[FairfieldLife] Master-Disciple or Rock Star-Groupie? (was Re: The Wisdom of Chopra...)

[iranitea]

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

 --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, cardemaister no_reply@ wrote:
  
  --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@ wrote:
  
   One day the rock star happened to say to the groupie 
   in passing, Wow, dude...you're the most *special* of
   all my special groupies. You've attained specialnessitude
   yourself. 
  
  Just curious: anyone know, about how many people heard the
  rock star say that?
 
 Barry made up the quote, of course. 

Barry didn't 'make up' the quote, he wrote this in the context of an allegory, 
which is something I think everybody understood. So it was not meant to be a 
literal quote, but transferring what ever was being said into the context of 
the allegory. Are you really so dense, or  do you so desperately need to show 
your 'Barry is lying' meme?

 But what MMY *did*
 say, according to Robin, would have been heard by all
 the participants on Robin's six-month course. MMY had
 asked Robin to describe his experience to the course
 participants on camera, so there was, at least at one
 point, videotape of this event.

[FairfieldLife] Master-Disciple or Rock Star-Groupie? (was Re: The Wisdom of Chopra...)

[turquoiseb]

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

  ---  Susan wayback71@ wrote:
  
   I would not call Robin the most radically anti-TM person 
   who's ever been on FFL.  
  
 ---  turquoiseb no_reply@ wrote:
 
  I haven't been following anything that led up to someone
  saying this, but that's the most ridiculous idea I've
  ever heard. Robin is *completely dependent* on both TM
  and Maharishi. His entire story would be meaningless
  without both of them.
  
  He still praises Maharishi and calls him enlightened
  because if he didn't, and MMY was a nobody, then Robin's
  *entire claim to fame* is worthless; a nobody once 
  hinted that he (Robin) was enlightened. 
  
  Besides, Robin depends, for his entire audience, on 
  people who revolve around Maharishi. No one else would
  pay any attention to him or consider him worth listening
  to or reading. His exploits in the 80s depend *entirely*
  on having either Maharishi or MIU to react against.
  
  Whoever said what Susan is responding to is an idiot.
  Robin couldn't go five minutes when trying to impress
  TMers or former TMers without mentioning Maharishi. He
  is more dependent on the man than anyone who has ever
  appeared on Fairfield Life. Maharishi is in a very
  literal sense Robin's crutch, and will always be.
 
 Are you implying that he is a cunning, calculative, 
 publicity seeking and attention seeking hound.?

I am implying nothing. I am making a statement about
the nature of the relationship between RC and MMY,
and using it as a springboard to discuss similar 
relationships across the board in the wider world
of spiritual practice.

As I see it, RC and MMY didn't have a master-disciple
relationship. What they had was a rock star-groupie
relationship. The groupie glommed onto the rock star 
and followed him everywhere, gaining most if not all 
of his own sense of self-worth from his proximity to
the rock star. Any sense of specialness in the groupie
was gained from nearness to something/someone even more 
special, the rock star.

One day the rock star happened to say to the groupie 
in passing, Wow, dude...you're the most *special* of
all my special groupies. You've attained specialnessitude
yourself. The rock star probably forgot saying it five
minutes later, and thought nothing more about it. But 
for the groupie, this was a life-changing event. 

So the groupie went out on the road and tried to launch 
his own career as a wannabe rock star, *based on nothing 
more than what one other rock star to whom he had been a 
groupie said about him*. Naturally, the only people he
could appeal to or expect to attend *his* concerts were
those who already were groupies for the original rock
star, so he pitched his I'm special now, too spiel 
to them. 

When the rock star found out, he hit the roof. How dare
this little twerp claim that he's special, just because
of some offhand remark I made to him? So he smushed the
upstart groupie and forgot about him. But the groupie, 
now having had a taste of what it felt like to be considered
a rock star himself, couldn't live with being smushed. He
launched campaign after campaign to discredit the rock star
or prove that he was either his equal (back then) or his
superior (now). And, of course, the only people on Earth
who cared about any of these drama queen hysterics were
people who once revered (or still revered) the rock star.

That was RC's schtick then, and it's his schtick now. End
of story. 

He hangs out on TM- and MMY-centric forums because *no one
else on Earth would give a shit about his stories*. The
stories all *depend* on finding an audience who revere or
revered the same rock star. And the former groupie, now
wannabe rock star himself, is caught in a bind. He can't
*fully* denounce the rock star his specialness depends
on, because (duh!) his specialness depends entirely on
the rock star's specialness. If the rock star is perceived
as being...uh...not terribly special himself, and as sort
of a spiritual Milli Vanilli who ripped off all of his 
songs and riffs from others, that reflects badly on the
former groupie. Can't have that. 

