as a biologist, and thus with a 
poison called tetrodotoxin. It comes from the Japanese fugu fish, and is a 
powerful nerve toxin. We kinda know its subjective effects because the Japanese 
actually consider fugu fish a delicacy, and eat it. This all goes well if the 
delicacy is prepared properly by a master sushi chef. If it's a lesser chef, 
sometimes the gourmets die, right there in the restaurant. It happens more 
often than you might imagine...the Japanese are an odd people. 

Occasionally, however, someone gets a big mouthful of tetrodotoxin and 
survives. So they can tell us what almost dying from it was like. What it does 
is shut down sensations from the bodily functions while leaving the mind 
completely alert. This appealed to my Rama-group friend, because he was a big 
believer in the Tibetan idea of being as conscious as, possible when diving 
into the Bardo. For people who believe this, being either so doped up with 
painkillers that you can't think clearly or "being put to sleep" is not a good 
option because your mind is either not clear or not even functioning. So my 
friend actually *saved* a vi

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF

[awoelfleba...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

 

---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 Thanks Barry - and I will add, again, that on the Remembering Serenity 
facebook page, dedicated to the siddha lady who took her own life last year, a 
former MUM student posted this:
 

 
 . ever since I was a student at MUM (I started in 2008) students have 
requested this dialog and attempted to organize events, but were shut down 
repeatedly and with benign intentions to "protect our consciousness" (actual 
policy wording) .
 

 So Ann, Feste, Steve and Buck, ignore, defend, and make excuses all you like, 
revile me all you like but these TM suicides have been around since the 1960's 
and they aren't gonna go away. Talk to some of the people who were on the old 
course where heavy unstressing was rampant and see if you can get the idea that 
maybe TM DOES have effects that can lead to extreme consequences. 

 

 MJ, I don't revile you and that's because I simply don't care about TM and the 
Movement. I just think that you are far too simplistic in your arguments and 
that you carry around an inordinate amount of grudge for your mistreatment at 
the hands of certain assholes who treated you like dirt while working at MIU. 
That you have made it your life's mission to continue to carry the banner of 
"TM is a Sham" is sort of silly to me, but then it's your life. Nevertheless, 
that's my opinion but I hardly hate you for it.
 

 I was talking on the phone last night to a former MIU staff and student friend 
who was telling me about his friend Brian Henchcliff who killed himself back in 
the 80's. It won't go away because you don't like me bringing it up.

 

 Like I said too many times already (and here is where your simplistic 
interpretation of the promises of TM lie) people, no matter what they do for a 
living, what meditation they practice, what cereal they eat in the morning or 
what aftershave they use will still, statistically, fall prey to mishap, 
disease, psychiatric troubles and death. Apparently at one time you believed 
all that TM supposedly promised and are now disappointed, seemingly, because 
you thought by doing TM you would live forever, never become diseased or ever 
trip on a crack in the sidewalk because every law of nature would be at your 
beck and call. Oky.
 

 From: "TurquoiseBee turquoiseb@... [FairfieldLife]" 

 To: "FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com"  
 Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 1:23 AM
 Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF
 
 
   I've been staying out of this, and will continue to do so, but I have to 
point out the eagerness with which several people have pounced on the brain 
injury/coma thing. It's almost as if you can feel them relax and say to 
themselves, "Whew! There is some kind of *excuse* that I can glom onto so that 
I don't have to deal with the possibility that this is yet another in a rather 
long list of TM movement suicides, and thus a potential source of cognitive 
dissonance for me. It's good to have this excuse, so I don't have to 'go 
there'." 

 

 From my staying-out-of-it-so-far point of view Michael is not overreacting to 
Yet Another Suicide by implying that it is linked with TM any more than several 
others here are knee-jerk overreacting to the same suicide by implying that it 
is not. It is absolutely LUDICROUS to pretend that TM has not promised a world 
and a society in which problems simply cannot happen. It is similarly LUDICROUS 
to pretend that anyone who does develop emotional problems within a TM-only 
community will be provided adequate mental health care for them. It has never 
happened and it will never happen, because providing the care in the first 
place will be perceived by those in charge as "having doubts" about TM being 
the panacea they believe it is. 


 

 From: "steve.sundur@... [FairfieldLife]" 
 To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
 Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 6:05 AM
 Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF
 
 
   Michael, to the rest of the world, the fact that he sustained a serious 
brain injury two years ago, puts the whole issue in a different light, whether 
you wish to acknowledge this or not.
 

 You have amply demonstrated that you are capable of tying TM to most any 
negative event, whether it makes sense or not.
 

 


 
 ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 Given the fact that it comes about a year after another siddha suicide and on 
the heels of many other suicides and attempted suicides by siddhas and 
governors, I think the whole thing needs to be looked at squarely and honestly. 
I won't be silenced about this. Of all the crap there is about the disconnect 
between what Marshy and the Movement advertise and the reality of what they and 
TM actually deliver, this bother me the most. If you don't want to deal with it 
Feste, then don't, but I won't be silent about this. 

 

 From: feste37 
 To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
 Sent: Saturday, May 24, 2014 10:10 PM
 Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in F

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: The Spiritual Teacher Thang

['Richard J. Williams' pundits...@gmail.com [FairfieldLife]]

On 5/24/2014 2:54 PM, Share Long sharelon...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] 
wrote:
> Judy when I say it didn't work, I mean that what I highlighted and 
> attempted to delete by pressing the backspace button, didn't get deleted.
 >
Share, I don't use Neo or Yahoo Mail any more. I am using Mozilla
Thunderbird which shows the messages sequentially. All I have to
do is select one message and then use the down arrow to vies the
messages, inserting a tag on the ones I want to reply to. When I
want to make a reply I simply highlight the text I want to quote
and click on Reply - it puts the quoted text into the reply text
box, and then I can key in reply or copy and paste from my EditPad,
and click on Send. It's not very complicated.

Also, you can read and reply to FFL messages using the free Google
Chrome and Google Mail. It's better than Yahoo.

---
This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection 
is active.
http://www.avast.com

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: The Spiritual Teacher Thang

['Richard J. Williams' pundits...@gmail.com [FairfieldLife]]

On 5/24/2014 2:11 PM, authfri...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] wrote:


The whole "Reply" button thing is a red herring Richard threw in just 
to be confusing.

