from:"turquoiseb"

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "salyavin808"  wrote:
>
> "Our uncle George thinks he's a chicken"
> 
> "Why don't you take him to a psychiatrist?"
> 
> "We would but we need the eggs"

As predicted, it was quite a flood of drama queenery
and Eastwooding yesterday, n'est-ce pas?  

One wonders sometimes what it's like, in their rare 
moments of clarity, for these people to realize that 
they've spent 30 to 40 years pursuing a spiritual 
path that has resulted not in enlightenment but in 
being part of an FFL clique that acts *exactly* like 
the cliques they were part of in Junior High School.

[FairfieldLife] Why do people form cliques?

My day started with young Maya doing her Sunday morning routine, and
asking me to show her "moovees" on my "competer." We chose a couple of
episodes of a British kids' show "Charlie and Lola." It's pretty good,
seemingly based on a series of very popular books written and
illustrated by Lauren Child.

I can see why they're popular. They are aimed at an audience aged 3 to
7, and they speak to this audience about real-life situations that a
person of that age might encounter. Lola is an inquisitive girl, Charlie
is her protective older brother, and their parents are never seen, so
they have to figure out how to handle these situations *on their own*.
This is what I consider the secret of these books' and this series'
success -- it teaches *self-sufficiency*.

Synchronistically, the second episode we watched was about Lola having
to deal with her first experience with cliques. A group of kids, both
girls and boys, took a disliking to her on the playground and decided to
gang up on her and diss her. As you might expect, if you have ever had
any experience with cliques, most of the dialog was spoken by the
clique. One of them -- the girl who ran the clique -- would diss Lola,
and then the others would pile on, one by one. As they did, the clique
leader would praise them, so then they'd all do it again.

Lola mainly didn't reply, and instead wandered off to another part of
the playground, where she ran into her brother Charlie. She explained
the situation to him, and he -- wise beyond his years -- asked her to
turn and look at the clique members, who were across the playground
*still* dissing her, even though they knew they couldn't be heard by
anyone outside the clique.

"Look at them, Lola," said Charlie. "Do they look happy? Would you ever
really want *any* of them as your friend?" Lola looked, shook her head
"No," and smiled. Just then her best friend Lotta came up and they went
off to play together, laughing, the clique and their taunts forgotten,
washed away like...like...like a line drawn through water.

Maya seemed to like it, even though she's been fortunate enough to have
been spared exposure to cliques so far. Looking at her I thought, "When
you are, I suspect you'll be self-sufficient enough to not let them get
to you."

And *that* thought, interestingly enough, was the genesis of this
particular cafe rap, and the answer to the koan posed in its Subject
line.

I think that the answer to that koan is: "People form cliques because
they're not self-sufficient."

Either that, or "Mu." Your call. :-)

People who tend to form into cliques do so in my opinion because they're
not comfortable with themselves. Or their selves. Whatever. So they
clump together with others who are just as uncomfortable with their
selves, and they stroke each other so that they won't feel so
uncomfortable.

Sometimes that "stroking off" takes the form of:
"Wow. Did you see the latest Lady Gaga video? Isn't she cool?"
"Yeah, she sure is cool."
"Very cool."
"And aren't we cool to be able to see her coolness?"
"Sure am glad WE'RE so cool!"

Other times it takes the form of:
"Wow. Isn't that skank Missy such a...such a skank?"
"Yeah, she sure is a skank."
"Major skank."
"And a bad dresser, too."
"Yeah, a major skank bad dresser."
"Sure am glad WE'RE not like Missy!"

My theory of why people form into cliques may be simplistic, but
hey!...we're talking about people who form into cliques. You can't get
much deeper than simplistic when discussing them. :-)

But I think I'm onto something with it.

The people in cliques don't identify with Self. Because they're so
uncomfortable with their selves, they don't even identify with *them*,
either. They can only feel comfortable when they're surrounded by a
bunch of people who are stroking them off. Sounds kinda kinky to me --
kinda like a ménage à many -- but if that's what gets them off, so
be it.

But one of the things I don't understand is WHY, having formed the
clique to stroke each other off when they agree on things or people they
like, as in the first bit of dialogue above, they stroke each other off
by ganging up on the things or people they *don't* like? If they're
getting everything they need from the mutual masturbation society of the
clique and its members, WHY do clique-ists so often feel the need to
come up with an Enemies List of the people Not In The Clique?

That happened here yesterday. I don't know whether you noticed.

A minor clique member listed eight people Not In The Clique and then
dissed them. The only thing these eight people had in common, as far as
I could tell, is that they continue to have friendly relationships with
and chat with people who the clique doesn't like. Immediately after
after the minor clique-ist proposed his Enemies List, the clique leader
responded, not only stroking the first clique-ist for dissing these
eight people, but dissing them even further, suggesting that they lacked
the spiritual, moral, emotional, and intellectual intelligence to...wai

[FairfieldLife] Thinking Hierarchically vs. Relationally

Segueing from my rap about cliques and why -- in my opinion, of course
-- people form them, I find my self proposing another answer to that
koan: "They're stuck in hierarchical thinking."

One of Rama - Fred Lenz's crackpot theories that I still think might
have been a bit less crackpotosity than his other theories was derived
from the study of computer databases. The first computer databases
developed were hierarchical in nature. They reflected the largely
hierarchical thinking of the times; everything was organized into
enormous tree structures, "higher" above "lower," from the "top" of the
tree to the "bottom" of it. Cool, I guess, until you had to link one
piece of data to another piece of data way the fuck across the tree. The
only way you could "get there from here" was to traverse the tree, from
branch to branch, until you got from A to Z. There was no way to go
*directly* from A to Z, in one or two jumps. As a result, these
databases were remarkably inefficient, and slow as hell.

Then someone came up with relational databases, in which the data
elements were linked...uh...relationally. Each data element was linked
not only to the element immediately "above" or "below" it, but to many
others, by *concept*, not by any data element's position in an imaginary
hierarchy. Thus both a cottage and a castle could be accessed directly
by linking to the element that conceptually described both of them, a
dwelling for humans to live in. Relational databases were *much* faster,
and have largely replaced hierarchical databases in the world of
computing.

Pity that hasn't happened in the world of thinking.

Humans still have a tendency to think hierarchically. They look at the
world around them and build in their minds enormous tree structures to
describe what they see and experience. And they build these imaginary
structures hierarchically. God or Brahman or whatever you choose to call
it is at the top. Under that are the Laws Of Nature or the Three Gunas
or the Holy Trinity or whatever you choose to call *that* level of the
tree. Under that -- at least in Hindu or wannabee-Hindu tree structures
-- are devas and devatas, or gods and goddesses, or whatever you choose
to call them. Then maybe saints and ascended holy men, then priests who
haven't acended to sainthood yet, then ordinary spiritual teachers who
haven't ascended to priesthood yet, then priests, then rank-and-file
seekers, and then -- "below" all of them -- layers and layers of peons.
They're at the bottom because they Don't Really Matter, being so low on
the cosmic totem pole tree and all.

So now what do you DO if you're one of the peons, say back in a past era
of Indian history, and you discover that you have a desire to access the
data element called God or Brahman?

If you chose Hinduism or Vedism, there was simply no way to get directly
from A to Z. You had to "traverse the tree," first sucking up to the
rank-and-file seekers so they'd deign to accept you as one of them, then
sucking up to the spiritual teachers. And you had to PAY these spiritual
teachers -- and the priests above them in the hierarchy -- to get
accepted by them. Then you had to pay them even more to (theoretically)
get them to intercede on your behalf with the saints and the devas and
devatas by performing yagyas and chants to them on your behalf. And then
only *they* could intercede on your behalf with God or Brahman.
Accessing Brahman directly was Right Out.

On the other hand, if you chose Buddhism, you *could* go from A to Z,
because Z was not at the top of some hierarchical tree structure, but as
close as the other peons beside you. All of you were inherently linked
relationally by a greater data element called Life. One of the reasons
historical Hindus (and even wannabee Hindus in the present) dissed the
Buddha so much is that he said, "Skip the small shit. You don't *need*
any of these intermediaries to access the 'highest' element of Life.
Tell them to fuck off, and that you don't have to pay them a penny to
intercede for you with that which you wish to access. Just access it
directly. Do It Yourself. DIY."

This is one reason that Buddhism was so popular when it arrived on the
scene. It is also the primary reason why Hindus during his lifetime and
for all the years afterwards have been so down on him -- he threatened
their *source of income and livelihood*."

Anyway, I resonated with this idea that Life is relational in nature,
not hierarchical. I'm a DIY kinda guy.

But not everyone is. I think that those who call themselves seekers but
who cannot conceive of themselves *as* seeking unless they're a part of
a group of other seekers are kinda stuck in hierarchical thinking.
That's why they gravitate to spiritual traditions with lots and lots and
lots of *hierarchy*.

At almost the bottom of the hierarchy -- everyday meditators. Who are
*almost* the lowest of the low, except that *they* get to look down the
tree structure at the layers and layers of non-meditating peons

[FairfieldLife] "Going on a course"

Segueing again from the idea of DIY to what in my mind is a related
subject, have you ever noticed how many (not all, but many) TMers have
been conditioned to think of the events that enabled them to make (in
their minds, at least) tremendous leaps in their spiritual progress is
synonymous with "going on a course?"

People tend to talk about the "courses" they were on, and how awesome
they were, and how awesomely awesome their experiences were while "on"
them. Rarely have I encountered TB TMers talking about spiritual
adventures they had while *on their own*.

Why is that, do you think?

One possible answer is: "They've been conditioned to think this way."
Major spiritual leaps, in their minds, just aren't *possible* unless
they're "on a course," or surrounded by hundreds of other people in a
"dome" somewhere, or getting "darshan" from some teacher.

Another possible answer is: "We PAID for it, dummy!" Courses cost money.
Every TB TMer knows that you can't make spiritual progress unless you
PAY for it.

Yet another possible answer -- I would suggest the Occam's Razor answer
-- is: "Because they don't actually *have* experiences that radically
shift their states of attention and allow them to make major leaps in
their spiritual progress *unless* they're 'on a course.'" One that they
PAID for, of course.

Why I think that the last poasible answer is the one suggested by
Occam's Razor is that so few TB TMers ever *talk about* having had a
major spiritual breakthrough that they managed on their own -- DIY. If
they'd had such experiences, doncha think they'd talk about them more?

What's UP with that?

Is it "off the program" to admit to having made spiritual progress on
one's own, without the blessing of the TMO, after having PAID them
beaucoup bucks for the blessing? Beats me.

Me, I'm a DIY kinda guy. If I were ever asked to come up with a Top Ten
List of the experiences I've had that produced the most powerful
subjective shifts in my state of attention and my long-term spiritual
progress, only four of them would be experiences I had while in the
presence of a spiritual teacher or in a group of fellow seekers or "on a
course." The rest I managed to stumble into on my own. DIY. And I didn't
PAY a penny for any of them, except maybe travel expenses to where the
experience happened, and often not even that, because I didn't have to
go anywhere for the experiences to happen.

I am NOT making pronouncements about "better" or "worse" or "best" here,
merely noticing trends, as is my wont. I and many of the people I have
encountered along the Way have had rip-snortin' Top Ten experiences on
our own. That's just our predilection; we're just "drawn that way."
Others feel that they can only have such experiences if they're called
"courses" and they have to PAY for them.

No "better" or "worse" or "best" in noticing this trend from my point of
view, just noticing it. If there is any advantage to the way I'm drawn
over the way others are drawn, it's merely that it's saved me a fuck of
a lot of money. :-)

[FairfieldLife] Re: Thinking Hierarchically vs. Relationally

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Susan"  wrote:
>
> Some of the same dynamics happened in Christianity when 
> Protestants broke off from Catholicism and said people 
> did not need to pay for penances, use Popes or have a 
> whole hierarchy of rituals to reach God.

Ah, but they still had to pay for access to the books
*about* God. Few know that when Gutenberg invented
movable type and thus the ability print books inexpen-
sively, this advance in technology was met with a 
movement to have him burned at the stake as a heretic.

Why? Because the first book printed was the Bible. And
prior to that time, Bibles had to be hand-copied, and
were thus hideously expensive. Only the churches and
the very rich could afford them. Therefore, if you 
wanted to hear the "word of God," you had to go to a 
church or a priest and have them read it to you from
one of the Bibles that only they could afford. After
having paid them for the privilege, of course.

Cheap Bibles, as far as the church was concerned, were
"off the program." If everyone could afford one, what
did they need the priests and the church for? 

> Still, I read of some recent studies that suggest that 
> most humans are happier beings when they have rules, 
> even many rules. 

I would agree. What I would not agree to is that any
of these rules are, in fact, rules. They're made up
by people to suit their other illusions about the
world and how it works.

> I am guessing that the reason might be that people feel 
> more secure with some rules,that they save time because 
> they don't have to think so much about daily decisions, 
> that they physically and emotionally just feel better 
> with routines, that there is security in knowing "what 
> to do and when to do it and how to do it." 

I would phrase it, "They are more *comfortable* being
*told* what to do and when to do it and how to do it."

> The hierarchy of age is interesting.  When I was a child 
> I recall just adoring adults who treated me with the genuine 
> respect they had for adults.  Still, I think adults have more 
> experience and wisdom and can protect younger people from 
> not only danger, but also the pain of some stupid choices 
> and behaviors.  

Chuckling, because on another forum someone posted a cute
saying, "Age is of no importance unless you are a cheese."
I added, "...or a wine, Scotch whiskey, or tequila."  :-)

> I guess what I am saying is that there needs to be a balance 
> in life between hierarchies and using them usefully, and the 
> unstructured lifestyle.  

I would agree, not least because the hierarchies themselves
are just as manufactured as the lifestyles. :-)

> Kind of like the art that results from 2 extremes can still 
> be moving: the work of painters in the eastern traditions 
> who spend 20 years as apprentices and then still paint 
> mandalas according to all the mathematical rules of specific 
> proportions and colors vs. contemporary abstract art. 
> Different strokes, different folks, both can be effective. 
> Same with spiritual paths.  the problems come up when the 
> path does not mesh well with the individual's temperament. 
> And then some paths might be inherently faster or kinder 
> than others.

That's my feeling. It's all about predilection -- how you
are "drawn." But it takes great courage to resist those,
especially those in positions of power, who are constantly
telling you, "THIS is the way you're drawn." 

Why should their point of view *matter* if they're not
on some "higher" level of the universe that grants them
"authority?" Answer? It doesn't. It's just another point
of view, another opinion. 

That's why hierarchical organizations don't like philos-
ophies or practices that challenge the hierarchy. If there
is none, then people Just Don't Need Them. OR their
opinions.

[FairfieldLife] Re: Our Little Secret

All of this writing just *has* to be a book, Curtis.

The world really needs it.

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues"
 wrote:
>
> Crowds of people are like schools of fish.  They swim by an outside
performer with the mentality of a single entity.  The trick for a busker
is to break them out of the trance so they will pay attention to me. 
"Pay" is the key word here. I need them to stop their internal dialog
long enough to extract something green and crisp from their wallets and
purses.
>
> Bring on the children!  They are perfect for this agenda.  Easily
distracted by novel things in the environment (me and my instruments),
and lacking the intense internal dialog of having mortgage payments and
making it to their car before the meter maid, they are ideal
co-conspirators.  I invite them up with maracas so they can join the
show.  Parents get it right away, artistic enrichment for the center of
their universe.  Now that the stage is set, I have something hidden to
show you.
>
> She was one of those little girls with something extra, the sparkle of
magnetic charisma.  I see plenty of them coming out of the good homes in
Northern Virginia. The right schools, plenty of vitamin D enriched milk,
and tons of confidence to project a beamer of a smile full of
orthodontist approved, well-flossed teeth.  She was around eleven.  Her
brown hair was pulled into a loose pony tail by some fluorescent pink
scrunchy fabric.  The only thing out of the ordinary was that she
crowded me a bit after she got her maraca. Younger kids will do this,
and as the Mayor of Munchkin Land, it is up to me to get them to back
off and give me some performance space.  Decking one of the kids with my
heavy steel resonator guitar in one of my tip inspiring flourishes,
leaving them cold cocked on the boardwalk, would definitely cut into
profits.  But a girl this age usually keeps her distance, so it got my
attention that she was standing very close to me with one side of her
body.
>
> I swiveled my head and my eyes caught something that instantly put me
on red alert.  The arm she was crowding me with was cut off right below
the elbow and she was using me to shield it from the audience. Her arm
was not this way from birth.  Something sinister and terrible had done
this, and it left a fiery red zipper of violated flesh. Our eyes met and
I gave her a nod.  We were thick as thieves in an instant and she
relaxed into a nervous giggle.  Like a Sicilian made-man, I was bonded
to her through omerta.  It was a matter of trust, and I felt it in my
chest.
>
> We began to play close like Sonny and a miniature Cher.  People
probably thought she was my niece or something, who else would play
together with this familiarity?  Her father was all smiles.  She was a
brave kid, this is not easy performing in front of strangers. A crowd
formed supporting the cute little girl and the bluesman.  They had no
clue to the fierceness of her jagged asymmetry.  She kept herself
sideways, showing the world who she wanted to be, and they bought it. At
the song's end she shot me a conspiratorial look.  I sensed something
gritty in those eyes.  A steeliness forged by the fires of pediatric
ward hell.  I wondered about her mom and dad, who had spent the hours in
the hospital making the painful decisions that lead to this.  Oh
bullshit, I have no idea.  She ran off back to her dad.  His look
combined sincere thanks with "you have no idea". Or maybe I just read
all that in myself, it is so hard to tell sometimes. When our eyes met I
forgot to breath for a moment.  I saw people moving in with tips in slow
motion.
>
> Someday I hope she finds a real stand up guy.  A guy who will always
take her left side, and wrapping his arm around her far shoulder, will
press her close, feeling her arm halfway across his own back, and she
will feel safe and brave, facing the world.
>

[FairfieldLife] Re: "Going on a course"

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Xenophaneros Anartaxius"
 wrote:
>
> Almost all the 'big' experiences I had were spontaneous and
> not on courses of any kind.

Me, too. Of my Top Ten List, only one is associated
with TM, and occurred on a course. And even then it
happened while meditating on my own, not with MMY.

> In navigating the TMO world, I always tried to be as cost
> effective as possible. I was never on very many courses,
> and never longer than a week.
>
> In fact I think the propensity for extraordinary experiences
> damped down in the vicinity of the movement.

I can see that. Probably not true for everyone, and
in fact the opposite for some of a different predilec-
tion, but I can certainly see it as being true for some.

> But even before I learned TM I had had the experience of
> being as a universal value, so, as you put it in another
> post, I tended not to see progress in terms of hierarchy.
> Having a scientific bent helped with avoiding the
> pseudoscience associated with spiritual movements.

To be fair, not associated with all of them.

> The grit of spiritual growth occurs outside of meditation
> etc.

I agree completely.

> I think of meditation kind of like Drano, drain cleaner.
> It loosens stuff up, but you have to turn on the spigot
> with hot water to wash the crap completely loose.