So *of course* Maharishi has to continue to be presented
by the groupie as enlightened, as special. Because if he
wasn't, then the groupie wasn't, and isn't. Duh.

I'm bringing up this subject not just because a lot of 
people don't seem to be aware of this dynamic in RC, but
because they don't seem to be aware of it as a *general
phenomenon* in the larger spiritual smorgasbord. This is
NOT a TM-only phenomenon. You see the same thing among 
former disciples/groupies of Yogananda, or Muktananda,
or Rama, or pretty much any other spiritual teacher. 
There are many who have gone out and set up shop as
teachers/rock stars in their own right, but their *entire*
schtick revolves around the time they spent in proximity
to the original rock star/teacher. 

I think this is kind of dumb, which is why I made a 
conscious decision never to allow this to 

[FairfieldLife] Master-Disciple or Rock Star-Groupie? (was Re: The Wisdom of Chopra...)

[cardemaister]

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

 One day the rock star happened to say to the groupie 
 in passing, Wow, dude...you're the most *special* of
 all my special groupies. You've attained specialnessitude
 yourself. 

Just curious: anyone know, about how many people heard the
rock star say that?

[FairfieldLife] Master-Disciple or Rock Star-Groupie? (was Re: The Wisdom of Chopra...)

[turquoiseb]

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

 --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@ wrote:
 
  One day the rock star happened to say to the groupie 
  in passing, Wow, dude...you're the most *special* of
  all my special groupies. You've attained specialnessitude
  yourself. 
 
 Just curious: anyone know, about how many people heard the
 rock star say that?

Does anyone care?  :-)

I'm suggesting that this is what the groupie heard
in their head. It is not necessarily what the rock
star said.

A better question might be, Raise your hands if
you saw Maharishi respond to someone at a microphone
who was earnestly reporting their experiences of
some supposed higher state of consciousness and 
say something like Ah yes...something good is
happening. At which point the person at the mike
starts going around telling other people, Maharishi 
said I was enlightened. 

[ Looking around the virtual room ] 

See? Almost everyone.  :-)

There is a bottom line here. If the teacher and the
organization that made their names by claiming to
have the fastest, most effective method for attain-
ing enlightenment actually had a student who had
*attained* it, would they not show them off? 

Maharishi showed off people using pure muscle 
power to bounce around on their butts, fercrissakes.

What I am suggesting is that the scenario I present
above, which I must have seen a dozen or more times
in my time around Maharishi, was interpreted by any-
one who had seen it more than once as what it most
certainly was. That is, Something good is happening
was a way to get the person at the mike to sit down
and shut up. Not much else.

[FairfieldLife] Master-Disciple or Rock Star-Groupie? (was Re: The Wisdom of Chopra...)

[Jason]

 
   ---  Susan wayback71@ wrote:
   
I would not call Robin the most radically anti-TM person 
who's ever been on FFL.  
   
  ---  turquoiseb no_reply@ wrote:
  
   I haven't been following anything that led up to someone
   saying this, but that's the most ridiculous idea I've
   ever heard. Robin is *completely dependent* on both TM
   and Maharishi. His entire story would be meaningless
   without both of them.
   
   He still praises Maharishi and calls him enlightened
   because if he didn't, and MMY was a nobody, then Robin's
   *entire claim to fame* is worthless; a nobody once 
   hinted that he (Robin) was enlightened. 
   
   Besides, Robin depends, for his entire audience, on 
   people who revolve around Maharishi. No one else would
   pay any attention to him or consider him worth listening
   to or reading. His exploits in the 80s depend *entirely*
   on having either Maharishi or MIU to react against.
   
   Whoever said what Susan is responding to is an idiot.
   Robin couldn't go five minutes when trying to impress
   TMers or former TMers without mentioning Maharishi. He
   is more dependent on the man than anyone who has ever
   appeared on Fairfield Life. Maharishi is in a very
   literal sense Robin's crutch, and will always be.
  
 ---  Jason jedi_spock@ wrote:
 
  Are you implying that he is a cunning, calculative, 
  publicity seeking and attention seeking hound.?
 
---  turquoiseb no_reply@... wrote:

 I am implying nothing. I am making a statement about
 the nature of the relationship between RC and MMY,
 and using it as a springboard to discuss similar 
 relationships across the board in the wider world
 of spiritual practice.
 
