--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, enlightened_dawn11
no_re...@... wrote:
i am enjoying the de facto title of this post; what is the nature
of attachment?
I changed it. My bad. :-)
[ I'm going to reply as if you were serious in
this post, and not just evading. BTW, I don't
give a frak about your identity behind your
screen name...that is a given as far as I am
concerned. What I am interested in pinning down
is how that identity thinks. ]
especially in light of Barry's latest post to me,
in which he attempts to pin down my perspective and identity,
to verify...what? what if there is really nothing there?
What if?
I mean, wouldn't it be *nice* if there were no
one there behind your screen name and identity
here on this forum?
Then you wouldn't have to care about your actions,
and whether they were remembered, and whether they
had consequences. No karma. Just say shit, and
assume that everyone else has forgotten it as soon
as it is out of your mouth, the way you seem to.
That would be cool, wouldn't it?
The ultimate Get Out Of Jail Free card. No cares,
no responsibility.
Why I'm saying this is that this is *exactly* many
people on this forum's issue with the real-world
actions of spiritual teachers and others who have
in the past claimed enlightenment. They acted out
in the real world what you seem to want to act out
here in cyberspace. With sometimes less than
positive results.
I'm trying to pin down what the thinking is that
leads people to do this -- announce their enlight-
enment and then act as if the Big E gives them a
Karmic Get Out Of Jail Free card, and that they no
longer have any responsibility for their actions
from that point onwards.
It really ISN'T about picking on you at all. I'm
more curious about the larger issue, because it
seems to pervade not just the TM movement but many
other spiritual movements, both now and in the past.
I'm curious as to whether enlightenment is a benefit
or a disorder.
and that is what my post is about- how dynamics on a forum are
different than what we look for in other printed material. none
of us here is much more than a composite of what we say we are,
how we express ourselves, and what others think of it and us as
a result. i may claim all sorts of things about myself, and
others, that trigger thoughts in others about what i have said.
or not. and that's it.
While there is some truth to the notion that a dif-
ferent set of dynamics are in place on cyberforums
( they have been documented and studied and discussed
often among scientists and sociologists ), still
cyberspace is an interaction of *human beings*.
Human beings act. Beings in cyberspace act. In the
real world, the actions of human beings generate
karma. In cyberspace, the actions of composites
generate karma.
Your first paragraph above ( and some of your
composite's behavior on this forum ) leads me to
believe that it believes that, for whatever reason,
it has no more karma. It no longer needs to be
concerned about what it said yesterday, or did
yesterday. And it certainly isn't responsible for
anything it did yesterday.
If I were describing a mental patient, I think that
you might agree with me that this patient is a few
cans short of an ethical and moral and conceptual
six-pack. Right?
So what makes a cyberspace composite any different
than the mental patient?
And, to turn the conversation back to my real point
again, what are the implications when a spiritual
teacher or one of their followers seems to believe
that now that they are enlightened they are not
responsible for any of their actions?
no one has a past or future here, or is any more valid than
anyone else here.
Uh...excuse me? Did you really say that?
Go back and read it again. And then, after you do,
skim back up and read the paragraph about mental
patients again.
I'm sorry, but *everyone* here has a past and a
future. So do all of the enlightened beings in the
world today.
What makes many of us question the *value* of enlight-
enment is that many of these supposedly enlightened
beings say stupid shit like We don't have a past or
a future, and ACT that way in terms of refusing to
acknowledge any responsibility for the things they
do and say.
like ruth was asking, why are we here? me, i enjoy
swapping energy here. that is what this place is for me;
swapping energy.
Cool. That is why I'm here, too. And most of us.
But to be honest, I don't think you hear too many
of the rest of us claiming that we have no past or
future. Or responsibility for our actions. You
yourself have been recently giving Vaj a shitload
of grief for his past actions. Howcum he has a past
and a need to be held accountable for it and you
don't? :-)
it is all about the energy of the moment, that last post.
I am fairly certain that you're being honest here,
and would like to believe that this is true.
But it isn't.
Cyberspace is a lot like life -- a *succession* of
moments, one