Very funny. For some reason, your mention of the word
"Drano" inspired me to search Google Images for the
string "spiritual Drano," wondering whether anyone else
had had that insight, and created a graphic for it. What
came up as a result of my search were -- no shit -- the
following two graphics. The one on the left was #1 and
the one on the right was #2.  :-)

> Courses can be valuable, but picking them strategically
> rather than on perceived 'need' seems to work better. I
> managed to 'arrive' at my goals in relation to the TMO for
> less than the cost of what I think the TM-Sidhi program
> sells for, maybe half that.

Good for you. That is a major achievement.

> My 'best' experiences occurred walking across a living room,
> while driving a car, and walking outdoors on asphalt.

One of my Top Ten happened as someone was attempting
to mug me. Really. It was just way cool.

> My most intense experiences of release also did not occur in
> a course situation. However special experiences like this, or
> sustained experiences of any kind are not what this is all about.

Agreed. Top Ten Lists are just a way of talking. One could have
a spiritual "resume" consisting of the Top Ten Thousand and
still be an asshole to other people. Or one can go through one's
life without every having what they consider a spiritual exper-
ience and be a pretty neat person.

[FairfieldLife] Re: Our Little Secret

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues"  
wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb  wrote:
> >
> > All of this writing just *has* to be a book, Curtis.
> > 
> > The world really needs it.
> 
> Thanks for the encouragement Barry.  I don't think I 
> have found my market focus for a book yet, but it is 
> fun to send these out and I really appreciate the 
> positive vibes. 

I honestly think that what would make the book 
marketable is that you're writing it *without a 
market in mind*. 

What would appeal to people about it -- with a 
photo of the author and his music setup on the
cover, of course -- is its essential authenticity.
There is a very *real* voice here, one that makes
no concessions to a perceived audience or market,
and one that feels no need to "pull punches," 
whether it comes to either the gritty stuff or 
the sublime stuff. 

Your writing strikes me as the literary equivalent
of your music. And I think you know that I mean
that as a high compliment.

Fwd: [FairfieldLife] Re: mind boggling

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Xenophaneros Anartaxius"
 wrote:
>
> When Buck suggests removing people from the forum or reducing the
> number of posts, I tend to think rather than reducing the number of
> posts, that if software could be developed to not accept posts that
were
> just a single line, but required everyone to write at least, say,
three
> paragraphs of three complete sentences each, with a minimum number
> of characters required, thus forcing us to think before posting, might
> work out better.
>
> I noticed that there were a lot of posts to youtube posts, songs and
> whatnot that served as comments on this thread. Maybe we are getting
> lazy and letting others say what we want to say.

In the spirit of the original Subject line of this thread, my comment is
below. The three paragraphs of explanation that follow the link (each
containing at least three full sentences) are written in a kind of
super-
secret Tantra cyber-ink. Only those who are really spiritually advanced
can see them:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mz3CPzdCDws


.
.
.
.

.
.
.
.

.
.
.
.

[FairfieldLife] Re: Our Little Secret

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues"  
wrote:
>
> As a boy on Nantucket I spent a lot of time picking out 
> sperm whale's teeth to buy.  This was before the ban and 
> they were cheap enough for my thin wallet.  My dad took 
> up the arcane art of scrimshaw and I have a few beautifully 
> etched teeth telling the story of the ill fated Essex where 
> a particularly ambitious whale turned the tables and with 
> whatever is the blow hole equivalent of "no, no fuck YOU" 
> crashed the boat to splinters.

Curtis, given the wonderful way you describe the early
history of American whaling, I have to think that you'd
really enjoy the new BBC America series "Copper." NOT
that there is any whaling in it; it's set in New York
City's Five Points, possibly not the biggest American
whaling port. 

But it's a story told -- both visually and in dialogue --
as vividly as your descriptions of what a Nantucket Sleigh
Ride is, and the whale-sized balls of the men who took
such rides. "Copper" is about Irish-Americans in the
years following the riots portrayed in Scorcese's "Gangs
Of New York." Our heroes are the Good Guys of the NYC
police force, which means that they try to murder only
the people who deserve it, not the ones who don't. 

As I've said here before but you might have missed, being
in lurk mode and all, I compare it favorably with "Deadwood."
That is -- coming from me -- a high compliment. *Especially*
because "Copper" was done on probably a tenth or twentieth of
that show's budget. 

I was never into whaling lore, but for about a year I lived
out on Marblehead Neck, near Boston. It was very near Salem,
MA, home of the Salem witch trials, and a museum to them.
In it you could read -- on the original parchments, written
in the original hands of the people who wrote them -- the
court records of the men who pressed to death quite a few
women for the crime of...uh...not being the kind of women
they were expected to be. Nothing more.

The museum also contained a few implements that these
fine, upstanding men used to extract confessions from the
women in question. Some of them make the whaling tools
you described sound benevolent and compassionate in
comparison.

[FairfieldLife] "Breaking Bad" season 5.1 finale

[ Some SPOILERS if you're following this season and
haven't seen this episode, but hopefully vague 
enough not to spoil things for those who still 
plan to watch the series sometime in the future. ]

The tension in this episode was -- at least for me --
caused more by off-screen knowledge than by anything
happening onscreen. As the events of this episode 
proceeded -- many of them seemingly leading up to
a kind of fairytale happy ending being tacked on to
the end of a monster movie -- I knew that it wasn't
the end. This is just the halfway point in a final, 
two-part series of 16 episodes. 

So I knew that the cleaning up of nine "loose ends," 
-- all dispatched Godfather-like within two minutes 
in a kind of intense Heisenbergian fuck you to Hank 
and the DEA as well as being just good house cleaning
-- wasn't really the end. I knew that the last scene
between Walt and his former partner wasn't really 
the last scene. I knew that the shot of Walt and
Skyler standing in front of a pile of money the size
of a sports car wasn't the end. 

And I knew that the last idyllic scene by the pool
wasn't really going to be the last scene, not as it
stood, the retired family man having dinner with 
family and friends. Surely, I thought, something 
powerful was going to happen. Deranged Chileans 
would leap out of the bushes and spray everyone with
machine gun fire. German terrorists paid by Lydia 
and the Madrigal corporation would set off a bomb
and blow everything to Kingdom Come. Something like
that. 

Nope. The ending of the first half of the last season 
of Breaking Bad -- and the setup for the second half --
went out not with a bang but with a fart, someone
sitting on the pot doing a little random reading.

GLIDING o'er all, through all,
Through Nature, Time, and Space,
As a ship on the waters advancing,
The voyage of the soul--not life alone,
Death, many deaths I'll sing.

[FairfieldLife] Eastwooding: "I'm not going to shut up; it's my turn!"

As sad as it may be to keep twisting the knife that one
of the TMO's poster boys for the awesome power of TM
to enhance creative intelligence plunged into himself
may be, I must, because it provides such a perfect
explanation of the dynamics of FFL.

The term "Eastwooding" has now entered the vocabulary
used to describe crazy people. That term will outlast
his screen legacy. Which is good in a way, because now
we at Fairfield Life have that term to describe the
actions of those who -- affronted dearly by something
someone has done, or has said about them, or didn't
even say but the Eastwooder imagined them saying it --
feel the need to preach or yell at them, long after
the offending person has stopped listening.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/09/01/in-a-friday-night-special-jon-stewart-celebrates-clint-eastwoods-fistful-of-awesome/

"You will not silence me, invisible Barack Obama!"

Substitute "Vaj" for "Barack Obama" in the sentence
above. Or replace that name with "Curtis." Or with
"Sal," or even -- 12 years after he last appeared --
"Andrew Skolnick." Or finish the sentence with
"invisible Barry," and then continue yelling at
the empty chair for...wait for it...17 years.

To quote Jon Stewart in this awesome bit, "But I
could never wrap my head around why the world and
the President that Republicans describe bears so
little resemblance to the world and the President
that I experience. Now I know why. There is a
President Obama that only Republicans can see."

Continuing the "replacement game," replace the
words "the world and the President" with any of
the names I suggested above. Replace the word
"Republicans" with "crazy people." And instead
of spending 12 minutes demonstrating the crazy
by trying to convince others that these people
the crazy person hates are the root cause of
everything wrong with the world, spend 17
years doing it.

[FairfieldLife] Re: The Master

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "salyavin808"
 wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "salyavin808" 
wrote:
> >
> > Here's one to look out for:
> >
> > http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/sep/02/the-master-review
> >
> > Might even tempt me into a cinema but my town has only
> > multiplexes and movies that get 5* in the Grauniad
> > don't often get to be shown in front of the hotdog
> > slurping masses. Shame as Scientology is most
> > interesting, wonder what the devotees in Hollywood
> > will make of it.
>
> I didn't look at the embedded video before posting
> but PTA does a hopefull job of distancing himself from
> becoming Fair Game by claiming that the movie is based
> on Hubbard and that he doesn't know anything about
> scientology now. Hope it's enough to save him, might
> even get an oscar if it does...

For those who don't know that much about $cientology,
or how it relates to the study of cults in general,
here is a passage from the Wikipedia page on LRH that
describes how he reacted to first being denounced by
the FDA as promoting ineffective cures and then being
labeled by the state of Victoria, Australia as a cult:

Hubbard took three major new initiatives in the face of
these challenges. "Ethics Technology" was introduced to
tighten internal discipline within Scientology. It required
Scientologists to "disconnect" from any organization or
individual  including family members  deemed to be
disruptive or "suppressive". Scientologists were also
required to write "Knowledge Reports" on each other,
reporting transgressions or misapplications of Scientology
methods. Hubbard promulgated a long list of punishable
"Misdemeanors," "Crimes" and "High Crimes". The "Fair Game"
policy was introduced, which was applicable to anyone
deemed an "enemy" of Scientology: "May be deprived of
property or injured by any means by any Scientologist
without any discipline of the Scientologist. May be
tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed."

[FairfieldLife] Getting away from it all with Van Gogh's Mom

Many of you have probably gotten the impression that when I "go out"
it's always to noisy, crowded places where I can do a lot of
people-watching. But no. Every so often I, too, feel the need to get out
of the city and into a place with trees and grass and silence and,
possibly most important, no people.

Some things I write can coexist peacefully -- if not symbiotically --
with noisy cafes and bars. Other things, not so much. The words of those
sorts of things just seem to flow better in quieter, more still places.

Fortunately, one of those places is only a few blocks away from where I
live. It's beautiful, it's green, it's quiet, and almost every time I go
there it's free of other people. Some of my favorite "writing park
benches" in Leiden are there. I go there when I want to write about
silence. It's appropriate, because the place is silent as a tomb.

Which is appropriate in itself, because the place is full of tombs. It's
the Groenesteeg cemetery. And it's just lovely. Here is a photo essay by
someone else who thinks so:

http://jpgmag.com/stories/17102 

You can read about it at the link to save me having to tell you. The
thing I like best about going there -- besides its silence, of course --
is the idea that at one point this cemetery was abandoned, and reverted
back to nature. Napoleon decreed that there could be no more church
burials, so they stopped using it. I just *love* trying to imagine what
this place must have been like totally overgrown with grass and weeds. I
suspect I would have liked it even better then than the way it is now,
restored by the Leiden city government in 1995-1997.

One thing they didn't have to restore are the trees. They are nothing
short of magnificent. Some of them were possibly planted here when the
cemetery was first created. They are enormous; some of them tall and
straight, others twisted and gnarly and Tolkien-y. Especially one of
them. It's a European Beech, very very old, and (I stepped it off today)
14 meters circumference at its base. It looks like this:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/de_buurman/2919934156/ 

As trees go, it's as close to being one of Tolkien's Ents as I've ever
met. Today as I walked by it there was a girl, perhaps 13, sitting up in
the branches of the tree. At first glance, I took her for a Hobbit. I
chuckled but then left, so as not to bother her, and moved to a favorite
writing bench at the other end of the cemetery, next to the canals.

What I wrote about is a matter between me and my computer at this point.
This isn't it. This was written later, back at home, so that I could
look up the Web links.

Oh, yeah. Van Gogh's Mom. She's buried here. She doesn't actually say
much, so I kinda misled you with the title. My bad.

[FairfieldLife] Re: Our Little Secret

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues"  
wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "seventhray1"  wrote:
> > 
> > This is not a fair fight Curtis.  Cut him some slack.
> 
> That was my mistake last time Steve.  I believed that. 
> 
> I appreciate your balancing comments and genuine affection 
> for the guy though.  I've got a harder climb on that score.  
> My sights are just focused on containment of damage this 
> time around.  

As long as we've stopped pulling punches, we might
as well lay the blame for Ravi having once again
disrupted this forum and brought it down to his
level where it belongs -- with Rick.

Rick has now -- possibly in an attempt to be the 
"nice guy" he'd like to be perceived as -- allowed
two people who would be better placed in mental
hospitals to roam around here free, declaring 
their Enemies Lists, making actual threats, and
most important, *getting worse themselves*. 

Is there any *question* that Ravi has grown more
insane since returning to FFL, and being placed
in a position of being able once again to troll 
for other people's attention? Is there any 
*question* that Dan Friedman has done the same 
thing, and is at this point dangerous to
himself and others.

All of this because Rick wants to be a "nice guy"
rather than actually PAY SOME ATTENTION to 
what is happening on the forum he created, and 
what the crazy trolls are doing to it. 

Alex, you were possibly privy to any "agreement"
between Rick and Ravi, and Rick and Dan, trying 
to get them to keep their shit in their pants and
not fling it around like monkeys. My bet is that 
Ravi was allowed to come back on the condition 
that he not start attacking Curtis and other 
people again, and that Dan was allowed to stay 
on the condition that he stop making threats
of actual, physical violence against people here.

Do you think either of those things happened?

It's sad to see this place returned to the snake
pit it was a few months ago. It's even sadder to
realize that on some level the reason it has is
that Rick seems to prefer it that way.

[FairfieldLife] "Where everybody knows your name" (was: Our Little Secret)

Curtis, I'm finally getting back to this post of yours,
which I think was an important one. Possibly later today
I will riff on it in the context you presented -- the
danger *to* guru-wannabees of followers projecting their
shit onto them. But this morning I'm going to take it in
another direction, to another danger I perceive in the
world we live in.

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues"  
wrote:
>
> This speaks (outside this particular context) of whether 
> or not we ever are doing someone a favor by conferring on 
> them guru status.  At first the payoff seems obvious, they 
> get rich, and if they are so inclined, they get their pick 
> of some high end tail.  But unless they really have the 
> narcissist or psychopathic tendency strongly, somewhere 
> there is a disconnect between the image projected on them 
> and who they know they are inside.

The direction I'm going to shift this insight onto is
not the world of spiritual groups and cults, where such
dangers have been known and recognized for centuries.
Instead, I'd like to rap about another type of group,
one that is similarly inviting and encouraging border-
line personalities with a strong leaning to narcissism
and psychopathic behavior to *act out* that behavior,
get recognized and even praised for it, and thus have
those tendencies in them become more pronounced, and
often spiral out of control. 

I'm talking about the Internet.

On it, people who are basically no-talent nobodies can
drop into a chat forum and *suck attention*. In real 
life, no one would give them any; they'd just look at
the person acting like a clownish troll and walk away.
But on the Net, people don't seem to have the discrim-
ination (or compassion) to do that. They actually *fall
for* the troll's attempts to get attention, and give
their attention to them. They praise them, they cheer
them on when they're acting out, and they in some cases
become *enablers* helping a mentally ill person to 
become more so.

Segue to the subject of bars. 

This is not as much of a non-sequitur as it seems. My
contention that Internet chat groups like FFL are much
closer to barrooms than they are ashrams. And one of
the things you learn about bars is that some people
just can't handle alcohol. They reach their limit and
then just keep drinking, becoming abusive and picking
fights. 

On the Net, some people can't handle attention. They
do the same thing.

A few years ago I lived in Back Bay Boston, and worked
a walk away from my apartment in the same neighborhood.
Therefore it really *was* my 'hood; I rarely ever had
to use my car to go anywhere. The closest bar to my
apartment -- really -- was the bar used as a model for
the TV show "Cheers." I used to go there from time to
time. 

And what I learned was that it was NOT the friendly
neighborhood bar where "everybody knows your name." 
Yeah, it had it's share of Norms and Cliffs and Sams,
but it also had *more* than its share of angry, abusive
drunks who couldn't hold their liquor. It was a rare
night when one of these lonely nobodys would *not* pick
a fight -- either verbal or physical -- and ruin the
vibe for everyone in the bar. 

And then one day I noticed that this behavior had 
stopped. Almost overnight. The drunks stopped getting
sloppy drunk and picking fights. The sociologist in
me wondered why, so I looked into it.

What had happened was that Massachusetts had passed
new laws that allowed victims of drunks to sue not only
them but the *enablers* who had allowed and encouraged
them to get that drunk. If someone was hurt as the result
of someone driving drunk, they now had the right to sue
the bartenders, waiters, and waitresses that had served
the driver enough alcohol that he or she *was* drunk,
and then allowing them to drive. If someone was beaten
up or raped by a drunk, they too had the right to sue
the enablers.

So bartenders and waiters and waitresses started *cutting
the drunks off*. Instead of allowing them to sit there 
and keep drinking long past their limit, and thus get
sloppy drunk and become abusive and angry and a danger
to themselves and others, they started cutting them off
after a reasonable number of beers or whiskeys. And the
vibe of Massachusetts bars changed overnight. They became
nice places where "everybody knows your name" again. 

I honestly think the same thing should happen more often
on the Internet. 

There are mentally ill people on the Net. And moderators
of forums who allow them to act out in an attempt to suck
attention from others and thus feed their narcissistic
or psychopathic tendencies are NOT doing them a favor.
They're *enablers*. They're helping these people to get 
WORSE, not better. 

And in the process they're lowering the vibe of the very
forums they moderate. They're allowing them to become the
brawlpits that the Cheers bar was before its bartenders
started cutting the chronic drunks off when they'd reached
their limit, or banning them from the premises altogethe

[FairfieldLife] Re: Our Little Secret

The fascinating thing from my point of view, Curtis, is that
Nabby (and possibly a few others here) go ballistic and react
as if you had attacked *them* because you were less than guru-
whipped and treated Maharishi just like any other person.

Their level of identification with and attachment to *him* is so
great that they really can't tell the difference any more between
someone criticizing him and someone criticizing them. Let alone
the difference between criticism and "attack."

Then there are those who never even *met* Maharishi, or even
learned TM. But some of them may pounce on you and react to
you bitch-slapping Maharishi as if you had slapped them, and
thus challenged them to a duel.

Very strange, if you ask me. I wouldn't be surprised if someone
who has a history of going somewhat crazy when confronted with
people he considers "anti-guru" will come back from his little
vacation on the Stupid People's Bench and set his sights on you
as well.