 As I see it, RC and MMY didn't have a master-disciple
 relationship. What they had was a rock star-groupie
 relationship. The groupie glommed onto the rock star 
 and followed him everywhere, gaining most if not all 
 of his own sense of self-worth from his proximity to
 the rock star. Any sense of specialness in the groupie
 was gained from nearness to something/someone even more 
 special, the rock star.
 
 One day the rock star happened to say to the groupie 
 in passing, Wow, dude...you're the most *special* of
 all my special groupies. You've attained specialnessitude
 yourself. The rock star probably forgot saying it five
 minutes later, and thought nothing more about it. But 
 for the groupie, this was a life-changing event. 
 
 So the groupie went out on the road and tried to launch 
 his own career as a wannabe rock star, *based on nothing 
 more than what one other rock star to whom he had been a 
 groupie said about him*. Naturally, the only people he
 could appeal to or expect to attend *his* concerts were
 those who already were groupies for the original rock
 star, so he pitched his I'm special now, too spiel 
 to them. 
 
 When the rock star found out, he hit the roof. How dare
 this little twerp claim that he's special, just because
 of some offhand remark I made to him? So he smushed the
 upstart groupie and forgot about him. But the groupie, 
 now having had a taste of what it felt like to be considered
 a rock star himself, couldn't live with being smushed. He
 launched campaign after campaign to discredit the rock star
 or prove that he was either his equal (back then) or his
 superior (now). And, of course, the only people on Earth
 who cared about any of these drama queen hysterics were
 people who once revered (or still revered) the rock star.
 
 That was RC's schtick then, and it's his schtick now. End
 of story. 
 
 He hangs out on TM- and MMY-centric forums because *no one
 else on Earth would give a shit about his stories*. The
 stories all *depend* on finding an audience who revere or
 revered the same rock star. And the former groupie, now
 wannabe rock star himself, is caught in a bind. He can't
 *fully* denounce the rock star his specialness depends
 on, because (duh!) his specialness depends entirely on
 the rock star's specialness. If the rock star is perceived
 as being...uh...not terribly special himself, and as sort
 of a spiritual Milli Vanilli who ripped off all of his 
 songs and riffs from others, that reflects badly on the
 former groupie. Can't have that. 
 
 So *of course* Maharishi has to continue to be presented
 by the groupie as enlightened, as special. Because if he
 wasn't, then the groupie wasn't, and isn't. Duh.
 
 I'm bringing up this subject not just because a lot of 
 people don't seem to be aware of this dynamic in RC, but
 because they don't seem to be aware of it as a *general
 phenomenon* in the larger spiritual smorgasbord. This is
 NOT a TM-only phenomenon. You see the same thing among 
 former disciples/groupies of Yogananda, or Muktananda,
 or Rama, or pretty much any other spiritual teacher. 
 There are many who have gone out and set up shop as
 teachers/rock stars in their own right, but their *entire*
 schtick revolves around the time they spent in proximity
 to the original 

[FairfieldLife] Master-Disciple or Rock Star-Groupie? (was Re: The Wisdom of Chopra...)

[authfriend]

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, cardemaister no_reply@... wrote:
 
 --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@ wrote:
 
  One day the rock star happened to say to the groupie 
  in passing, Wow, dude...you're the most *special* of
  all my special groupies. You've attained specialnessitude
  yourself. 
 
 Just curious: anyone know, about how many people heard the
 rock star say that?

Barry made up the quote, of course. But what MMY *did*
say, according to Robin, would have been heard by all
the participants on Robin's six-month course. MMY had
asked Robin to describe his experience to the course
participants on camera, so there was, at least at one
point, videotape of this event.

[FairfieldLife] Master-Disciple or Rock Star-Groupie? (was Re: The Wisdom of Chopra...)

[Richard J. Williams]

  RC is *utterly dependent* on both TM and MMY...
 
Jason:
 Exactly, I too felt that way.  Guys like Ned Wynn 
 and Mike Coleman say, The old bat was seducing 
 young women.  Old timers suspect if Maharishi 
 was ever enlightened...
 
Sounds like you guys are jealous of MMY and RC. LoL!

[FairfieldLife] Master-Disciple or Rock Star-Groupie? (was Re: The Wisdom of Chopra...)

[authfriend]

If anybody is inclined to think that Barry's account
of what Robin did and experienced and the nature of
his relationship to MMY is anywhere near accurate,
check with me for the facts. Barry has made up just
about all of what he's posted today about Robin, and
what he hasn't made up from scratch he's wildly
distorted. And he's presented it as if it were
established fact, which should give you an idea of
how much Barry cares about being truthful.