>
After clicking on Reply, remember to avoid using colored text, extra
large text, bold text, or text that with text wrapping. Use plain text
instead instead of rich text.


---
This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection 
is active.
http://www.avast.com

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: The Spiritual Teacher Thang

['Richard J. Williams' pundits...@gmail.com [FairfieldLife]]

On 5/24/2014 12:31 PM, Share Long sharelon...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] 
wrote:
> I just followed your instructions for snipping and it didn't work.
 >
 From what I can tell, in Neo you first click on Topics, then scroll
down to the topic you want to read. Next, click on the Topic; scroll
down and click on the down arrow to show all the comments. Copy
the message contents you want to reply to, then click on Reply.

Paste in the text you copied; select and delete any parts of message
you don't want to reply to; break the lines by hitting Enter on your
keyboard. Now, insert a right angle bracket in front of each line
with a final bracket at the bottom of the lines. Next, key in your
reply below the quoted text making sure to break the lines for easy
reading; and then hit Send. It's a little complicated.

---
This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection 
is active.
http://www.avast.com

[FairfieldLife] Re: The cognitive dissonance of suicide

[awoelfleba...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

 

---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 
OK, I'm not going to stay out of this at all. I'm going to rap about it. And 
one of the reasons is that I think my life experience -- both personal and with 
the study of cults/spiritual communities -- offers me a few insights into the 
issue of suicide. 

Few events provoke more cognitive dissonance than the suicide of a friend, 
family member, or member of "our" community. If they knew the person, the 
survivors are stuck with questions like "Why didn't I notice?" or "Could I have 
*done* something to prevent this?" 

Worse, in tight-knit communities -- ESPECIALLY those of the spiritual kind -- 
there is also often a suppressed and carefully hidden sense of ANGER towards 
the person who committed suicide. "How could he/she have done this? Didn't 
he/she know that by doing this they would be 'letting down the team?'" 

Suicide within spiritual communities is almost ALWAYS viewed that way, 
especially if the community has been carefully indoctrinated for decades into 
believing how "special" they are, and how "These sorts of things just don't 
happen here, because of ." 

The first reaction among those whose sense of elitism and "betterness" has just 
been challenged by the suicide of a colleague is almost always what it was here 
on FFL -- to search for some "reason" for the suicide, to make *themselves* 
feel better. They're hoping for some kind of "out," like "brain damage" or "the 
prospect of facing a terminal illness" so that they can continue to think of 
themselves and their group as elite. They can think, "Oh, now that I understand 
the *reason* he/she did this, I can relax, because it doesn't impact the myth 
of our superiority and elitism in any way. The person who did this was an 
*exception*." The community thus gloms onto the *excuse*, and relaxes. 

But, and speaking from some experience, this is all bullshit. The community to 
some extent CAUSES the suicide, by creating an environment in which the victim 
feels that they can't talk about their problems, because the mere fact of 
admitting to *having* problems would cast doubt upon the myth of "specialness" 
and "freedom from such problems" that the whole community believes in and 
pretends is actually true. 

One can always come up with "reasons" for suicide, but they're always excuses 
that serve the living, not the dead. Me, I've dealt with suicide close-up a 
couple of times, having had both a brother and a spiritual teacher who checked 
themselves out. In both cases I can cite "excuses" that I feel were partly to 
blame. In my brother's case, he was a closet alcoholic in a culture full of 
closet alcoholics (the American South), all of whom were busy most of the time 
pretending not to be alcoholics. That's why he was able to get away with being 
one for much of his life. No one noticed that he was having more serious 
problems than being a drunk, because most of the people around him were so 
drunk so much of the time. In the case of Rama - Fred Lenz, I know for a fact 
that part of his decision to commit suicide was chemically induced. He had 
developed an addiction to Valium, and being the "I can handle it" kinda guy he 
was, he decided to quit taking the drug "cold turkey." It says right on the 
label never to do this, *because of the danger of suicide*, but he figured he 
could "handle it." Three days later, he was dead, a suicide. 

So yes, there were excuses. And yes, they serve to make the survivors feel 
better, and a little less guilty about not having noticed that these people 
were so close to the edge. But they're bullshit in spiritual groups because the 
excuses are a way of avoiding cognitive dissonance so that they don't have to 
deal with the heart of the problem. 

The common denominator in many suicides is the person feeling either *guilty* 
about their problems and being afraid to "bring shame upon" a group they feel 
part of (family, church, cult), or *unable to talk to anyone* in the group 
because no one in it wants to hear that they have problems. In spiritual 
groups, both of these factors are very common. With regard to the TMO, there is 
simply no question that it is an organization built on decades and decades of 
dogma that portray its members as "special," as "superior," and its environment 
as one in which "these sorts of things just don't happen." Consider how 
difficult it must be to be having mental problems in such an environment. Who 
do you turn to? 

The problem as I see it w.r.t. TM and the TMO is elitism. All you have to do to 
see what the TM movement P.R. is is to follow Buck's and Nabby's rants here. 
TMers are *better* than other people, doncha know. They're special. And TM is 
the technology that can solve ALL problems. This is the very *basis* of how TM 
has promoted itself since its inception. 

And then a suicide happens, and everyone realizes that not a word of it was 
true. TMers are no more "special" than anyone else, no more "elite"

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF

[awoelfleba...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

 

---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 I've been staying out of this, and will continue to do so, but I have to point 
out the eagerness with which several people have pounced on the brain 
injury/coma thing. It's almost as if you can feel them relax and say to 
themselves, "Whew! There is some kind of *excuse* that I can glom onto so that 
I don't have to deal with the possibility that this is yet another in a rather 
long list of TM movement suicides, and thus a potential source of cognitive 
dissonance for me. It's good to have this excuse, so I don't have to 'go 
there'." 

 

 From my staying-out-of-it-so-far point of view Michael is not overreacting to 
Yet Another Suicide by implying that it is linked with TM any more than several 
others here are knee-jerk overreacting to the same suicide by implying that it 
is not. It is absolutely LUDICROUS to pretend that TM has not promised a world 
and a society in which problems simply cannot happen. It is similarly LUDICROUS 
to pretend that anyone who does develop emotional problems within a TM-only 
community will be provided adequate mental health care for them. It has never 
happened and it will never happen, because providing the care in the first 
place will be perceived by those in charge as "having doubts" about TM being 
the panacea they believe it is. 
 