--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues"
 wrote:
>
> Thanks for verifying the triplets MMY story Nabbie, I was just
guessing.  What course was that on?
>
> I am curious about this arbitrary fixation on his deadness.  I thought
you guys believed that he is still with us somewhere between Marley's
ghost and the thought in meditation that inspires the marketing crew to
try some new scheme to get TM into the lives beyond the 687 people who
still practice it exclusively now.
>
> So you think a guy like Maharishi actually dies?  And how do you
imagine my "bashing" affects him?  Is it like a disturbance in sleep
like when someone in the bed farts and we almost wake up and then turn
over?   Or does it really get to him, do my words cause him to gnash his
teeth and pound his fist into his hands in a Sienfeldesque "CURTIS!" 
Does he shake his fist at the sky like Jon Stewart and curse me from
beyond the grave?  Does he try to extract retribution on me in this
world to get me back in some way like moving a chair when I sleep so I
stub my toe during a mid-sleep groggy bathroom run?  Exactly how pissed
do my words make this spirit of Maharishi you imagine?  Should I invest
in a voodoo doll of him to avoid his evil eye?
>
> Now of course if your point was that when I posted the same
perspective when he was alive he had a chance to challenge what I said
directly, I would agree.  I think we are both glad that he took so many
opportunities to give his side here while he was living, and I do miss
those exchanges.
>
> And how far does this ban about speaking ill of the dead extend
Nabbie.  Do we include Napoleon, Sun Myng Moon, John Lennon?   What is
the key aspect of the unfairness you seem to resent about it all?
>
> What if we have a public figure who is so boring that he might as well
be dead like King Tony?  Do I have to include him in the don't speak
about the dead ban.  Should we just ban all histories of famous dead
people if the perspective isn't only positive?
>
> Or was this whole thing just a protective instinct, misguided though I
believe it to be, to protect the magical illusions he tried to sell us
all about himself during his life?
>
> Oh shit I have a fleck of dust in my eye...hey wait a minute...wasn't
he a pile of dust the last time we saw him...
>
>
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, nablusoss1008 no_reply@ wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues" > Who would
wish that on anybody?
> >
> >
> > Ravi was right ofcourse, it didn't take long before the
hillbilly-singer was back where he left us last time and where he's
feeling most comfortable: Maharishi-bashing.
> > If all else fails in life it's great to have someone to bash,
particularily someone who's dead, don't you think ?
> >
>

[FairfieldLife] Re: Our Little Secret

> Where was I...oh yeah, following gurus makes your dick fall off
> (ladies will have to speak for themselves on what it does to them)
> and  it turns the object of your guru worship into a money grubbing
> sari  chasing butthole, who cries themselves to sleep every night in
> a lonely  pile of hundred dollar bills, while only receiving the
> minimal  consolation of the comfort of the three pairs of perky
> globes of bliss  on the Playboy centerfold TRIPLETS who share
> their beds.
>
> Who would wish that on anybody?

Speaking of money-grubbing sari-chasing buttholes -- and to
prove that I am an Equal Opportunity Guru Basher :-) -- I thought
you'd enjoy this little anecdote from the Rama days...or daze.

About the time I realized that he was lost in a haze of Valium
abuse and narcissism and exited from the whole org stage left, a
good friend of mine with video talents was asked by him to
produce a music video of one of the songs performed by the
group of musicians he formed, called Zazen. This was a song
from a supposedly "enlightened dance" album called Techno
Zen Master.

Lawdy, lawdy but I wish I could find a real copy of the video on
the Net to share with you, but it appears that Dead Rama's lawyers
have managed to remove every single copy. And with reason...it is
even more embarrassing in some ways than the way he exited
from this world.

The song was called "What is dancing?" and Rama's concept for
how to stage this video was to show him dancing around in a kind
of surreal video landscape surrounded by Playboy Playmates.

Really. Since the video was shot in Chicago, home to Playboy Enter-
prises, this was possible. So they called Playboy headquarters and
rented two former Playmates of the Month as models for the shoot.
They danced around on the same stage as Rama, looking attractive
but somewhat uncomfortable with it all.

I later found out why, from my friend who had produced the video.
T'would seem that Rama -- by then used to his students lavishing
him with indiscriminate adoration, fully expected the two Playmates
to do the same thing. He kept flirting with them and making
inappropriate suggestions that they go get it on with him, *fully
expecting this to happen*.

The Playmates reacted pretty much the same way they would have
if the creep making stupid passes at them had been Ravi, and blew
him off. When he didn't get the hint even then, and kept coming
on to them, they blew off the entire shoot and left. My friend the
producer had to use what footage he'd gotten in their first few
minutes in the studio to complete the video.

The kicker or *point* of all of this? Rama's students at the time
just *loved* this video. They thought it was the best music video
they'd ever seen, and fully expected it to "go big" on MTV (this
was long before YouTube) and bring in hordes of new converts.

As you point out in this thoughtful essay, damage is done on both
sides when narcissism is allowed to spiral out of control in a
supposedly spiritual context. Theoretically rational people looked
at this hideously embarrassing video and thought it was the best
thing since sliced bread. Crazy? Think back...theoretically rational
people listened to Maharishi promoting the insanely dumb idea
of Vedaland and thought *that* was the best thing since sliced
bread, too. Some of them still think so.

Meanwhile the person they put up on such a pedestal of WAY-
Better-Than-We-Are-ness sucked up all the attention, believed it,
and got crazier and crazier and crazier. Rama died sucking down
booze and Valiums and Long Island Sound water. Maharishi
died re-enacting scenes from King Lear, imploring people who
had already given him a million dollars each for the privilege of
being able to wear robes and crowns and call themselves Rajas
to compete with each other for the privilege of giving the most
money to...uh...erect phallic symbols with his name on them
all over the planet.

They're both safely dead, and having to deal with the karma of
long-term attention vampirism in the Bardo or in their next
lives somewhere. But the people who GAVE them that attention?
Some of them are still as lost in their delusional worlds as they
were when they were staring up at the person who they'd placed
on a pedestal the size of the Vampire State Building.

All so sad. And all so unnecessary.

Teachers could be content to just be teachers. Not gurus. Not gods.
Not "the best," or even "better" than other human beings. Just
teachers. Spiritual teaching itself wouldn't have gotten such a
bad rep if more of them had done just that.

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues"
 wrote:
>
> Steve,
>
> This speaks (outside this particular context) of whether or not we
ever are doing someone a favor by conferring on them guru status.  At
first the payoff seems obvious, they get rich, and if they are so
inclined, they get their pick of some high end tail.  But unless they
really have the narcissist or psychopathic tendency strongly, somewhere
ther

[FairfieldLife] Re: Our Little Secret

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "salyavin808"  wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Alex Stanley"  
> wrote:
> >
> > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb  wrote:
> > > 
> > > Alex, you were possibly privy to any "agreement"
> > > between Rick and Ravi, and Rick and Dan, trying 
> > > to get them to keep their shit in their pants and
> > > not fling it around like monkeys. 
> > 
> > The Ravi situation was strictly between Rick and Ravi. 
> > I did not get a subscription request; all I got was a 
> > notice that he was now a subscriber, which means Rick 
> > sent him an invite. I had no knowledge or involvement.
> > 
> > WRT Dan, he subscribed and posted a string of profanity 
> > filled posts, and Rick told me to nuke him. When I 
> > received an attempted post by the then unsubscribed Dan, 
> > I wrote back to him with this: "After that string of 
> > profanity filled posts the other day, Rick told me to 
> > boot you off FFL. You are no longer subscribed, and 
> > anything you try to post will not go through." After 
> > that, it was between Dan and Rick.
> 
> I have no ability to read minds but perhaps Rick thought 
> these guys deserve a second chance, no-one is beyond 
> redemption I think. We all hope there is such a thing 
> as personal evolution after all

With all due respect to Rick, who in all likelihood
really is a nice guy, I wouldn't trust his powers
of discrimination any further than I could throw him.

With regard to Ravi, when he first encountered him,
who many people here on FFL instantly reacted to as
being in the middle of some kind of nervous break-
down, Rick considered him enlightened or awakened
or self-realized enough to include in his BATGAP
series of interviews. In the time since, Rick doesn't
seem to have considered, when allowing him to return,
that even *courts* have decided that Ravi is too
unstable to allow him access to or even visitation
rights with his own children. He certainly hasn't
noticed that he's up to his old tricks with Curtis
and others here.

With regard to Dan, it is equally disturbing that
in giving him a "second chance" after a drunken or
insane profanity meltdown that even *Judy* felt
indicated that he was having a nervous breakdown,
Rick allowed him to come back and then left him on
his own remarkably like the Dean of MUM who left
Suvender Sem on his own. As a result, Dan was able
to make threats against several *more* people here. 

I, for one, am not impressed with Rick Archer's
"care and feeding" of the forum he created. As 
I've said before, I think he's asleep at the
wheel.

[FairfieldLife] Re: Our Little Secret

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "raunchydog"  wrote:
>
> Barry, how low can you go? Leave Ravi's family out of 
> your personal grudge against him. Whether you're lying 
> about him or not, it's none of your damn business and 
> certainly none of ours. His private life has no bearing 
> on his participation on this forum. Shame on you.

Speaking of "asleep at the wheel," Ravi himself
volunteered this information, in the context of
telling people how cool he was to have flirted
with his ex-wife's divorce attorney. 

I have no "grudge" against Ravi. I have stated
my position with regard to him many times, and
have *followed through on it*. That is, I will
not interact with him or any of the other people
on this forum whom I suspect to be mentally ill,
because I have neither the training nor the
inclination to do so. 

You obviously feel otherwise, and that praising
an unstable person when he acts out is a favor.

[FairfieldLife] Re: Super Radiance in Fairfield, Securing our 30-Year Goal

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Buck"  wrote:
> >
> > Last month we sent the wonderful news that there are 556 Pandits
> > with passports who will be coming to Maharishi Vedic City to finally
> > achieve our 30-year goal of securing the daily Super Radiance
numbers
> > of 2,000 in Fairfield and Maharishi Vedic City. A campaign was
initiated
> > to cover the costs to bring the Pandits here and expand the Pandit
> > campus facilities to accommodate them.
>
> The campaign thus far has been a great success. It is inspiring and
> heartwarming that so many of you responded to the call. We have
> received $350,000 since the campaign began last montha huge
> accomplishment.

Especially for an organization with over a billion dollars in assets.


"There's a sucker born every minute."  - P. T. Barnum

[FairfieldLife] Re: Super Radiance in Fairfield, Securing our 30-Year Goal

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Robert"  wrote:
>
> I wonder how many people in India have contributed to the 
> maharishi cause?

I think we can count at least 556 mothers, who sold
their sons into indentured servitude. 

> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb  wrote:
> >
> > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Buck"  wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Last month we sent the wonderful news that there are 556 
> > > > Pandits with passports who will be coming to Maharishi 
> > > > Vedic City to finally achieve our 30-year goal of securing 
> > > > the daily Super Radiance numbers of 2,000 in Fairfield 
> > > > and Maharishi Vedic City. A campaign was initiated
> > > > to cover the costs to bring the Pandits here and expand 
> > > > the Pandit campus facilities to accommodate them.
> > >
> > > The campaign thus far has been a great success. It is 
> > > inspiring and heartwarming that so many of you responded 
> > > to the call. We have received $350,000 since the campaign 
> > > began last montha huge accomplishment.
> > 
> > Especially for an organization with over a billion dollars 
> > in assets.
> > 
> > 
> > "There's a sucker born every minute."  - P. T. Barnum
> >
>

[FairfieldLife] The Hate Pundits

Taking a complete break from FFL and its sillinesses, I went out for a
walk with my dogs and, while on it, came up with a plot for a scifi
story. Because I've already copyrighted it, I'll share the idea with you
while it's still fresh in my mind.

The story is set in a slightly alternate reality to our own, because
even when "suspending disbelief" normal people in our reality could
never imagine that such things could happen. In this alternate reality,
people who have developed long-standing grudges against or hatreds
towards someone they obsess on, but who cannot afford socially to be
perceived as being as obsessive as they really are, recruit proxies to
do their hating for them.

They seek our weak-willed, weak-minded, needy people and suck up to
them, buttering them up with praise and compliments and flirting with
them shamelessly and giving them lots and lots and lots of attention.
Which is, of course, the very thing that needy people feel that they
need.

After a period of doing this, the recruiter introduces the concept of
the Dharmic Enemy, the person who represents all of the things that he
or she considers -- and thus by *assumption* the newly-recruited needy
person considers as well -- the antithesis of all that is holy and
spiritual and lofty.

The new recruits are taught to chant holy...uh...chants. (I can't think
yet of what to call them for the actual short story, but maybe "mantras"
or "yagyas" or something Newagey like that.) The chants list the evil,
terrible, horrible, lower-than-the-lint-in-a-snake's-navel qualities of
the Dharmic Enemy, and are taught in a kind of call-and-response,
I-stroke-you-when-you-get-it-right manner. And, of course, in this
alternate reality, it works. The new recruits get so *into* chanting
these holy mantras/chants/yagyas to dispel the evil, terrible, horrible,
lower-than-the-lint-in-a-snake's-navel Dharmic Enemy from their midst
that they eventually wind up doing it on their own.

Then the recruiter just kicks back and allows the new recruits to do his
or her hating for him or her.

Think this story idea would sell, or is it too far-fetched even for the
scifi market?

[FairfieldLife] Re: Was the Maharishi confused? (or just being clever).

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Robert"  wrote:
>
> The thing is that the maharishi never got enlightened through 
> the use of techniques...
> He said that he got enlightened from being around an enlightened 
> person...Swami Brahmananda Saraswati...

Please provide even a single verifiable example of him
having said this, having claimed that he was either
enlightened, or that he "got there" via the method
you claim he cited.

I'll wait. Thanks in advance.

[FairfieldLife] Re: Think Back to When You Bought the TM-Sidhis...

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "mjackson74"  wrote:
>
> What I liked best was walking into the lobby of the 
> facility at Livingston Manor for my 1st bloc of the 
> sidhis and seeing the Sidha man poster shining down 
> on sidhas and meditators alike from behind the front 
> desk. 
> 
> You know the one I mean, the look alike Superman with 
> the big S on his chest and the words "Be a superman, 
> be a Sidha-Man!" at the bottom. This was the one the 
> Movement discontinued for fear of copyright infringement 
> lawsuits from DC Comics.
> 
> Oh how I wish I had one of those today. I loved it.

I never saw such a poster, but have no doubt that it 
existed. Here, in an old post of merudanda's, are a
few graphics that might bring back that era:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/message/275588

Thanks to those who found videos and quotes of that
period when the TM-Sidhis were first introduced, and
thus put to rest the revisionist history claims of
those who 1) weren't around at that time, and 2) claim
based on their experience at much *later* courses that
they were never promised that they would be flying. 

This revisionist history is simply not true, as the 
poster in merudanda's post should demonstrate. Those
who learned the TM-Sidhis ten years after they were
first introduced, and who were not around when they
*were* introduced simply have nothing to say about 
how they were presented then, and what promises were
made. 

My first "intro lecture" on the TM-Sidhis was pretty
much as "official" as it can get. I was working at 
the TM National Headquarters, at the time located at
the end of Sunset Blvd. in L.A., right next door to
the Yogananda Lake Shrine. This place, being an old
motel/resort and all, had lots of room, and had become
the de facto "TM center" for West L.A., replacing 
1015 Gayley. 

So a big meeting was convened, and someone (I honestly
forget who) who had just returned from Seelisberg and
as I remember worked on International Staff there gave
a talk about the new Siddhis courses. (As I remember,
the flyer for the talk even spelled Siddhis with two
D's -- they hadn't tried to copyright the term yet and
found that they couldn't copyright the spelling "siddhi"
because it was so clearly part of the public domain,
so they switched to "sidhi.")

The speaker presented the courses as definitely, no 
question about it a set of techniques for learning how
to fly. The speaker claimed that real levitation was
going on, and further claimed that he had witnessed it.
He also forwarded rumors he'd heard -- that people were
walking through walls, and that one guy was meditating
in his room, practicing the new siddhis, and suddenly
found himself out on the lawn of the hotel, having
been magically transported there. 

It was only much, much later, after (as I remember) 
someone sued the TM movement for fraud, that the 
TM-sidhis were "cleaned up" and "sanitized" and the
language used to teach them became less...uh...less
a steaming pile of bullshit. 

Don't let people who only heard the "sanitized for
your protection" version try to convince you that
this was the way the TM-Sidhis were always taught.

> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Lorenzo"  wrote:
> >
> > not only did say he was going to teach us how to fly - but 
> > we have already succeeded:
> > 
> > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nQXVRjMoUE&feature=relmfu
> > 
> > 
> > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Robert"  wrote:
> > >
> > > Think back...all those many years ago...
> > > Did the Maharishi say he was going to teach you to levitate,
> > > Or, did he say he was going to teach you to hop/hump like a 
> > > frog?
> > >
> >
>

[FairfieldLife] Re: The Hate Pundits

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Xenophaneros Anartaxius"
 wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@ wrote:
> >
> > Think this story idea would sell, or is it too far-fetched even for
the
> > scifi market?
>
> Are you sure you are not lifting this from an unpublished Kilgore
Trout outline?
>
> Perhaps the recruits could be induced to buy expensive pills or
potions that would heighten their experience of hate, such as abhorrence
capsules, or anathema pills, or antagonism syrup or jam which you could
put on your malignity biscuits or waffles.
>
> Special food and dress would help cement bonds between like-minded
recruits, for example the golden cloak of execration. And then there are
reading materials such as the malediction sutras and the psalms of
contempt. Dark venom aromatherapy, revulsion body lotion, incendiary
toothpaste, and draconian shampoo could be additional branded items.
>
> You need to flesh out the world these characters inhabit, not just
what their behaviour is going to be. Will they live in Nemesis
architecture, and eat from revenge brand cookware?

  [The Gospel from Outer Space - by Kilgore Trout.
It was about a visitor from outer space, shaped very much like a
Tralfamadorian, by the way. The visitor from outer space made a serious
study of Christianity, to learn, if he could, why Christians found it so
easy to be cruel. He concluded that at least part of the trouble was
slipshod storytelling in the New Testament. He supposed that the intent
of the Gospels was to teach people, among other things, to be merciful,
even to the lowest of the low.But the Gospels actually taught
this:Before you kill somebody, make absolutely sure he isn’t well
connected. So it goes.The flaw in the Christ stories, said the visitor
from outer space, was that Christ, who didn’t look like much, was
actually the Son of the Most Powerful Being of the Universe. Readers
understood that, so, when they came to the crucifixion, they naturally
thought, and Rosewater read out loud again:Oh, boy — they sure
picked the wrong guy to lynch that time!And then that thought had a
brother: “There are right people to lynch.” Who? People not
well connected. So it goes.The visitor from outer space made a gift to
Earth of a new Gospel. In it, Jesus really was a nobody, and a pain in
the neck to a lot of people with better connections than he had. He
still got to say all the lovely and puzzling things he said in the other
Gospels.So the people amused themselves one day by nailing him to a
cross and planting the cross in the ground. There couldn’t
possibly be any repercussions, the lynchers thought. The reader would
have to think that, too, since the new Gospel hammered home again and
again what a nobody Jesus was.And then, just before the nobody died, the
heavens opened up, and there was thunder and lightning. The voice of God
came crashing down. He told the people that he was adopting the bum as
his son, giving him the full powers and privileges of The Son of the
Creator of the Universe throughout all eternity. God said this: From
this moment on, He will punish horribly anybody who torments a bum who
has no connections!]