[moved from the bottom]

 I'm just rapping about this because I couldn't believe
 the absolute IDIOCY of the statement I stumbled upon this
 morning suggesting that RC was anti-TM or anti-MMY.
 This is such obvious BS that it could not be allowed to
 stand.

Could not be allowed to stand. This is just delicious,
as if Barry could in his wildest dreams take down what
I said, given all the evidence in Robin's posts that
confirms it. Here's just one example of many:

As long as Maharishi behaved as the perfect human
being, there was nothing I could do but go with my 
experience, which was one of profound devotion and 
love and surrender. Once he began to make missteps, 
once he began to reveal some imperfections, my 
concept of him began to crumble. Now you must 
understand that my appreciation for Maharishi as my 
Master extended even into my Catholicism; but at a 
certain point after reading Aquinas and rejecting my 
enlightenment, I had to reject him too, as well as 
TM. Once I entered into this process Maharishi began 
to show his feet of clay, until mid-way through 1987 
I realized that Maharishi himself, like I was, was 
deceived.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/post?act=replymessageNum=312615

And that's one of Robin's milder utterances to this
effect.

Here's a stronger quote from TM-Free:

But the real data keeps coming in, and there can be no
equivocation on this point: Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was a liar
and a scoundrel (however mighty and majestic he seemed), and
his meditation techniques have wreaked destruction in the
lives of all those human beings whose nervous systems
decided to register and express their mechanical and
objective aversion to what they were forced to undergo in
the act of Transcendental Meditation—and the Sidhis.




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

 --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Jason jedi_spock@ wrote:
 
   ---  Susan wayback71@ wrote:
   
I would not call Robin the most radically anti-TM person 
who's ever been on FFL.  
   
  ---  turquoiseb no_reply@ wrote:
  
   I haven't been following anything that led up to someone
   saying this, but that's the most ridiculous idea I've
   ever heard. Robin is *completely dependent* on both TM
   and Maharishi. His entire story would be meaningless
   without both of them.
   
   He still praises Maharishi and calls him enlightened
   because if he didn't, and MMY was a nobody, then Robin's
   *entire claim to fame* is worthless; a nobody once 
   hinted that he (Robin) was enlightened. 
   
   Besides, Robin depends, for his entire audience, on 
   people who revolve around Maharishi. No one else would
   pay any attention to him or consider him worth listening
   to or reading. His exploits in the 80s depend *entirely*
   on having either Maharishi or MIU to react against.
   
   Whoever said what Susan is responding to is an idiot.
   Robin couldn't go five minutes when trying to impress
   TMers or former TMers without mentioning Maharishi. He
   is more dependent on the man than anyone who has ever
   appeared on Fairfield Life. Maharishi is in a very
   literal sense Robin's crutch, and will always be.
  
  Are you implying that he is a cunning, calculative, 
  publicity seeking and attention seeking hound.?
 
 I am implying nothing. I am making a statement about
 the nature of the relationship between RC and MMY,
 and using it as a springboard to discuss similar 
 relationships across the board in the wider world
 of spiritual practice.
 
 As I see it, RC and MMY didn't have a master-disciple
 relationship. What they had was a rock star-groupie
 relationship. The groupie glommed onto the rock star 
 and followed him everywhere, gaining most if not all 
 of his own sense of self-worth from his proximity to
 the rock star. Any sense of specialness in the groupie
 was gained from nearness to something/someone even more 
 special, the rock star.
 
 One day the rock star happened to say to the groupie 
 in passing, Wow, dude...you're the most *special* of
 all my special groupies. You've attained specialnessitude
 yourself. The rock star probably forgot saying it five
 minutes later, and thought nothing more about it. But 
 for the groupie, this was a life-changing event. 
 
 So the groupie went out on the road and tried to launch 
 his own career as a wannabe rock star, *based on nothing 
 more than what one other rock star to whom he had been a 
 groupie said about him*. Naturally, the only people he
 could appeal to or 

[FairfieldLife] Master-Disciple or Rock Star-Groupie? (was Re: The Wisdom of Chopra...)

[authfriend]

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Jason jedi_spock@... wrote:
snip
 Judy kinda trusts Robins experiences and follows him nose 
 to bum. That's her privelege of course.

I trust that when he says he had a life-changing experience,
that's what he had.

What I've been doing, if you've been paying attention,
is correcting misconceptions and misstatements about
what Robin has said here (Robin's been doing a lot of
that himself as well). As Robin himself noted, that
doesn't mean I necessarily agree with everything he's
said.

