[FairfieldLife] Re: The Trouble With Normal
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sandiego108 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, yifuxero yifuxero@ wrote: --The universe is perfect. Only in an Absolute sense; but we are talking about relative matters. The universe is perfect, imperfect, and all shades in-between. If the universe is solely perfect, then it would be incomplete, since completeness would require a degree of imperfection. snip. My experience is that the universe is perfect in an absolute and relative sense. Both together create and manifest its perfection, every moment. As it changes and evolves and grows it does so in perfection, in every particle of time and every moment of space. --Reverend Sandi Ego If you really think it so perfect, why do other people annoy you so much?
[FairfieldLife] Re: The Trouble With Normal
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Sal Sunshine salsunshine@ wrote: On Apr 11, 2008, at 2:23 PM, TurquoiseB wrote: Everybody Loves to see Justice done On somebody else That's really it, Barry. Jim avoids answering Angela's question because it highlights so well his own callousness and sense of entitlement. Yes, Bruce just nailed it. He does that. His lyrics are perfect for *many* occasions. :-) Here's another old song, written in 1981. That's 27 years ago, twenty years before 9/11. He nailed it then, too. And, interestingly enough, he nailed *now* then, too. It got worse. Strikes across the frontier and strikes for higher wage Planet lurches to the right as ideologies engage Suddenly it's repression, moratorium on rights What did they think the politics of panic would invite? Person in the street shrugs -- Security comes first But the trouble with normal is it always gets worse Callous men in business costume speak computerese Play pinball with the Third World trying to keep it on its knees Their single crop starvation plans put sugar in your tea And the local Third World's kept on reservations you don't see It'll all go back to normal if we put our nation first But the trouble with normal is it always gets worse Fashionable fascism dominates the scene When ends don't meet it's easier to justify the means Tenants get the dregs and landlords get the cream As the grinding devolution of the democratic dream Brings us men in gas masks dancing while the shells burst The trouble with normal is it always gets worse I knew I recognised that title, so I followed the thread back and there's some damn good lyrics I'd forgotten. Shame it just stays relevant.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Iowa story
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Angela Mailander [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I guess you should have asked her and hoped that she told you a truthful answer. I once tutored a boy, fourteen, who was diabetic and knew that, therefore, he might lose his ability have sex very early in life. He was in love with a girl thirteen. Clearly she was legally off limits. One day, he asked me how he could make sure that she had as much fun having sex as he did. What would you do in that situation? There's no easy response to that, save the legal one. Lawson
[FairfieldLife] Re: The Trouble With Normal
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, hugheshugo [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sandiego108 sandiego108@ wrote: My experience is that the universe is perfect in an absolute and relative sense. Both together create and manifest its perfection, every moment. As it changes and evolves and grows it does so in perfection, in every particle of time and every moment of space. --Reverend Sandi Ego If you really think it so perfect, why do other people annoy you so much? Bingo. That's really the issue, isn't it? Sal made a good point about language, and its precise use. Here's an important language nitpick that explains for me the difference between what Jim is saying and what he thinks he's saying. It's the distinction between non-attachment and detachment. Jim thinks he's displaying the former, but what many of us are hearing between the lines, as well as in the words he chooses themselves, is that he's really expressing the latter. There is also a difference between feeling the world's pain deeply and having compassion for it and at the same time believing that on some level things are perfect, and believing that the world is perfect because one is not *able* to feel or empathize with its pain. In my experience, real enlightened beings tend to fall into the former category. The current Dalai Lama is a good example IMO. When you meet him, he has a strong element of non-attachment about him, but at the same time he never fails to step up to the plate and *do something* when doing something is called for. Also in my experience, those who have merely con- vinced themselves that they are enlightened tend to fall into the latter category. The ways that they *express* their belief that everything is perfect with the world tends to use language that suggests that they probably wouldn't go out of their way to *change* anything that causes other sentient beings suffering. They can't be bothered to do so because they can't *feel* that suffering. Thus the status quo is just *fine*, because it doesn't affect them personally. Is this a clear definition of enlightenment or non-enlightenment? Of course not. But it does express a personal preference in who I'd rather hang with, and who gets my respect. I don't have a lot of respect for those who go with the flow and accept the evils of the world as if they were somehow necessary and right and a reflection of some abstract concept they call dharma. I don't have a lot of respect for those who *justify* the state of the world with it's all perfect. As an old teacher of mine used to say, Those who go with the flow end up down the drain.
[FairfieldLife] Re: The Trouble With Normal
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, hugheshugo [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sandiego108 sandiego108@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, yifuxero yifuxero@ wrote: --The universe is perfect. Only in an Absolute sense; but we are talking about relative matters. The universe is perfect, imperfect, and all shades in-between. If the universe is solely perfect, then it would be incomplete, since completeness would require a degree of imperfection. snip. My experience is that the universe is perfect in an absolute and relative sense. Both together create and manifest its perfection, every moment. As it changes and evolves and grows it does so in perfection, in every particle of time and every moment of space. --Reverend Sandi Ego If you really think it so perfect, why do other people annoy you so much? I imagine he'll say that his being annoyed with other people is also perfect. I think Sri Sri Sandi Ego-ji's perspective is likely the same as Byron Katie's or Eckhart Tolle's in that there is no attachment to now being different than what it is. Yes, they all probably have a preference for how things ideally would be, and those ideals may very well differ from how things are right now. But, in acceptance of what is, there is no needless suffering derived from the ego-driven belief that things *should* be different than how they actually are.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: The Trouble With Normal
On Apr 12, 2008, at 2:30 AM, TurquoiseB wrote: It's the distinction between non-attachment and detachment. Jim thinks he's displaying the former, but what many of us are hearing between the lines, as well as in the words he chooses themselves, is that he's really expressing the latter. There is also a difference between feeling the world's pain deeply and having compassion for it and at the same time believing that on some level things are perfect, and believing that the world is perfect because one is not *able* to feel or empathize with its pain. That's it. Sterility. That's the word that comes to mind when reading Jim's posts as well as others who have been brainwashed by the TM Kool-Aide. There's no heart left (at least in their responses) so they tend to fall back on mindless parroting. And get seriously annoyed when others don't recognize how deep they are. Hugo's question was an excellent one. Why indeed? Sal
[FairfieldLife] Re: The Trouble With Normal
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Alex Stanley [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, hugheshugo richardhughes103@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sandiego108 sandiego108@ wrote: My experience is that the universe is perfect in an absolute and relative sense. Both together create and manifest its perfection, every moment. As it changes and evolves and grows it does so in perfection, in every particle of time and every moment of space. --Reverend Sandi Ego If you really think it so perfect, why do other people annoy you so much? I imagine he'll say that his being annoyed with other people is also perfect. Seems to me I've heard that line somewhere before. :-) It didn't impress me when coming from Maharishi, either. I think Sri Sri Sandi Ego-ji's perspective is likely the same as Byron Katie's or Eckhart Tolle's in that there is no attachment to now being different than what it is. Yes, they all probably have a preference for how things ideally would be, and those ideals may very well differ from how things are right now. But, in acceptance of what is, there is no needless suffering derived from the ego-driven belief that things *should* be different than how they actually are. While this might be a good stance *in theory*, I think the bottom line of it is whether the person who thinks this way actually ever DOES anything when confronted with situations that most human beings feel would require action on their part? In other words, does their personal desire for no needless suffering actually cause suffering in others as a result of their inaction? This is a philosophical stance that is easily abused. How far does this belief that things should not be different than how they actually are GO? Does it, for example, support the caste system and all its injustices in India because that's just how things are? Does is support a tyrant who praises TM because tyrants are just how things are? I don't know about you, but if the perspective you suggest is actually present in real enlight- ened folks and I'm ever getting mugged, I'm gonna want a crowd of good old ignorant, unenlightened folks around me. One of THEM might actually get off his fat ass and call 911, while the enlightened guy is still sitting there telling me that everything is perfect just as it is. All I'm sayin' is that if this happens, *after* the mugger leaves with my wallet I'm going to walk over to the enlightened guy and kick his ass from here to Calcutta, just so that he remembers what needless suffering is really all about.
[FairfieldLife] Another great TED video
If you were inspired by the Jill Bolte Taylor TED talk, you'll probably appreciate this other video from TED: This one's by Christopher Gach de Charmes, author of a book from Wisdom on Abhidharma and cognitive science http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/236
[FairfieldLife] Re: A friend named George
Sal Sunshine [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I personally think people are going to see McCain at the debates next to the charismatic, articulate Obama, and that will be it. Neat. I hadn't thought of it this way. Yea, the debates will pressurize the situation, and if cracks are there, they will likely appear. I have heard many say, first hand, from blue collar types to older white males, that they would not vote for Obaman either because he is a muslim, or because he is black. That was several months ago, so maybe the perception has changed. OTOH, I thought I saw a quote from Obama the other day implying that people in small towns have a kind of backward mentality, if I read it right.
[FairfieldLife] Re: A friend named George
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Louis McKenzie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The latest Gallup poll shows the president's approval dropped to 28 percent, the lowest of his eight years in office. Please cite the poll.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: The Trouble With Normal
On Apr 12, 2008, at 8:14 AM, Alex Stanley wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, hugheshugo [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sandiego108 sandiego108@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, yifuxero yifuxero@ wrote: --The universe is perfect. Only in an Absolute sense; but we are talking about relative matters. The universe is perfect, imperfect, and all shades in-between. If the universe is solely perfect, then it would be incomplete, since completeness would require a degree of imperfection. snip. My experience is that the universe is perfect in an absolute and relative sense. Both together create and manifest its perfection, every moment. As it changes and evolves and grows it does so in perfection, in every particle of time and every moment of space. --Reverend Sandi Ego If you really think it so perfect, why do other people annoy you so much? I imagine he'll say that his being annoyed with other people is also perfect. I think Sri Sri Sandi Ego-ji's perspective is likely the same as Byron Katie's or Eckhart Tolle's in that there is no attachment to now being different than what it is. Yes, they all probably have a preference for how things ideally would be, and those ideals may very well differ from how things are right now. But, in acceptance of what is, there is no needless suffering derived from the ego-driven belief that things *should* be different than how they actually are. This is a common false view often heard by Neo- and Pseudo- advaitins. Deviations from a balanced experience of the Two Truths (the relative and the absolute) are not always obvious, esp. when encoded in new age feel-good speak. It also points out the danger of not having your View (of reality) checked by a master in your practice tradition. One can continue indefinitely like this and cause amazing suffering to others through such spiritual narcissism. A similar erroneous View 'everything is one, so everything is ok' was espoused by a great Pseudo-advaitin, Charles Manson.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: A friend named George
On Apr 12, 2008, at 8:39 AM, lurkernomore20002000 wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Louis McKenzie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The latest Gallup poll shows the president's approval dropped to 28 percent, the lowest of his eight years in office. Please cite the poll. It's all over the news, lurk, a Zogby poll, I think. Just do a search for Bush + 28% and I'm sure you'll find it. You know, I really do appreciate the fact that being married to a conservative, you try to understand that POV. But I also get the feeling it's somewhat of a struggle, too, and much of the time really isn't you. Maybe those are just my blinders though. Sal
[FairfieldLife] Re: From The Huffington Post
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Sal Sunshine [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: APRIL 8, 2008 BETH ARNOLD Does Hillary Have Any Shame? guffaw And Sal accused *me* of posting over-the-top articles! The question is, does *Sal* have any shame? When I asked her to say which of the articles I'd posted she thought were over the top--even giving her a list to refresh her memory--she had no response. Actually, poor Sal probably doesn't even recognize how over-the-top Arnold's piece is, because Sal isn't well informed enough to spot the multiple misrepresentations and distortions.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: A friend named George
On Apr 12, 2008, at 8:36 AM, lurkernomore20002000 wrote: OTOH, I thought I saw a quote from Obama the other day implying that people in small towns have a kind of backward mentality, if I read it right. You didn't. :) Here might be what you're thinking of: But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there's not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations. Sounds like an accurate and honest description of how he sees the situation. Does he have blinders on? Possibly. Like everyone else, he sees things mirrored through his own experiences. But pretending things are great when so many people are miserable and without decent jobs never did anyone any good. In order to try and remedy something you first have to identify the problem. Sounds to me like that's what he's doing. The last sentence is spot on (as Hugo might say) and reflects a very uncomfortable truth that most Americans just either won't face up to, or, like you've done, lurk, (IMO) try to crucify him for, perhaps without thinking. Like I said before, I think being married to a conservative and constantly having to deal with that POV may be coloring your perceptions. Sal
[FairfieldLife] Re: Last post
Samuel Gravina wrote: The other annoying thing is Judy. Sal Sunshine wrote: There is no Judy, she's just a figment of our collective imaginations that we invented to bash each other with during breaks at our respective institutions. :) LOL. You just couldn't resist talking about Judy.
[FairfieldLife] Re: A friend named George
There has not been a successful attack on U.S. soil since 9/11. Louis McKenzie wrote: Richard do you really believe what you are saying or do you like playing devils advocate? Yes, I believe there has NOT been a succesful attack on U.S. soil since 9/11. What do you think Louis?