For those who don't know what Xeno is talking about, Kilgore Trout was
an invention of Kurt Vonnegut's. He was mentioned in several of
Vonnegut's books, and short synopses of some of his novels listed there.
This web page does a good job of collecting some of these story lines:

http://kilgoretroutstories.tumblr.com/
<http://kilgoretroutstories.tumblr.com/>

Trout was characterized as having great ideas, but being such a shitty
writer that none of his over 117 novels and over 2000 short stories were
ever released by the same publisher.

At one point, noted scifi author Philip Jose Farmer got a wild hair up
his ass while drunk one night and called Vonnegut on the phone, asking
if he could go ahead and actually *write* a Kilgore Trout book, fleshing
out the short description of it in one of his novels. Vonnegut said "Go
for it," and "Venus On The Half Shell" was released, as written by
Kilgore Trout. Phil had nothing to go on but the back cover blurb for
the book that Vonnegut had included in a novel, and made the rest up to
match the "excerpt." It was a minor hit in the scifi community, many of
whom assumed that Vonnegut himself had written it.

[FairfieldLife] How are Scientologists taught to deal with criticism?

>From Wikipedia. Sure am glad that TM defenders don't use such tactics,
aren't you?
"Attack the Attacker" policy
Scientology has a reputation for hostile action toward anyone who 
criticizes it in a public forum; executives within the organization have
proclaimed that it is "not a turn-the-other-cheek
  religion."
 
Journalists  , politicians
 , former Scientologists and
various anti-cult    groups have made
accusations of wrongdoing against Scientology since  the 1960s, and
almost without exception these critics have been targeted  for
retaliation by Scientology, in the form of lawsuits and public 
counter-accusations of personal wrongdoing. Many of Scientology's 
critics have also reported they were subject to threats and harassment 
in their private lives.
 


The organization's actions reflect a formal policy for dealing with
criticism instituted by L. Ron Hubbard
 ,  called "attack the
attacker." This policy was codified by Hubbard in  the latter half of
the 1960s, in response to government investigations  into the
organization. In 1966, Hubbard wrote a criticism of the  organization's
behavior and noted the "correct procedure" for attacking  enemies of
Scientology:
(1) Spot who is attacking us.(2) Start investigating them promptly for
felonies or worse using own professionals, not outside agencies.(3)
Double curve our reply by saying we welcome an investigation of them.(4)
Start feeding lurid, blood, sex, crime actual evidence on the attackers
to the press. Don't ever tamely submit to an investigation of us. Make
it rough,  rough on attackers all the way. You can get "reasonable about
it" and  lose. Sure we break no laws. Sure we have nothing to hide. BUT
attackers  are simply an anti-Scientology propaganda agency so far as we
are  concerned. They have proven they want no facts and will only lie no
matter what they discover. So BANISH all ideas that any fair hearing is 
intended and start our attack with their first breath. Never wait. Never
talk about us - only them. Use their blood, sex, crime to get 
headlines. Don't use us. I speak from 15 years of experience in this. 
There has never yet been an attacker who was not reeking with crime. All
we had to do was look for it and murder would come out.  Attacks on
Scientology, "Hubbard Communications Office Policy Letter," 25 February
1966

[FairfieldLife] Re: Think Back to When You Bought the TM-Sidhis...

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues"  
wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "salyavin808"  wrote:
> > (snipped more great stuff)
> > 
> > Which is pretty funny really, like saying my half-hearted 
> > jogging efforts are merely stage one of running at the 
> > speed of light. Any day now...
> 
> Excellent post.
> The human capacity to believe is a wonder unto itself, Amen!  
> I think the core of how this got sold to us is based on a 
> faulty understanding about what went on in the Vedic past.  
> We still hear echos of this on FFL where people quote old 
> texts designed basically as promo brochures for saints of 
> different religions as if they were factual statements.  
> Being in the past it slips through one of our cognitive 
> gap vulnerabilities. I know that I can't fly and people in 
> my neighborhood can't, but maybe they can if they live in 
> the Himalayan mountains which is far away and that might 
> make it more likely. Or perhaps in the past it happened 
> because that is removed from my everyday experience and 
> so that makes it feel as if things like this might be 
> more possible.

Excellent insights in this and in the additional 
paragraphs I snipped for brevity. "How we came to
believe stuff like this" is certainly a topic that
is worth pursuing for anyone who no longer believes
what they once did. Now that we have let go of our
attachment to these things we once believed, we are
free to examine the issue of "What the fuck could 
I have been thinking?"

One of the things I find fascinating, however, is
the ferocity -- nigh unto desperation in some cases --
with which some others cling to the stuff they were 
taught to believe decades ago. If FFL teaches anything, 
it is that some really CAN'T let go of those beliefs. 

25 years after learning the "flying" technique and
not only have they never "flown" but no one else
they've ever met has, either. But it's going to 
happen Any Day Now. You betcha.

Is it *faith* that allows someone to keep believing
in the unbelievable, or an inability *to* let go,
and say, "Y'know...I might just have been wrong to
believe this stuff?"

I have no problem saying this. Others on this forum,
both current TM practitioners and those who no longer
practice it, have no problem saying this. And yet 
some do. It's as if admitting that they might have
been...w...w...wrong holds more terror for them 
than dying. Or as if part of them still feels that
*if* they say it, lightning wielded by the mighty 
hand of Dead Maharishi is going to rain down from
Brahmaloka and smite them. 

Voltaire said, "Doubt is not a pleasant condition, 
but certainty is absurd." It almost seems that some
are so afraid of experiencing that not pleasant
condition that they prefer a life of absurdity.

[FairfieldLife] Telling Stories (was: Think Back to When You Bought the TM-Sidhis)

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "sparaig"  wrote:
>
> ...in 1975, I ran into a kid whose girlfriend was on a TTC 
> and was summoned to MMY's room and arrived a few minutes 
> early to find MMY "floating in the air."
> 
> I was extremely skeptical of this story because I assumed 
> that if MMY were so enlightened that he could float, he 
> would be able to tell that she was about to enter the room 
> and therefore wouldn't have accidentally allowed her to see 
> something she wasn't supposed to.
> 
> In retrospect, after practicing Yogic Flying for 29 years, 
> I see more than just a single interpretation of the story: 
> 
> 1) he really WAS floating and wanted her to see him float;
> 2) he really WAS floating, but the fact that he could float 
> didn't guarantee that he would be able to predict that she 
> would arrive early;
> 3) he wasn't really floating but merely hopping around like 
> all the TM Sidhas do and she saw what she wanted to see;
> 4) it was just a story. 

I'm going to have to go with Door Number Four.

With variations. For example, the way you told the story
above, you didn't even hear it directly from the ostensible
source, but from someone claiming to have heard it from her.
The boyfriend could have made it up, to make himself seem
more self-important.

Or the girl could have made it up, to make *herself* seem
more self-important, or to add to Maharishi's myth to make
*him* seem more important. 

Or she could have really believed that she saw him floating, 
whether she actually did or not. People see things that 
aren't really there all the time. 

But I'm more interested in the storytelling process. Segue
to Paul Ryan's story, told in front of millions of people
at the Republican National Convention, that he had run a
marathon in "two hours fifty something." It later came out,
of course, that in an earlier interview with Runner's World,
he had said that his "personal best" was 4:01. 

So WHY would he tell such a story? I'm thinking that the
real reason is that he'd told the 2:50-something story a 
few times before, to "easy audiences" who never challenged
it, and had *gotten away with it*. After a few times getting
away with it, part of him actually came to believe that it
was true. So he told it again, unthinkingly.

Take another story, told on TM-related forums about why
Deepak Chopra deleted information about his association
with Maharishi from subsequent printings of his book.
A story was told that the TMO had *asked* him to delete
the information. The first time this story was told, it
was presented as what it was -- pure speculation. And no
one could really comment on its truth or untruth, because
of course no one in the forum audience was ever in a 
position high enough with the TMO to either confirm or
deny it. But then an interesting thing happened. In later,
subsequent retellings of this story, it stopped being
presented as speculation, and began to be presented as
if it were fact. I would suggest that the same dynamic
that afflicted Paul Ryan afflicted this storyteller;
they began to *believe* the truth of stories that they
had made up, and thus felt no reservations about repeat-
ing them as if they were truth.

In my opinion, when dealing with outlandish stories such
as Maharishi actually levitating, a number of factors 
need to be weighed. First, who is the storyteller? Does
he or she have a reputation for credibility? Does he or
she have a reputation for needing to make himself or
herself seem more important?

Next, who was this person telling the story *to*? Was
it an "easy audience" of True Believers who would believe
a story about Maharishi not only levitating, but turning
into an enormous Cheshire Cat and singing Tom Petty's
"Learning To Fly" while doing it? Or was it an audience
that was more...uh...more balanced?

Third, I think one needs to ask "Why is this story being
told?" With regard to Maharishi actually being able to
levitate, I think we don't have to delve too deeply into
that one. Someone felt the need to come up with a story
that would convince others that Maharishi was as "special"
as the storyteller thought he was, or that the TM-Sidhi
program wasn't just a made-up bunch of hokum. 

Fourth, does the story make any sense? On my early Sidhis
course, Bevan was sent around weekly to all of the course
locations *specifically* to try to find someone -- anyone --
who was having demonstrable experiences of flying or any
of the objectively-verifiable siddhis. WHY would there
be a need for this if Maharishi could easily verify them?

I was around Maharishi for a number of years, and heard
a number of stories told about him. In some cases, the
stories told were of events at which I was present. The
stories often had *no relationship whatsoever* to what
I saw go down at those events. In many cases, Maharishi
was "quoted" in the stories as saying something completely
opposite than what he said, a fact that was verifiable
on audio or videotape. But that didn't

[FairfieldLife] Re: Think Back to When You Bought the TM-Sidhis...

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "mjackson74"  wrote:
>
> Oh yeah, it existed all right! I remember it very well. 
> It was created not long after the sidhis were announced 
> for us peon meditators and we all looked at the initiators 
> that had come off the super secret 6 months courses as 
> something out of a science fiction story come true.

Can you remember when that was...what year? I'm 
wondering how non-initiators heard all about courses
they were not eligible for before that point. I was
long gone from the TM movement by the time that
(as you put it) they were made available to "peon
meditators."

> It was not around very long, I heard one story that 
> said the Movement big wigs pulled it due to fear of 
> copyright infringement lawsuit and another story that 
> said DC Comics actually contacted the Movement and 
> threatened a lawsuit. Dunno which was true, but the 
> likeness on the poster was a dead ringer for the then 
> current artistic rendition DC comics was using to 
> depict Superman.

The story is believable. One of the foundations of
copyright law is that the owners of a copyright *have*
to aggressively pursue any attempt to co-opt it or
use it improperly. Failure to do so can result in the
loss of the copyright and it falling into the public
domain. That is what happened to "aspirin" and even
"heroin," both copyrighted terms before the owners
lost the copyrights. 

> I have been trying for years to find a copy of the 
> poster but it has completely disappeared. I only saw 
> it on that course in Livingston Manor and that would 
> have been the time when sidhis were taught in the 
> bloc system with at least a months hiatus between 
> each bloc. I can't remember what year it was. 

Oh. I am answering this as I read it, so if you don't
remember what year the sidhis were first offered to
"mere meditators" that's OK. But maybe someone else
here will remember.

> I do remember the course I was on was just after a big 
> snow and ice storm in the area that had knocked out 
> all the power at Livingston Manor and a lot of water 
> pipes had frozen and burst. 
> 
> The entire time I was there staff was bringing big 
> barrels of water and placing them in the halls so each 
> of us rounding CP's could dip buckets into the barrel 
> to pour water into our toilet tanks so we could use 
> the toilets. Some older CP's had a hard time with the 
> rounding and water hauling.

Typical.

> Bevan and John Cowhig were the TM Sidhi administrators 
> on the course and the plumbing never got fixed while 
> we were there. In addition to the burst pipes, one of 
> the two well pumps they had to pump water to the buildings 
> had been destroyed in the storm. I overheard some of the 
> working staff (the folks who cooked the food etc)saying 
> the guys who ran the facility had meetings every day and 
> spent their time wringing their hands rather than doing 
> anything about it.

Gee. What a surprise. :-)

> A few days after we left some initiator friends went on 
> the Governor training course there and said Maharishi got 
> rid of everyone who was in charge and put someone else 
> in charge. The well pump and burst pipes were repaired 
> in about 4 or 5 days.

Be thankful that your course actually was a "course."
Mine, in 1977, had zero lectures, zero explanations 
of the sidhis, and no course leader. We just rounded
for the first couple of months and then someone 
arrived with the real "teacher," which was a $20
cassette recorder hooked up to a bunch of cheap
earphones. *It* taught us the actual sidhis. Then
we did nothing but practice them several times a 
day and read aloud from those godawful books.

My complaint is with those who were never a part of
the TM organization but who posture as if they were, 
and try to palm off what *they* were told about the 
sidhis 10 or so years after they came out as how 
they were always taught. 

The early courses were a series of experiments, with
human beings as the guinea pigs. The sets of sutras
changed from course to course -- some would be discarded,
others added, ever-changing. 

> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb  wrote:
> >
> > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "mjackson74"  wrote:
> > >
> > > What I liked best was walking into the lobby of the 
> > > facility at Livingston Manor for my 1st bloc of the 
> > > sidhis and seeing the Sidha man poster shining down 
> > > on sidhas and meditators alike from behind the front 
> > > desk. 
> > > 
> > > You know the one I mean, the look alike Superman with 
> > > the big S on his chest and the words "Be a superman, 
> > > be a Sidha-Man!"

[FairfieldLife] Re: Vedic pundits keep dialing 911!!

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "feste37"  wrote:
>
> From Fairfield e-news:
> 
> A bizarre problem regarding 9-1-1 misdials out of the Vedic City Pundit 
> Project was a topic of discussion led by Jefferson County Chief Deputy Gregg 
> Morton at yesterdays' Board of Supervisor's meeting.  When making a long 
> distance call with their international cell phones some of the pundits 
> reportedly have to dial out by pressing 9 and then seemingly two subsequent 
> 1s which could put the cell phone into emergency mode and dial automatically 
> prior to the rest of the phone number being dialed.  Morton says there have 
> been 41 of these calls in 2012, though the problem was first addressed by 
> letter to Vedic City's Mayor Wynne in 2010.  Morton also says the misdials 
> are a waste of officer resources and time, because officers have to respond 
> to every 9-1-1 call whether they know it's a misdial or not.  Several 
> solutions were brought up, including; attempting to change the dial out 
> numbers for long distance calls or urging Vedic City to create their own 
> police department to answer their 9-1-1 calls. Vedic City currently has their 
> own private security force. 
> * * * 
> 
> Can you imagine the scene when the police officers confront the pundits who 
> are blissfully unaware that they have been summoning emergency responders?


What would be even funnier if the calls to 911 
were *for real*, and this is just their handlers' 
cover story. After all, what cell phone requires 
you to enter 9 to "dial out?" What is there to 
"dial out" OF on a cell phone? That's something
that happens on land lines.

It makes a much better Movie Of The Week if the
pundits are really dialing for help.  :-)

[FairfieldLife] Re: Why Bevan Never Got Married?

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, azgrey  wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Mike Dixon  wrote:
> >
> > More like...electric shock therapy!
>
>
> Well Mike, it worked for Judy.
>
> Kinda. After a fashion. Allegedly.

Kinda. I've heard there are some residual problems
with shock therapy. For example, year later when
the former patient sees anyone having a pleasant
conversation with someone they dislike, and that
they've spent years telling people they should
also dislike, their minds interpret this as an
electric shock and they go a little crazy again.

It supposedly plays hell with their hairdos, too.

:-)

[FairfieldLife] The Revenge of FFLenstein

A film, in one act, and with only one actor, who plays both the part of
the MONSTER and of his assistant IGOR, because it saved the producers
from paying two different actors, and was considered more appropriate,
given the existential theme of O.C. (Oneification Consciousness). The
actor stands up straight and tall when playing the MONSTER, and when
called upon to play IGOR slumps down and stuffs an overripe canteloupe
in his shirt to make it look like he has a hunchback.

MONSTER: See Igor? The thunderstorm is building. Its first person
ontology is almost perfect for the great, momentous use to which we are
going to put it, eh.

IGOR: Yes, Master.

MONSTER: Yes, indeedy, for tonight is the night that I *reverse* all the
horrible damage that the evil Dr. Vedastein has perpetrated on me, and
become *whole* again, eh.

IGOR: Whatever you say, Master.

MONSTER: Years ago, the evil Dr. Vedastein convinced me that I was in
Oneification Consciousness. As a result, I went around abusing people
and hitting them and casting demons out of them and stuff like that.
Finally the townspeople got their panties in a twist over this, and a
mob of them carrying torches and pitchforks chased me out of town, eh.

IGOR: I remember that, Master. They said you weren't in O.C. at all, but
were just crazy as a bedbug.

MONSTER: [cringing at the memory] Yes, they did, Igor. But soon they'll
see that this was not the case. I was merely under the sway of gods and
goddesses sicced on me by the evil Dr. Vedastein. *They* made me act out
the way I did. My own first person ontology was overshadowed by their
false view of the universe and How It Really Works. eh.


IGOR: [shaking his head, clearly having heard all of this before]
Whatever you say, Master.

MONSTER: [lost in the bliss of first person ontology, not even noticing
Igor rolling his eyes] But tonight I shall reverse all the damage done
to me by the evil Dr. Vedastein, and people will understand and know me
as the *real* me. Then they'll love me and praise me and treat me the
way I deserve to be treated, eh.

IGOR: How are you going to do this, Master? I mean, reverse all the
damage done by the Vedic gods and goddesses?

MONSTER: A good question, Igor. I am going to harness the awesome power
of lightning, channel it through the Aquinus Activator I designed, and
from there into my body, where it will purge me of the last vestiges of
O.C. eh.

IGOR: Sounds complicated to me, Master. Wouldn't it just be simpler to
tell people that you were crazier than a fruitbat back then, but now
you're feeling better?


MONSTER: [picking up a nearby fruitbat and whacking Igor up against the
side of the head with it] Silence! I was NOT crazy. I was overshadowed
by evil Dr. Vedastein and his team of false gods and goddesses, that's
all. It's all *their* fault, eh.

IGOR: [rubbing the sore spot on his head] Whatever you say, Master.

MONSTER: [stomping around the room, throwing a bit of a tantrum] Their
fault! Their fault! THEIR fault! Not mine! Not responsible! Eh.

IGOR: Whatever. Can we get to it? I've got fruitbats to cook up for
dinner.

MONSTER: [reluctantly] Oh, all right. [looking up, seeing the lightning
beginning to flash] The time is finally right. Now I will strap myself
into the First Person Ontology device and place its metal headpiece over
my head so that I can't see anything but what's going on in my own mind.
THAT's the way I'll cure myself of the curse of Oneification
Consciousness! [he does this, stumbles around bumping into things for a
bit because he can't see a thing, and finally lays down on a slab]

MONSTER: [muffled, because he's trying to talk through a metal helmet]
Nu, ickor nuh doh de iesu bitch!

IGOR: What was that, Master? Couldn't really hear you.

MONSTER: [lifting the helmet a bit to reveal his mouth, clearly
exasperated with his assistant] Now, Igor, NOW. Throw the Jesus switch!