 I'll tell you what is ludicrous and that is that this young man is barely cold 
and opportunists, who know nothing about him and his life, are using him to 
further their anti-whatever agenda. I don't give a shit about TM or The 
Movement. What I give a shit about is for others who are not immediate family 
members to shut the fuck up and mind their own damn business. Period.


 

 From: "steve.sundur@... [FairfieldLife]" 
 To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
 Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 6:05 AM
 Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF
 
 
   Michael, to the rest of the world, the fact that he sustained a serious 
brain injury two years ago, puts the whole issue in a different light, whether 
you wish to acknowledge this or not.
 

 You have amply demonstrated that you are capable of tying TM to most any 
negative event, whether it makes sense or not.
 

 


 
 ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 Given the fact that it comes about a year after another siddha suicide and on 
the heels of many other suicides and attempted suicides by siddhas and 
governors, I think the whole thing needs to be looked at squarely and honestly. 
I won't be silenced about this. Of all the crap there is about the disconnect 
between what Marshy and the Movement advertise and the reality of what they and 
TM actually deliver, this bother me the most. If you don't want to deal with it 
Feste, then don't, but I won't be silent about this. 

 

 From: feste37 
 To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
 Sent: Saturday, May 24, 2014 10:10 PM
 Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF
 
 
   The post from Sheer-el from when he was an MSAE student was about 10 years 
ago, I think. 

He did suffer a serious injury about two years ago. He was in a coma for a 
while, I believe. I did hear that it was some kind of brain injury. I wonder if 
that injury affected him in some way that no one knew about. 

This is a tragedy for the family and for Fairfield. I do think that people 
should not use it on this board to push their anti-TM views. It's not 
appropriate, particularly as we know nothing of the circumstances in this case. 

 


 

---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 
 

 Sheer-el Cohen. He was employed at the Raj. Apparently this happened yesterday.
 

 http://www.8000now.com/audiotext/Sheer-elCohenText.htm 
http://www.8000now.com/audiotext/Sheer-elCohenText.htm


 


 





 


 
















 


 

[FairfieldLife] Re: The Spiritual Teacher Thang

[pundits...@gmail.com [FairfieldLife]]

Share wrote:
> Richard, I just followed your instructions for snipping and 
> it didn't work. First I tried it after I hit the Reply button and 
> then I tried it before I hit the Reply button. Any suggestions 
> appreciated.
>

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF

[steve.sun...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

 ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 I've been staying out of this, and will continue to do so, but I have to point 
out the eagerness with which several people have pounced on the brain 
injury/coma thing. It's almost as if you can feel them relax and say to 
themselves, "Whew! There is some kind of *excuse* that I can glom onto so that 
I don't have to deal with the possibility that this is yet another in a rather 
long list of TM movement suicides, and thus a potential source of cognitive 
dissonance for me. It's good to have this excuse, so I don't have to 'go 
there'." 

 

 I guess you're are doing what what most extreme partisans do. You play 
whatever side of the issue suits you at the time.  And then, if it were to suit 
you to play a different side, you'd flip the argument. Ignore the obvious fact, 
that there are mitigating circumstances and assume that anyone who factors in 
the injury and coma is just doing so to deflect some other issue.  What you 
conveniently miss, is that it was Michael who from the outset was the one 
glomming onto a cause.
 

 
 From my staying-out-of-it-so-far point of view Michael is not overreacting to 
Yet Another Suicide by implying that it is linked with TM any more than several 
others here are knee-jerk overreacting to the same suicide by implying that it 
is not. It is absolutely LUDICROUS to pretend that TM has not promised a world 
and a society in which problems simply cannot happen. It is similarly LUDICROUS 
to pretend that anyone who does develop emotional problems within a TM-only 
community will be provided adequate mental health care for them. It has never 
happened and it will never happen, because providing the care in the first 
place will be perceived by those in charge as "having doubts" about TM being 
the panacea they believe it is. 
 

 Yes, it is true that from the outset the vision of possibilities offered was 
an Ideal Society, Full Potential, etc.  But who, at any time did not put that 
in some kind of perspective and make an internal adjustment of what was 
actually possible, and what was laid out as grand plan.  And as has been 
mentioned previously, the founder of the movement, may have believed that it 
was possible.  
 

 And it is quite an assumption you make about seeking outside intervention to 
help with emotional issues.  You might as well admit, that you have no idea if 
this is true, having left the movement over 40 years ago.  Doesn't that sound a 
little ridiculous!


 

 From: "steve.sundur@... [FairfieldLife]" 
 To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
 Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 6:05 AM
 Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF
 
 
   Michael, to the rest of the world, the fact that he sustained a serious 
brain injury two years ago, puts the whole issue in a different light, whether 
you wish to acknowledge this or not.
 

 You have amply demonstrated that you are capable of tying TM to most any 
negative event, whether it makes sense or not.
 

 


 
 ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 Given the fact that it comes about a year after another siddha suicide and on 
the heels of many other suicides and attempted suicides by siddhas and 
governors, I think the whole thing needs to be looked at squarely and honestly. 
I won't be silenced about this. Of all the crap there is about the disconnect 
between what Marshy and the Movement advertise and the reality of what they and 
TM actually deliver, this bother me the most. If you don't want to deal with it 
Feste, then don't, but I won't be silent about this. 

 

 From: feste37 
 To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
 Sent: Saturday, May 24, 2014 10:10 PM
 Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF
 
 
   The post from Sheer-el from when he was an MSAE student was about 10 years 
ago, I think. 

He did suffer a serious injury about two years ago. He was in a coma for a 
while, I believe. I did hear that it was some kind of brain injury. I wonder if 
that injury affected him in some way that no one knew about. 

This is a tragedy for the family and for Fairfield. I do think that people 
should not use it on this board to push their anti-TM views. It's not 
appropriate, particularly as we know nothing of the circumstances in this case. 

 


 

---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :

 
 

 Sheer-el Cohen. He was employed at the Raj. Apparently this happened yesterday.
 

 http://www.8000now.com/audiotext/Sheer-elCohenText.htm 
http://www.8000now.com/audiotext/Sheer-elCohenText.htm


 


 





 


 
















 


 

Re: [FairfieldLife] Europe spirals downwards

['Richard J. Williams' pundits...@gmail.com [FairfieldLife]]

On 5/24/2014 11:24 AM, s3raph...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] wrote:


We're all doomed I tell you...