Re: [FairfieldLife] Jim and God
I've not had time to follow this whole thread, but, reading this post at random, I'd say that Sal and Curtis are doing a fine job defending my ass. The only thing about karma that I know for sure is that it is as unfathomable as God (its alleged author) is; if there ain't one, then karma is as unfathomable as the great and universal as well as necessarily eternal abyss of human ignorance is. That being the case (and it's airtight), I'd have to say that any statement about what anyone deserves in this world is arrogant, stupid, and cruel, not to mention narrow-minded. And I thought so the first time I heard a TM-gov mouthe that piece of fascist bull-shit back in the seventies. Sorry, Jim, I love you, Bro, but that's my honest to God opinion. Speaking of God. Is there or ain't there? It's kind of a non-question. But I'm in the mood to entertain it. Questions exist in the world of language. So do religions. But like language, religions have a universal deep structure and they also have an infinitely various pashyanti, or Jungian, layer. So is there a God? Where God is, there is no question about it. When my grandfather taught me to memorize the Second Chapter of Luke, he took a phrase from it, and used it as a mantra in programming me. When he couldn't or wouldn't answer a question I had, he'd say, Do with words what Mary did--Do what Mary did. In the English Bibles extant, I think none of them grasp the depth of Gramp's reading of Luther for openers into the deep structure of that text, a deep structure which he interpolated from being fluent in about five languages. Multi-lingualism has that effect. That's why you find so many mystics in the history of translation studies. In English, when Mary heard all kinds of outrageous stuff about her baby from the shepherds, the angel, and the three wise guys, not to mention Joseph and her family and the rest of the world, she kept these things and pondered them in her heart. In German, they are not things she ponders, they are words. That makes a world of difference. Also, in German, she doesn't ponder. What she does is linguistically really complicated in terms of generating a field of meaning, rather than a single point. She gives truth to the words in her heart, where she guards them, and in guarding them, she also gives them paths to travel until they arrive at spirit and illuminate all there is. --- curtisdeltablues [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: You claimed things are going along just perfectly, that everyone gets what they deserve, and that that's karma, baby. Angela asked, quite reasonably, if you then believed that children that suffered horrible fates were getting what they deserve. This inherent cruelty and victimizing the victim is really at the core of karmic theory. Since no one experiences karmic law directly, it is another dusty old theory from a culture who didn't even understand the circulation of blood. (hint: the heart is key) That isn't to say it was a uniquely ignorant culture. They understood plenty of stuff about human nature and political realities of power and we are standing on their shoulders today. But to give them credit for understanding such an ultimate principle of the universe pushes my credulity too far. You have to also believe that their gods were unique among mythological creations of man and could actually describe such mechanics to human intelligence. Again with the its in the scripture so it must be true epistemological basis for the claim. Isn't everyone just tired of this claim? It is so transparently bogus with all the scriptures disagreeing on even the most basic ultimate questions. And with the playboy Krishna dropping the Unfathomable bomb on us concerning our ability to understand Karma, we are left as we were before, humans scratching our heads about why shit happens. We don't know, and pat explanations like Karmic theory doesn't advance our understanding at all IMO. It just gives certain people the unwarranted smugness that they understand why some kids are born deformed while the rest of us are left with the less tidy, but more honest statement, that we haven't got a freak'n clue about why there is suffering in the world. The question seems irrelevant to any efforts to reduce suffering a tad. Very interesting intersection of religious and secular world views n this discussion. Thanks for bringing it up Angela, Jim and Sal. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Sal Sunshine [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Apr 11, 2008, at 11:48 AM, sandiego108 wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Angela Mailander mailander111@ wrote: Do you feel comfortable in asserting that, for example, children being burned by white phosphorus is what they deserved? Do you think that feelings such as that may incur their own karma? What would you have me do with
[FairfieldLife] Re: A question for Tolle students
Patrick Gillam wrote: I agree with Eckhart Tolle's observation that being present in the now confers power and peace. Yet I constantly find my awareness hijacked by thoughts of past or future scenarios whose obvious purpose is to inflate my ego. Why would I be subject to these obviously fallacious mind states if I'm fine as I Am? Just wondering. Edg: I see no difficulty in being in the now and having a thought in the now about other thoughts that were in another now that is either before or after the now of the thought about the thought. Something like that. The now is not a TIME thingie. It's stepping outside of time. Using the metaphor of witnessing sleep, dream, and waking states, we see that being in the now is being where past, present, and future are transcended -- in fact, the enlightened person is NOT IN THE PRESENT either. The present is not the now. The present is merely the wavefront of time -- not the now that contains it. Now and Being have nothing to do with time or state of consciousness. Edg
[FairfieldLife] Re: A friend named George
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Sal Sunshine [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Apr 12, 2008, at 8:36 AM, lurkernomore20002000 wrote: OTOH, I thought I saw a quote from Obama the other day implying that people in small towns have a kind of backward mentality, if I read it right. You didn't. :) Actually, he read it exactly right. Here might be what you're thinking of: snip [quoting Obama] And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti- immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations. snip The last sentence is spot on (as Hugo might say) and reflects a very uncomfortable truth that most Americans just either won't face up to, or, like you've done, lurk, (IMO) try to crucify him for, perhaps without thinking. Like I said before, I think being married to a conservative and constantly having to deal with that POV may be coloring your perceptions. Actually many progressives are reacting strongly to that last sentence as well, pointing out, among other things, that religion and hunting were central to these people's lives since *long* before the economic collapse of their regions, a fact of which Obama appears to be blissfully unaware. Moreover, if you review his famous race speech, you'll find him according legitimacy to working- class folks' resentment of blacks, specifically with regard to welfare and affirmative action. So it seems he's trying to have it both ways. In his 2004 convention speech, Obama declared that people worship an awesome God in the blue states. Slate's Mickey Kaus points out that Obama's story now seems to be, They worship an awesome God in the blue states because they're bitter about stagnant wages! Whatever his understanding of the economic situation in Pennsylvania, his understanding of the people is condescending and elitist at best.
[FairfieldLife] Mad As Hell
Those of you who have convinced yourselves that the media have been perfectly fair to Hillary, have even given her a pass, might want to watch this amateur video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcdnlNZg2iM (Barry will love the first half, but he should be warned not to watch the second half; I don't think he'd be able to deal with the cognitive dissonance.)
[FairfieldLife] Re: From Newsweek
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Sal Sunshine [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Well, spare, this is what you were saying. Newsweek seems to agree with you: *Newsweek* seems to agree with Lawson??? A Silver Lining In the Blue Battle Hillary's destructive coup attempt: it's a good thing for the Democratic Party. Markos Moulitsas NEWSWEEK snip Moulitsas, a NEWSWEEK contributor, is the publisher of Dailykos.com, a progressive Web site. Sal apparently doesn't know who Markos Moulitsas is. She probably doesn't even know that columnists for a publication don't necessarily represent the publication's editorial view. Or maybe she thinks Moulitsas's column was an editorial!
[FairfieldLife] Pro TM press
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24069366/ They couldn't have done better if they wrote this themselves!
[FairfieldLife] Re: Update on Clinton Hospital Story -- More True Than Not?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Sal Sunshine [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Apr 7, 2008, at 8:22 PM, Marek Reavis wrote: http://tinyurl.com/5hhe65 But a closer examination of the story Clinton was originally told indicates that while Clinton erred slightly in relaying the tragic tale, that doesn't mean it's not fundamentally true. On that, the jury is still out. Marek, Here's the thing I don't quite understand--with all the *true* stories out there they could have used, why did they pick as their main one a story whose details they didn't even bother to verify, or even find out if they *were* verifiable? My guess is, because all the verified ones would tend to be much more prosaic, with details that actually made sense. So many in this one don't. But since Clinton can't be bothered with details, and since she's sure her audience won't bother to question her, she probably figures being sloppy won't matter. It's all of the same mindset that allows someone to vote for a war they know is bogus, and then refuse to talk about or explain it. She simply figured she would get away with it. It shows, to say the least, the same contempt for the voters, including her own supporters, that she has pretty much shown since she became a senator. So utterly absurd. The details make perfect sense, and Hillary had all the significant facts correct. What's appalling is that the MSM jumped on her for purportedly getting the story all wrong because *they* didn't check the facts, then used it to pump their faux narrative that she's a chronic liar--when in fact she had the story mostly correct, and the MSM completely ignored the vastly more important point about the sorry state of our health care system. Here's Sal, who at least reads a little bit about politics, and yet she doesn't know enough to interpret what she reads. She doesn't know who Markos Moulitsas is; she thinks of him as representing Newsweek. And she hasn't a clue what the ramifications are of the story about the woman who died after her child was stillborn. Nor does she know what Clinton has said about her vote for the AUMF--even believes that Clinton has refused to talk about it or explain it. She's never read Hillary's floor speech before the vote, either. It's a wonder that we're still a democratic republic at all when so many voters are even more poorly informed than Sal. They're completely at the mercy of the MSM, if they pay any attention to it in the first place.
[FairfieldLife] What happened to TinyURL.com?
What happened to TinyURL.com? OffWorld
[FairfieldLife] Re: Perfection in what IS
Angela Mailander wrote: That's all well and good, but it is another thing to say that those who suffer have deserved it. Language matters. Words matter. Edg: Words matter to whom? Seems to me that the whom part trumps the words part. Writing here at FFL has been an education for me about the limitations on communication. One huge dynamic is that we all have our own dictionaries on-board, and when I say to someone, I love you, they may hear, I hate you. That's stating the concept in the extreme, it may seem, but is it? Let's look. If you walk into one of my home and see a sepia toned photo of a five year old boy in clothing from 90 years ago, your immediate take about the photo would be some sort of best guess about who the person was/is to me in order to make sense of why, of all my photos, this one gets on my wall. Whereas, if I walk into the room, I see my life-mate's father as a little boy who will, within 20 years, get his pilot license, marry a woman who was then the youngest woman pilot in Wisconsin history, serve in WWII, and go on to run a local airport as a family business and end up in the Wisconsin Aviation Hall of Fame. Quite a gulf in what the same experience triggers in your and my minds, eh? So? Well my entire home is a set of such triggers, and you seeing it cannot give you the information it contains when I see it. Only I can see this information. And that's the tell. The information is not in the room. It's all my projection of ego upon it, and I am deluded if I'm showing you around the house and I say, Here's a photo of her father, because, it's not, and instead it's merely paper saturated with chemicals that I deem to be a photo -- to a goat it might be food, to you it must necessarily be differently triggering than it is to me. So, how can you and I inhabit the same universe? I'm projecting my information upon the same objects that you're projecting your information upon and the twains ain't agonna meet. This is the primal spiritual challenge - to understand egoic-unity consciousness -- we see our small selves projected everywhere. Here a me, there a me, everywhere a me, me, Old McDonald had a mind . . . When I consider how little is symbolized by words, I come to understand the false power I've given them. I am a wonderful writer, but I have not dented in the least the POVs presented here. And if I was told I had, I would suspect that the other person had merely found a way to project meaning into my words that they very much want them to have -- and any similarities between the projections of any two minds might be best understood as sheer coincidence. At FFL to see how folks talk past each other's minds, how definitions are fuzzy to the max, how emotions lock in projections, how denial is bone deep, how dogma is skewed on the spot to mean anything the true believer wants it to mean, and how a dead child in Iraq is seen as a victory for democracy. Nah, words don't count. And I'm glad, cuz, if they did, I'd be morally obligated to go around talking to everyone in order to set them straight, cuz I am wise donchaknow. THANK GOD words are what they are -- they're like balloons thrown violently but that end up settling down to merely drifting in the air within a second of leaving one's hand. They have no clout -- even puff of air will move them. So, when we consider suffering in the world and karma and God's revenging tap dance on all our heads, the first thing we need to do is understand that our words are probably the worse possible way to approach the issues. Blind guys feeling up an elephant is all it is. Even beloved Lurk is thinking he could vote for McCain sorta. The Illuminati know this, eh? Edg --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Angela Mailander [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: All that is is right. That is true for me, certainly, and always has been. Moreover, compassion is built into the structure of manifestation. That's all well and good, but it is another thing to say that those who suffer have deserved it. Language matters. Words matter. Another thing that matters is that those who can do something to ease suffering should count themselves blessed. But the sentence I reacted to had a ring to it that would have hurt a person in pain. A person who is suffering is not eased by being told, You deserve to suffer. And if you would not say it to a person in pain, why say it at all? --- Vaj [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Apr 11, 2008, at 4:35 PM, sandiego108 wrote: A controversy has been created here in response to a question that essentially questions why things are (Am I OK with children being burned with white phosphorous? Is that perfection?). I initially made a statement that the world seen from an enlightened perspective is perfect; everyone gets exactly what they deserve. True for me, and all of the other billions of souls. The Universe operates no
[FairfieldLife] Re: Update on Clinton Hospital Story -- More True Than Not?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Sal Sunshine salsunshine@ wrote: On Apr 7, 2008, at 10:28 PM, Marek Reavis wrote: I don't think she had any inkling about how long the war would last or how much that one vote has dogged her campaign and has become the pivot point for her rival to use against her. A mighty miscalculation. No kidding. But even that still doesn't explain why to this day she refuses to apologize or even explain her vote. It's the worst kind of stubbornness, and shows people her true colors, how she represents old politics... Of course, she has explained it over and over and OVER again. She hasn't apologized per se, but she's acknowledged it was a mistake and that she regrets it. And just old period. Hmm. I wonder if Barry would be deriding the candidate on the basis of age if that candidate were male. Somehow I seriously doubt it. (For the record, there have been only two presidents in the past century who were younger than Hillary when elected, JFK and Bill Clinton.) ...cynical politics, the politics of expedience, without thought for anyone else or the common good. Maybe people are finally waking up to how destructive that really is. Not to name names :-), but doesn't Hillary's act remind you of other people, say, some of her fervent supporters? They, too seem *incapable* of acknow- ledging an error of judgment, and when it's brought up, they tend to divert attention away from it by attacking the person who pointed it out. With regard to her Iraq vote, again, she has acknowledged it was an error many times. Like flocks to like, I guess. The bottom line for me is that Hillary represents in politics what Edg represents in morality -- OLD AND IN THE WAY. She may *pose* as still being a fiery liberal with values, but anyone who has followed what she DOES vs. what she says knows that it's a pose. Her policies and her proposals and her track record all support the status quo and preserving it no matter what. And of course that isn't true either. Nobody who actually knows what her policies, proposals, and track record are could say such a thing. For anybody who's interested in what her policies and proposals are, here's a summary (click on the individual items for more details): http://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/ And here's a recap of her track record, as first lady-- http://www.hillaryclinton.com/about/firstlady/ --and in the Senate: http://www.hillaryclinton.com/about/senator/ She may not be as liberal as some of us would like, but given the current perfectly dreadful status quo, to claim she *supports* it can only be a function of either malice or profound ignorance. The thing about people who value the status quo above all else is that they've gotten OLD. They have accom- plished things in their lives. And now they are more concerned with protecting those accomplishments than with helping others accomplish things of their own. Hillary's allegiance is to Big Bucks, period, because that's what she needs to preserve her status, and the status quo. Totally wrong. I see her as no different *in any way* than George W. Bush or Dick Cheney. In fact, I see her as less honest than they are, because she pretends to be something she isn't. As we all know to our great sorrow, it was that horribly mistaken perception of no difference between the Republican and the Democrat in 2000 that led to Ralph Nader's candidacy and the eventual election of George W. Bush. Like Ralph Nader in the last elections, Hillary would rather be a spoiler in this one Barry's confused (surprise!). Nader was a spoiler because he ran as a third-party candidate in the general election, garnering less than 3 percent of the vote. Hillary is running in the Democratic primary with, to date, almost half the popular vote. If she loses the nomination, she will not be running in the general election. duh and make her party lose the election than drop out and throw her support to someone else. There is nobody in the entire country who wants their party to win the election more than Hillary Clinton. That's why she has stayed in the race, because she is absolutely convinced that Obama will lose to McCain, and she believes she still has a chance to beat him. Regardless, if Obama eventually gets the nomination, Hillary and Bill and most of her supporters will work their tails off for him. She's *self* motivated. She cares nothing about anything *but* self and what *it* wants, as far as I can tell. And, as far as I can tell, her fanatical supporters think exactly the same way. (Fanatical = disagree vigorously with Barry.) Unfortunately, as documented above, as far as Barry can tell is effectively zero.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: A friend named George