IGOR: Oh. [he goes to the wall, pulls on an enormous cross-shaped
electrical switch mounted there, and sparks fly up all around the
MONSTER in his First Person Ontology device]

IGOR: Did it work, Master?

MONSTER: [gets up, removes the lead helmet, and goes over to a mirror,
staring into remarkably like that scene with Ash in Evil Dead II] Yes,
Igor, it worked. I'm fine. I'm better now.

IGOR: Whatever you say. What next?:

MONSTER: Well now, of course, I need to find a way to talk to all those
people who thought I was crazy and convince them that I've cured myself
by throwing the Jesus switch, eh.

IGOR: [rolling his eyes again] Where do you expect to find anyone who
will buy that?

MONSTER: The Internet, silly. People will believe anything there. Maybe
I'll even find myself a girlfriend, one who believes everything I say
simply because I say it, eh.

IGOR: [under his breath] Not bloody likely.

MONSTER: [turning on Igor] What was that?

IGOR: I said, do you want some nice, fresh bloody fruitbat?

MONSTER: Oh. No thank you, Igor. I just want to sit here and bask in the
freedom of my ne

[FairfieldLife] The marvelous marvelousness of FPOT

I have noticed, even in Message View, that some on this forum are
confused by the exact meaning of the phrase "first person ontology."
Explanations offered so far seem inadequate, so I am introducing a new
set of spiritual seminars to teach the benefits of this technique, which
I call FPOT, or the First Person Ontology Technique.

First, a definition. First person ontology means: Being able to declare
that one's own opinion or point of view is always right. Always.

Even spiritual newbs can see the benefit of this. No matter what the
circumstance, no matter how much your opinion or point of view makes you
appear nuttier than a fruitbat, that is an illusion. In Reality,
nothing could be further from the truth. The FPOT practitioner is --
just as they delcare -- not crazy at all, and is ALWAYS right.

Furthermore, the FPOT technology gives you the ability to determine
whenever anyone else is wrong, or worse, lying.

On the surface, and to less-evolved people who do have not embraced the
FPOT philosophy, it would appear that different people, when they
express opinions, are  equal, and that their opinions carry equal
weight. But no. The seasoned FPOT practitioner learns to tell which
of these people are right and telling the truth (for example, when they
agree with them), and which of them are wrong and telling a lie (for
example, when they disagree with them).

Just as a hint of the wonderous things you'll learn in your FPOT
seminar, here is an abbreviated list of which people are wrong and/or
telling a lie every time they speak and which are right and/or telling
the truth:

WRONG:

* Barry, Curtis, Vaj, Sal, and Andrew Skolnick
* Anyone who either agrees with any of the above or interacts with
them in a pleasant manner, as if they were human and not the scum they
are
* Anyone who disagrees with Me

RIGHT:

* Me (the FPOT practitioner him- or herself)
* Raunchydog, Robin, Ann, Emily, Ravi, doctordumbass, and anyone who
sucks up to Me and joins me in dissing people in the WRONG group
* Anyone who agrees with Me politically
* Anyone who considers Me an authority

Naturally, this list is somewhat flexible and tailored to the needs of
the individual FPOT practitioner. For example, if such a list were
tailored to Robin, the WRONG list would include Maharishi when he told
him he wasn't enlightened and the RIGHT list would include Maharishi
when he said that he was, or even hinted at it, or even just said "Yeah,
right...whatever" in an attempt to get him out of his face.

Sign up for the FPOT seminars today. Find out what always being
right can do for YOU.

[FairfieldLife] Re: Vedic pundits keep dialing 911!!

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "salyavin808"
 wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb  wrote:
> >
> > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "feste37"  wrote:
> > >
> > > From Fairfield e-news:
> > >
> > > A bizarre problem regarding 9-1-1 misdials out of the Vedic City
Pundit Project was a topic of discussion led by Jefferson County Chief
Deputy Gregg Morton at yesterdays' Board of Supervisor's meeting.  When
making a long distance call with their international cell phones some of
the pundits reportedly have to dial out by pressing 9 and then seemingly
two subsequent 1s which could put the cell phone into emergency mode and
dial automatically prior to the rest of the phone number being dialed. 
Morton says there have been 41 of these calls in 2012, though the
problem was first addressed by letter to Vedic City's Mayor Wynne in
2010.  Morton also says the misdials are a waste of officer resources
and time, because officers have to respond to every 9-1-1 call whether
they know it's a misdial or not.  Several solutions were brought up,
including; attempting to change the dial out numbers for long distance
calls or urging Vedic City to create their own police department to
answer their 9-1-1 calls. Vedic City currently has their own private
security force.
> > > * * *
> > >
> > > Can you imagine the scene when the police officers confront the
pundits who are blissfully unaware that they have been summoning
emergency responders?
> >
> >
> > What would be even funnier if the calls to 911
> > were *for real*, and this is just their handlers'
> > cover story. After all, what cell phone requires
> > you to enter 9 to "dial out?" What is there to
> > "dial out" OF on a cell phone? That's something
> > that happens on land lines.
> >
> > It makes a much better Movie Of The Week if the
> > pundits are really dialing for help.  :-)
>
> It certainly does, maybe a FF resident can try
> "dialing out" and see if they can replicate the
> "mistake"

Although I still prefer the movie of the week
version, in which the pundits are actually
dialing for 911, hoping that someone will rescue
them from behind the barbed wire, the country
code for India really *is* 91.

So if the first digit of the number within India
is a 1, or if the pundit is so spaced out from
chanting and buttbouncing that they hit 1 twice
instead of once, this could theoretically happen.

For example, given this chart:
  <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_numbers_in_India> 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_numbers_in_India >
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_numbers_in_India
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_numbers_in_India>
if the pundit were trying to call someone in New Delhi,
Jaipur, or Jammu, this situation could arise.

On the other hand, you've got to admit that it's
more amusing to envision 41 guys locked in a window-
less room somewhere, deprived not only of their
passports but their cell phones as well, being...
uh...encouraged to chant by special Vedic
correctional officers brought in from Mother
Divine:

Of course, having found this photo from "The Magic
Christian," it reminds me that I once gave a TM intro
lecture to Raquel Welch at 1015 Gayley in L.A. She
was "dressed down," and so I didn't even recognize
her during the talk itself. I don't think she ever started
TM, but for those who dote on "celebrity meditators,"
she at least expressed interest.

[FairfieldLife] Re: Why Bevan Never Got Married?

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues"  
wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Ravi Chivukula  wrote:
> 
> > but throwing veiled threats to
> > mature, sophisticated, intelligent women.
> 
> Name one instance where I made any threat veiled or 
> otherwise to any woman anywhere. This is trollish lie 
> in line with your other phrase you have been repeating 
> again and again with my name that I will deal with in 
> another post.
> 
> You are up to your old routine, repeating unfounded 
> specific charges again and again on a public forum for 
> the purpose of hurting my online reputation.
> 
> So go ahead and make your case for you specific claim.  
> That way others can examine your reasons for making it 
> and can decide if it is well founded or as I claim, a 
> form of trollish tourettes.

To reinforce Curtis' post, the troll attempting to
damage his reputation has never met him, and in fact
was never a part of the organization that is the 
focus of this Yahoo group. 

He is, as far as I can tell from long exposure to his
posts, a person suffering from severe mental illness 
who has been encouraged to damage Curtis' reputation 
by someone else on the forum who has a long history
of doing that herself. Almost without exception, all 
of the epithets Ravi hurls at Curtis were first hurled 
at him by this other person; Ravi just picked them up 
from her, and repeats them. I'm not even sure he has
the mental capacity to know what half of these terms 
mean. 

What is sad is that someone as unstable as this has
been encouraged to "pile on" to someone who has done
him no harm, and who he has never even met, by someone
else who has a destructive agenda against Curtis. What
is sadder in a way is that the moderator of this group
does nothing to stop it. 

But PLEASE, if you have stumbled upon Ravi's slander
by accident when looking up my friend Curtis, continue
to search until you find the many glowing recommendations
on the Net of his musical skills, his expertise and
experience as an educator, and his worth as a human
being. Let those recommendations from sane people be
your guide, not this slander from a seriously disturbed
Internet troll.

[FairfieldLife] Re: Eyewitness accounts of levitation that ring true

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues"
 wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "salyavin808" fintlewoodlewix@
wrote:
> >
> > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Robin Carlsen" 
wrote:
> > >
> > >
http://www.miraclesofthesaints.com/2010/10/levitation-and-ecstatic-fligh\
ts-in.html
> >
> > It's just a shame that they seem to have stopped just before
> > the invention of cinema.
>
> I am so glad that I didn't offer my wordy response before you nailed
everything
> I could have said in just sixteen words!

Just to pour gasoline on already-roaring flames, and to save a certain
someone from bringing it up in an attempt to demonize me :-), I shall
weigh in on the subject of levitation from a unique point of view. Other
than Nabby, whose credibility I submit is in the same ballpark as Rush
Limbaugh's or Paul Ryan's, I think I'm the only person here who has
claimed to have witnessed real, hang-there-in-mid-air levitation.

And I have. Not once, but dozens of times, over a period of 14 years.
And it wasn't only me. Often I was one of a group of 200-500 students
watching the guy do this, in various locations, ranging from out in the
desert in the middle of the night to the Los Angeles Convention Center
to Carnegie Hall. In those environments, Rama - Frederick Lenz didn't
hop on his butt like a frog, he just lifted gently up off of the sofa or
the sand he was sitting on or standing on, and hovered there in mid-air
in exactly the way that a brick doesn't. For extended periods of time --
minutes, not seconds.

That said, I can tell you nothing whatsoever about the nature of what it
was that I saw other than I and others saw it.

I do not know whether video or movie cameras trained on the guy as he
lifted off would have captured it; I strongly suspect that they would
not have. If I had to speculate, I would suspect that the phenomenon we
witnessed was -- if it truly existed -- taking place on an alternate
level of reality that might not have been captured by technology on this
level of reality.

I am equally comfortable with the notion that it didn't really exist at
all, but that brings up more unanswerable questions. I don't know about
you, but I have a harder time with the notion that someone can hypnotize
200-500 people at a time into seeing the same thing -- *without ever
pre-announcing what it was that they were going to see* -- less
believable than that something was actually happening. Something else.

WHAT that something else was, I have no idea.

Do I feel somewhat uncomfortable saying this? You betcha. I share almost
all of Curtis and salyavin's skepticism about such things. But I really
*did* see this shit. Over and over and over, for an extended period of
time.

Am I supposed to *deny* that I saw it, or come up with some convenient
skeptic's "explanation" for what it was I and hundreds of others saw?
That, to me, would be the "easy path," a cop-out.

I *did* see it. I have NO FUCKING IDEA what exactly it was that I saw,
only that I saw it. Many times.

Lemme tell you, that is a great deal harder to live with than those who
think that witnessing levitation would be a Good Thing That Would Make
Their Incarnation might think.

[FairfieldLife] Re: Eyewitness accounts of levitation that ring true

d made them disappear. As far
as I ever saw, he never got more than a few feet off
the ground.

> To me, the alternate reality theory sounds likely - 
> kind of explains a lot we can't explain - ghosts, angels, 
> levitation and other "miracles."

Sounds right to me, too. It goes along with many other
experiences I've had of "separate realities." The assump-
tion that there is only one simply does not jibe with
my experience.

The main thing that I took away from all of this, you
should remember, is that I do not for a moment associate
the ability to perform siddhis with being enlightened
or being a "saint" or being "good" or anything like that.
Rama was at times an *excellent* teacher, one of the
best I've ever met. He was also at times a real sonofabitch,
mean, manipulative, and a total dick. He was narcissistic
as hell, and in the end he got himself addicted to Valium
and wound up committing suicide while foolishly trying
to go "cold turkey" from it. It was all very sad in the
end to see all that great potential pissed away.

But it was at the same time a marvelous ride, real E-ticket
stuff. You don't find these experiences very often. Or at
least I don't.



> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb  wrote:
> >
> > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues"
> >  wrote:
> > >
> > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "salyavin808" fintlewoodlewix@
> > wrote:
> > > >
> > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Robin Carlsen" 
> > wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > http://www.miraclesofthesaints.com/2010/10/levitation-and-ecstatic-fligh\
> > ts-in.html
> > > >
> > > > It's just a shame that they seem to have stopped just before
> > > > the invention of cinema.
> > >
> > > I am so glad that I didn't offer my wordy response before you nailed
> > everything
> > > I could have said in just sixteen words!
> > 
> > Just to pour gasoline on already-roaring flames, and to save a certain
> > someone from bringing it up in an attempt to demonize me :-), I shall
> > weigh in on the subject of levitation from a unique point of view. Other
> > than Nabby, whose credibility I submit is in the same ballpark as Rush
> > Limbaugh's or Paul Ryan's, I think I'm the only person here who has
> > claimed to have witnessed real, hang-there-in-mid-air levitation.
> > 
> > And I have. Not once, but dozens of times, over a period of 14 years.
> > And it wasn't only me. Often I was one of a group of 200-500 students
> > watching the guy do this, in various locations, ranging from out in the
> > desert in the middle of the night to the Los Angeles Convention Center
> > to Carnegie Hall. In those environments, Rama - Frederick Lenz didn't
> > hop on his butt like a frog, he just lifted gently up off of the sofa or
> > the sand he was sitting on or standing on, and hovered there in mid-air
> > in exactly the way that a brick doesn't. For extended periods of time --
> > minutes, not seconds.
> > 
> > That said, I can tell you nothing whatsoever about the nature of what it
> > was that I saw other than I and others saw it.
> > 
> > I do not know whether video or movie cameras trained on the guy as he
> > lifted off would have captured it; I strongly suspect that they would
> > not have. If I had to speculate, I would suspect that the phenomenon we
> > witnessed was -- if it truly existed -- taking place on an alternate
> > level of reality that might not have been captured by technology on this
> > level of reality.
> > 
> > I am equally comfortable with the notion that it didn't really exist at
> > all, but that brings up more unanswerable questions. I don't know about
> > you, but I have a harder time with the notion that someone can hypnotize
> > 200-500 people at a time into seeing the same thing -- *without ever
> > pre-announcing what it was that they were going to see* -- less
> > believable than that something was actually happening. Something else.
> > 
> > WHAT that something else was, I have no idea.
> > 
> > Do I feel somewhat uncomfortable saying this? You betcha. I share almost
> > all of Curtis and salyavin's skepticism about such things. But I really
> > *did* see this shit. Over and over and over, for an extended period of
> > time.
> > 
> > Am I supposed to *deny* that I saw it, or come up with some convenient
> > skeptic's "explanation" for what it was I and hundreds of others saw?
> > That, to me, would be the "easy path," a cop-out.
> > 
> > I *did* see it. I have NO FUCKING IDEA what exactly it was that I saw,
> > only that I saw it. Many times.
> > 
> > Lemme tell you, that is a great deal harder to live with than those who
> > think that witnessing levitation would be a Good Thing That Would Make
> > Their Incarnation might think.
> >
>

[FairfieldLife] Re: Eyewitness accounts of levitation that ring true

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb  wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "wayback71"  wrote:
> >
> > Barry, when you saw Lenz levite
> > 1.  had you heard before that he did this sort of thing?
> 
> No. Not the first time I saw him/it.

Susan, I'd like to do what I forgot to do when first 
replying, and thank you for the way in which you asked
your questions. That is, curious and more than a little
skeptical, but not hostile. That is rare, and why I don't
talk about this stuff here very much, and why I won't
talk about it again for a while after this post.

>From my point of view, the important thing about my first
post on this subject yesterday was the last sentence: 
"Lemme tell you, that is a great deal harder to live with 
than those who think that witnessing levitation would be 
a Good Thing That Would Make Their Incarnation might think."

THAT is really the bottom line. THAT, if there was one,
was the benefit of having witnessed extraordinary things.
NOT the having done it, but the having to *live with*
having done it. 

What do you DO with having experienced something that
you and everyone around you knows could not have 
happened, if the world is "really" as it has been 
described to us all our lives? 

Do you talk about it? Do you try to convince others that
it was real, and tell them what you think it "meant?"
Good luck with that. :-) You CAN'T ever convince someone
who hasn't seen or experienced something like this that
it was real. 

Some people actually are so freaked out by what they 
realize are the implications of having seen something
like this that they try to make the experience GO AWAY.
For example, I once took an ex-girlfriend, a die-hard
TMer who still is one to this day, to see Rama. I didn't
push it on her, because I knew what a stick-up-her-butt
TM TB she was, but she asked, so I brought her along to
a public talk. At one point during one of the meditations,
she, sitting right beside me, opened her eyes and looked
at Rama and said "Oh my God!" I opened my eyes and looked
at her and she was quivering, shaking. I looked up at 
Rama and sure enough, he was hovering about a foot above 
the sofa he had been sitting on. 

I whispered to her, "What are you seeing?" She said, "He
is levitating." She stared at him for some minutes, 
clearly somewhat shaken by the experience, and then 
closed her eyes again and meditated. After the talk, I
asked her about it and she said, "Yes, there is no 
question about it...he was levitating. Not bouncing,
levitating." 

Two days later I ran into her, and she denied ever having
said that, or ever having seen it. Some weeks later I 
heard through the gravevine that she now denied ever having
gone to see Rama in the first place, because that would
have been perceived as Off The Program.

THIS is the thing that people who think "All we'd have
to do to get everyone to sign up to learn TM is to 
demonstrate real flying" don't understand. They really
don't get the power of denial, and of clinging to what
they've been told about the world and how it works, even
*in the face of their own experience to the contrary*.

That is one of the things that appealed to me about the
Carlos Castaneda books. I discovered them *after* having
seen many of the extraordinary things he wrote about, in
the desert with Rama. What resonated with me, however,
is that Carlos was honest about what seeing these things
*put him through*. He was sitting there shaking in his
boots during many of these experiences, because they HAD
just rocked his world, and changed his perception of
that world in ways that -- if he was honest with himself
about having seen what he just saw -- he could never
go back to his previous way of seeing it. He had been
changed forever by the experience.

Many people don't WANT to be changed forever. They may
claim that they do, but that's a pile of crap. They want
enlightenment to be as it was described to them by MMY,
a slow and linear process, in which waking state is
followed by CC and then CC is followed by GC and all
of these transitions are easy and don't really rock
your world all that much.

That is not my experience of how such things often happen.
IMO, the different states of consciousness are not linear,
they are coexistent and congruent, ALL of them happening
to ALL of us at once, simultaneously. We just focus on
and get attached to one of them at a time, that's all.
I've bounced in and out of various of Maharishi's "Seven
states of consciousness" for years, and not one of them
was IMO any "better" than another, or all that different
from one another. It was more like turning the dial on
a TV and choosing to listen to and watch a different show,
that's all. And it was the SAME show, only totally 
dif

[FairfieldLife] Re: Vedic pundits keep dialing 911!!

2012-09-07 Thread turquoiseb

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "sparaig"  wrote:
>
> > ...it reminds me that I once gave a TM intro
> > lecture to Raquel Welch at 1015 Gayley in L.A. She
> > was "dressed down," and so I didn't even recognize
> > her during the talk itself. I don't think she ever started
> > TM, but for those who dote on "celebrity meditators,"
> > she at least expressed interest.
> 
> I recall you telling that story years ago. You said she 
> asked some of the most intelligent questions of anyone 
> you had met as a TM teacher.