>
Somebody sounds depressed. Go figure.


---
This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection 
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Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: A suicide in FF

[Michael Jackson mjackso...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

Good point - I wonder if the purusha man who set himself on fire in Marshy's 
basement was there for his own sake cause he was having obvious unstressing 
problems?




 From: "TurquoiseBee turquoi...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]" 

To: "FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com"  
Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 5:09 AM
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: A suicide in FF
 


  
Speaking of "outright nonsense," this bullcrap is coming from the person for 
whom every problem in life can be solved by "getting a checking."  :-)

Nabby also sees no problem with people on courses being hidden away in 
basements, where at least two I know of have committed suicide. I suppose this 
is his idea of how mental problems should be treated. 






 From: nablusoss1008 
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 10:05 AM
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: A suicide in FF
 


  


Outright nonsense from the Turq, as expected. The facts doesn't fit his 
hate-model so he pretends it doesn't exist. Of course people that on very rare 
occasions develop problems are asked to get adequate mental help, as everyone 
that has been to an international course knows. They are closely supervised to 
reduce rounding, moved to the basement if necessary, in severe cases provided 
with adequate medication supervised by doctors and then sent home. Their 
families are informed and told to help the individual get professional help.
And always the problems are found in the history of the individual, problems 
that the person has kept under the radar as to be able to go to courses. 
Problems that has nothing whatsoever to do with the meditation practice but 
unbalances usually from childhood that they have been suppressing. 
In the cases I know of the individual has not done the practice according to 
rules, usually meditating much MORE than the very clear guidelines set. Or, as 
in this case severe brain damage from an accident.
Of course, these are simple facts that the Turq don't want anyone to know about 
because it doesn't fit his hate-model, but it might be useful for others.

---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :


I've been staying out of this, and will continue to do so, but I have to point 
out the eagerness with which several people have pounced on the brain 
injury/coma thing. It's almost as if you can feel them relax and say to 
themselves, "Whew! There is some kind of *excuse* that I can glom onto so that 
I don't have to deal with the possibility that this is yet another in a rather 
long list of TM movement suicides, and thus a potential source of cognitive 
dissonance for me. It's good to have this excuse, so I don't have to 'go 
there'." 


>From my staying-out-of-it-so-far point of view Michael is not overreacting to 
>Yet Another Suicide by implying that it is linked with TM any more than 
>several others here are knee-jerk overreacting to the same suicide by implying 
>that it is not. It is absolutely LUDICROUS to pretend that TM has not promised 
>a world and a society in which problems simply cannot happen. It is similarly 
>LUDICROUS to pretend that anyone who does develop emotional problems within a 
>TM-only community will be provided adequate mental health care for them. It 
>has never happened and it will never
happen, because providing the care in the first place will be perceived by 
those in charge as "having doubts" about TM being the panacea they believe it 
is. 



From: "steve.sundur@... [FairfieldLife]" 
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 6:05 AM
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF



 
Michael, to the rest of the world, the fact that he sustained a serious brain 
injury two years ago, puts the whole issue in a different light, whether you 
wish to acknowledge this or not.

You have amply demonstrated that you are capable of tying TM to most any 
negative event, whether it makes sense or not.









From: feste37 
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Saturday, May 24, 2014 10:10 PM
Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF



 
The post from Sheer-el from when he was an MSAE student was about 10 years ago, 
I think. 

He did suffer a serious injury about two years ago. He was in a coma for a 
while, I believe. I did hear that it was some kind of brain injury. I wonder if 
that injury affected him in some way that no one knew about. 

This is a tragedy for the family and for Fairfield. I do think that people 
should not use it on this board to push their anti-TM views. It's not 
appropriate, particularly as we know nothing of the circumstances in this case. 





---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :




Sheer-el Cohen. He was employed at the Raj. Apparently this happened 
yesterday.




>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: IS TM a Cult?

['Richard J. Williams' pundits...@gmail.com [FairfieldLife]]

On 5/24/2014 10:34 AM, salyavin808 wrote:
Clever how he frames the question asking if the TM programme is a cult 
and not the organisation.

>
Most experts agree that a definition of "cult" includes coercion. Were 
you forced in any way to participate in the TM Programme?



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This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection 
is active.
http://www.avast.com

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: A suicide in FF

[Michael Jackson mjackso...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

The depth and breadth of your particular addiction to being special through TM 
knows no bounds.

"And always the problems are found in the history of the individual, 
problems that the person has kept under the radar as to be able to go to 
courses. Problems that has nothing whatsoever to do with the meditation 
practice but unbalances usually from childhood that they have been 
suppressing." 


What a crock of made up bullshit this statement is, but not surprising coming 
from you. An absolutist statement designed to "prove" TM and Marshy have no 
flaws. 


Whether you like it or not, long TM rounding DOES have negative effects in some 
people and it has nothing to do with any preexisting mental problems. 


And even if such problems were there, we are talking about people who in some 
cases have been doing TM for years, decades in some cases. You own and the 
TMO's own assertions don't hold water. TM is SUPPOSED to make all forms of 
health, including mental health better. If TM is the God given panacea you 
claim, why didn't years of practice clear out the "unbalances usually from 
childhood?"









 From: nablusoss1008 
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 4:05 AM
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: A suicide in FF
 


  


Outright nonsense from the Turq, as expected. The facts doesn't fit his 
hate-model so he pretends it doesn't exist. Of course people that on very rare 
occasions develop problems are asked to get adequate mental help, as everyone 
that has been to an international course knows. They are closely supervised to 
reduce rounding, moved to the basement if necessary, in severe cases provided 
with adequate medication supervised by doctors and then sent home. Their 
families are informed and told to help the individual get professional help.
And always the problems are found in the history of the individual, problems 
that the person has kept under the radar as to be able to go to courses. 
Problems that has nothing whatsoever to do with the meditation practice but 
unbalances usually from childhood that they have been suppressing. 
In the cases I know of the individual has not done the practice according to 
rules, usually meditating much MORE than the very clear guidelines set. Or, as 
in this case severe brain damage from an accident.
Of course, these are simple facts that the Turq don't want anyone to know about 
because it doesn't fit his hate-model, but it might be useful for others.