Go to CNN.com --- lurkernomore20002000 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Louis McKenzie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The latest Gallup poll shows the president's approval dropped to 28 percent, the lowest of his eight years in office. Please cite the poll. To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!'Yahoo! Groups Links mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
[FairfieldLife] Re: Perfection in what IS
I have shifted many of my POVs considerably by reading posts here Edg. It is not just one person's post, but the shifting shapes of POVs being expressed reminding me of gray zones where I had sometimes colored black and white. Words here do have the power to shift a person's POV but it isn't as if anyone here is weak minded enough just to adopt the other person's POV. Like herding cats from one room to another, they don't end up in the new room. But the new room is suddenly full of pussy... Oh sorry, I guess I got a little carried away with that analogy. But you get my point. This is an intellectual washing machine and you can't help but get influenced by taking a tumble. (Now that's a CLEAN analogy!) --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Angela Mailander wrote: That's all well and good, but it is another thing to say that those who suffer have deserved it. Language matters. Words matter. Edg: Words matter to whom? Seems to me that the whom part trumps the words part. Writing here at FFL has been an education for me about the limitations on communication. One huge dynamic is that we all have our own dictionaries on-board, and when I say to someone, I love you, they may hear, I hate you. That's stating the concept in the extreme, it may seem, but is it? Let's look. If you walk into one of my home and see a sepia toned photo of a five year old boy in clothing from 90 years ago, your immediate take about the photo would be some sort of best guess about who the person was/is to me in order to make sense of why, of all my photos, this one gets on my wall. Whereas, if I walk into the room, I see my life-mate's father as a little boy who will, within 20 years, get his pilot license, marry a woman who was then the youngest woman pilot in Wisconsin history, serve in WWII, and go on to run a local airport as a family business and end up in the Wisconsin Aviation Hall of Fame. Quite a gulf in what the same experience triggers in your and my minds, eh? So? Well my entire home is a set of such triggers, and you seeing it cannot give you the information it contains when I see it. Only I can see this information. And that's the tell. The information is not in the room. It's all my projection of ego upon it, and I am deluded if I'm showing you around the house and I say, Here's a photo of her father, because, it's not, and instead it's merely paper saturated with chemicals that I deem to be a photo -- to a goat it might be food, to you it must necessarily be differently triggering than it is to me. So, how can you and I inhabit the same universe? I'm projecting my information upon the same objects that you're projecting your information upon and the twains ain't agonna meet. This is the primal spiritual challenge - to understand egoic-unity consciousness -- we see our small selves projected everywhere. Here a me, there a me, everywhere a me, me, Old McDonald had a mind . . . When I consider how little is symbolized by words, I come to understand the false power I've given them. I am a wonderful writer, but I have not dented in the least the POVs presented here. And if I was told I had, I would suspect that the other person had merely found a way to project meaning into my words that they very much want them to have -- and any similarities between the projections of any two minds might be best understood as sheer coincidence. At FFL to see how folks talk past each other's minds, how definitions are fuzzy to the max, how emotions lock in projections, how denial is bone deep, how dogma is skewed on the spot to mean anything the true believer wants it to mean, and how a dead child in Iraq is seen as a victory for democracy. Nah, words don't count. And I'm glad, cuz, if they did, I'd be morally obligated to go around talking to everyone in order to set them straight, cuz I am wise donchaknow. THANK GOD words are what they are -- they're like balloons thrown violently but that end up settling down to merely drifting in the air within a second of leaving one's hand. They have no clout -- even puff of air will move them. So, when we consider suffering in the world and karma and God's revenging tap dance on all our heads, the first thing we need to do is understand that our words are probably the worse possible way to approach the issues. Blind guys feeling up an elephant is all it is. Even beloved Lurk is thinking he could vote for McCain sorta. The Illuminati know this, eh? Edg --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Angela Mailander mailander111@ wrote: All that is is right. That is true for me, certainly, and always has been. Moreover, compassion is built into the structure of manifestation. That's all well and good, but it is another thing to say that those who suffer have deserved it. Language matters. Words
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: A friend named George
What do you think Richard? Is that anti-climatical or what? If they could set up homeland security so strong after it would have been amazing to see what could have happened if they did it before. --- Richard J. Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: There has not been a successful attack on U.S. soil since 9/11. Louis McKenzie wrote: Richard do you really believe what you are saying or do you like playing devils advocate? Yes, I believe there has NOT been a succesful attack on U.S. soil since 9/11. What do you think Louis? To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!'Yahoo! Groups Links mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
[FairfieldLife] Re: Update on Clinton Hospital Story -- More True Than Not?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Sal Sunshine [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Apr 7, 2008, at 10:28 PM, Marek Reavis wrote: snip I don't think she had any inkling about how long the war would last or how much that one vote has dogged her campaign and has become the pivot point for her rival to use against her. A mighty miscalculation. No kidding. But even that still doesn't explain why to this day she refuses to apologize or even explain her vote. She has, in fact, explained it many times. She's said it was a mistake and that she regrets it, that if she had known then what she knows now, she would never have voted for it. She says she doesn't think she needs to apologize, however, because she was misled by false intelligence. Marek notes that she acknowledges she didn't read the full 2002 intelligence report before her vote for the AUMF, but he fails to mention that only six senators did actually read it before the vote. He also fails to note that the AUMF, while it authorized Bush to go to war against Iraq, included very crucial conditions that Bush failed to fulfill. He and Sal might want to read her floor speech before the vote to learn what she actually expected of the AUMF: http://clinton.senate.gov/speeches/iraq_101002.html And here's a detailed explanation of the issues involved with her vote for the AUMF: http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/011884.php It's the worst kind of stubbornness, and shows people her true colors, how she represents old politics, cynical politics, the politics of expedience, without thought for anyone else or the common good. Maybe people are finally waking up to how destructive that really is. Given that Sal repeatedly fails to get her facts straight, I'm not sure she's in a position to say anything about what Hillary's true colors are. Robert Creamer has good piece at the HuffPost about how the way to evaluate which of the two Democrats would be the better executive officer is to look at how each has run their campaign. It's a good, insightful analysis, and not surprisingly, it comes out on the side of Obama. But then, just look at how his campaign is run. Oddly enough, despite what even many Hillary supporters feel has been a terribly run campaign, the two of them are still neck and neck. If her campaign is so awful and his is so well run, how come he hasn't managed to close the deal long since? (Not to mention that his campaign has had the success it's had based on some of the dirtiest tricks I've ever seen pulled in presidential politics, as well as a huge assist from the Hillary-hating media.)
[FairfieldLife] Re: Jim and God
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Angela Mailander [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I've not had time to follow this whole thread, but, reading this post at random, I'd say that Sal and Curtis are doing a fine job defending my ass. The only thing about karma that I know for sure is that it is as unfathomable as God (its alleged author) is; if there ain't one, then karma is as unfathomable as the great and universal as well as necessarily eternal abyss of human ignorance is. That being the case (and it's airtight), I'd have to say that any statement about what anyone deserves in this world is arrogant, stupid, and cruel, not to mention narrow-minded. snip How childish of you, Sal and Curtis, given my remark that the Universe operates in an absolutely neutral way, and THEREFORE everyone gets exactly what they deserve. Again, you haven't answered, nor has weasely Sal, nor Curtis, about why you instantly assumed I am talking about what is deserved from a standpoint of suffering. Not one of the three of you has given me a reason why you run my words through this peculiar filter. I can only conclude that the Universe, according to Angela, Sal and Curtis gives some what they deserve, and others are treated differently, specially. Why some of us are singled out, and the rest of us must merely make do with all of the universal laws is a mystery to me. Sounds just as arrogant, stupid, and cruel, not to mention as narrow-minded as my words strike you. Gee I hope the three of you end up in the select group that is not subject to the neutral laws of the universe. Oh right, you're already there. In that case, I bow down to the god-like egos of Angela, Sal and Curtis. I will leave the three of you to your very special place in the Universe, and go back to the other 99.999%. Sounds truly insane to me, but if you folks are happy with it, OK.
[FairfieldLife] Re: And who, by his chosen associations...
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Marek Reavis [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Like anything Christopher Hitchens writes, the primary argument is alloyed with all sorts of base metals. He's interesting to read and frequently insightful but essentially he's a polemicist and makes his living by being interestingly controversial. No where near as fun to read as Hunter S. Thompson was. Like Bob Brigante's characterization of Obama as being a bullshit artist, Hitchens' characterization of him being the smooth talking front man for second-class shakedown artists seems more the caricature of a political cartoon than a thoughtful critique. Unfortunately, Marek, most people don't vote on the basis of thoughtful critiques, they vote on the basis of the political cartoons that catch their fancy. Obama *should have realized* his association with Wright would provide material for some very powerful political cartoons. Even those who find Wright to be largely on target should be able to recognize the serious lapse of judgment involved on Obama's part.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Cooties vs. Compassion
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, satvadude108 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Sal Sunshine salsunshine@ wrote: On Apr 5, 2008, at 11:57 AM, authfriend wrote: So you are not a Sidha Lawson? He is a Sidha. He's talking about plain-vanilla TM above. So you clipped off the other questions satvadude asked, Judy? Presumably they weren't convenient ones, even though you know the answers. So here they are again: So you are not a Sidha Lawson? Why? Such a strong proponent of the teachings but never taken the sidhis? Why? Is it true what I have read here that you are not regular in your meditations? Why? Sal Thank you Sal, she does things like that and then claims purity of intent. I woulda missed it as I am behind in reading messages here and frequently skip reading her BS. What she refers to as intellectual tennis is actually evade, change the subject, and attack. Tedious, boring, and currish. Would she think the prolific poster Lawson couldn't answer for himself? No, asshole. Lawson often skips several days, and I thought I might as well provide the one fact I knew to answer four of your five nasty questions in case he skipped some posts when he returned in order to catch up. Sal is so brainless in her hostility to me that she apparently thought Why are you not a Sidha? and Such a strong proponent of the teachings but have never taken the sidhis? and Why? remained to be answered once it was clear Lawson *was* a sidha. As I went on to explain to the dim-witted Sal, I didn't know (and neither did she) whether Lawson had again become regular in his practice, so I couldn't help out with that one. That either of you saw some evil intent in my response is quite remarkable. And it's *especially* remarkable from someone who styles himself satvadude. (From satvadude's follow-up post:) Please let the man speak for himself and keep your snake comments to yourself. (Snake comments?) Actually, I'll make whatever comments I wish. No cigar, sorry. You make a statement like this indicating you won something and Sal lost. No, just that Sal had stupidly attempted to get me and failed. How curious and odd since you were not asked anything and your convenient clipping diverted a discussion. I guess you're too stupid to understand what I wrote above too. There was no convenient clipping, and no diversion of any discussion. Sal was right on the money. Sal is an asshole with zero integrity, and so are you.
[FairfieldLife] Re: The Trouble With Normal
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, hugheshugo [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If you really think it so perfect, why do other people annoy you so much? This is the mistake that I spoke about earlier, where I said that the dualistic mind will equate perfection with inertia; stop the world, it is perfect! This is similar to the mistake Barry continually makes, when he cannot resolve the simulataneous realities of my enlightenment with my sometimes forceful personality. This ongoing, monent to moment perfection that is my experience is not exclusionary of anything; not my annoyance, nor those who annoy me, nothing. When my mind was dualistic and ignorant, my mind wanted perfection to be on its own terms; everything would be perfect, IF... I have no such feelings in my mind. Not to be confused by my personality. Enlightenment does not mean playing nice. Enlightenment is way of being, a state of consciousness. Everything is available, even annoyance, which is absolutely perfect, as our your words and my words, and those who annoy me. Surprise, perfection is not some goal that I narrowly define. It is ongoing dynamic reality.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Is self medication ever Self medication?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, ispiritkin ispiritkin@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB wrote: So, thought I, if Rama self medicated with Valium, what would be the mental symptoms caused by valerian, the herb from which Valium was synthesized? Here they are: Changeable disposition. Feels light, as if floating in air. Over-sensitiveness. Halluci- nations at night. Irritable. Tremulous. Going from one extreme to another; from highest joy to deepest grief; from leniency, kindness and mildness to grumbling impatience, obstinacy and quarrelsomeness. Nervous, excitable and weak. Dreads being alone. Delusions, impres- sions of danger, thinks he is poor. Fear on entering room. Extremely delirious, threatening and vociferating wildly. Just for the record, these are really nonspecific symptoms. They may be consequences of valerian overdose, but they're by no means unique to valerian. (And you don't even have to look up the effects of valerian to find them; they're also listed as potential side effects of--guess what?--Valium.) snip Whereas on some spiritual paths, some of these mental attributes and characteristics are actually looked upon as Something good is happening. Take Going from one extreme to another; from highest joy to deepest grief. How many times have we heard people on FFL or in our lives refer to these mood swings as spiritual exper- iences? There are many who *value* extreme moods and overwhelming waves of emotion, and who consider them signs of approaching (or present) enlightenment. Huh, I can't recall anyone on FFL ever saying anything remotely like this.
[FairfieldLife] Re: The Trouble With Normal
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: snip I don't know about you, but if the perspective you suggest is actually present in real enlight- ened folks and I'm ever getting mugged, I'm gonna want a crowd of good old ignorant, unenlightened folks around me. One of THEM might actually get off his fat ass and call 911, while the enlightened guy is still sitting there telling me that everything is perfect just as it is. All I'm sayin' is that if this happens, *after* the mugger leaves with my wallet I'm going to walk over to the enlightened guy and kick his ass from here to Calcutta, just so that he remembers what needless suffering is really all about. It is so exasperating discussing these things with you Barry-- you insist equating the perfection of the Here And Now, with Not Giving A Shit about anything or anyone. Wow- get over it dude, its boring, tiresome and dead wrong. Have you learned nothing?