Indeed she did. She was also FAR more attractive in 
person than she ever was onscreen, something I cannot
say about many movie stars I ran into in L.A. She was
wearing jeans and a nice white silk blouse and thick-
rimmed glasses and looked like a UCLA student half her
real age. I honestly didn't know who she was until she
walked up to me after the lecture and asked if I had
time to answer a few more questions.

Naturally, I said yes. How many times in one lifetime
do you get asked to have coffee with Raquel Welch? :-)
There was no flirting, no movie star posturing, just
a remarkably intelligent and well-spoken woman asking
remarkably intelligent and well-considered questions.
I was impressed. 

I know that she didn't start TM in the weeks immediately
following that lecture, because I was teaching them. She
could have found someone else to teach her, one of the
TM teachers who specialized in teaching celebrities and
keeping it private so that the movement wouldn't hound
them and hit them up for endorsements and donations,
but if so I never heard of it. 

I have seen her since on talk shows and she's just as 
intelligent and well-spoken today as she was then. Go
figure. Someone's image is not always who they are.

[FairfieldLife] Re: Levitation in Africa?

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Susan"  wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues"  
> wrote:
> >
> > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "salyavin808"  
> > wrote:
> > 
> > > I like stories like this. Pointless to just believe but
> > > considering the man's dedication to integrity in every 
> > > other area of his life it's impossible to ignore. Like
> > > Barry's tale of Fred Lenz in the desert, I must just
> > > hang around with the wrong crowd, coz I wish I could get to 
> > > see stuff like this! Whatever the answer is
> > 
> > I believe that neuroscience is offering some great insights 
> > into a whole class of perceptions regarding how conceptions 
> > shape perceptions in the brain.  Also how amazingly detailed 
> > the creations of our mind can be, and how by eroding the 
> > perceptual difference between inner and outer perceptions, 
> > we can see things outside that are wholly generated internally.
> 
> Which is similar to the way MMY described consciousness and 
> perception - that in the end, the universe and what we perceive 
> is all generated by our own consciousness, our own brains, our 
> awareness.  There is nothing more than that that creates the 
> world. The world is not some objective thing or place, but a 
> projection of awareness.  

I should point out that this belief is completely contrary
to the Buddhist doctrine of interdependent origination,
which I suspect is closer to How Things Work, if there 
actually *is* such a thing as a fixed definition of How
Things Work.

Although the concept of pratītyasamutpāda, commonly referred
to as dependent origination (although I prefer, for what will
become apparent reasons) interdependent origination is multi-
faceted and is applied to many things, I think one of them
is this question. Do we "create" the world, or does the
world exist outside of us and we interact with it to 
"co-create" both how it works and how we perceive it.

Naturally, I am more a fan of the latter. I think the former
is just so much ego-stroking narcissism, whether it comes
from a crazy person in an asylum looking out at the world
and thinking "Wow, what an imagination I've got to have 
created all this!" or from a religious/spiritual tradition.
We do *not* "create the world." If we did, it would go 
away when we do, at the moment of our death. 

I think one of the best descriptions of the interdependent
origination concept of the world comes from noted author
(and crazy person himself) Philip K. Dick: "Reality is that 
which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."
Just as believing that bouncing on one's butt creates world
peace doesn't make it so, tuning out the world and not
reading the News doesn't make world strife and war go away.
It's still there, no matter how much you choose not to 
believe it is. 

And it affects you. If you're a young man in a time of war
who chooses to believe that war doesn't exist, that is not
going to keep the Draft Board from coming around, giving
you a uniform and a gun, and sending you out as cannon 
fodder. Neither will a strong belief that you are eternal
keep the bullet fired by some poor slob on the other side
of the war you don't believe is happening from shattering
your skull and proving exactly how non-eternal you are,
at least in this body. 

While it may be true that everything we see and experience
is filtered through our brains and thus becomes to some 
extent an ongoing hallucination invented by us, that does
*not* imply that there is nothing out there to be seen and
experienced. It also does not imply that we "create" it.

I don't believe for an instant that we "create the world."
We *react* to an objective world that really exists, form
our hallucinatory impressions of it in our minds, and 
interact with it. I feel that the jury is still out on 
how strongly we can interact with that objective world 
using only our minds -- the myth of ritam -- but there is
no question that we *do* interact with that world, and
that we can affect it, just as it affects us. The nature 
of the world does not arise or originate within us, or 
only in the world outside of us, but interactively.
*Interdependent* origination. 

That said, I think that Maharishi did not believe this. I
think he was pretty much committed to the solipsistic 
idea that we "create" the world in our minds, and that
it may not really exist in any objective form. He was
rather inconsistent about believing this, of course, 
claiming on one hand that sidhas and their powerful Woo
could change the world, but then turning around and
blaming the lack of change on the "state of the world"
or on the continuing existence of rakshasas like Bush
or scorpion nations like England. None of which really
exist, of course, because none of it exists. :-)

IMO, the danger of believing that the world exists only
in the mind of the person perceiving/creating it is 
obvious. It's a quagmire of delusion, like those olde
maps of the world

[FairfieldLife] Re: Eyewitness accounts of levitation that ring true

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Susan"  wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb  wrote:
> >
> > Susan, I'd like to do what I forgot to do when first 
> > replying, and thank you for the way in which you asked
> > your questions. That is, curious and more than a little
> > skeptical, but not hostile. That is rare, and why I don't
> > talk about this stuff here very much, and why I won't
> > talk about it again for a while after this post.
> 
> You're welcome. And thanks for taking the time to answer 
> all the questions I had. 

Not a problem. You're always a pleasure to chat with, 
and I think I can even put words to WHY. You tend to
almost always come across as "agenda neutral" when you
post. The vibe I get is curiosity and a desire to explore
the world of ideas, in a kind of interactive way with
other people who feel the same.

> I have a now deceased friend who was with Rama, too, and 
> talked of these things. I have no doubt whatsoever that 
> you and he saw Rama do these miraculous things. But, like 
> you, my question is what does it mean?  

I'm not sure it "means" anything. It's just what was.

> I too do not equate the ability to do siddhis or miracles 
> with enlightenment. Rama did not call in the TV cameras 
> and perhaps the purpose was to just stretch the mindsets 
> of his viewers. 

I think that part of the issue was that he had no 
interest in convincing large numbers of people of
things; he was looking for a small number of students
with whom to work intimately and interactively. 

> Or maybe there was no purpose, he was just goofing and 
> having fun.

That is also a possibility. In his better moments, 
he was still the funniest, most spontaneously 
humorous person I've ever encountered on this rock,
"faster on his feet" in many ways than even Robin
Williams.

> But the fundamental question is how do you integrate 
> seeing this with the seemingly concrete world around us, 
> the laws of physics, the need to have explanations for 
> events, and also the need to believe in something 
> greater and different than we have all around us. 

Well, I think a lot of your question depends on 
predilection. Speaking for myself, I feel no "need"
to come up with "explanations" for things that Just
Are. I also have no "need" to believe in something
"greater." The World As It Is seems more than enough
to inspire my sense of wonder and awe.

> Glad you got to see Rama do this. I am at a point in 
> life where I think Enlightenment is possible, but that 
> it might "only" be a style of brain functioning where 
> you kill off the ego part (perhaps by slowing down the 
> whirlwind of interconnections and messages so that the 
> sense of self and "doing" and are undone) and are left 
> feeling calm, happy, and infinite. Not bad at all in 
> many ways, but not mystical.   

I can certainly groove behind this idea of enlightenment.

> But I am not sure that there is anything after the body 
> dies, only energy or consciousness.  

I have suspicions or intuitions that something continues
after physical death, but naturally I won't know that
for sure until after I kick the bucket. And if there is
nothing after death but the Big Black, I won't know it
even then because there won't be any "I" to know
diddleysquat. :-)

> This half-baked and evolving view could accept other 
> realities that coexist with ours, and still not 
> necessarily believe in God or life after death.  

Indeed. I do not believe in God, but certainly believe
in congruent and coexistent multiple realities.

> The whole thing is pretty amazing and as I have said 
> before, I really would love to be around for the 
> scientific progress of the next hundred years or so. 

I suspect many advances will be made, but I suspect
that the state of science when it comes to "understanding
how the brain works" or "understanding how life works"
will be no closer to how these things really work 100
years from now than they are now. They'll claim other-
wise, of course, just as scientists do today, but that
won't be true. 

> > From my point of view, the important thing about my first
> > post on this subject yesterday was the last sentence: 
> > "Lemme tell you, that is a great deal harder to live with 
> > than those who think that witnessing levitation would be 
> > a Good Thing That Would Make Their Incarnation might think."
> > 
> > THAT is really the bottom line. THAT, if there was one,
> > was the benefit of having witnessed extraordinary things.
> > NOT the having done it, but the having to *live with*
> > ha

[FairfieldLife] The Placebo Effect And Its Relationship To Spiritual Experience

It is interesting to read this talk lately of extraordinary spiritual
experiences or perceptions at the same time I'm researching the placebo
effect in preparation for writing an article about it. You know me...I
tend to segue effortlessly between the possibly unrelated events of my
life to other things I -- and possibly only I -- see as related. So
naturally I wind up linking the concept of extraordinary spiritual
experiences to the concept of the placebo effect. :-)

I think one can make a case for there being a strong relationship. But
not always. That's my theory, and I'm stickin' to it. For now. :-)

In the world of pharmacology, the placebo effect is the elephant in the
room right now. Believing that they knew the nature of the placebo
effect and how it worked was the entire basis for scientists' method of
approving new drugs for the market. To be considered effective, the drug
must score significantly higher in treating or curing the ailment in
question than a placebo does. Problem is, the placebo effect is growing
stronger. More and more studies cannot be replicated because the placebo
group scores as high on "cures" as the drug group does.

One of the new understandings of the placebo effect emerging from this
is that *the very fact that someone is giving them a pill to take* is
the most important factor in whether the person believes the pill has a
curative effect. Some drug tests have sought to avoid this by doing
"blind injections" of the drug in question, in which all subjects are
hooked up to an IV, through which the real subjects get the drug and the
placebo subjects get only saline. And *still* there is a placebo effect
that appears in the placebo group, *because they'd been hooked up to an
IV."

So this gets me to wondering about spiritual experience.

How *many* of the spiritual experiences people have related here can be
categorized as having been inspired or "set off" or "caused" by some
thing or some person that can be considered a placebo?

Looking back on my spiritual experiences, many of them fall into that
category. I was "on a course" or with a spiritual teacher of some kind,
who could conceivably be "doing something" to shift my state of
attention.

Interestingly enough, however, in my Top Ten List of spiritual
experiences, not all of them seem to fall into that category. Some of
them Just Fuckin' Happened, in a situation that had no overtones of
being "spiritual" in itself, or of "prompting" me to have a spiritual
experience. It was just me, walking along a street or sitting in my room
or something equally mundane. No "stimulus" or "catalyst" in the
environment, as far as I can tell.

So I've had both types of spiritual experience -- those I can categorize
as having been "kick started" by some person or event that can be
perceived as a placebo, and those that Just Fuckin' Happened.

The fact that I've had both type of spiritual experiences leads me to
believe that although many spiritual experiences can be written off as
the result of the placebo effect -- possibly even most of them -- not
all of them can. "Darshan" experiences, you betcha. You wouldn't be
there in the room if you weren't expected to be "treated" by a doctor
wielding Woo Woo. Being "on a course," ditto.

But sitting on a park bench in a quiet cemetary just writing about weird
shit on a Saturday morning? That theoretically shouldn't be a candidate
for a placebo that "causes" a radical shift of awareness, right?

Yet I've just experienced such a radical shift of awareness. I am simply
not in the same state of attention I was when I came here. Go figure.


Wait.

Oh shit.

Maybe for me the experience of writing *is* my placebo. What if the very
act of sitting down to write something creative is what triggers shifts
in my state of attention?

Shit. Another theory down the drain.

Never mind.

:-)

[FairfieldLife] Getting On The Wheel


http://www.metacafe.com/watch/mu-140620/my_beat_bruce_cockburn_music_vid\
eo/


Today I'm on my bike. And it never ceases to amaze me what a
mood-uplifter a bicycle is. It's like walking, which I love, but more
enegy-efficient. Besides you get to feel the breeze in your face, which
always get me high.

So several times a week I try to remind myself to "Get On The Wheel,"
and go out on my neat little folding mountain bike and give my synapses
a recharge. A good bike ride never fails to uplift me and remind me how
wondrous life is. I suspect my main man Bruce Cockburn feels similarly,
seeing as how his song above was inspired by a bike ride around
Montreal.

But because I'm me, and my predilection is to segue from sequitur to
seeming non-sequitur, naturally in this cafe taking a break on my ride I
have to segue from "Getting On The Wheel" to its opposite, "Getting Off
The Wheel."

You hear a lot about Getting Off The Wheel in spiritual circles. To some
it means getting off the wheel of birth and death and rebirth, and is
synonymous with Getting Offa This Rock, and ending their physical
existence entirely.

Just not my cuppa tea. I kinda *like* it on this rock. The planet Earth
has provided me with endless wonders during the years I've been
privileged to walk it. And bike it. :-)

Being "drawn that way" in a kind of Tantric freehand, I tend to like
life a lot, and don't really feel any impetus to end the incarnation
process. I mean, how much FUN is it going to be being an ocean, having
merged into it and abandoned one's status as a lowly drop of water? It's
FUN being a drop.

Call me crazy, but I think that living on this rock and being able to
enjoy its ups -- and its downs -- is just gangbusters. A real E-ticket
ride, a veritable roller coaster of delight. If there *is* such a thing
as reincarnation, sign me right up. I'm all over that.

Then again, I was the guy getting off the Space Mountain ride at
Disneyland and immediately getting back in line to go on the ride again.
Ups, downs, whatever. Doesn't matter. All that seems to matter is
finding a way to enjoy the ride.

"If you're on your bike, wear white." **


** Prize to the person who can correctly identify this olde rock 'n roll
reference.

[FairfieldLife] Re: Getting On The Wheel

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, merudanda  wrote:
>
> Seems you live dangerous ordained Dudeist Wright/Wrong
> in white tonight
> :
> he don't know if it's right or wrong
> maybe he should tell someone
> he's not sure just what it was
> or if it's against the law

Congratulations, Meru! If I had had to guess who here might
have answered this correctly, it would have been you. Here,
as promised, is your prize:


  [http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8171/7954827168_6a90a1aff6.jpg]
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8171/7954827168_6a90a1aff6.jpg


** Answer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1OAkWGUMKY

Something happened to me yesterday
Something, I can't speak of right away
Something happened to me, something, oh, so groovy
Something happened to me yesterday

He don't know if it's right or wrong
Maybe he should tell someone
He's not sure just what it was
Or if it's against the law, something

Something very strange I hear you say
You're talking in a most peculiar way
But something really threw me, something, oh, so groovy
Something happened to me yesterday (Yesterday)

He don't know just where it's gone
He don't really care at all
No one's sure just what it was
Or the meaning and the cause, something

What kinda joint is this? Take your partners

He don't know if it's right or wrong
Maybe he should tell someone
He's not sure just what it was
Or if it's against the law, something

Someone says there's something more to pay
For sins that you committed yesterday
It's really rather drippy but something, oh, so trippy
Something happened to me yesterday

Right, he don't know just where it's gone
He don't really care at all
No one's sure just what it was
Or the meaning and the cause, something

Someone's singing loud across the bay
Sittin' on a mat about to pray
Isn't half as looney as something, oh, so groovy
Something happened to me yesterday

Right, he don't know if it's right or wrong
Maybe he should tell someone
He's not sure just what it was
Or if it's against the law, something

Well, thank you very much and now I think it's time
for us all to go. So from all of us to all of you,
not forgetting the boys in the band, and our producer,
Reg Thorpe, we'd like to say "God Bless." So, if
you're out tonight, don't forget, if you're on your
bike, wear white. Amen

[FairfieldLife] Knock, knock, knocking on heathens' doors

I heard a joke today from a friend, and shall pass it along as a preface
to this short one-act play:


Q: What's the difference between a religious fanatic who trolls Reddit
and a Seventh Day Adventist?

A: You can't unsubscribe from your front door.


That said, the following is a gentle satire aimed in the general
direction of someone here who I like and would prefer to continue
liking, but is in danger of becoming a parody of himself.


Knock knock.

UNSUSPECTING CITIZEN (UCer): [opening door] Hello. Can I help you?

TRESPASSING MEAN-WELL-ER (TMer): I'm here to help YOU. I've come to
stand here at your front door and make provocative statements to lure
you into an argument so that I can convince you of the benefits of TM.

UCer: Thanks anyway, but I'm not interested. [starts to close door]

TMer: WAIT! Are you slamming the door in my face because you practice
some  lesser form of meditation or spiritual practice?

UCer: What I practice or don't practice is my business, and none of
yours. Goodbye. [continues closing door]

TMer: [sticking his foot in the door like a vaccum cleaner salesmen out
of 1950s TV sitcoms] But WAIT! *Whatever* it is that you believe or
practice, TM is better. [gestures to little red wagon he's pulling
behind him full of what appear to be research papers and studies]

UCer: I don't CARE whether you think TM is "better" than whatever I
believe in or practice. I'm just not interested in what you're selling.

TMer: Aha! So you *deny* that TM is better than what you practice now?
Here, I'll prove it to you that TM promotes creativity better, and makes
one more successful, and more happy. [starts rummaging through the
papers in the little red wagon] I've got a study right here that'll
prove it.

UCer: You really won't give up, will you? I've told you that I have no
interest in TM, and even less in arguing with you. WHY are you
continuing to try to get me to do so?

TMer: For your own good, dummy. You simply won't ever be as creative and
as successful and as happy as you could be unless you admit that TM is
the best possible way to achieve these things, and start practicing it
yourself.

UCer: So you're saying that you practice this TM stuff?

TMer: [proudly] I sure do. I haven't missed a meditation in over thirty
years now.

UCer: So by now, if what you're saying is true, you must be pretty
creative. What have you got in your little red wagon that you yourself
created that you can show me?

TMer: Uh...uh...wait just a minute. I've got a paper here that reports
on research done at the University of Whatever that proves conclu...

UCer: Hold on...I asked for an example of YOUR creativity. Haven't you
got anything to show me.

TMer: Uh...not with me.

UCer: OK, let's talk success, since you claim that TM makes one more
successful. You must be pretty successful yourself, to be knocking on my
door in the middle of a workday. Tell me a little about how TM has made
YOU so successful.

TMer: Uh...well...I'm between jobs right now.

UCer: And the happiness thing? Someone who goes around trying to get
other people to argue with him doesn't exactly strike me as personifying
happiness.

TMer: Uh...but...but...I'm doing it for YOUR OWN GOOD. That makes me
happy.

UCer: Yeah, right. Just as a suggestion, don't you think your time might
be better spend being more of a personification of what you claim the
benefits of are, rather than trying to get people to argue with you
about it? Listen, I feel for you...not having a life and all...but
honestly I've got one and you're keeping me from it. Might I suggest you
knock on my next-door neighbor's door. He practices mindfulness
meditation.