Do you understand that distinction, Jason?

[FairfieldLife] Master-Disciple or Rock Star-Groupie? (was Re: The Wisdom of Chopra...)

[Robin Carlsen]

Dear Barry,

Again, I feel how you have perfectly captured the story of my relationship to 
Maharishi, my enlightenment, and my history as a poster on FFL. What I think 
many people miss about you, Barry, is your determination to seek the point 
where there is the greatest concentration of the truth. It would be very easy 
to just let your feelings get the better of you and then find something to say 
about me which you knew was prejudicial and unfair. This is not what I get in 
this post about the rock star-groupie story. I get the truth, and I think it 
a very fair and generous way to depict my relationship with Maharishi. I don't 
know about how others on this forum will react to your post, Barry, but if they 
knew what I know: that you have been inspired to tell the truth about me, they 
would instantly recognize that you have given the very fullest account that was 
possible in seeing Maharishi as a rock star and me as his groupie. When I first 
read the post, Barry, it literally stopped my heart: It wasn't just that I 
recognized the truth of what you were saying; it was the liberating and 
chastening effect it had upon my whole being. But there is only one problem—and 
I know neither you nor anyone else would be likely to believe this: but please 
hear me out, Barry. The appositeness of your comparing Maharishi to a rock star 
and me to a groupie was so extreme that—and here it comes: get ready for it—*I 
found myself slipping back into Unity Consciousness*. But hold it: *This time 
it's for real*.  Now I am certain every person who is reading this sentence 
will think: Ah, that Robin guy: reaching for the irony again. But you see, 
Barry, *I am not*. I am telling the truth. Somehow in the strangest of 
paradoxes, by ridiculing and demeaning me—always from the pure motive of 
wanting others to see the truth—you have so humbled and humiliated me, that my 
ego was seized by The Absolute, and in that moment, suddenly all that remained 
was Atman. Robin was gone. This is Atman expressing his gratitude to you, 
Barry, for destroying that little Canadian punk who has made your life so 
miserable ever since he came onto FFL. Well, Barry, he ain't here no more.. And 
he's not coming back. It is only the Self who is finishing this. Robin is no 
more, Barry. Robin is no more. And you, your name is celebrated throughout 
creation for this deed. No one knows what a beautiful deed you have performed 
here, Barry Wright. But I Atman do. I do. And I am the only I that counts. Jai 
Guru Dev
 
  Are you implying that he is a cunning, calculative, 
  publicity seeking and attention seeking hound.?
 
 I am implying nothing. I am making a statement about
 the nature of the relationship between RC and MMY,
 and using it as a springboard to discuss similar 
 relationships across the board in the wider world
 of spiritual practice.
 
 As I see it, RC and MMY didn't have a master-disciple
 relationship. What they had was a rock star-groupie
 relationship. The groupie glommed onto the rock star 
 and followed him everywhere, gaining most if not all 
 of his own sense of self-worth from his proximity to
 the rock star. Any sense of specialness in the groupie
 was gained from nearness to something/someone even more 
 special, the rock star.
 
 One day the rock star happened to say to the groupie 
 in passing, Wow, dude...you're the most *special* of
 all my special groupies. You've attained specialnessitude
 yourself. The rock star probably forgot saying it five
 minutes later, and thought nothing more about it. But 
 for the groupie, this was a life-changing event. 
 
 So the groupie went out on the road and tried to launch 
 his own career as a wannabe rock star, *based on nothing 
 more than what one other rock star to whom he had been a 
 groupie said about him*. Naturally, the only people he
 could appeal to or expect to attend *his* concerts were
 those who already were groupies for the original rock
 star, so he pitched his I'm special now, too spiel 
 to them. 
 
 When the rock star found out, he hit the roof. How dare
 this little twerp claim that he's special, just because
 of some offhand remark I made to him? So he smushed the
 upstart groupie and forgot about him. But the groupie, 
 now having had a taste of what it felt like to be considered
 a rock star himself, couldn't live with being smushed. He
 launched campaign after campaign to discredit the rock star
 or prove that he was either his equal (back then) or his
 superior (now). And, of course, the only people on Earth
 who cared about any of these drama queen hysterics were
 people who once revered (or still revered) the rock star.
 
 That was RC's schtick then, and it's his schtick now. End
 of story. 
 
 He hangs out on TM- and MMY-centric forums because *no one
 else on Earth would give a shit about his stories*. The
 stories all *depend* on finding an audience who revere or
 revered the same rock star. And the former groupie, now
 wannabe rock star