[FairfieldLife] Re: The Trouble With Normal
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Sal Sunshine [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Apr 12, 2008, at 2:30 AM, TurquoiseB wrote: It's the distinction between non-attachment and detachment. Jim thinks he's displaying the former, but what many of us are hearing between the lines, as well as in the words he chooses themselves, is that he's really expressing the latter. There is also a difference between feeling the world's pain deeply and having compassion for it and at the same time believing that on some level things are perfect, and believing that the world is perfect because one is not *able* to feel or empathize with its pain. That's it. Sterility. That's the word that comes to mind when reading Jim's posts as well as others who have been brainwashed by the TM Kool-Aide. There's no heart left (at least in their responses) so they tend to fall back on mindless parroting. And get seriously annoyed when others don't recognize how deep they are. Hugo's question was an excellent one. Why indeed? Sal Nice dodge Sal-- when you can't respond openly to the expression that the Universe is perfection, that everyone including you dear gets exactly what they deserve, then go after the character of the one stating such things.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Jim and God
My point was written off of Sal's comment Jim. It concerned the implications of Karmic theory concerning unfortunate lives. My point was that I don't accept that any human understands any of this and I am not convinced or impressed with Karmic theory's attempt to explain life's inner mechanism. I specifically thanked everyone who contributed to the discussion including you in an attempt to avoid this kind of post. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sandiego108 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Angela Mailander mailander111@ wrote: I've not had time to follow this whole thread, but, reading this post at random, I'd say that Sal and Curtis are doing a fine job defending my ass. The only thing about karma that I know for sure is that it is as unfathomable as God (its alleged author) is; if there ain't one, then karma is as unfathomable as the great and universal as well as necessarily eternal abyss of human ignorance is. That being the case (and it's airtight), I'd have to say that any statement about what anyone deserves in this world is arrogant, stupid, and cruel, not to mention narrow-minded. snip How childish of you, Sal and Curtis, given my remark that the Universe operates in an absolutely neutral way, and THEREFORE everyone gets exactly what they deserve. Again, you haven't answered, nor has weasely Sal, nor Curtis, about why you instantly assumed I am talking about what is deserved from a standpoint of suffering. Not one of the three of you has given me a reason why you run my words through this peculiar filter. I can only conclude that the Universe, according to Angela, Sal and Curtis gives some what they deserve, and others are treated differently, specially. Why some of us are singled out, and the rest of us must merely make do with all of the universal laws is a mystery to me. Sounds just as arrogant, stupid, and cruel, not to mention as narrow-minded as my words strike you. Gee I hope the three of you end up in the select group that is not subject to the neutral laws of the universe. Oh right, you're already there. In that case, I bow down to the god-like egos of Angela, Sal and Curtis. I will leave the three of you to your very special place in the Universe, and go back to the other 99.999%. Sounds truly insane to me, but if you folks are happy with it, OK.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Perfection in what IS
Curtis, The POV washing machine here at FFL is merely another object that your ego projects upon. If your ego starts changing how it projects, no surprise since that's what we call learning, but miss not that one's mind is always as if a fire hose spraying red paint on everything, and then the ego says, Look! There's pink! I hosed everything with red, but right over here, it's kinda pinkish. The answer to DeNiro's You talkin' to me? is always: Nope, I'm talking about myself. Oh, I hear what you're saying, and, yeah, I've changed by being here and exposing myself, ahem, to this room full of pussies, but all this change starts inside me, and I'm merely finding in the outer what I'm experiencing in the inner. It may seem recursive, but to me not so much. Then again, I'm a six-planets in Leo, so I'm the be all of my universe. YMMV. My psychologist told me was about his friend and him in a grocery store both of them looking down the same aisle. The friend says, Will you look at that! Unbelievable. My psychologist said, Right on, bro, I can't stand it when a parent jerks their kid's arm and reads the riot act to them in public -- it deforms them. And the friend said, I was talking about that broken jar of pickles being a hazard that's not been cleaned up yet. We imbue our environment with our definitions, and to me, the game of enlightenment asks us to entirely quit the definition business. Edg --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have shifted many of my POVs considerably by reading posts here Edg. It is not just one person's post, but the shifting shapes of POVs being expressed reminding me of gray zones where I had sometimes colored black and white. Words here do have the power to shift a person's POV but it isn't as if anyone here is weak minded enough just to adopt the other person's POV. Like herding cats from one room to another, they don't end up in the new room. But the new room is suddenly full of pussy... Oh sorry, I guess I got a little carried away with that analogy. But you get my point. This is an intellectual washing machine and you can't help but get influenced by taking a tumble. (Now that's a CLEAN analogy!) --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung no_reply@ wrote: Angela Mailander wrote: That's all well and good, but it is another thing to say that those who suffer have deserved it. Language matters. Words matter. Edg: Words matter to whom? Seems to me that the whom part trumps the words part. Writing here at FFL has been an education for me about the limitations on communication. One huge dynamic is that we all have our own dictionaries on-board, and when I say to someone, I love you, they may hear, I hate you. That's stating the concept in the extreme, it may seem, but is it? Let's look. If you walk into one of my home and see a sepia toned photo of a five year old boy in clothing from 90 years ago, your immediate take about the photo would be some sort of best guess about who the person was/is to me in order to make sense of why, of all my photos, this one gets on my wall. Whereas, if I walk into the room, I see my life-mate's father as a little boy who will, within 20 years, get his pilot license, marry a woman who was then the youngest woman pilot in Wisconsin history, serve in WWII, and go on to run a local airport as a family business and end up in the Wisconsin Aviation Hall of Fame. Quite a gulf in what the same experience triggers in your and my minds, eh? So? Well my entire home is a set of such triggers, and you seeing it cannot give you the information it contains when I see it. Only I can see this information. And that's the tell. The information is not in the room. It's all my projection of ego upon it, and I am deluded if I'm showing you around the house and I say, Here's a photo of her father, because, it's not, and instead it's merely paper saturated with chemicals that I deem to be a photo -- to a goat it might be food, to you it must necessarily be differently triggering than it is to me. So, how can you and I inhabit the same universe? I'm projecting my information upon the same objects that you're projecting your information upon and the twains ain't agonna meet. This is the primal spiritual challenge - to understand egoic-unity consciousness -- we see our small selves projected everywhere. Here a me, there a me, everywhere a me, me, Old McDonald had a mind . . . When I consider how little is symbolized by words, I come to understand the false power I've given them. I am a wonderful writer, but I have not dented in the least the POVs presented here. And if I was told I had, I would suspect that the other person had merely found a way to project meaning into my words that they very much want them to have -- and any similarities between the
[FairfieldLife] Re: Update on Clinton Hospital Story -- More True Than Not?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Marek Reavis [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Sal, I honestly don't get it either. You'd think that a campaign like that would have so many smart grunts just fact-checking everything that was said or put out by the campaign. The Obama claims he was a law professor when he really wasn't character attack would have been aborted long before it got play at all *if* someone had merely called the dean's office at the law school and asked about it. Simple stuff. But nobody did and Clinton is left with egg on her face because it was a cheap stunt to begin with and then it's immediately reproved by the law school itself. Her campaign comes across looking like a cheap suit. Obama did NOT hold the title of a University of Chicago law school professor. WASHINGTONThe University of Chicago released a statement on Thursday saying Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) served as a professor in the law schoolbut that is a title Obama, who taught courses there part-time, never held, a spokesman for the school confirmed on Friday. He did not hold the title of professor of law, said Marsha Ferziger Nagorsky, an Assistant Dean for Communications and Lecturer in Law at the school, on East 60th St. in Chicago The U of C statement was posted on the school's website two days after the Clinton campaign issued a memo headlined Just Embellished Words: Senator Obama's Record of Exaggerations Misstatements. The memo was generated by the Clinton campaign as Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) was put on the defensive for claiming incorrectly that she dodged sniper fire while First Lady when her plane landed in Bosnia. Another university spokesman, Josh Schonwald, said the Obama campaign did not request that the statement be generated and that it was posted because reporters were calling the school with questions about Obama's status. However, the Obama campaign was interested in making sure reporters saw the U of C statement. The university statement said, From 1992 until his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Barack Obama served as a professor in the Law School. The school probably did not mean to imply that Obama became a University of Chicago professor a year out of law school. But the word served is keyNagorsky said Obama carried out, or served, a function of a professorteaching a core curriculum course while a senior lecturerwhile at the same time not holding down that rank. At issue in the Clinton memo was Obama's claimsmostly specifically on several direct mail pieces produced for his 2004 U.S. Senate race-- that said he was a law professor at the university. Obama graduated Harvard Law School in 1991. He was a lecturer at the U. of Chicago law school between 1992 and 1996. During this time he was an attorney at the law firm of Miner, Barnhill Galland. In his first years of teaching, he had only one course. He was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 1996 and his teaching load eventually increased to three courses a year, less than the load of a professor. Obama won a state Senate seat in 1996. Obama maintained his senior lecturer post from 1996 to 2004, when he took a leave to run for the U.S. Senate. Nagorsky said there is a major distinction between a lecturer and senior lecturer, though both are not full-time positions. She said the status of a senior lecturer is similar to the status of a professor and Obama did teach core courses usually handled only by professors. While Obama was also part of the law school community, his appointment was not part of an academic search process and he did not have any scholarly research obligations which professors often do. In August of 2004, I wrote a column about Obama's U.S. Senate campaign literature saying he was a law professor at the U of C when he was a senior lecturer on leave at the school. Neither the school nor anyone in the Obama campaign complained at the time. The University of Chicago did Obama no favor by saying he was a law professor when he wasn't. This parsing is not necessary. There is nothing degrading about being a senior lecturer and bringing to students the experience of a professional in the field. Posted by Lynn Sweet on March 28, 2008 06:25 PM http://tinyurl.com/3yh8fj
[FairfieldLife] Re: The Trouble With Normal
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Alex Stanley [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: My experience is that the universe is perfect in an absolute and relative sense. Both together create and manifest its perfection, every moment. As it changes and evolves and grows it does so in perfection, in every particle of time and every moment of space. --Reverend Sandi Ego If you really think it so perfect, why do other people annoy you so much? I imagine he'll say that his being annoyed with other people is also perfect. I think Sri Sri Sandi Ego-ji's perspective is likely the same as Byron Katie's or Eckhart Tolle's in that there is no attachment to now being different than what it is. Yes, they all probably have a preference for how things ideally would be, and those ideals may very well differ from how things are right now. But, in acceptance of what is, there is no needless suffering derived from the ego-driven belief that things *should* be different than how they actually are. Yep, no more shoulds in my life. They've been plain wrung out of me by this nasty, vindictive, unfair, universe-- lol
[FairfieldLife] Re: Perfection in what IS
Edg, Our discourse is an example of change, big time. Much more productive and we both had to work at creating it. I'm not sure I am as far on the side of inner change driving outer. Of course it is huge, but I purposely put myself in situations that hit me with new stuff despite my natural resistance to not me. I think it is one of the only ways I can get some new perspectives into my thick skull. I believe that the outside can initiate change in me. But I may be running up against you philosophy about what is inner and what is outer. I am more Western than Vedic in my POV about that. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Curtis, The POV washing machine here at FFL is merely another object that your ego projects upon. If your ego starts changing how it projects, no surprise since that's what we call learning, but miss not that one's mind is always as if a fire hose spraying red paint on everything, and then the ego says, Look! There's pink! I hosed everything with red, but right over here, it's kinda pinkish. The answer to DeNiro's You talkin' to me? is always: Nope, I'm talking about myself. Oh, I hear what you're saying, and, yeah, I've changed by being here and exposing myself, ahem, to this room full of pussies, but all this change starts inside me, and I'm merely finding in the outer what I'm experiencing in the inner. It may seem recursive, but to me not so much. Then again, I'm a six-planets in Leo, so I'm the be all of my universe. YMMV. My psychologist told me was about his friend and him in a grocery store both of them looking down the same aisle. The friend says, Will you look at that! Unbelievable. My psychologist said, Right on, bro, I can't stand it when a parent jerks their kid's arm and reads the riot act to them in public -- it deforms them. And the friend said, I was talking about that broken jar of pickles being a hazard that's not been cleaned up yet. We imbue our environment with our definitions, and to me, the game of enlightenment asks us to entirely quit the definition business. Edg --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: I have shifted many of my POVs considerably by reading posts here Edg. It is not just one person's post, but the shifting shapes of POVs being expressed reminding me of gray zones where I had sometimes colored black and white. Words here do have the power to shift a person's POV but it isn't as if anyone here is weak minded enough just to adopt the other person's POV. Like herding cats from one room to another, they don't end up in the new room. But the new room is suddenly full of pussy... Oh sorry, I guess I got a little carried away with that analogy. But you get my point. This is an intellectual washing machine and you can't help but get influenced by taking a tumble. (Now that's a CLEAN analogy!) --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung no_reply@ wrote: Angela Mailander wrote: That's all well and good, but it is another thing to say that those who suffer have deserved it. Language matters. Words matter. Edg: Words matter to whom? Seems to me that the whom part trumps the words part. Writing here at FFL has been an education for me about the limitations on communication. One huge dynamic is that we all have our own dictionaries on-board, and when I say to someone, I love you, they may hear, I hate you. That's stating the concept in the extreme, it may seem, but is it? Let's look. If you walk into one of my home and see a sepia toned photo of a five year old boy in clothing from 90 years ago, your immediate take about the photo would be some sort of best guess about who the person was/is to me in order to make sense of why, of all my photos, this one gets on my wall. Whereas, if I walk into the room, I see my life-mate's father as a little boy who will, within 20 years, get his pilot license, marry a woman who was then the youngest woman pilot in Wisconsin history, serve in WWII, and go on to run a local airport as a family business and end up in the Wisconsin Aviation Hall of Fame. Quite a gulf in what the same experience triggers in your and my minds, eh? So? Well my entire home is a set of such triggers, and you seeing it cannot give you the information it contains when I see it. Only I can see this information. And that's the tell. The information is not in the room. It's all my projection of ego upon it, and I am deluded if I'm showing you around the house and I say, Here's a photo of her father, because, it's not, and instead it's merely paper saturated with chemicals that I deem to be a photo -- to a goat it might be food, to you it must necessarily be differently triggering than it is to me. So, how can you and I inhabit the
[FairfieldLife] Re: Jim and God
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: My point was written off of Sal's comment Jim. It concerned the implications of Karmic theory concerning unfortunate lives. My point was that I don't accept that any human understands any of this and I am not convinced or impressed with Karmic theory's attempt to explain life's inner mechanism. I specifically thanked everyone who contributed to the discussion including you in an attempt to avoid this kind of post. The thing about my experience is that it doesn't rely on human understanding, anymore that I understand looking at a tree. it just is. This isn't a philosophical debate about how we do or don't decide to filter our experience. The most difficult part is putting it into words. Saying that everyone gets what they deserve is not an indictment of anyone's unfortunate life, nor a glorification of those more fortunate. Unfortunately it is being interpreted by some as just that.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Perfection in what IS
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: snip We imbue our environment with our definitions, and to me, the game of enlightenment asks us to entirely quit the definition business. Edg yep- less thought, more experience.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Perfection in what IS