TMer: Oh. [brightens up] Thanks for the tip. I've got all SORTS of
papers here in my little red wagon that PROVE that TM is better than
mindfulness. [leaves]

UCer: [watching him leave, relieved] Wait'll he finds out that my next
door neighbor is a Fundamentalist Christian. At least both of them will
get the argument they're constantly looking for. That'll teach him to
borrow my lawn mover and not return it.

[FairfieldLife] Re: Eastwooding: "I'm not going to shut up; it's my turn!"

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Share Long  wrote:
>
> Good morning, Robin and duh?! We've discussed all this 
> offline and it seemed we had come to a mutually loving 
> conclusion. Remember? You even gave me your private email 
> address! So I'm not sure what this FFL post is about. 
Perhaps I'm the thick headed one. As I noted many times 
offline, I'm not as developed as you.

Seems to me that Share has defined what Robin's
posts are all about just fine -- to get people
hooked on reading them, and to get them to admit, 
hopefully in public, that they're just not as 
developed as he is. 

That, as far as I could tell, was what he attempted
with Curtis, and with pretty much everyone else he's
suckered into his endless back-and-forth. 

Just sayin'...

[FairfieldLife] The Church Of The Presumptuous Assumption (was: Eastwooding)

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues"  
wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Share Long  wrote:
> > Snip
> > As for what my feelings were, I didn't suffer or feel 
> > insulted.  Nor did I think you were being hurtful or 
> > cruel. I simply did not want to pursue the theme of 
> > whether or not I was being the real me. Nor the theme 
> > of my alleged hyper positivity. We've been down those 
> > rabbit holes plenty.
> > Snip
> 
> In a very kind way you hit the nail on the head here Share.  
> If Robin "gets it", it might assist in my own communication 
> issues I expressed in our last exchange. Adults don't take 
> kindly to having people presume to negotiate the relationship 
> we have with ourselves. It feels like a boundaries violation.
> 
> Young people are learning their boundaries. When a Maharishi 
> told us back in the day the knowledge was structured in 
> consciousness and with a wink wink jiu jitsu created the 
> assumption that he was going to assume a dominant relationship 
> with us, it felt OK because he was older than I was and that 
> was how I had deferred to older people my whole childhood.
> 
> So I think her reaction was appropriate for a self realized 
> adult. She wasn't interested in having you assume this 
> position with her.
> 
> Now I can also understand why Robin was so surprised. He only 
> started to put in the lever and hadn't applied any pressure 
> yet, but he got called out immediately. I think this presumption 
> may be a habit for him and he is unaware that he is doing it 
> and that other adults, seeing themselves as his equal in every 
> way, might object.  

Well said, Curtis. It's the *presumption* in some people's
posts that makes one (or at least me) perform a cost/benefit
analysis on them and decide that they Just Aren't Worth It.

Some people -- especially those who as you point out have
a long habit of doing this -- just fuckin' *presume* too
much. They presume that they're interesting, or unique,
or "special," when in many cases they are anything but. 
They presume that because they wrote it, you *have* to
read it. They further presume that because they wrote it
to *you*, you *have* to answer it, and every bit of it.
Don't you dare snip or choose to not respond to every
single word of what was said (which in Robin's case can
encompass literally hundreds of words in a single post),
because...uh...because he or she *deserves* such a 
response. 

Bzzt. Not so much. 

Speaking for myself, *I* decide who on this forum I find
interesting enough to read. *I* decide whether to respond,
and if so how much, or to what parts of the post. I feel
no need to address every single word or argument, *espec-
ially* if they have been addressed to me in a presumptive
tone as if the person is lecturing to me from on high,
or telling me definitively what is wrong with me, or 
pulling the olde "You just don't understand because 
you're not as evolved/enlightened/whatever as I am" 
routine. 

Pull this on me once or twice, and I bow out of discussions
with the person. If the other person then reacts by getting
angry about me bowing out, and throws a snit-fit, at this
point in my life I tend to just write them off forever as
Not Worth The Effort. Life is *much* too short to deal
with presumptive drama queens.

[FairfieldLife] Re: Getting On The Wheel

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu  wrote:
>
> Thanks.  I'll use that video in my posts around here discussing 
> the bicycle problem. That's exactly what I envision when I say 
> "bikeways". However as Turq has pointed out the Netherlands are 
> flat so it is easier to ride a bike around there.  

I didn't bother replying to your first diatribe
against bikes and bikers because...uh...I've heard
it before and not only is it old and crotchety :-),
it's based on experiences in a gas-guzzling, me-me-
me culture, the United States.

As noted, the Netherlands is different. Yes, it's 
flat, and that makes the prospect of biking more
amenable to many. But there are other factors 
involved in why things have evolved here to the
point that over 50% of all commutes to work are
by bicycle. 

First, the Netherlands has a history that the U.S.
does not. It's been through two wars, during which
the only people who could get gasoline to drive
cars were either the rich or the Nazis or those who
collaborators with them. Now that gas is more
plentiful, it is also as far as I know the most
expensive in Europe. It is taxed heavily to pay
for the numerous social services that the Netherlands
extends to its citizens, and to maintain the roads
that auto drivers use.

Second, there is an *infrastructure* here to support
the use of bicycles. There is hardly an inch of road
in the Netherlands that does not have a bike lane on
each side of the street. There is literally nowhere
in the country you can go -- and safely -- via bike.
There are special stop/go lights for cyclists, and
buttons to push while on your bike to get them to
change, if they aren't turning automatically as the
result of detecting the metal of your bike waiting
to cross the street. Both front and rear lights 
are mandated. But, interestingly, helmets are not.
The reason is that the Dutch -- ever the pragmatic
lot -- did a bunch of studies and surveys and found
that the wearing of helmets not only didn't reduce
the number of bike accident injuries, they *increased*
them. I have no idea why this would be, but those
were the statistics. 

Third, the Dutch -- whether on foot or on a bike or 
on a motorbike or in a car -- are *aware of their 
place in space*, and courteous. They *look around*
and are aware at every moment who is sharing the
roads or bike paths with them. Everyone signals
when turning, and no one ever turns left in front 
of someone coming up faster behind them on their
own left. In my time in the Netherlands I have yet 
to see a single accident involving a bicycle, 
although I'm sure there are some.

Fourth, the Dutch actually give a shit about their
environment, and about keeping it clean.

For all these reasons and more, it's really fun and
a pleasure to ride a bike here. Even if we occasionally
have to share the road with crotchety old people in
cars who feel that the roads belong to them. In America,
they might. But here they don't.

[FairfieldLife] Re: Eastwooding: "I'm not going to shut up; it's my turn!"

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Robin Carlsen"  wrote:
>
> But this all seems serious business to me, Curtis. So 
> we should just keep at it.

Robin, I know you wrote this to Curtis, but I had
to comment because you nailed *exactly* why I and
some others here cannot bring ourselves to take
you seriously or bother to read much of what you
write, much less take it seriously.

*Everything* seems like serious business to you, 
Robin. That doesn't make you smart, or more intel-
ligent, or even serious. It just makes you a bore.

[FairfieldLife] Re: Eastwooding: "I'm not going to shut up; it's my turn!"

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "maskedzebra"  wrote:
>
> Is this being said *seriously*, Barry? I have been working 
> at my boringness for a long time. 

And I don't care. I stopped reading after this
sentence. It's obviously going to be you pitching
another me-me-me drama queen hissy fit. Not 
interested.

I said what I said because I'm trying to HELP you,
dummy. You clearly JUST DON'T GET IT.

If you are as desperate for cyber-interaction as
you appear to be, and as desperate to prove your
sanity, you *really* need to learn a few basic 
Rules Of The Road.

First of all, if you want people to read your posts,
make them shorter. People who have lives really just
don't have the time to follow you obsessing on yours.

Second, if you want people to respond them to your
posts, make them more inviting. Learn to write in
such a way that someone would even WANT to reply to
you. So far, you have not mastered that.

Third, stop expecting things. The way that Internet
chat forums work is that you throw stuff out, pretty
much in the same way that a cook throws strands of
spaghetti at the refrigerator door to see if its
ready. Some of it sticks, some doesn't. No harm, no
foul, either way.

NO ONE OWES YOU SHIT. No one "owes" you a read, let
alone a reply. You have to EARN it. So far, at least
as far as I'm concerned, you haven't. Worse, you
haven't even tried.

[FairfieldLife] TV series review: "Revolution"


Terrible.

I watched it only because one of the stars was supposed to 
be Giancarlo Esposito, who was so good in "Breaking Bad." 

He doesn't appear in the pilot until the 10 minute mark, 
which I made it to only by multitasking and writing a 
letter on another screen while it was playing on my 
main screen. 

If it hadn't been for him I wouldn't have made it past 
the first few minutes, none of which made the least bit 
of sense. I won't go on and on about it, but if you 
watched "Terra Nova," it's written by the same level of 
writers, and aimed at the same level of audience, 
neither of which is a compliment.

[FairfieldLife] Pundits' Union formed in Fairfield, Iowa

[FOX News] In this exclusive phone interview from behind the barbed wire
in Vedic City, Iowa (a suburb of Fairfield, and home to the "Super
Radiance Group" of Vedic pundits who chant there daily for world peace),
one of the pundits shares with us the reasons why he and his fellow
pundits have felt the need to create a union. Pundit Anony Mouse,
originally from Punjab Corners, India, talks to our correspondent Barbie
Bimbo about their decision.

BB: Anony, are you there? There seems to be some interference on the
line.

AM: That's the wind noise, Barbie. I'm making this call from the
farthest corner of the compound, where it hopefully can't be scanned by
the people monitoring our communications. There is a lot of wind out
here today.

BB: Oh, OK. I thought for a minute it was you breathing heavily. I get a
lot of that when talking to men on the telephone.

AM: You're a woman? The switchboard just put me through to the first
available reporter. What do you look like?

BB: Sweet of you to ask, Anony. I'm 5 foot ten, blonde hair (real, BTW),
with measurements of 38-24-36. The 38 is real, too.

AM: Good to know. One of the things that we pundits are supposed to do,
supposedly written down by the great Indian sage Shankara, is to think
of women as bags of urine and feces. Doing this is supposed to be good
for our spiritual advancement, but it's been so long since I've actually
seen a woman that I've forgotten what shape to make the bag of urine and
feces. Do you think you could send me a photo of yourself?

BB: No problem. [short pause]

AM: WOW! Thanks, Barbie. If I may say so, you are one great-looking bag
of urine and feces!

BB: Thanks, Anony. Shall we get to it? What can you tell me about POPUP?

AM: Well, Barbie, POPUP stands for Patanjali's Own Protective Union of
Pundits. A number of us stuck here in the compound have chosen to form
this union to protect our rights and to bring our plight to the
attention of the public and the members of the TM organization.

BB: Don't the members of the TM organization already know? It says here
on my teleprompter that they paid to build the pleasant, resort-like
facility you live in?

AM: Barbie, TMers wouldn't know a Bengal tiger if one snuck up and bit
them on the ass. They believe what they've been told, and they've been
told that we all want to be here, and that our lives are a veritable vat
of bubbling bliss.

BB: Well, aren't they?

AM: It depends, Barbie. If you were stuck out in the middle of
gods-and-goddesses-forsaken nowhere with a bunch of other guys, trapped
behind barbed wire and forced to chant meaningless and non-religious but
scientific Sanskrit all day for $10.80 a month, would you call that a
vat of bubbling bliss?

BB: $10.80 a month doesn't sound like very much. Even I make more than
that.

AM: That's the amount we're given every month to spend on "frivolities."
Let me tell you that it isn't quite enough to cover necessities, much
less anything frivolous. This past two months I've been needing a new
toothbrush but unable to afford one, so I've been reduced to sharing one
with one of my fellow pundits.

BB: That sucks, Anony. I don't like sharing a toothbrush with anyone,
not even my boyfriends who sleep over.

AM: That's just the tip of the iceberg, Barbie. Most of us are here not
because -- as the TMers have been told -- we are dedicated to the cause
of world peace. We are here because our parents and families back in
India were promised a living stipend if they sold us into indentured
servitude as "Vedic pundits."

BB: You mean you're *not* Vedic pundits?

AM: Well, that depends on your definition, I guess. Yes, we were all
given an extensive, in-depth six-week training course called How To Be A
Vedic Pundit 101, but that's not seen by many people in India as a
suitable qualification for being an actual Vedic pundit. For the purpose
of this interview, however, since we're being paid the princely sum of
$10.80 a month to chant Vedic hymns to the gods and goddesses, I guess
you can think of us as Vedic pundits.

BB: How did the TM organization come to the figure $10.80 per month?

AM: We were told that it's a Vedic thing. 108 is some kind of magical
number to them. Our parents and families back home are supposedly sent
an amount based on the same formula, 10,800 rupees per month.

BB: Well that certainly sounds like a lot of money. You may be being
paid diddleysquat, but at least you're providing for your families.

AM: Barbie, 10,800 rupees is a little less than $195.

BB: Oh. I get paid more than that, too.

AM: Anyway, Barbie, the purpose of POPUP is to make people aware that
all is not cardomon-flavored hot milk and honey here behind the barbed
wire. We're being exploited.

BB: So what are your demands? What do you hope to achieve by forming a
union?

AM: We want the one thing that is being denied to us by the TM
organization -- the right to make our own decisions. They are so used to
gullible TMers allowing them to dictate to them what to thin

[FairfieldLife] Re: Eastwooding: "I'm not going to shut up; it's my turn!"

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues"  
wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "seventhray1"  wrote:
> >
> > Talk about a hoot.  I read Curtis' intent exactly as he 
> > described it. I find Ann's comments perplexing. Judy's 
> and Ravi's comments speak for> themselves.
> 
> A glorious simpatico of ill-will. Two poisonous peas in a pod.

Also, it should be pointed out, two people who never
seem to get into the long, demanding, don't-even-
THINK-of-dumping-me back-and-forth that a conversation
with the person they defend so fanatically would entail. 

Instead, they spend their time dumping on others who
have found such conversations...uh...trying, to say
the least. 

One would think that if they consider him so wise and
so spiritually advanced and all, they'd be chatting
him up every chance they got.

[FairfieldLife] Re: Eastwooding: "I'm not going to shut up; it's my turn!"



--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues"  
wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb  wrote:
> >
> > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues" 
> >  wrote:
> > >
> > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "seventhray1"  wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Talk about a hoot.  I read Curtis' intent exactly as he 
> > > > described it. I find Ann's comments perplexing. Judy's 
> > > > and Ravi's comments speak for> themselves.
> > > 
> > > A glorious simpatico of ill-will. Two poisonous peas in a pod.
> > 
> > Also, it should be pointed out, two people who never
> > seem to get into the long, demanding, don't-even-
> > THINK-of-dumping-me back-and-forth that a conversation
> > with the person they defend so fanatically would entail. 
> > 
> > Instead, they spend their time dumping on others who
> > have found such conversations...uh...trying, to say
> > the least. 
> > 
> > One would think that if they consider him so wise and
> > so spiritually advanced and all, they'd be chatting
> > him up every chance they got.
> 
> I have also noticed that curious fact Barry.  

One is tempted to believe that they don't really
give much of a shit about Robin at all, except as
a tool that they use to dump on their perceived
enemies. 

That makes the whole thing so curious; you would
think that they'd have a lot to talk about. :-)

[FairfieldLife] Re: Pundits' Union formed in Fairfield, Iowa

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

> In other news from the "land of the Ved", cartoonist held on sedition
> charges:
>
>
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/09/10/indian-cartoonist-held-on-sedition\
-charges/

>
> We need to find some links to his cartoons. :-D




http://www.business2community.com/trends-news/cartoonist-aseem-trivedi-a\
rrested-a-mockery-of-democracy-0275032

[FairfieldLife] The Rise of the Brogrammer

Hilarious. I suspect Bhairitu and Lawson and anyone who has worked in
the software industry will appreciate this:

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-03-01/the-rise-of-the-brogramm\
er#r=lr-fst


  [A thread on Q and A site Quora describes how to be a brogrammer]

[FairfieldLife] Apologies from Robin and Judy

Wow. Take a night off from Fairfield Life and it
goes officially Bat Shit Crazy. I think that the
bottom line on all this insanity should be given
to the two people causing most of it:

APOLOGY FROM ROBIN: 
Please forgive me, Curtis, and everyone. I was just 
having a bad night, after realizing the truth about
myself, that I am nothing more than a minor cult 
wannabee who spent a few years in a minor wannabee 
cult. And that I finally became so narcissistic and
so deluded in that cult that I began to imagine that 
I had the moxie to start my own cult. I failed 
miserably at that, and was laughed out of town, and
now I'm nothing. In the history of spirituality in 
North America, I don't even deserve a footnote; I 
was that minor and that passing a fad. Realizing
all this just got me down, that's all, so I made
up some shit about you. Sorry.
- Robin W. Carlsen

APOLOGY FROM JUDY:
Please forgive me, Curtis, and everyone. I'm a 
bat shit crazy old woman with nothing going on in
my life and it really, really, really gets my panties
in a twist to see anyone liking or supporting anyone
I've spent years telling them that they shouldn't
like. When that happens I see red and go a little
crazier than usual, because it reminds me what an
*ineffectual* crazy person I am. All these years,
working with an audience not nearly as smart as I
am, and I *still* couldn't make them hate the people
I wanted them to hate. Realizing all this just got
me down, that's all, so I needed to go a little 
more bat shit crazy than usual.
- Judy Stein


--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend"  wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Robin Carlsen"  wrote:
> > 
> > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "seventhray1"  wrote:
> > > 
> > > Judy, you do leave me speechless.  Almost.  It is at this point
> > > I reflect on the last Narnia book, "The Last Battle", when the 
> > > ape "Shift" turns the truth upside down.  And succeeds in doing
> > > so for a while.  I guess that's a difference between that book 
> > > and FFL.  I don't think anyone is fooled here, even for a moment.
> > > 
> > > I hope Robin doesn't turn on you here Judy.  That could happen 
> > > you know.
> > 
> > ROBIN: Actually, this is the only moment in today's proceedings 
> > where I feel you have hit a nerve, Steve. And I believe your 
> > warning to Authfriend both timely and even portentous. I would
> > ask you, Authfriend, to be careful at this point. Curtis and I 
> > understand each other. I don't know you at all. And sometimes I
> > think you act as if you know me much better than you do. Do you 
> > understand this, Authfriend?
> 
> F*ck off, Zebra Baby. I don't give a crap about you and
> your Issues; I'm after Curtis here. Don't get in the way,
> OK? I know you better than I need to.
> 
> > You will thank Steve someday for his rebuke here. But funny
> > thing is: the more I write into you, the more I like you!
> 
> Yeah, yeah, very funny. Take your levers and hooks and
> grappling irons and go after somebody who hasn't made it
> all the way around the block even once yet.
> 
> "Write into you," is that Canada-speak? Hey, I'll tell
> you where you can write into, mister.
> 
> > But that doesn't change the wisdom of Steve's admonition,
> > as surely you must know, Authfriend.
> 
> Nothing can ever change Steve's wisdom, I agree with
> you there.
>

[FairfieldLife] Re: Pundits' Union formed in Fairfield, Iowa

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Buck"  wrote:
>
> Om Jeez, did you see this trash posted here earlier today as
creativity?
>
> Dear FFL Moderators, as an experienced and old conservative meditator
> here I'm concerned for the integrity of our FFL with Yahoo-groups over
> this kind of Obscenity being posted here.
>
> These people.  They are doing it again bringing and posting smut here.
> Spiritually I am completely offended by this kind of smut-peddling
being
> posted here by these people.  They are using our list's open-ness
against
> us for their own prurient interests.   It is needlessly inflammatory,
> extremely low-brow and completely discouraging to any civil discourse
> of the community.
> Moderators, you simply must be more pro-active in protecting the
> spiritual integrity of our FFL forum.. Do your duty and do something.
>  Be forthright and bold about these nattering nabobs of negativity
> posting this trash on our list.  Their coming to FFL mostly as
immigrants
> with little stake we have now more than our share of them.   Nattering
> nabobs of negativism they have formed their own 4-H Club -- the
> hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history.  Un-repentant they
> have nothing of spiritual worth to offer here.  Not just shunned,
> they should not allowed to post on FFL.
> Kindly,
> -Buck

I would like to take a moment to thank Buck for his "review" of
my recent work of fiction, "Pundit's Union formed in Fairfield,
Iowa." Reading it is an exercise in humility.