---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :


I've been staying out of this, and will continue to do so, but I have to point 
out the eagerness with which several people have pounced on the brain 
injury/coma thing. It's almost as if you can feel them relax and say to 
themselves, "Whew! There is some kind of *excuse* that I can glom onto so that 
I don't have to deal with the possibility that this is yet another in a rather 
long list of TM movement suicides, and thus a potential source of cognitive 
dissonance for me. It's good to have this excuse, so I don't have to 'go 
there'." 


>From my staying-out-of-it-so-far point of view Michael is not overreacting to 
>Yet Another Suicide by implying that it is linked with TM any more than 
>several others here are knee-jerk overreacting to the same suicide by implying 
>that it is not. It is absolutely LUDICROUS to pretend that TM has not promised 
>a world and a society in which problems simply cannot happen. It is similarly 
>LUDICROUS to pretend that anyone who does develop emotional problems within a 
>TM-only community will be provided adequate mental health care for them. It 
>has never happened and it will never
happen, because providing the care in the first place will be perceived by 
those in charge as "having doubts" about TM being the panacea they believe it 
is. 



From: "steve.sundur@... [FairfieldLife]" 
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 6:05 AM
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF



 
Michael, to the rest of the world, the fact that he sustained a serious brain 
injury two years ago, puts the whole issue in a different light, whether you 
wish to acknowledge this or not.

You have amply demonstrated that you are capable of tying TM to most any 
negative event, whether it makes sense or not.







From: feste37 
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Saturday, May 24, 2014 10:10 PM
Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF



 
The post from Sheer-el from when he was an MSAE student was about 10 years ago, 
I think. 

He did suffer a serious injury about two years ago. He was in a coma for a 
while, I believe. I did hear that it was some kind of brain injury. I wonder if 
that injury affected him in some way that no one knew about. 

This is a tragedy for the family and for Fairfield. I do think that people 
should not use it on this board to push their anti-TM views. It's not 
appropriate, particularly as we know nothing 

Re: [FairfieldLife] The cognitive dissonance of suicide

[Michael Jackson mjackso...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

Very very well said Barry!

One small example I will give without naming names, I know someone raised in 
the Movement, whose wife was raised in the Movement, she is a siddha and was 
one thousand percent on the program, as her husband put it "TM siddhis practice 
was like heroin to her". She also tried to commit suicide. This is someone 
whose family was part of the MIU/MUM big wigs and as the husband put it, after 
her attempt there was no kindness from Bevan or ANY of the MUM leaders, no 
sympathy, no offers of assistance of any kind - it was all "she must be off the 
program, what is she doing wrong?"



 From: "TurquoiseBee turquoi...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]" 

To: "FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com"  
Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 2:35 AM
Subject: [FairfieldLife] The cognitive dissonance of suicide
 


  

OK, I'm not going to stay out of this at all. I'm going to rap about it. And 
one of the reasons is that I think my life experience -- both personal and with 
the study of cults/spiritual communities -- offers me a few insights into the 
issue of suicide. 

Few events provoke more cognitive dissonance than the suicide of a friend, 
family member, or member of "our" community. If they knew the person, the 
survivors are stuck with questions like "Why didn't I notice?" or "Could I have 
*done* something to prevent this?" 

Worse, in tight-knit communities -- ESPECIALLY those of the spiritual kind -- 
there is also often a
 suppressed and carefully hidden sense of ANGER towards the person who 
committed suicide. "How could he/she have done this? Didn't he/she know that by 
doing this they would be 'letting down the team?'" 

Suicide within spiritual communities is almost ALWAYS viewed that way, 
especially if the community has been carefully indoctrinated for decades into 
believing how "special" they are, and how "These sorts of things just don't 
happen here, because of ." 

The first reaction among those whose sense of elitism and "betterness" has just 
been challenged by the suicide of a colleague is almost always what it was here 
on FFL -- to search for some "reason" for the suicide, to make *themselves* 
feel better. They're hoping for some kind of "out," like "brain damage" or "the 
prospect of facing a terminal illness" so
 that they can continue to think of themselves and their group as elite. They 
can think, "Oh, now that I understand the *reason* he/she did this, I can 
relax, because it doesn't impact the myth of our superiority and elitism in any 
way. The person who did this was an *exception*." The community thus gloms onto 
the *excuse*, and relaxes. 

But, and speaking from some experience, this is all bullshit. The community to 
some extent CAUSES the suicide, by creating an environment in which the victim 
feels that they can't talk about their problems, because the mere fact of 
admitting to *having* problems would cast doubt upon the myth of "specialness" 
and "freedom from such problems" that the whole community believes in and 
pretends is actually true. 

One can always come up with "reasons" for suicide, but they're always excuses 
that serve the living, not the dead. Me, I've dealt
 with suicide close-up a couple of times, having had both a brother and a 
spiritual teacher who checked themselves out. In both cases I can cite 
"excuses" that I feel were partly to blame. In my brother's case, he was a 
closet alcoholic in a culture full of closet alcoholics (the American South), 
all of whom were busy most of the time pretending not to be alcoholics. That's 
why he was able to get away with being one for much of his life. No one noticed 
that he was having more serious problems than being a drunk, because most of 
the people around him were so drunk so much of the time. In the case of Rama - 
Fred Lenz, I know for a fact that part of his decision to commit suicide was 
chemically induced. He had developed an addiction to Valium, and being the "I 
can handle it" kinda guy he was, he decided to quit taking the drug "cold 
turkey." It says right on the label never to do this, *because of the danger of 
suicide*, but he figured he could "handle it."
 Three days later, he was dead, a suicide. 

So yes, there were excuses. And yes, they serve to make the survivors feel 
better, and a little less guilty about not having noticed that these people 
were so close to the edge. But they're bullshit in spiritual groups because the 
excuses are a way of avoiding cognitive dissonance so that they don't have to 
deal with the heart of the problem. 

The common denominator in many suicides is the person feeling either *guilty* 
about their problems and being afraid to "bring shame upon" a group they feel 
part of (family, church, cult), or *unable to talk to anyone* in the group 
because no one in it wants to hear that they have problems. In spiritual 
groups, both of these factors are very common. With regard to the TMO, there is 
simply no question that it is an

[FairfieldLife] Pondering the non-TM-related issue of suicide

[TurquoiseBee turquoi...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

Really. This issue really IS not related to TM or any other belief system in my 
mind, because I've been on the survivor side of suicide a couple of times and 
gotten to experience the emotional and karmic ripples that emanate from it. 