Curtis, Hey, we're getting along fabulously today! Gotta love it. Okay, I think we're down to our normal end-game of each of us doing a semantic shuffle. We've sorta got ourselves agreeing with the other, but, below, you finally called it, and noted that we don't know our definitions of inner and outer -- so, from whence springs an ego, eh? I've watched a lot of kids grow up before my eyes. Ego is there in infancy, cuz, well, I'm a good projector, but by about the age of four, most kids have a fully formed ego that anyone can see. This smacks of an ego being a construct of a processing history -- not a transfer student from another lifetime. Ergo: ego is environment. OTOH, as a father of four kids, I can tell ya that each one came out of the chute as different as can be. Who'da thunk it, but there it was: nurture was pwned by nature. To me, this is the basis for karma's unfathomability. When I rail about the world, I'm indicating that I think the matrix should prune its denizens, but when I talk about axioms of identity, I'm agog with the notion that a universal consciousness is running everything. If I change after reading your posts, and I have, is it because it was time for it anyway and consciousness is merely doing its thang, or is it because the words of your posts have some incantational power to transfer conceptuality? Anyone got a coin? What do you call, heads or hearts? Edg --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Edg, Our discourse is an example of change, big time. Much more productive and we both had to work at creating it. I'm not sure I am as far on the side of inner change driving outer. Of course it is huge, but I purposely put myself in situations that hit me with new stuff despite my natural resistance to not me. I think it is one of the only ways I can get some new perspectives into my thick skull. I believe that the outside can initiate change in me. But I may be running up against you philosophy about what is inner and what is outer. I am more Western than Vedic in my POV about that. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung no_reply@ wrote: Curtis, The POV washing machine here at FFL is merely another object that your ego projects upon. If your ego starts changing how it projects, no surprise since that's what we call learning, but miss not that one's mind is always as if a fire hose spraying red paint on everything, and then the ego says, Look! There's pink! I hosed everything with red, but right over here, it's kinda pinkish. The answer to DeNiro's You talkin' to me? is always: Nope, I'm talking about myself. Oh, I hear what you're saying, and, yeah, I've changed by being here and exposing myself, ahem, to this room full of pussies, but all this change starts inside me, and I'm merely finding in the outer what I'm experiencing in the inner. It may seem recursive, but to me not so much. Then again, I'm a six-planets in Leo, so I'm the be all of my universe. YMMV. My psychologist told me was about his friend and him in a grocery store both of them looking down the same aisle. The friend says, Will you look at that! Unbelievable. My psychologist said, Right on, bro, I can't stand it when a parent jerks their kid's arm and reads the riot act to them in public -- it deforms them. And the friend said, I was talking about that broken jar of pickles being a hazard that's not been cleaned up yet. We imbue our environment with our definitions, and to me, the game of enlightenment asks us to entirely quit the definition business. Edg --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: I have shifted many of my POVs considerably by reading posts here Edg. It is not just one person's post, but the shifting shapes of POVs being expressed reminding me of gray zones where I had sometimes colored black and white. Words here do have the power to shift a person's POV but it isn't as if anyone here is weak minded enough just to adopt the other person's POV. Like herding cats from one room to another, they don't end up in the new room. But the new room is suddenly full of pussy... Oh sorry, I guess I got a little carried away with that analogy. But you get my point. This is an intellectual washing machine and you can't help but get influenced by taking a tumble. (Now that's a CLEAN analogy!) --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung no_reply@ wrote: Angela Mailander wrote: That's all well and good, but it is another thing to say that those who suffer have deserved it. Language matters. Words matter. Edg: Words matter to whom? Seems to me that the whom part trumps the words part. Writing here at FFL has been an education for me about the limitations on communication. One
[FairfieldLife] Re: A friend named George
I am no fan of Bush. What an understatement. When Lou cited a poll that the approval rating was 28%, it struck me as impossible. Has an approval rating for a President ever been so low. And coming from Lou, well, you know. Really, my wife being a conservative doesn't really come into play. At some point we pretty much agreed not to discuss politics. What is sometimes funny, is that our neighborhood and school tend to be of a liberal vent, and sometimes the kids come home with decidedly liberal ideas. She never tries to squash them. Just talk about it from both points of view. Here's my dilemma. As owner of a small business I am not in a position to offer health insurance to all my employees. Nor do many of them even want it, especially if it meant that they might no longer have a job, or that we could even remain in business. Perhaps there would be an exemption for companies with less than 12 employees. I just gotta be careful with what the Dems may want to put on shoulders of business. Big business can handle anything. It's just us small guys that don't have much margin for error, or additional responsibilities. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Sal Sunshine [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Apr 12, 2008, at 8:39 AM, lurkernomore20002000 wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Louis McKenzie ltm457@ wrote: The latest Gallup poll shows the president's approval dropped to 28 percent, the lowest of his eight years in office. Please cite the poll. It's all over the news, lurk, a Zogby poll, I think. Just do a search for Bush + 28% and I'm sure you'll find it. You know, I really do appreciate the fact that being married to a conservative, you try to understand that POV. But I also get the feeling it's somewhat of a struggle, too, and much of the time really isn't you. Maybe those are just my blinders though. Sal
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: A friend named George
lurkernomore20002000 wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Thom Hartmann co-authored a book on the Kennedy assassination. I know he wrote a book on this. I have not read it. It's a good read, phone book thick and very fascinating. Have you read it? I listen to Thom all the time and he is a bit on the fence about 9-11 too. He may not like name calling, which some of us find funny, but does like to make jokes about BushCo and Republicans. That's one of the best ways to get to them too. Most conservatives I know are embarassed by this administration and are as anxious as the rest of us to move on to something else. They pretty much did not get what they wanted other than a couple conservative supreme court justices. And of course if there is a coverup, or a cospiracy, lets expose it. But I find it more beneficial to to discuss things in a civil manner as opposed to what is often the tone here. I don't get Thom Hartman any more where I live, but I have heard him say, that liberals must adopt the best practices conservatives utilize to influence public opinion. And he holds Rush as a stellar example of how liberals should present their view. It is his opinion, as I understand it, that part of the problem with the liberal point of view, is in how it's presented. I like Thom. I am not in full agreement with him. But compared to someone like Randy Rhodes, he is a giant, IMO. You can download free podcasts of Thom's show from places like www.green960.com. Thom (like Alan Watt) is a bit of a history buff and backs up what he says from history. He's even read one of my posts to his message group on his show. He didn't agree with me but I felt that he really didn't understand what I was saying. Randi says some dumb things on her show sometimes because she doesn't have the intellectual background of Thom but folks love her spirit. She quit Air America the other day and is on NovaM starting Monday and will be on the station whose link I posted above. You miss the whole point of what being a liberal is about. It is not about marching lockstep like the Rush dittoheads. I got a real kick out of Ed Schultz, a former conservative sports announcer who turned liberal and hosts a progressive talk show (also available at the above link) as when he was starting out he complained about the liberals going off in different directions and not marching in lockstep. But then he figured it out. Being liberal means you probably won't subscribe to everything the liberal sitting next to you does. Furthermore a liberal may find themselves agreeing with some conservatives sometimes, especially the ones who want to preserve the Constitution. There's the area where we can unite people and kick the ones out of the country who want to shred the Constitution. I see nothing wrong with the tone here on FFL. If you want to get spiritually drunk there are other bliss groups that cater to discussion on spiritual topics. The only problem I have here is the chaos that the group falls into with their posting habits which is probably due mainly to computer illiteracy though we have some seasoned computer experts here who commit the same crimes. The chaos is amusing considering that enlightenment should bring an organized mind. :-D
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Last post
Rick Archer wrote: From: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of dhamiltony2k5 Sent: Friday, April 11, 2008 10:37 PM To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Last post Seems most of the authors from Fairfield who used to post commentary are off FFL. Seems is mostly now most useful to just bookmark the homepage and come visit occassionally. Seems like Rick is even doing that from his occassional comments now. I’d be more involved if I had the time. Just have to focus on my work. I get paid by the hour and FFL has cost me $50-$100 a day at times. Posts are down in numbers quite a bit and may go down more as we go into summer and people spend less time indoors. So I wouldn't worry much about it. FFL seems to get the occasional person looking to get spiritually drunk on a bliss ninny group which FFL isn't and I don't think it was your intent to set up that kind of group. To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!'Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional * To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/join (Yahoo! ID required) * To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: The Trouble With Normal
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sandiego108 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Sal Sunshine salsunshine@ wrote: On Apr 12, 2008, at 2:30 AM, TurquoiseB wrote: It's the distinction between non-attachment and detachment. Jim thinks he's displaying the former, but what many of us are hearing between the lines, as well as in the words he chooses themselves, is that he's really expressing the latter. There is also a difference between feeling the world's pain deeply and having compassion for it and at the same time believing that on some level things are perfect, and believing that the world is perfect because one is not *able* to feel or empathize with its pain. That's it. Sterility. That's the word that comes to mind when reading Jim's posts as well as others who have been brainwashed by the TM Kool-Aide. There's no heart left (at least in their responses) so they tend to fall back on mindless parroting. And get seriously annoyed when others don't recognize how deep they are. Hugo's question was an excellent one. Why indeed? Sal Nice dodge Sal-- when you can't respond openly to the expression that the Universe is perfection, that everyone including you dear gets exactly what they deserve, then go after the character of the one stating such things. Sal's description of you is right on you little fraud: That's it. Sterility. That's the word that comes to mind when reading Jim's posts as well as others who have been brainwashed by the TM Kool-Aide. There's no heart left (at least in their responses) so they tend to fall back on mindless parroting. And get seriously annoyed when others don't recognize how deep they are. The universe may be perfection, but you are just a creepy TMO party-line human pretending to be 'enlightened'.
[FairfieldLife] Re: A friend named George
Wow, yea, I only got the last part without the precding portion. And I'm not sure where I picked up from - Drudge or Fox, or wherever. Thanks for putting it in context. Makes alot of sense :) --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Sal Sunshine [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Apr 12, 2008, at 8:36 AM, lurkernomore20002000 wrote: OTOH, I thought I saw a quote from Obama the other day implying that people in small towns have a kind of backward mentality, if I read it right. You didn't. :) Here might be what you're thinking of: But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there's not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations. Sounds like an accurate and honest description of how he sees the situation. Does he have blinders on? Possibly. Like everyone else, he sees things mirrored through his own experiences. But pretending things are great when so many people are miserable and without decent jobs never did anyone any good. In order to try and remedy something you first have to identify the problem. Sounds to me like that's what he's doing. The last sentence is spot on (as Hugo might say) and reflects a very uncomfortable truth that most Americans just either won't face up to, or, like you've done, lurk, (IMO) try to crucify him for, perhaps without thinking. Like I said before, I think being married to a conservative and constantly having to deal with that POV may be coloring your perceptions. Sal
[FairfieldLife] Re: What happened to TinyURL.com?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, off_world_beings [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What happened to TinyURL.com? OffWorld It's still there. If you want an even easier-to-use tinyurl and you use Firefox, go to their 'free Add-ons' and get their 'TinyUrl Creator'
[FairfieldLife] Re: The Trouble With Normal
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, do.rflex [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sandiego108 sandiego108@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Sal Sunshine salsunshine@ wrote: On Apr 12, 2008, at 2:30 AM, TurquoiseB wrote: It's the distinction between non-attachment and detachment. Jim thinks he's displaying the former, but what many of us are hearing between the lines, as well as in the words he chooses themselves, is that he's really expressing the latter. There is also a difference between feeling the world's pain deeply and having compassion for it and at the same time believing that on some level things are perfect, and believing that the world is perfect because one is not *able* to feel or empathize with its pain. That's it. Sterility. That's the word that comes to mind when reading Jim's posts as well as others who have been brainwashed by the TM Kool-Aide. There's no heart left (at least in their responses) so they tend to fall back on mindless parroting. And get seriously annoyed when others don't recognize how deep they are. Hugo's question was an excellent one. Why indeed? Sal Nice dodge Sal-- when you can't respond openly to the expression that the Universe is perfection, that everyone including you dear gets exactly what they deserve, then go after the character of the one stating such things. Sal's description of you is right on you little fraud: That's it. Sterility. That's the word that comes to mind when reading Jim's posts as well as others who have been brainwashed by the TM Kool-Aide. There's no heart left (at least in their responses) so they tend to fall back on mindless parroting. And get seriously annoyed when others don't recognize how deep they are. The universe may be perfection, but you are just a creepy TMO party-line human pretending to be 'enlightened'. Bak in the day, we used to call people like that mood-makers. L.
[FairfieldLife] Re: A friend named George
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, lurkernomore20002000 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I am no fan of Bush. What an understatement. When Lou cited a poll that the approval rating was 28%, it struck me as impossible. Has an approval rating for a President ever been so low. And coming from Lou, well, you know. Last year it was 19% at one point. Lawson
[FairfieldLife] Re: Cooties vs. Compassion
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, satvadude108 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, satvadude108 no_reply@ wrote: [...] Is this true? Why exclude him? Is it deemed that TM is not helpful for this, that it is worsened by the practice, or standard policy? Well, I'm still taking a minor dose of prozac (10mg every/other day) so I don't think they should accept me on Perusha, at least... L. This minor dose is a reduction of previous levels? Do you have a desire to be on Purusha? Were you on Purusha earlier? Hey I've been celibate for so long I am used to it, and yes, massive rounding while working for the TM has appealed to me on occasion. But these days, I'd just as soon go do the thing in Iowa on the invincible america course. But... not an option. Lawson
[FairfieldLife] Re: Ru bank robber gets 10 years
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, gullible fool [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Perhaps Maharishi's real task was to prevent nucular war and possible chaos caused by the psycho-social effects of the end of a millennium? No, his task was to get people doing a meditation technique. For changing the trends of time, the divine has to trot the big guns out, the avatars. His self-appointed task was to spiritually regenerate all of Mankind. Lawson
[FairfieldLife] Re: Perfection in what IS
This may have nothin to do with nothin but it is yesterday's story and may be worth telling - I ride about Madison on a bike with a sign a friend made for me - it simply states Non consumption Changes Everything and occasionally it spurs up a conversation. especially with fellow bikers or peds while waiting at a stop sign - but yesterday when I went to hop on my steed to go home, someone had taken the time to write a note and leave it for little ol' me. Essentially it told me I still consume and that I should change the sign to Non run-away consumption changes something and then after a few more dictations pointed my way, it had a smiley face at the bottom. and I got to thinkin' That's the problem with Madison, and perhaps the whole 'world-wide conversation' - - we would rather position ourselves one nuance off, then actually agree - well, too bad we are 2% off . . . for if we agreed to agree we might actually have to get to the uncomfortable business of doing something together. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Curtis, Hey, we're getting along fabulously today! Gotta love it. Okay, I think we're down to our normal end-game of each of us doing a semantic shuffle. We've sorta got ourselves agreeing with the other, but, below, you finally called it, and noted that we don't know our definitions of inner and outer -- so, from whence springs an ego, eh? I've watched a lot of kids grow up before my eyes. Ego is there in infancy, cuz, well, I'm a good projector, but by about the age of four, most kids have a fully formed ego that anyone can see. This smacks of an ego being a construct of a processing history -- not a transfer student from another lifetime. Ergo: ego is environment. OTOH, as a father of four kids, I can tell ya that each one came out of the chute as different as can be. Who'da thunk it, but there it was: nurture was pwned by nature. To me, this is the basis for karma's unfathomability. When I rail about the world, I'm indicating that I think the matrix should prune its denizens, but when I talk about axioms of identity, I'm agog with the notion that a universal consciousness is running everything. If I change after reading your posts, and I have, is it because it was time for it anyway and consciousness is merely doing its thang, or is it because the words of your posts have some incantational power to transfer conceptuality? Anyone got a coin? What do you call, heads or hearts? Edg --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: Edg, Our discourse is an example of change, big time. Much more productive and we both had to work at creating it. I'm not sure I am as far on the side of inner change driving outer. Of course it is huge, but I purposely put myself in situations that hit me with new stuff despite my natural resistance to not me. I think it is one of the only ways I can get some new perspectives into my thick skull. I believe that the outside can initiate change in me. But I may be running up against you philosophy about what is inner and what is outer. I am more Western than Vedic in my POV about that. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung no_reply@ wrote: Curtis, The POV washing machine here at FFL is merely another object that your ego projects upon. If your ego starts changing how it projects, no surprise since that's what we call learning, but miss not that one's mind is always as if a fire hose spraying red paint on everything, and then the ego says, Look! There's pink! I hosed everything with red, but right over here, it's kinda pinkish. The answer to DeNiro's You talkin' to me? is always: Nope, I'm talking about myself. Oh, I hear what you're saying, and, yeah, I've changed by being here and exposing myself, ahem, to this room full of pussies, but all this change starts inside me, and I'm merely finding in the outer what I'm experiencing in the inner. It may seem recursive, but to me not so much. Then again, I'm a six-planets in Leo, so I'm the be all of my universe. YMMV. My psychologist told me was about his friend and him in a grocery store both of them looking down the same aisle. The friend says, Will you look at that! Unbelievable. My psychologist said, Right on, bro, I can't stand it when a parent jerks their kid's arm and reads the riot act to them in public -- it deforms them. And the friend said, I was talking about that broken jar of pickles being a hazard that's not been cleaned up yet. We imbue our environment with our definitions, and to me, the game of enlightenment asks us to entirely quit the definition business. Edg --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: I have shifted many of my POVs considerably
[FairfieldLife] Re: A friend named George
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...] Whatever his understanding of the economic situation in Pennsylvania, his understanding of the people is condescending and elitist at best. Like as not, he's never dealt with any. Its pretty much impossible to develop a realistic view of people if you've never met them and have to go by what Hollywood says about them. So yeah, he's an ignorant elitist. But, in all honesty, who isn't? Lawson
RE: [FairfieldLife] What happened to TinyURL.com?
It’s there: http://tinyurl.com/ No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG. Version: 7.5.519 / Virus Database: 269.22.12/1374 - Release Date: 4/11/2008 4:59 PM
[FairfieldLife] Re: Perfection in what IS
I was in a movie theatre in Madison some years back. A baby was crying very loudly for an extended period before someone yelled PLEASE take that child outside. Almost instantly a reply came. Kids have right too! --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Larry [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This may have nothin to do with nothin but it is yesterday's story and may be worth telling - I ride about Madison on a bike with a sign a friend made for me - it simply states Non consumption Changes Everything and occasionally it spurs up a conversation. especially with fellow bikers or peds while waiting at a stop sign - but yesterday when I went to hop on my steed to go home, someone had taken the time to write a note and leave it for little ol' me. Essentially it told me I still consume and that I should change the sign to Non run-away consumption changes something and then after a few more dictations pointed my way, it had a smiley face at the bottom. and I got to thinkin' That's the problem with Madison, and perhaps the whole 'world-wide conversation' - - we would rather position ourselves one nuance off, then actually agree - well, too bad we are 2% off . . . for if we agreed to agree we might actually have to get to the uncomfortable business of doing something together. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung no_reply@ wrote: Curtis, Hey, we're getting along fabulously today! Gotta love it. Okay, I think we're down to our normal end-game of each of us doing a semantic shuffle. We've sorta got ourselves agreeing with the other, but, below, you finally called it, and noted that we don't know our definitions of inner and outer -- so, from whence springs an ego, eh? I've watched a lot of kids grow up before my eyes. Ego is there in infancy, cuz, well, I'm a good projector, but by about the age of four, most kids have a fully formed ego that anyone can see. This smacks of an ego being a construct of a processing history -- not a transfer student from another lifetime. Ergo: ego is environment. OTOH, as a father of four kids, I can tell ya that each one came out of the chute as different as can be. Who'da thunk it, but there it was: nurture was pwned by nature. To me, this is the basis for karma's unfathomability. When I rail about the world, I'm indicating that I think the matrix should prune its denizens, but when I talk about axioms of identity, I'm agog with the notion that a universal consciousness is running everything. If I change after reading your posts, and I have, is it because it was time for it anyway and consciousness is merely doing its thang, or is it because the words of your posts have some incantational power to transfer conceptuality? Anyone got a coin? What do you call, heads or hearts? Edg --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: Edg, Our discourse is an example of change, big time. Much more productive and we both had to work at creating it. I'm not sure I am as far on the side of inner change driving outer. Of course it is huge, but I purposely put myself in situations that hit me with new stuff despite my natural resistance to not me. I think it is one of the only ways I can get some new perspectives into my thick skull. I believe that the outside can initiate change in me. But I may be running up against you philosophy about what is inner and what is outer. I am more Western than Vedic in my POV about that. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung no_reply@ wrote: Curtis, The POV washing machine here at FFL is merely another object that your ego projects upon. If your ego starts changing how it projects, no surprise since that's what we call learning, but miss not that one's mind is always as if a fire hose spraying red paint on everything, and then the ego says, Look! There's pink! I hosed everything with red, but right over here, it's kinda pinkish. The answer to DeNiro's You talkin' to me? is always: Nope, I'm talking about myself. Oh, I hear what you're saying, and, yeah, I've changed by being here and exposing myself, ahem, to this room full of pussies, but all this change starts inside me, and I'm merely finding in the outer what I'm experiencing in the inner. It may seem recursive, but to me not so much. Then again, I'm a six-planets in Leo, so I'm the be all of my universe. YMMV. My psychologist told me was about his friend and him in a grocery store both of them looking down the same aisle. The friend says, Will you look at that! Unbelievable. My psychologist said, Right on, bro, I can't stand it when a parent jerks their kid's arm and reads the riot act to them in public -- it deforms them. And the friend
[FairfieldLife] Re: A friend named George
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: [...] Whatever his understanding of the economic situation in Pennsylvania, his understanding of the people is condescending and elitist at best. Like as not, he's never dealt with any. Its pretty much impossible to develop a realistic view of people if you've never met them and have to go by what Hollywood says about them. So yeah, he's an ignorant elitist. But, in all honesty, who isn't? Well, Hillary for one. She's made it her business to meet those people and get to know them.
[FairfieldLife] Re: A friend named George
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: [...] Whatever his understanding of the economic situation in Pennsylvania, his understanding of the people is condescending and elitist at best. Like as not, he's never dealt with any. Its pretty much impossible to develop a realistic view of people if you've never met them and have to go by what Hollywood says about them. So yeah, he's an ignorant elitist. But, in all honesty, who isn't? Well, Hillary for one. She's made it her business to meet those people and get to know them. Here are her comments on Obama's gaffe today: Now, like some of you may have been, I was taken aback by the demeaning remarks Sen. Obama made about people in small town America. Sen. Obama's remarks are elitist, and they are out of touch. They are not reflective of the values and beliefs of Americans. Certainly not the Americans that I know not the Americans I grew up with, not the Americans I lived with in Arkansas or represent in New York. You know, Americans who believe in the Second Amendment believe it¹s a matter of Constitutional rights. Americans who believe in God believe it is a matter of personal faith. Americans who believe in protecting good American jobs believe it is a matter of the American Dream. When my dad grew up it was in a working class family in Scranton. I grew up in a churchgoing family, a family that believed in the importance of living out and expressing our faith. The people of faith I know don't cling to religion because they're bitter. People embrace faith not because they are materially poor, but because they are spiritually rich. Our faith is the faith of our parents and our grandparents. It is a fundamental expression of who we are and what we believe. I also disagree with Sen. Obama's assertion that people in this country cling to guns and have certain attitudes about immigration or trade simply out of frustration. People of all walks of life hunt and they enjoy doing so because it's an important part of their life, not because they are bitter. And as I¹ve traveled across Indiana and I¹ve talked to a lot of people what I hear are real concerns about unfair trade practices that cost people jobs. I think hardworking Americans are right to want to see changes in our trade laws. That¹s what I have said. That¹s what I have fought for. I would also point out that the vast majority of working Americans reject anti-immigration rhetoric. They want reform so that we remain a nation of immigrants, but also a nation of laws that we enforce and we enforce fairly. Americans are fair-minded and good-hearted people. We have ups and downs. We face challenges and problems. But our views are rooted in real values, and they should be respected. Americans out across our country have borne the brunt of the Bush administration¹s assault on the middle class. Contrary to what Sen. Obama says, most Americans did much better during the Clinton years than they have done during the Bush years. If we are striving to bring people together and I believe we should be I don't think it helps to divide our country into one America that is enlightened and one that is not.
[FairfieldLife] Re: A friend named George
Richard J. Williams willytex wrote: Look, Mr. Blu, you're way out of your league here. The pundits here will wax you real good; they don't take too kindly to informers like you barging in and posting a bunch of nonsense syllables. You better watch what you say or, I'm warning you, Judy or Angela will take you to task and make you look like an utter fool in front of your peers. WilburTex the Talking Ass, i can hardly wait to be waxed by the pundits- Judy or Angela or you. There is nothing as delightful as the (D)efenders (O)f (B)lind (F)aith chirping along singing the praises of ever useless practice of tm. If the pundits/DOBF spent as much time actually engaged in thoughtful reflection of the true waste of time tm is.. as they do in posting here..they might actually find true meaningful lives. You have been warned, Sir. By the way, what exactly, is your guru having a bed inside the temple for?
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: The Trouble With Normal
On Apr 12, 2008, at 12:20 PM, sparaig wrote: The universe may be perfection, but you are just a creepy TMO party-line human pretending to be 'enlightened'. Bak in the day, we used to call people like that mood-makers. Jim's mood-making gives honest mood-makers a good name. Sal
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: A friend named George
On Apr 12, 2008, at 11:51 AM, lurkernomore20002000 wrote: I am no fan of Bush. What an understatement. When Lou cited a poll that the approval rating was 28%, it struck me as impossible. Has an approval rating for a President ever been so low. What I can't get over is what could possibly be keeping it so high. Guess that's the diff between you and me, lurk. :) I mean, really, what are those 28% smoking? Sal
[FairfieldLife] Re: The Trouble With Normal
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, do.rflex [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: snip Sal's description of you is right on you little fraud: That's it. Sterility. That's the word that comes to mind when reading Jim's posts as well as others who have been brainwashed by the TM Kool-Aide. There's no heart left (at least in their responses) so they tend to fall back on mindless parroting. And get seriously annoyed when others don't recognize how deep they are. The universe may be perfection, but you are just a creepy TMO party-line human pretending to be 'enlightened'. Yes, we are both getting exactly what we deserve.
[FairfieldLife] Re: A friend named George
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I see nothing wrong with the tone here on FFL Okay, but when you get comments like, So and So is pretty cool even though she doesn't believe the gov't orcestrataed 9-11. You once blasted me for being condescending. What category would this this fall into. If you want to get spiritually drunk there are other bliss groups that cater to discussion on spiritual topics. There's the All Amma, All The Time site. Not sure how to make it through two or three posts there. The only problem I have here is the chaos that the group falls into with their posting habits which is probably due mainly to computer illiteracy though we have some seasoned computer experts here who commit the same crimes. The chaos is amusing considering that enlightenment should bring an organized mind. :-D
[FairfieldLife] Re: The Trouble With Normal
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Sal Sunshine [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Apr 12, 2008, at 12:20 PM, sparaig wrote: The universe may be perfection, but you are just a creepy TMO party-line human pretending to be 'enlightened'. Bak in the day, we used to call people like that mood-makers. Jim's mood-making gives honest mood-makers a good name. Sal You have finally said something I agree with 100%!!! Bravo!!!
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: A friend named George
The Gallup Organization has been tracking the ebb and flow of presidential popularity for decades. And in a survey it conducted Friday through Sunday (teamed with USA Today), here's the negative news for Bush: his job approval rating puts him in the bottom 3% of more than 1,300 Gallup polls since 1938. Bush got positive marks from 29% of those interviewed, a new low for him. As detailed by Gallup on its web page he now joins four other presidents since World War II whose job approval figure dipped below 30%: his father, George H.W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon and Harry Truman. The other number was 28% I believe it was on CNN and they pulled it. this one was on the LA times. I copied and posted each. lurkernomore20002000 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I am no fan of Bush. What an understatement. When Lou cited a poll that the approval rating was 28%, it struck me as impossible. Has an approval rating for a President ever been so low. And coming from Lou, well, you know. Really, my wife being a conservative doesn't really come into play. At some point we pretty much agreed not to discuss politics. What is sometimes funny, is that our neighborhood and school tend to be of a liberal vent, and sometimes the kids come home with decidedly liberal ideas. She never tries to squash them. Just talk about it from both points of view. Here's my dilemma. As owner of a small business I am not in a position to offer health insurance to all my employees. Nor do many of them even want it, especially if it meant that they might no longer have a job, or that we could even remain in business. Perhaps there would be an exemption for companies with less than 12 employees. I just gotta be careful with what the Dems may want to put on shoulders of business. Big business can handle anything. It's just us small guys that don't have much margin for error, or additional responsibilities. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Sal Sunshine wrote: On Apr 12, 2008, at 8:39 AM, lurkernomore20002000 wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Louis McKenzie wrote: The latest Gallup poll shows the president's approval dropped to 28 percent, the lowest of his eight years in office. Please cite the poll. It's all over the news, lurk, a Zogby poll, I think. Just do a search for Bush + 28% and I'm sure you'll find it. You know, I really do appreciate the fact that being married to a conservative, you try to understand that POV. But I also get the feeling it's somewhat of a struggle, too, and much of the time really isn't you. Maybe those are just my blinders though. Sal To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!'Yahoo! Groups Links __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: A friend named George
I have been a member here since 2005 I have seen all kinds of topics on the veda the secret, jyotish so many different topics the political can get animated but that is a good thing. Because it shows some level of alertness. Bhairitu [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: lurkernomore20002000 wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu wrote: Thom Hartmann co-authored a book on the Kennedy assassination. I know he wrote a book on this. I have not read it. It's a good read, phone book thick and very fascinating. Have you read it? I listen to Thom all the time and he is a bit on the fence about 9-11 too. He may not like name calling, which some of us find funny, but does like to make jokes about BushCo and Republicans. That's one of the best ways to get to them too. Most conservatives I know are embarassed by this administration and are as anxious as the rest of us to move on to something else. They pretty much did not get what they wanted other than a couple conservative supreme court justices. And of course if there is a coverup, or a cospiracy, lets expose it. But I find it more beneficial to to discuss things in a civil manner as opposed to what is often the tone here. I don't get Thom Hartman any more where I live, but I have heard him say, that liberals must adopt the best practices conservatives utilize to influence public opinion. And he holds Rush as a stellar example of how liberals should present their view. It is his opinion, as I understand it, that part of the problem with the liberal point of view, is in how it's presented. I like Thom. I am not in full agreement with him. But compared to someone like Randy Rhodes, he is a giant, IMO. You can download free podcasts of Thom's show from places like www.green960.com. Thom (like Alan Watt) is a bit of a history buff and backs up what he says from history. He's even read one of my posts to his message group on his show. He didn't agree with me but I felt that he really didn't understand what I was saying. Randi says some dumb things on her show sometimes because she doesn't have the intellectual background of Thom but folks love her spirit. She quit Air America the other day and is on NovaM starting Monday and will be on the station whose link I posted above. You miss the whole point of what being a liberal is about. It is not about marching lockstep like the Rush dittoheads. I got a real kick out of Ed Schultz, a former conservative sports announcer who turned liberal and hosts a progressive talk show (also available at the above link) as when he was starting out he complained about the liberals going off in different directions and not marching in lockstep. But then he figured it out. Being liberal means you probably won't subscribe to everything the liberal sitting next to you does. Furthermore a liberal may find themselves agreeing with some conservatives sometimes, especially the ones who want to preserve the Constitution. There's the area where we can unite people and kick the ones out of the country who want to shred the Constitution. I see nothing wrong with the tone here on FFL. If you want to get spiritually drunk there are other bliss groups that cater to discussion on spiritual topics. The only problem I have here is the chaos that the group falls into with their posting habits which is probably due mainly to computer illiteracy though we have some seasoned computer experts here who commit the same crimes. The chaos is amusing considering that enlightenment should bring an organized mind. :-D To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!'Yahoo! Groups Links __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
[FairfieldLife] Re: The Trouble With Normal
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sandiego108 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, do.rflex do.rflex@ wrote: snip Sal's description of you is right on you little fraud: That's it. Sterility. That's the word that comes to mind when reading Jim's posts as well as others who have been brainwashed by the TM Kool-Aide. There's no heart left (at least in their responses) so they tend to fall back on mindless parroting. And get seriously annoyed when others don't recognize how deep they are. The universe may be perfection, but you are just a creepy TMO party-line human pretending to be 'enlightened'. Yes, we are both getting exactly what we deserve. ...as if this somehow improves his fraudulent pose.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: A friend named George
I find it amazing how things get twisted. Obama sometimes he says things innocently and even if the main idea is good the way people take what is said is as if Bush said it. Typical White Person, not a bad statement but was not wise in his position. He speaks to people sometimes very direct and from the heart. He was saying that people are just plain old sick and tired of being lied to by people like Bill Clinton who promise the moon and barely deliver a star. He is saying that when you are losing your home because of being tricked on your mortgage contract or you own a pharmacy and can not afford to provide the basics for your employees it is hard to be happy optimistic and positive in the current environment. However to use the word Bitter in his situation can give ammunition to a person like Hillary Clinton which will then be Parroted by McCain. Is anyone noticing what is happening now McCain is campaigning to help Clinton and Clinton is Campaigning to help McCain both against Obama. Is this called King of the Hill or is it call a racial issue? sparaig [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend wrote: [...] Whatever his understanding of the economic situation in Pennsylvania, his understanding of the people is condescending and elitist at best. Like as not, he's never dealt with any. Its pretty much impossible to develop a realistic view of people if you've never met them and have to go by what Hollywood says about them. So yeah, he's an ignorant elitist. But, in all honesty, who isn't? Lawson To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!'Yahoo! Groups Links __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: A friend named George