I know that there are some here who are opposed to suicide for religious 
reasons. They may claim not to be, but whether they call it the "wrath of God" 
awaiting the suicidee or the terrible karmic consequences awaiting him, the 
bottom line is that they can been conditioned to believe that it's WRONG. And 
that Bad Shit will happen in the afterlife to those who do this WRONG thing. 

I'm not drawn that way, and never have been. I think that in some situations, 
suicide can be a viable and graceful option available to those who have few 
others. Terminal illnesses in which their "last few days" can be reliably be 
predicted to be 24/7 pain is one such situation. The country I currently live 
in believes similarly, and offers physician-assisted suicide as an option to 
the terminally ill. 

At the same time, they *don't* offer it to someone who is feeling down because 
he never had any luck with women and was still a virgin at 22. The doctors who 
run the assisted-suicide centers are skilled at detecting such people, and 
referring them to a similarly-paid-for-by-their-affordable-health-insurance 
psychiatrist or social worker. If this option had been present in Isla Vista 
(original home of MIU) recently, several more people would still be alive today.

I find it interesting that this suicide talk comes up just after a digression 
dealing with people's preferred methods of going out. Parsing them, I found 
that beheading scored high on some people's Kick The Bucket List. Others 
preferred being "put to sleep," as their pets are. 

For me, the best method of checking oneself out I've ever heard came from a 
friend I met in the Rama trip. He had worked as a biologist, and thus with a 
poison called tetrodotoxin. It comes from the Japanese fugu fish, and is a 
powerful nerve toxin. We kinda know its subjective effects because the Japanese 
actually consider fugu fish a delicacy, and eat it. This all goes well if the 
delicacy is prepared properly by a master sushi chef. If it's a lesser chef, 
sometimes the gourmets die, right there in the restaurant. It happens more 
often than you might imagine...the Japanese are an odd people. 

Occasionally, however, someone gets a big mouthful of tetrodotoxin and 
survives. So they can tell us what almost dying from it was like. What it does 
is shut down sensations from the bodily functions while leaving the mind 
completely alert. This appealed to my Rama-group friend, because he was a big 
believer in the Tibetan idea of being as conscious as, possible when diving 
into the Bardo. For people who believe this, being either so doped up with 
painkillers that you can't think clearly or "being put to sleep" is not a good 
option because your mind is either not clear or not even functioning. So my 
friend actually *saved* a vial of tetrodotoxin for his own use, should he ever 
feel the need to check himself out in the future. 

He has since died, and in one of the most painful manners possible, of 
pancreatic cancer. I was not in touch with him when he was sick, and only heard 
about his death after the fact, but it really wouldn't surprise me if he 
checked out by imbibing from his long-saved vial of tetrodotoxin. And if he 
did, I have no problems with this. It was his choice, and if he made it, bully 
for him. 

In other cases, suicide is not such a clear-cut thing. It leaves karmic ripples 
that can harm others. I know that my brother's kids are still fucked up by the 
fact that their father took his own life. I know that I'm still a little fucked 
up by not discovering how serious his problems were and how many of them were 
tied to alcohol until discovering after his death -- hidden in closets and 
under his bed -- dozens of empty half-gallon vodka bottles. That's a real "How 
did we not see this?" moment. I wish I had not lived halfway across the country 
and had been able to be more proactive in trying to get him some treatment. 

In Rama's case, I think his actions fucked up a lot of people, too. Yes, it was 
his choice to check himself out if he was really dying already, and wanted to 
avoid dying slowly in some ghastly hospital (as he claimed, and as many of his 
former students still believe). But he really WASN'T dying. I saw his autopsy 
report. There was nothing systemically wrong with him, OTHER THAN the symptoms 
he chose to interpret as "I'm dying." As it turns out, almost all of those 
symptoms are caused by long-term Valium addiction. 

But I don't have any fantasies about being able to talk him out of it if I had 
still been around at that point. He was as classic an example of Narcissistic 
Personality Disorder as has ever existed, and if he *believed* that he was 
dying, well then he *was* dying. No one would ever h

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF

[Michael Jackson mjackso...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

Thanks Barry - and I will add, again, that on the Remembering Serenity facebook 
page, dedicated to the siddha lady who took her own life last year, a former 
MUM student posted this:


. ever since I was a student at MUM (I started in 2008) students have 
requested this dialog and attempted to organize events, but were shut 
down repeatedly and with benign intentions to "protect our 
consciousness" (actual policy wording) .

So Ann, Feste, Steve and Buck, ignore, defend, and make excuses all you like, 
revile me all you like but these TM suicides have been around since the 1960's 
and they aren't gonna go away. Talk to some of the people who were on the old 
course where heavy unstressing was rampant and see if you can get the idea that 
maybe TM DOES have effects that can lead to extreme consequences. 


I was talking on the phone last night to a former MIU staff and student friend 
who was telling me about his friend Brian Henchcliff who killed himself back in 
the 80's. It won't go away because you don't like me bringing it up.




 From: "TurquoiseBee turquoi...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]" 

To: "FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com"  
Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 1:23 AM
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF
 


  
I've been staying out of this, and will continue to do so, but I have to point 
out the eagerness with which several people have pounced on the brain 
injury/coma thing. It's almost as if you can feel them relax and say to 
themselves, "Whew! There is some kind of *excuse* that I can glom onto so that 
I don't have to deal with the possibility that this is yet another in a rather 
long list of TM movement suicides, and thus a potential source of cognitive 
dissonance for me. It's good to have this excuse, so I don't have to 'go 
there'." 


>From my staying-out-of-it-so-far point of view Michael is not overreacting to 
>Yet Another Suicide by implying that it is linked with TM any more than 
>several others here are knee-jerk overreacting to the same suicide by implying 
>that it is not. It is absolutely LUDICROUS to pretend that TM has not promised 
>a world and a society in which problems simply cannot happen. It is similarly 
>LUDICROUS to pretend that anyone who does develop emotional problems within a 
>TM-only community will be provided adequate mental health care for them. It 
>has never happened and it will never happen, because providing the care in the 
>first place will be perceived by those in charge as "having doubts" about TM 
>being the panacea they believe it is. 





 From: "steve.sun...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]" 
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 6:05 AM
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF
 


  
Michael, to the rest of the world, the fact that he sustained a serious brain 
injury two years ago, puts the whole issue in a different light, whether you 
wish to acknowledge this or not.

You have amply demonstrated that you are capable of tying TM to most any 
negative event, whether it makes sense or not.







---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :


Given the fact that it comes about a year after another siddha suicide and on 
the heels of many other suicides and attempted suicides by siddhas and 
governors, I think the whole thing needs to be looked at squarely and honestly. 
I won't be silenced about this. Of all the crap there is about the disconnect 
between what Marshy and the Movement advertise and the reality of what they and 
TM actually deliver, this bother me the most. If you don't want to deal with it 
Feste, then don't, but I won't be silent about this. 




 From: feste37 
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Saturday, May 24, 2014 10:10 PM
Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF



 
The post from Sheer-el from when he was an MSAE student was about 10 years ago, 
I think. 

He did suffer a serious injury about two years ago. He was in a coma for a 
while, I believe. I did hear that it was some kind of brain injury. I wonder if 
that injury affected him in some way that no one knew about. 

This is a tragedy for the family and for Fairfield. I do think that people 
should not use it on this board to push their anti-TM views. It's not 
appropriate, particularly as we know nothing of the circumstances in this case. 





---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :



>>>
>>>Sheer-el Cohen. He was employed at the Raj. Apparently this happened 
>>>yesterday.
>>>
>>>
>>>http://www.8000now.com/audiotext/Sheer-elCohenText.htm
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF

[Michael Jackson mjackso...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

there is nothing political about it. The fact the TM is presented at 100% life 
supporting and a man like Mark Totten who was 100% on the program would step in 
front of a train and that many other long term TM'ers commit suicide or try to 
is something that needs to be acknowledged. I have spoken with family members 
of those who have done this - and according to the families, TM IS a factor, 
the mind numbing mental control the Movement exerts over true believers is a 
factor. You don't want to believe it, that's not surprising.




 From: "dhamiltony...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]" 
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2014 12:31 AM
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF
 


  
Yep,
I feel the same way as 7Ray and Feste.  Get off it MJ with your TM
hate here.  People die all the time and commit suicide too.  Om come on
now, there is nothing extraordinary in the suicide rates here. 
Divide it out how you like, it is small in the population just like
most .  Yes it is extremely disturbing when it happens and we are not
without sympathy for the boy, his parents, and his communities of
friends.  We are all saddened and in a shock.  His prospects were
great, seems everyone liked him.  Yes he was a child of the movement. You are 
making political hay with your bad thinking about causality
and I feel that is appalling.  Your observations may bare some
general truth but your thinking is wrong trying to link it all
exclusively to TM for your own agenda. Certainly the anti-TM blogs
you frequent will go crazy on this.  Shame on you, -Buck in the Dome

SeventhRay27 writes:




Michael, to the rest of the world, the fact that he sustained a serious brain 
injury two years ago, puts the whole issue in a different light, whether you 
wish to acknowledge this or not.


You have amply demonstrated that you are capable of tying TM to most any 
negative event, whether it makes sense or not.





---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :


Given the fact that it comes about a year after another siddha suicide and on 
the heels of many other suicides and attempted suicides by siddhas and 
governors, I think the whole thing needs to be looked at squarely and honestly. 
I won't be silenced about this. Of all the crap there is about the disconnect 
between what Marshy and the Movement advertise and the reality of what they and 
TM actually deliver, this bother me the most. If you don't want to deal with it 
Feste, then don't, but I won't be silent about this. 




 From: feste37 
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Saturday, May 24, 2014 10:10 PM
Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF



 
The post from Sheer-el from when he was an MSAE student was about 10 years ago, 
I think. 

He did suffer a serious injury about two years ago. He was in a coma for a 
while, I believe. I did hear that it was some kind of brain injury. I wonder if 
that injury affected him in some way that no one knew about. 

This is a tragedy for the family and for Fairfield. I do think that people 
should not use it on this board to push their anti-TM views. It's not 
appropriate, particularly as we know nothing of the circumstances in this case. 





---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :




Sheer-el Cohen. He was employed at the Raj. Apparently this happened 
yesterday.


http://www.8000now.com/audiotext/Sheer-elCohenText.htm

>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF

[Michael Jackson mjackso...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

then you have not looked at the TMO's PR lately




 From: "steve.sun...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]" 
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Saturday, May 24, 2014 11:58 PM
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF
 


  
Look, I left the formal TM movement back in 1981.  I continued to do my 
"program' at the local center for about 8 years after that.  Yes, there was a 
time when I felt TM was a universal panacea, but that would have been sometime 
around 1976.  Since then I've put it in a different perspective about what it 
could and could not achieve, and also came to realize that there were issues 
that needed a different kind of intervention.

So, if TM was or is presented in the way you say, than this is somewhat news to 
me.  

And by the way, Tom Ball was a good friend of mine during my time at MIU.  He 
was about the most off the wall and "off the program" fellow you probably could 
have found there.

I remember when I saw his facebook page sometime ago and saw that he was full 
time movement.  I think that was a good choice for him.  I really can't imagine 
that the irreverence that was so much a part of him has given way to a strictly 
"tow the line" mentality.






---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :




You are utterly ignoring the way TM is presented to the general public and to 
the already meditating TM community - it is presented in the way I have already 
stated - as a superlative, infallible means of curing every ill. Just look at 
the PR. Its right there. I suggest you get the grip and look clearly at what 
the TMO is advertising and how they advertise it.

In addition, you are not taking into account the intense pressure the TMO, esp. 
at MUM puts on people to conform. The idea that many people believe is that TM 
and all its ancillary programs IS all
they need and it is very difficult for them to deal with feelings that the TMO 
tells them they shouldn't be having, anger, depression and so on. They feel 
there is something wrong with them and they can't talk about it to anyone in 
their environment because all the get is ignored or TM platitudes. This is a 
real thing you are ignoring.