On Apr 12, 2008, at 12:31 PM, sparaig wrote: Like as not, he's never dealt with any. Its pretty much impossible to develop a realistic view of people if you've never met them and have to go by what Hollywood says about them. Um, Spare, he was a community organizer for years. Who exactly do you think he was dealing with then, if not the underprivileged? Judy knows that, of course. Interesting that she conveniently forgot to remind you of that little fact. Sal
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: A friend named George
lurkernomore20002000 wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I see nothing wrong with the tone here on FFL Okay, but when you get comments like, So and So is pretty cool even though she doesn't believe the gov't orcestrataed 9-11. You once blasted me for being condescending. What category would this this fall into. Well deserved if you were presenting yourself that way. But it's just an opinion so what difference does it make? I believe being candid is good and I would have no problem making comments here to someone in person though it might well be taken differently in that environment. BTW, Rush is well known for his name calling. The term femi-Nazis comes to mind. :) If you want to get spiritually drunk there are other bliss groups that cater to discussion on spiritual topics. There's the All Amma, All The Time site. Not sure how to make it through two or three posts there. There lies the rub. Unless you spent time with that group you might not be able to make it through. :) That's why I hang out here as I spent the most time doing TM though this tantra program I'm on is soon to be the longest. I relate well to the SYDA folks that I have known but what open boards I've found didn't have much on them. As an astrologer I used to hang out at events and workshops and met all kinds of cool folks from different spiritual disciplines. Those too became fragmented particularly with one group who was fond of a certain teacher and yet the folks who followed the school I represent were able to read a chart readily whereas his just stumbled around (probably much to his chagrin as I am a friend of the guy) and made stabs at readings. I think it just miffed them that we went bang, bang, bang... okay what do you guys see. So we went our separate ways and with the downturn in new age centers after the 90's there was not much to hang out at but when there was it was fun to make friends from other disciplines.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: A friend named George
I agree (of course) as politics is often a manifestation of our inner state as projected onto the world what responsibility we have as human being to it. The powers at be would just as soon we not talk religion and politics as things get too out of hand for them and soon folks notice who is making life difficult for them. This is a group largely founded around concepts of Indian philosophy and in India they don't believe at all in avoiding talk of religion and politics and they wonder what is wrong with us that we avoid these topics. Louis McKenzie wrote: I have been a member here since 2005 I have seen all kinds of topics on the veda the secret, jyotish so many different topics the political can get animated but that is a good thing. Because it shows some level of alertness.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: A friend named George
Richard Adams in Washington The Guardian, Monday September 17 2007 Article history Alan Greenspan, the consummate Washington insider and long-time head of the US central bank, has backed the position taken by many anti-war critics - that the invasion of Iraq was motivated by oil. His claim comes in his newly published autobiography, The Age of Turbulence, in which he also castigates George Bush's administration for making grave mistakes in economic policy. Sounding more like an activist than a lifelong Republican who worked alongside six US presidents, Mr Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, said in an interview with the Guardian that the invasion of Iraq was aimed at protecting Middle East oil reserves: I thought the issue of weapons of mass destruction as the excuse was utterly beside the point. Mr Greenspan said it was clear to him that Saddam Hussein had wanted to control the Straits of Hormuz and so control Middle East oil shipments through the vital route out of the Gulf. He said that had Saddam been able to do that it would have been devastating to the west as the former Iraqi president could have just shut off 5m barrels a day and brought the industrial world to its knees. In the book Mr Greenspan writes: Whatever their publicised angst over Saddam Hussain's 'weapons of mass destruction', American and British authorities were also concerned about violence in the area that harbours a resource indispensable for the functioning of the world economy. I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil. Asked to explain his remark, he said: From a rational point of view, I cannot understand why we don't name what is evident and indeed a wholly defensible pre-emptive position. As longest-serving chairman of the Fed, Mr Greenspan was renowned for his cryptic statements about the economy. But in his memoir, which went on sale over the weekend, he uncharacteristically criticises the Bush administration, while praising Bill Clinton and his advisers. Little value was placed on rigorous economic policy debate or the weighing of long-term development, he writes of the current administration. The 81-year-old's attack will hurt a White House already suffering feeble approval ratings and a faltering economic background. Describing ballooning government deficits under President Bush, he condemns the way deficit spending was used to support the legislative agenda: It was a struggle for me to accept that this had become the dominant ethos and economic policy of the Republican party.--- Bhairitu [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: lurkernomore20002000 wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I see nothing wrong with the tone here on FFL Okay, but when you get comments like, So and So is pretty cool even though she doesn't believe the gov't orcestrataed 9-11. You once blasted me for being condescending. What category would this this fall into. Well deserved if you were presenting yourself that way. But it's just an opinion so what difference does it make? I believe being candid is good and I would have no problem making comments here to someone in person though it might well be taken differently in that environment. BTW, Rush is well known for his name calling. The term femi-Nazis comes to mind. :) If you want to get spiritually drunk there are other bliss groups that cater to discussion on spiritual topics. There's the All Amma, All The Time site. Not sure how to make it through two or three posts there. There lies the rub. Unless you spent time with that group you might not be able to make it through. :) That's why I hang out here as I spent the most time doing TM though this tantra program I'm on is soon to be the longest. I relate well to the SYDA folks that I have known but what open boards I've found didn't have much on them. As an astrologer I used to hang out at events and workshops and met all kinds of cool folks from different spiritual disciplines. Those too became fragmented particularly with one group who was fond of a certain teacher and yet the folks who followed the school I represent were able to read a chart readily whereas his just stumbled around (probably much to his chagrin as I am a friend of the guy) and made stabs at readings. I think it just miffed them that we went bang, bang, bang... okay what do you guys see. So we went our separate ways and with the downturn in new age centers after the 90's there was not much to hang out at but when there was it was fun to make friends from other disciplines. To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!'Yahoo! Groups Links mailto:[EMAIL
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: A friend named George
This article from the UN Weapons Inspectors should prove interesting. http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2003/sc7682.doc.htm There has not been a successful attack on U.S. soil since 9/11. Louis McKenzie wrote: Richard do you really believe what you are saying or do you like playing devils advocate? Yes, I believe there has NOT been a succesful attack on U.S. soil since 9/11. What do you think Louis? To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!'Yahoo! Groups Links mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
[FairfieldLife] Re: A friend named George
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Louis McKenzie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I find it amazing how things get twisted. Obama sometimes he says things innocently and even if the main idea is good the way people take what is said is as if Bush said it. That happens to Obama only a tiny fraction of the times it happens to Hillary. Typical White Person, not a bad statement but was not wise in his position. He speaks to people sometimes very direct and from the heart. He was saying that people are just plain old sick and tired of being lied to by people like Bill Clinton who promise the moon and barely deliver a star. That's nonsense. The people he was referring to were *far* better off under Clinton than under Bush. snip However to use the word Bitter in his situation can give ammunition to a person like Hillary Clinton which will then be Parroted by McCain. Bitter wasn't the problem so much as the notion that these people are clinging to God and their guns out of misplaced frustration over their economic situation, when religion and hunting have been a major part of their culture since way before they started having economic troubles. Is anyone noticing what is happening now McCain is campaigning to help Clinton and Clinton is Campaigning to help McCain both against Obama. Is this called King of the Hill or is it call a racial issue? Neither. It's called a primary election. And McCain Clinton aren't campaigning to help each other.
[FairfieldLife] Re: A friend named George
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Sal Sunshine [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Apr 12, 2008, at 12:31 PM, sparaig wrote: Like as not, he's never dealt with any. Its pretty much impossible to develop a realistic view of people if you've never met them and have to go by what Hollywood says about them. Um, Spare, he was a community organizer for years. Who exactly do you think he was dealing with then, if not the underprivileged? Judy knows that, of course. Interesting that she conveniently forgot to remind you of that little fact. Different group of underprivileged people, you utter nitwit. Entirely different situation, different history, different culture, different problems.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: A friend named George
Again even this part about God and guns is not wrong if said in the right way. Barack Obama is 15 months straight nearly non stop campaigning. Hillary too I guess, they are bound to say things the wrong way sometimes. The current climate in America has many people clinging to guns even the President and I repeat there are many who are very devoutly committed to the fulfillment of the Bible and surely Christianity (Protestant Christianity) is more popular than ever. He is saying the right things the wrong way. He is a mixed African American so when he gets excited he can probably do a good job of sounding Bushian... --- authfriend [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Sal Sunshine [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Apr 12, 2008, at 12:31 PM, sparaig wrote: Like as not, he's never dealt with any. Its pretty much impossible to develop a realistic view of people if you've never met them and have to go by what Hollywood says about them. Um, Spare, he was a community organizer for years. Who exactly do you think he was dealing with then, if not the underprivileged? Judy knows that, of course. Interesting that she conveniently forgot to remind you of that little fact. Different group of underprivileged people, you utter nitwit. Entirely different situation, different history, different culture, different problems. To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!'Yahoo! Groups Links mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: A friend named George
http://www.fff.org/comment/com0406g.asp Reagans WMD Connection to Saddam Hussein by Jacob G. Hornberger, June 18, 2004 Given all the indignant neoconservative outrage over the financial misdeeds arising from the UNs socialist oil-for-food program during the 1990s, when the UN embargo was killing untold numbers of Iraqi children, one would think that there would be an equal amount of outrage over a much more disgraceful scandal the U.S. delivery of weapons of mass destruction to Saddam Hussein during the Reagan administration in the 1980s. After all, as everyone knows, it was those WMDs that U.S. officials, from President Bush and Vice-President Cheney on down, ultimately used to terrify the American people into supporting the invasion and war of aggression against Iraq, a war that has killed or maimed thousands of innocent people that is, people who had absolutely nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington. In an October 1, 2002, article entitled Iraq Got Germs for Weapons Program from U.S. in 80s, Associated Press writer Matt Kelly wrote,--- Louis McKenzie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Again even this part about God and guns is not wrong if said in the right way. Barack Obama is 15 months straight nearly non stop campaigning. Hillary too I guess, they are bound to say things the wrong way sometimes. The current climate in America has many people clinging to guns even the President and I repeat there are many who are very devoutly committed to the fulfillment of the Bible and surely Christianity (Protestant Christianity) is more popular than ever. He is saying the right things the wrong way. He is a mixed African American so when he gets excited he can probably do a good job of sounding Bushian... --- authfriend [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Sal Sunshine [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Apr 12, 2008, at 12:31 PM, sparaig wrote: Like as not, he's never dealt with any. Its pretty much impossible to develop a realistic view of people if you've never met them and have to go by what Hollywood says about them. Um, Spare, he was a community organizer for years. Who exactly do you think he was dealing with then, if not the underprivileged? Judy knows that, of course. Interesting that she conveniently forgot to remind you of that little fact. Different group of underprivileged people, you utter nitwit. Entirely different situation, different history, different culture, different problems. To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!'Yahoo! Groups Links mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!'Yahoo! Groups Links mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
[FairfieldLife] Re: The Trouble With Normal
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Apr 12, 2008, at 8:14 AM, Alex Stanley wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, hugheshugo richardhughes103@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sandiego108 sandiego108@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, yifuxero yifuxero@ wrote: --The universe is perfect. Only in an Absolute sense; but we are talking about relative matters. The universe is perfect, imperfect, and all shades in-between. If the universe is solely perfect, then it would be incomplete, since completeness would require a degree of imperfection. snip. My experience is that the universe is perfect in an absolute and relative sense. Both together create and manifest its perfection, every moment. As it changes and evolves and grows it does so in perfection, in every particle of time and every moment of space. --Reverend Sandi Ego If you really think it so perfect, why do other people annoy you so much? I imagine he'll say that his being annoyed with other people is also perfect. I think Sri Sri Sandi Ego-ji's perspective is likely the same as Byron Katie's or Eckhart Tolle's in that there is no attachment to now being different than what it is. Yes, they all probably have a preference for how things ideally would be, and those ideals may very well differ from how things are right now. But, in acceptance of what is, there is no needless suffering derived from the ego-driven belief that things *should* be different than how they actually are. This is a common false view often heard by Neo- and Pseudo- advaitins. Deviations from a balanced experience of the Two Truths (the relative and the absolute) are not always obvious, esp. when encoded in new age feel-good speak. It also points out the danger of not having your View (of reality) checked by a master in your practice tradition. One can continue indefinitely like this and cause amazing suffering to others through such spiritual narcissism. A similar erroneous View 'everything is one, so everything is ok' was espoused by a great Pseudo-advaitin, Charles Manson. It looks like you, too, are making the same perfection = intertia/not giving a shit mistake that Jim keeps mentioning and that keeps falling on deaf ears... er, blind eyes. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/message/173252 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/message/173250 I suppose it's entirely possible that someone established in the perfection of now could just blissfully zone out into inertia, inaction, and apathy. But, I think recognition of the perfection of now also offers a grounding in serenity from which one can perform action more skillfully and powerfully than the person grounded in highly reactive ego drama. To use a pop culture reference, it's like Kwai Chang Caine instead of drunken, reactive cowboy.
[FairfieldLife] Re: A friend named George
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Louis McKenzie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Again even this part about God and guns is not wrong if said in the right way. Louis, you're not getting it. God and guns have *zilch* to do with the economic problems of the people he's talking about, which are fairly recent, whereas their devotion to God and guns goes way, way back. Obama was suggesting that they've latched onto God and guns only because they're nervous about their finances. That demeans their longstanding religious faith and love of hunting.
[FairfieldLife] Re: A friend named George
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: [...] Whatever his understanding of the economic situation in Pennsylvania, his understanding of the people is condescending and elitist at best. Like as not, he's never dealt with any. Its pretty much impossible to develop a realistic view of people if you've never met them and have to go by what Hollywood says about them. So yeah, he's an ignorant elitist. But, in all honesty, who isn't? Well, Hillary for one. She's made it her business to meet those people and get to know them. Er, yeah. Hillary is somehow perfect. Lawson
[FairfieldLife] Re: A friend named George
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: [...] Whatever his understanding of the economic situation in Pennsylvania, his understanding of the people is condescending and elitist at best. Like as not, he's never dealt with any. Its pretty much impossible to develop a realistic view of people if you've never met them and have to go by what Hollywood says about them. So yeah, he's an ignorant elitist. But, in all honesty, who isn't? Well, Hillary for one. She's made it her business to meet those people and get to know them. Er, yeah. Hillary is somehow perfect. Did I say she was perfect, Lawson? She has her pluses and her minuses. Her ability to connect with working-class people is one of her big pluses.
[FairfieldLife] 'Bitter Americans= John Nuke 'Em McCain'
I think John McCain is the Best. He will nuke anyone who stands in our greedy way. He will use his POW anger, and take it out on everyone. He will support the rich, and screw the poor. He will acts like he believes in God, When he only believes in War. He's got my vote. Don't worry, Bush has been good for our country, And John will too. We are a sick country, and John will cure us, for good. __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
[FairfieldLife] Re: A friend named George
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Louis McKenzie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I find it amazing how things get twisted. Obama sometimes he says things innocently and even if the main idea is good the way people take what is said is as if Bush said it. Typical White Person, not a bad statement but was not wise in his position. He speaks to people sometimes very direct and from the heart. He was saying that people are just plain old sick and tired of being lied to by people like Bill Clinton who promise the moon and barely deliver a star. He is saying that when you are losing your home because of being tricked on your mortgage contract or you own a pharmacy and can not afford to provide the basics for your employees it is hard to be happy optimistic and positive in the current environment. However to use the word Bitter in his situation can give ammunition to a person like Hillary Clinton which will then be Parroted by McCain. Is anyone noticing what is happening now McCain is campaigning to help Clinton and Clinton is Campaigning to help McCain both against Obama. Is this called King of the Hill or is it call a racial issue? Geeze, the word bitter isn't what is going to bite him, its how he used the word religion. Lawson
[FairfieldLife] Re: A friend named George
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Sal Sunshine [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Apr 12, 2008, at 12:31 PM, sparaig wrote: Like as not, he's never dealt with any. Its pretty much impossible to develop a realistic view of people if you've never met them and have to go by what Hollywood says about them. Um, Spare, he was a community organizer for years. Who exactly do you think he was dealing with then, if not the underprivileged? He was a community organizer in Chicago. Different group of people. Here's a hint: not all people at the same income level share the same value/behavior/belief systems. Judy knows that, of course. Interesting that she conveniently forgot to remind you of that little fact. Sal
[FairfieldLife] More Vedic Pandits coming
Global Good News / 9 April 2008 http://globalgoodnews.com/world-peace-a.html?art=120777152111752695 Raja Robert Wynne, Raja of New Zealand for the Global Country of World Peace and Mayor of Maharishi Vedic City, Iowa, USA, spoke recently on Maharishi Global Family Chat about the increasing numbers of Vedic Pandits arriving in Maharishi Vedic City to help in the creation of Invincible America. Raja Wynne reported that Dr Bill Goldstein, National Director of Law and Order in the administration of Dr John Hagelin [Raja of Invincible America for the Global Country] and General Counsel of Maharishi University of Management, is now in India having 'phenomenal success there in bringing the next group of 300 Vedic Pandits to Maharishi Vedic City.' Already there are 200 who have gathered in Maharishi Nagar in Delhi, who will come very soon. Another 100 will be coming from the Brahmasthan of India [the auspicious central area of the country] and another 100 from two other locations in India. Raja Wynne explained that the goal is to have 400 more Vedic Pandits in Maharishi Vedic City. This will achieve the goal of 1,000 Vedic Pandits. There are currently 590 Vedic Pandits and about 20 cooks and assistants, who all practise the Transcendental Meditation Programme together. 'The goal is to have 300 more Vedic Pandits here within three weeks, so that even when the students are away from Maharishi University of Management, there would still be 1900 Yogic Flyers in Fairfield and Maharishi Vedic City, even during school vacation.' 'With these numbers,' Raja Wynne said, 'we're right on the cusp of permanent invincibility for America. . . . Since the last time Dr Goldstein was in India a year and a half ago, when he was able to bring in 300 Vedic Pandits in three weeks, that's our motto now -- 300 Vedic Pandits in three weeks. And I think this will happen.' Raja Wynne reminded everyone that Maharishi Mahesh Yogi had said that once 2,000 Yogic Flyers were practising together in Maharishi Vedic City and M.U.M., then we would see very dramatic changes in Americaconsciousness, success, and peace. To achieve this, and in addition to these Vedic Pandits, Raja Wynne expressed his desire to have many hundreds more Yogic Flyers from America, and even from around the world, come to be on this course. Raja Wynne said there is still a grant programme of $700 per month from the Dr Howard and Dr Alice Settle Foundation for Invincible America, to support Americans on the Invincible America Assembly. Canadians can also be on the Assembly and receive the grant through the Canadian organization. Raja Wynne welcomed everybody to come. 'The weather is very nice, housing is under construction, and every other aspect of life here is completely idyllic,' he said. Having been traveling for the last three months in Holland and India, when they returned to Maharishi Vedic City, Raja Wynne and his wife felt 'the silence is so profound, so deep ... It's remarkable that some people who have just been visiting, have commented that it is so profound', their breath was deeply settled because of the profundity of the silence in the atmosphere. Copyright 2008 Global Good News
[FairfieldLife] Re: A friend named George
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: [...] Whatever his understanding of the economic situation in Pennsylvania, his understanding of the people is condescending and elitist at best. Like as not, he's never dealt with any. Its pretty much impossible to develop a realistic view of people if you've never met them and have to go by what Hollywood says about them. So yeah, he's an ignorant elitist. But, in all honesty, who isn't? Well, Hillary for one. She's made it her business to meet those people and get to know them. Er, yeah. Hillary is somehow perfect. Did I say she was perfect, Lawson? She has her pluses and her minuses. Her ability to connect with working-class people is one of her big pluses. It might be. She's a liberal, so I don't believe its all hypocritical, but as far as I know, she's not from a working class background so she's speaking as a concerned citizen rather than as someone who has experienced the kind of life coal miners do. Lawson
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: A friend named George
On Apr 12, 2008, at 3:36 PM, authfriend wrote: Did I say she was perfect, Lawson? She has her pluses and her minuses. Her ability to connect with working-class people is one of her big pluses. That's why she lost Iowa so miserably, a state made up of working-class people. I know, I know, it was just a caucus so it doesn't count. If that's what her supporters consider one of her pluses, it's no wonder her campaign has been foundering so much. You guys have been spending way too much time on the River in Egypt and not nearly enough dealing with reality. At this point, the only major group Hillary seems to be able to connect with are the lobbyists who support her. Sal
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: A friend named George
Louis McKenzie wrote: Richard Adams in Washington The Guardian, Monday September 17 2007 Article history Alan Greenspan, the consummate Washington insider and long-time head of the US central bank, has backed the position taken by many anti-war critics - that the invasion of Iraq was motivated by oil. Duh! :D I remember when Bush-Cheney were running for office in 2000 that journalists were talking about how they were from the old economy i.e. oil and didn't understand the new economy i.e. tech and internet. That was an astute observation and I pondered if they would try to nuke the new economy and I would say they've done a pretty good job of it especially to people like me who work in it. Looks like Greenspan's trying to cover his own ass.
[FairfieldLife] The law is an ass
http://tinyurl.com/4otpex
[FairfieldLife] Re: The Trouble With Normal
Some thoughts from reading this thread When you smile at someone ... From what I observe, actions seem to create an effect. You smile at someone, they generally smile at you. Go to college, and more types of jobs are open to you. Save an invest some money, then later there is something in the bank. Science has mapped out millions of things, some quite precisely. Do A, B occurs. Some maps are more precise, such as physics and chemistry. Others are more general, because all the factors can't be isolated -- like the economy. But still, cause and effect is pretty clear there too. Raise the price of something and people tend to buy less of it. How far does cause and effect extend? Hard to say -- but it seems to operate at the small level of quantum mechanics, and at the large level of cosmology. Given that track record, cause and effect being every where I look, its not a huge stretch to postulate that things that happen to me, good and bad, result from past cause. On the other had, maybe some crazy monkey god on some unknown planet pushed a button and cause someone to get angry with me. That perhaps is more comforting when something bad happens -- poor me, I am a victim of the irrational monkey god from the galaxy Spartagolopdia More plausible to me, is that I did something to provoke the person. Which is more irrational -- accepting or denying cause an effect? I find it more odd to dismiss cause and effect, than I do in accepting it -- at least as a good working hypothesis. In that sense, to me, the universe makes sense. To say its perfect is to place a human value judgement or layer of perception over it. To me, while perfect might be a nice poetic way to describe it, more accurate to me is simply that's the way it is. Its perfectin the sense that the first law of thermodyndamics is perfect (nothing is ever lost or gained. It just keeps getting transformed). But FLOT is not perfect is just IS the way things are. Even if universe is irrational and unfair ... And could the working hypothesis be wrong? Of course, But even if I did not cause something that is now effecting me, I am still not a victim. i find there is usually a learning opportunity, or the experience cultures something of value. Irrational experiences, unfair experiences happen. They become more understandable, rational, if can see that I caused them. But even if I didn't cause it, I find that many seemingly unpleasant events can be a gift. Even if, especially if, its irrational and unfair. If someone is irrationally inflammatory and mis-perceptive -- at first, it can be a bit unsettling to be the target of their baseless tirades. But I often find such to be a gift. Those experiences have cultured, for me, some things of value. And at times in my life, I have suffered substantial loss. Suffered is a traditional way to describe loss. I have found that often loss can be liberating. And gain can be an albatros around one's neck. So to equate, absolutely, suffering with loss I find can be a large mistake. Should I tell a homeless guy its his fault -- or simply try help him? Extrapolating my own personal views of how the universe (possibly) works, onto the situations of others, I find is not particularly useful. While a homeless person may, or may not have, caused their situation, and it may be a horrible situation, or a character-building, even liberating experience, all of that is immaterial. It does no good to tell them that, or to justify inaction. When someone is in need, its an opportunity for us to help, to empathize, to act compassionately. Someone being homeless is not perfect. It is what is. Its false, and irrational to deny it. or ignore it. Our ability to help is also What Is. If anything is perfect, it would be our ability to act with compassion to help them. Sometimes we react to our reaction to what someone said, not to what they actually said. To speculate that the vastly observable pattern of cause and effect may be far reaching, does not justify the caste system, is not an excuse to not help others, is not some ancient supersticious belief, does not mean astrology works, or any number of other odd conclusions that do not follow. Yet, such a simple observation about cause and effect, it appears, can invoke such phantom connections in our minds, at times. Its interesting to observe each other reacting to our reactions, and not the singular point made -- in and of itself.
[FairfieldLife] Re: A friend named George
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: [...] Whatever his understanding of the economic situation in Pennsylvania, his understanding of the people is condescending and elitist at best. Like as not, he's never dealt with any. Its pretty much impossible to develop a realistic view of people if you've never met them and have to go by what Hollywood says about them. So yeah, he's an ignorant elitist. But, in all honesty, who isn't? Well, Hillary for one. She's made it her business to meet those people and get to know them. Er, yeah. Hillary is somehow perfect. Did I say she was perfect, Lawson? She has her pluses and her minuses. Her ability to connect with working-class people is one of her big pluses. It might be. She's a liberal, so I don't believe its all hypocritical, but as far as I know, she's not from a working class background so she's speaking as a concerned citizen rather than as someone who has experienced the kind of life coal miners do. Her father's father was a factory worker; her father ran a small business. Her mother was the daughter of a firefighter. So not like a coal-miner's life, but not an elite family background either--middle-class, conservative, religious. She did a lot of work with rural people in Arkansas when Bill was governor; she was also head of the Legal Services Corporation. She's done all kinds of work for children and families. When she was campaigning for the Senate, she spent a great deal of time in upstate New York in working-class towns that have many parallels to those in Pennsylvania economically. So this isn't some new thing with her by any means. She's been attuned to the needs of working-class people for a long time, and they're among her strongest supporters.
[FairfieldLife] Al Gore is Abigail Williams
Just saw The Crucible on TV. The character played by Wynona Ryder, Abigail Williams, convinces most residents of Salem as well as the court that certain people are working in concert with the Devil. In fact, the more people doubt her, the stronger her declarations of possession.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: The Trouble With Normal
On Apr 12, 2008, at 4:24 PM, new.morning wrote: When you smile at someone ... From what I observe, actions seem to create an effect. You smile at someone, they generally smile at you. If you smile at me I will understand Cause that is something everybody everywhere does in the same language. CSN Glad to see you're back, new. Sal
[FairfieldLife] Re: The Trouble With Normal
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Sal Sunshine [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Apr 12, 2008, at 4:24 PM, new.morning wrote: When you smile at someone ... From what I observe, actions seem to create an effect. You smile at someone, they generally smile at you. If you smile at me I will understand Cause that is something everybody everywhere does in the same language. CSN Glad to see you're back, new. Thanks And that tune was exactly the one in my head when I wrote that. And was also thinking of Maria in Sound of Music, Nothing comes from nothing Nothing ever could So somewhere in my youth or childhood I must have done something good Sal
[FairfieldLife] Re: The Trouble With Normal
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Alex Stanley [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: snip I suppose it's entirely possible that someone established in the perfection of now could just blissfully zone out into inertia, inaction, and apathy. But, I think recognition of the perfection of now also offers a grounding in serenity from which one can perform action more skillfully and powerfully than the person grounded in highly reactive ego drama. To use a pop culture reference, it's like Kwai Chang Caine instead of drunken, reactive cowboy. exactamundo! I spend my time quickly finding creative solutions vs. pushing against the inertia of what it should be. No longer lost in the ephemeral past or future; the endless narcissistic reflections of my prior ignorant self that the unenlightened will always lose themselves in, go mad in. No longer anyone to get lost.
[FairfieldLife] Re: The Trouble With Normal
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, do.rflex [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sandiego108 sandiego108@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, do.rflex do.rflex@ wrote: snip Sal's description of you is right on you little fraud: That's it. Sterility. That's the word that comes to mind when reading Jim's posts as well as others who have been brainwashed by the TM Kool-Aide. There's no heart left (at least in their responses) so they tend to fall back on mindless parroting. And get seriously annoyed when others don't recognize how deep they are. The universe may be perfection, but you are just a creepy TMO party-line human pretending to be 'enlightened'. Yes, we are both getting exactly what we deserve. ...as if this somehow improves his fraudulent pose. There is no way it possibly could, do.rflex-- it only makes it stronger- almost overwhelming, I suspect.
[FairfieldLife] Re: The Trouble With Normal
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: snip This is a common false view often heard by Neo- and Pseudo- advaitins. Deviations from a balanced experience of the Two Truths (the relative and the absolute) are not always obvious, esp. when encoded in new age feel-good speak. It also points out the danger of not having your View (of reality) checked by a master in your practice tradition. One can continue indefinitely like this and cause amazing suffering to others through such spiritual narcissism. A similar erroneous View 'everything is one, so everything is ok' was espoused by a great Pseudo-advaitin, Charles Manson. If you knew anything about the established experience of enlightenment, Vaj, instead of spouting this fearful crap about a psychotic murderer, you would know that the experience is as real and unmistakable as hitting oneself in the head with a rock. Do you need a master in your tradition to tell you if the rock is real? I think it was a rock, O Great One-- can you confirm please? Try to let go of this addiction to other teachers for once. You may learn a heck of a lot. Unless of course that is not your aim at all.