 From: "awoelflebater@... [FairfieldLife]" 
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Saturday, May 24, 2014 9:41 PM
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Another suicide in FF



 




---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :


Michael,

You just miss the point.  I am no great TM defender.  But you start with a 
misguided notion of what the practice of TM is capable of doing.  And on that 
basis you make connections about what problems can be attributed to the 
practice of TM.

There are many things I think are out of whack in regards the TMO culture, but 
I know, from experience, with my own 21 year old son,
that this is a difficult period of ones life to navigate, with or without the 
practice of TM.

And from my own difficult adolescence, the most the practice of TM was able to 
do for me was give me a few minutes of respite each day.

I would wager, (or at least hope), that any parent within the TMO culture who 
felt they had a child at risk would take any necessary steps to address that 
risk.

I knew the parents, or at least the father of the boy who committed suicide a 
few years ago, Daniel S. He did not live in any kind of fantasy world about TM. 
 

You make this silly statement that if my beliefs are so strong, I should 
consider working full time for the movement.  To me that points out a blind 
spot in that you seem to have taken every claim made about TM at face value, 
never figuring in a discount that most people would naturally take.

And when it fell short, you developed a vendetta.

This has been my point all along. I don't think it is about taking the TM 
promises so literally - it is all so literal how MJ is 'reading' these claims 
and then presenting them as proof that TM doesn't work. It's almost as if he 
believes that
those who practice TM are incapable of making a mistake or being sad or getting 
divorced. Come on. Get a grip. No one believes that just by learning a 
meditation technique that you are going to become super-human, infallible and 
perfect. And no one is buying the fact that because a meditator has decided to 
end their life that it completely invalidates the entire TM practice and 
condemns the Movement as being one big fraud. The world is never so black and 
white. 

 



---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,  wrote :




Steve, I am glad you get something from TM, but you are burying your head in 
the sand if you ignore this - if you can refute it, do so. But this is the one 
thing about TM and all its stuff that bothers me the most. Whether you like it 
or not, there are numerous people who do TMSP long term who become basket cases 
in one way or another, and a number who attempt to or successfully commit 
suicide. 


I acknowledge that TM works for some, but the opposit

Re: [FairfieldLife] The cognitive dissonance of suicide

[Share Long sharelon...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

turq, one of the thought provoking aspects of this post of yours is that in it 
you actually criticize the solution to the problem which you present! Meaning 
that you criticize the fact that people relax after having resolved some 
cognitive dissonance. 


I think that *relaxing* actually is a key component of solving any problem. I 
think when people *relax* that is often when fear falls away enough so that 
more truth of life can be recognized and lived. Moreover, I think all of us 
humans are on the same path wrt to this. Human growth occurs in fits and starts 
for us all. 


I also think that you and MJ and salyavin have an intention to help people with 
your anti TM writings. And I recognize that you all may be right. But based on 
my own experience of 39 years, and the reported experiences of people I 
respect, I think that you all have thrown out the baby with the bath water.     



On Sunday, May 25, 2014 1:35 AM, "TurquoiseBee turquoi...@yahoo.com 
[FairfieldLife]"  wrote:
 


  

OK, I'm not going to stay out of this at all. I'm going to rap about it. And 
one of the reasons is that I think my life experience -- both personal and with 
the study of cults/spiritual communities -- offers me a few insights into the 
issue of suicide. 

Few events provoke more cognitive dissonance than the suicide of a friend, 
family member, or member of "our" community. If they knew the person, the 
survivors are stuck with questions like "Why didn't I notice?" or "Could I have 
*done* something to prevent this?" 

Worse, in tight-knit communities -- ESPECIALLY those of the spiritual kind -- 
there is also often a
 suppressed and carefully hidden sense of ANGER towards the person who 
committed suicide. "How could he/she have done this? Didn't he/she know that by 
doing this they would be 'letting down the team?'" 

Suicide within spiritual communities is almost ALWAYS viewed that way, 
especially if the community has been carefully indoctrinated for decades into 
believing how "special" they are, and how "These sorts of things just don't 
happen here, because of ." 

The first reaction among those whose sense of elitism and "betterness" has just 
been challenged by the suicide of a colleague is almost always what it was here 
on FFL -- to search for some "reason" for the suicide, to make *themselves* 
feel better. They're hoping for some kind of "out," like "brain damage" or "the 
prospect of facing a terminal illness" so
 that they can continue to think of themselves and their group as elite. They 
can think, "Oh, now that I understand the *reason* he/she did this, I can 
relax, because it doesn't impact the myth of our superiority and elitism in any 
way. The person who did this was an *exception*." The community thus gloms onto 
the *excuse*, and relaxes. 

But, and speaking from some experience, this is all bullshit. The community to 
some extent CAUSES the suicide, by creating an environment in which the victim 
feels that they can't talk about their problems, because the mere fact of 
admitting to *having* problems would cast doubt upon the myth of "specialness" 
and "freedom from such problems" that the whole community believes in and 
pretends is actually true. 

One can always come up with "reasons" for suicide, but they're always excuses 
that serve the living, not the dead. Me, I've dealt
 with suicide close-up a couple of times, having had both a brother and a 
spiritual teacher who checked themselves out. In both cases I can cite 
"excuses" that I feel were partly to blame. In my brother's case, he was a 
closet alcoholic in a culture full of closet alcoholics (the American South), 
all of whom were busy most of the time pretending not to be alcoholics. That's 
why he was able to get away with being one for much of his life. No one noticed 
that he was having more serious problems than being a drunk, because most of 
the people around him were so drunk so much of the time. In the case of Rama - 
Fred Lenz, I know for a fact that part of his decision to commit suicide was 
chemically induced. He had developed an addiction to Valium, and being the "I 
can handle it" kinda guy he was, he decided to quit taking the drug "cold 
turkey." It says right on the label never to do this, *because of the danger of 
suicide*, but he figured he could "handle it."
 Three days later, he was dead, a suicide. 

So yes, there were excuses. And yes, they serve to make the survivors feel 
better, and a little less guilty about not having noticed that these people 
were so close to the edge. But they're bullshit in spiritual groups because the 
excuses are a way of avoiding cognitive dissonance so that they don't have to 
deal with the heart of the problem. 

The common denominator in many suicides is the person feeling either *guilty* 
about their problems and being afraid to "bring shame upon" a group they feel 
part of (family, church, cult), or *unable to talk to anyone* in the group 
because no one in it wants to hea