I had begun to believe that I had finally achieved the pinnacle
of Parody Success -- having dashed off a piece in less than half
an hour that rendered the Inquisitors of Fairfield Life speechless.
As every parody writer knows, being able to write something
that pushes so many buttons that the button-pushed just can't
even respond is the ultimate goal, and I thought for a minute
that I had achieved it. But no. I must try again...and of course
I will. :-)

Personally, I thought this one was a lot of fun. It certainly was
fun to write. Does anyone think that these teenagers and young
men in their twenties hijacked from India and shanghai-d to
the golden promised land of America The Beautiful, only to be
kept inside a barbed-wire compound and not allowed to even
*see* America don't have thoughts like this? Does anyone think
that they -- at the center of the Woo Woo Cyclone that is
theoretically reshaping the world to better fit Maharishi's
fantasy image of it -- don't "unstress?"

Chances are there really *are* a few Anony's in the pundit
compound. Chances are that if given a chance to tell their stories
to a FOX News bimbo reporter they'd tell it remarkably the same
way I did. What I think Buck is reacting to with his characteristic
Inquisitor burn-the-heretics mindset is *not* that my little fantasy
was off-base, but that it kinda *nailed* the whole pundit thing,
at least from one non-True Believer point of view.

I repeat my challenge -- if you don't like my little exercises in
creativity, WRITE YOUR OWN.

If TM really does increase one's "Creative Intelligence," one would
think that would be a no-brainer for the TBs here to do. But somehow
it's primarily the Off The Program guys and gals here -- the ones who
have either left TM behind or who wisely relegate it to having a minor
place in their lives -- who post anything creative and original.

I would think that this fact -- once pointed out -- was embarrassing
enough that a few people would try to correct the imbalance, and
try to come up with something creative of their own, but nooo.

So I guess it's left to me, and to Curtis, and to a few others to play
with both words and ideas creatively, just for the fun of it. I thank
Buck for the reminder that I still have heights of Offending The
Easily Offended to attain. I shall take this to heart and try harder.
Maybe an interview from beyond the grave, in which Maharishi
is interviewed by Barbie Bimbo. That might be fun...

> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@ wrote:
> > [Explicative text Deleted]

[text reinserted]

[FOX News] In this exclusive phone interview from behind the barbed wire
in Vedic City, Iowa (a suburb of Fairfield, and home to the "Super
Radiance Group" of Vedic pundits who chant there daily for world peace),
one of the pundits shares with us the reasons why he and his fellow
pundits have felt the need to create a union. Pundit Anony Mouse,
originally from Punjab Corners, India, talks to our correspondent Barbie
Bimbo about their decision.

BB: Anony, are you there? There seems to be some interference on the
line.

AM: That's the wind noise, Barbie. I'm making this call from the
farthest corner of the compound, where it hopefully can't be scanned by
the people monitorin

[FairfieldLife] Re: Pundits' Union formed in Fairfield, Iowa

2012-09-11 Thread turquoiseb

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, merudanda  wrote:
>
> oh forgot to add
> 'merudanda'
> anagrams to
> 'Damn! A rude.'

If we're going all anagramatical, here are a few 
permutations of 'turquoiseb'. One suspects that
those on this forum who are in reverent awe of 
what I write might like the second-to-last one,
while certain others would prefer the last one. :-)

Soubriquet
Bisque Tour
Bouquet Sir
Tuberous Qi
Rebus Quoit
Squib Route
Orb Quietus
Bout Risque
Bout Squire
Bro Quiet Us
Bore Quit Us

[FairfieldLife] Re: Apologies from Robin and Judy

2012-09-11 Thread turquoiseb

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "seventhray1"  wrote:
>
> Hey Robin,
> Thanks for your reply.  Sort of an indulgence when other 
> stuff is going on here, but a few comments.
> As you know, many times I read posts rather quickly, and 
> may miss some nuances.
> But I don't generally try to argue with,  or analyze "funny".  
> I like "funny" and usually I will take it a face value.  I 
> found Barry's post to be funny.  And I thought it delivered 
> some well deserved pay back to you and Judy.  Sorry about 
> that, but that's what I felt.  

Steve, I honestly don't know why you and Curtis got
sucked into this sucker's game. Robin has clearly
lured you both into his same old same old routine
of interacting with him endlessly, with him calling
the shots and getting you to jump through hoops.

And ALL OVER SOME DRAMA QUEEN HYSTERICS
THAT NO SANE PERSON WOULD EVER BOTHER WITH.

My "apologies" from Robin and Judy were not in any
way supposed to be irony, or even funny. They were
an attempt to convey -- in as few words as possible
-- what they should really say in such an apology
if they were in the least bit honest. With themselves,
and with others here.

These are crazy people. They reduced Fairfield Life
yesterday to their level, and sucked other people 
into it. 

If you're got the time to waste on such bullshit,
I leave you to it. I do not.

[FairfieldLife] What spiritual practice could learn from the Olympics

Not being a sports freak, I didn't watch much of the recent Olympics.
But I write -- both for fun and for work -- at a cafe at which many
people were glued to their big-screen TVs watching people compete in the
Olympics for the fleeting honor of being considered The Best at
something.

And that got me to thinking about spiritual practice, and what I see as
one of the worst -- and over the long term, most debilitating -- aspects
of it. Believing what their spiritual teachers have told them, people
come to believe that what they SAY is more important than what they
actually DO.

Take the claims made by Maharishi and the TM organization that TM makes
people more creative. Where is the actual proof of that? And I'm *not*
talking about "scientific studies," because that's just magicians'
misdirection, a way of saying, "OK, I really can't show you anything
that *I* have ever done that was creative, and neither can any of my
close TM friends, but look at this study done at the University of P.O.
Box 2000 that *proves* that TMers are more creative because they scored
better on tests that someone, somewhere said were indicative of
creativity."

Take the claims that TM improves social interaction. Do you see a lot of
*proof* of this in the day-to-day interactions on FFL of long-term TMer
proselytutes? Seems to me that the vast majority of their interactions
are pretty soap-opera-y, acting out long-term grudges and doing their
best to make Junior High School students look more mature than they are.
But I'd bet that the very people doing this can SAY a lot about how much
"better" their social interactions are; they can even probably point to
"studies" that "prove" it.

What I liked about the Olympics that I watched out of the corner of my
eye while writing user manuals, training courses, movie reviews and
articles about health-related topics was that what the individual
athletes SAID about their abilities didn't mean shit. It all came down
to what they could DO in the actual races or events. Dozens of athletes
performed in each event, but only three got medals. Nothing that any of
the other athletes could possibly SAY could either take those medals
away from the people who worked hard to achieve them, or to put medals
around their own necks.

Now think about Maharishi, and the insanely BAD ADVICE he gave to tens
of thousands -- possibly millions -- of people who actually thought he
was wise when he SAID it: "Do less and accomplish more; do nothing and
accomplish everything."

This is what we call in the writing trade a meaningless platitude,
otherwise known as bullshit.

It holds true in no real arena of accomplishment on the planet other
than the largely fantasy worlds of "spiritual advancement" and the
pursuit of "enlightenment." The people who medaled at the Olympics
*worked their butts off* to be able to win them. They were aided by
genetics and innate natural ability, of course, but the bottom line
cause of their accomplishment was classic hard work. They did more and
accomplished more.

I think that Maharishi did people an enormous disservice by convincing
them that all one has to do is meditate and good things will happen in
their lives as a result. And that all they have to do is sit on their
butts (or bounce on them) and they can accomplish anything they can
imagine.

What has that produced? I mean really -- *measurably*? What are the
actual *accomplishments* of the people "in the Domes" who think of
themselves as The Best because they manage to find their way there twice
a day?

Where are the novels written, the great music composed, the fortunes
made or humanitarian organizations founded by these "Best" people? Where
are their actual, physical *accomplishments* that they can show us as a
result of "Doing less and accomplishing more?" Where is the *proof* that
they "Did nothing and accomplished everything?"

All I hear is a lot of talk. People SAY all sorts of shit. Like how
enlightened they are, while acting in many cases like assholes. (We've
seen a few of those here on FFL.) People SAY that they've got lots going
on in their lives, but they rarely ever talk about what that "lots"
actually is; *whatever* it is, it doesn't seem to be interesting enough
for them to write about it here and share it with other people.

I say put up or shut up.

What you SAY about the benefits you've gained from TM (or whatever your
particular spiritual practice may be) doesn't mean shit. If you claim
it's made you more creative, show us the money -- post something
creative. If you SAY it's made you enlightened, show us something that
resembles the things we were told to associate with enlightenment. If
you SAY that TM is the fastest, most effective path to enlightenment,
show us someone enlightened. And then *prove* to us that they're
enlightened.

What you SAY don't mean shit. It's what you DO that matters.

Your epitaph, when it comes time for one, is not going to really reflect
what you SAID about your life; it's going to r

[FairfieldLife] The Noblest Aspiration I Can Imagine

Having rapped once this morning about the concept so often pushed out by
TM and TMers of it/them being "The Best," I thought I'd balance things
somewhat and rap about another concept. As much as I may appreciate
people whose aspiration -- like Olympic athletes -- is to become The
Best at something, I'm personally just not drawn that way.

In both spiritual pursuits and more mundane ones, I'm more attracted to
folks who have learned the quiet joys of being ordinary.

I just did an Amazon "Look inside this book" search of Maharishi's "The
Science of Being and Art of Living," looking for instances of a word. I
got zero results. None. Nada. Bupkus. This doesn't surprise me, because
in the many years I studied with him, I can't recall him having ever
used the word in any talk or lecture.

But if you think about it, that *should* be a bit surprising, because
this word is the *basis* of many other spiritual teachings and
traditions. They give whole talks devoted to this word and concept. They
write whole books about it. Much of their daily practice is devoted to
achieving it.

The word is "humility."

The dictionary defines humility as "The quality or state of being
humble." Looking up humble, it is defined as "Not proud or haughty;
reflecting or expressing a spirit of deference." The Dalai Lama, in one
of his talks on this subject, has said, "Any sense of conceit or
self-importance gets in the way of cultivating the genuine altruistic
intention, and the most effective remedy against this is the cultivation
of humility."

Isn't it interesting that the quality that Buddhism considers one of the
noblest and most altruistic intents one could have, so much so that it's
considered a "remedy" for its opposite, self importance, is something
that Maharishi Mahesh Yogi didn't even feel was worth mentioning?

Different strokes for different folks, eh?

Anyway, I'm a big fan of humility, in the sense of realizing one's
ordinariness and *lack* of self importance. This, to me, is a portal
that leads to the ability to better empathize with one's fellow human
beings. And that, of course, leads to the ability to be more of service
to them.

There are a few folks here on Fairfield Life who I think -- based on the
things they write -- "get" humility. You see it in the way they describe
the "people on the street" they interact with (think Curtis and Marek)
and you see it in the things they aspire to or fail to aspire to (think
Xeno and some others, who have given up the one-pointed pursuit of
enlightenment in favor of the pursuit of just living a fun or meaningful
life).

Then there are others, who *don't* seem content with being ordinary.
We've been told here that the "highest goal in life" is to aspire to
becoming enlightened. Or to create world peace by being so important
that the very thud of your buttocks on slabs of foam creates world
peace. Call me crazy, but I don't see a lot of humility in these
aspirations.

I also don't see a lot of happiness and fulfillment in the people who
pursue them.

It's as if they're never satisfied. There's this carrot dangling
somewhere on the end of a stick in front of them, and they won't allow
themselves to be truly happy until they've grabbed it. Sounds like a
dumb way to live one's life to me.

Some people need big, enormous, ostentatious and above all IMPORTANT
goals in life. Enlightenment. World peace. I like people who have more
humble goals, like just trying to be as happy as they can in their daily
lives, and trying to do as much as they can to help the people they
personally interact with every day to be a little happier themselves.
Those goals sound just fine to me; I don't see why anyone would need
loftier ones.

But then I have listened to a lot of songs by Bruce Cockburn, a guy who
"gets" humility, too. His lyrics and his way of looking at things may
have warped me. When he sings verses like the following, I get the
feeling he's actually onto something:

  To be one more voice in the human choir
  Rising like smoke from the mystical fire
  Of the heart

Not "the" voice. Not even the lead singer. Just one more voice. Now
that's humble.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVfssmB4ok0

[FairfieldLife] The Teaching Process: synthetic vs. synthesis

As some here may have noticed :-), I have a problem with one of the
buzz-phrases that Maharishi used when training teachers of TM. That
phrase is, "Every question is the perfect opportunity for the answer we
have already prepared."

I'm sure he liked this idea for several reasons. The first is that it
implied to the wannabee teachers that even though they *knew* that their
personal experience with meditation, let alone with higher states of
consciousness, did not qualify them to be teachers, if they just
memorized enough stuff, they would be prepared for any question that
might arise. The second, of course, is that it reinforced Maharishi's
ideas of "maintaining the purity of the teaching," his interpretation of
which was that his teachers mainly parrot his words, so as not to make
any of them "impure" by adding or subtracting anything. The third is
that he -- doing essentially the same thing by repeating the things he'd
been taught -- possibly knew no other way to teach. He preferred to
train his teachers as parrots performing a kind "synthetic" teaching by
mindlessly repeating the teachings of others. Because that's what *he*
had been.

There are other ways to teach.

Segue to the experience of actually teaching TM. Many of the most
vociferous "TM supporters" on this forum have never had this experience,
so I expect them to wisely keep out of this discussion. Yeah,
right...like that's gonna happen. :-)

Many TM teachers -- both those I've encountered in real life and those
I've run into in cyberspace -- feel that the part of teaching TM they
liked best was the synthetic, by-the-numbers part. Giving intro
lectures, exactly the way that they'd been taught to give them.
Performing the puja and actually teaching TM to someone, repeating the
words of the puja and the steps of initiation *exactly* as they'd been
taught to do. Or doing the three nights of checking, again just as
they'd been taught.

All of this was neat, I guess, but I wasn't as into it as many other TM
teachers were. What I liked were the "advanced lectures," either at
center meetings on on residence courses. Even though I now know that not
a single one of them I ever gave was in any sense "advanced" -- more
like "advanced kindergarten" as opposed to really "advanced" -- I had
more fun with them because they allowed for a more interesting form of
the teaching process: synthesis.

Synthesis I define to some extent as "reversing the flow" of spiritual
learning. Instead of kicking back and "taking it all in" from some
supposed expert or authority, you allow all the data bits you've taken
in over the years to percolate inside you, to "mix and match" with other
data bits you've heard from other sources or discovered in your own
meditations or spiritual experiences, and then you "reverse the flow"
and send them out to the world. It's a real high, in a way that merely
parroting someone else's thoughts and words is not.

This would happen to some extent when thinking up the talks themselves
-- choosing a subject, researching it, and putting it into a proper
order for presentation. I had FUN with some of the topics I came up
with, and became notorious in the Western Region for talks such as "SCI
and Sci-Fi."

But the most fun for me was answering questions. For me, *not* every
question was the perfect opportunity to parrot the answer I'd already
prepared. In fact, when some of the questions were asked, I'd realize
that I had no earthly idea how to answer them.

But then an answer would form. Because I was still a TB, none of these
answers deviated in any significant way from the canned, synthetic
answers Maharishi preferred, but they were *my* answers, based on a
combination of things he'd said, things I'd read, and things I'd
experienced. Feeling the answers formulate themselves inside me was a
fun kind of "frog in a blender" experience; I could literally *feel*
them "coming together," and forming into something cohesive. And they
must not have been the most off the wall answers in the world, much less
Off The Program answers, because I became considered one of the best
lecturers on the West Coast. Jerry Jarvis consistently asked me to do
"guest spots" in TM centers and on residence courses. Which is NOT a way
of tooting my own horn, just a way of pointing out that one can deviate
from the "prepared answers" without deviating from the teaching.

I have run into many TM teachers who never had this experience, and I
feel for them. They were either denied or denied themselves one of the
great "highs" of the spiritual teaching process -- the *inner* process
of feeling it all come together inside you into a *new* way of seeing
things or expressing them, one that you'd never been given by anyone as
a "prepared answer." Synthesis, as opposed to being somewhat synthetic.

It was *such* a high for me that at one point I dumped TM and the TM
organization and Maharishi entirely, and "followed my bliss" in the
direction of more insights that I could come up with

[FairfieldLife] Re: The Teaching Process: synthetic vs. synthesis

BTW, based on past exchanges I anticipate a chorus of non-TM teachers
saying, "Buh...buh...but the TM teachers *I* knew didn't just parrot
things. They came up with a lot of the things they said on their own."

My question to such folks is, "How would you know?"

YOU didn't have access to the courses and the tapes that these teachers
did. How would you "know" whether the things they said were their own,
or merely being repeated from having heard them from some tape or some
course somewhere?

I'd love to hear you explain this...  :-)


--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb  wrote:
>
> As some here may have noticed :-), I have a problem with one of the
> buzz-phrases that Maharishi used when training teachers of TM. That
> phrase is, "Every question is the perfect opportunity for the answer
we
> have already prepared."
>
> I'm sure he liked this idea for several reasons. The first is that it
> implied to the wannabee teachers that even though they *knew* that
their
> personal experience with meditation, let alone with higher states of
> consciousness, did not qualify them to be teachers, if they just
> memorized enough stuff, they would be prepared for any question that
> might arise. The second, of course, is that it reinforced Maharishi's
> ideas of "maintaining the purity of the teaching," his interpretation
of
> which was that his teachers mainly parrot his words, so as not to make
> any of them "impure" by adding or subtracting anything. The third is
> that he -- doing essentially the same thing by repeating the things
he'd
> been taught -- possibly knew no other way to teach. He preferred to
> train his teachers as parrots performing a kind "synthetic" teaching
by
> mindlessly repeating the teachings of others. Because that's what *he*
> had been.
>
> There are other ways to teach.
>
> Segue to the experience of actually teaching TM. Many of the most
> vociferous "TM supporters" on this forum have never had this
experience,
> so I expect them to wisely keep out of this discussion. Yeah,
> right...like that's gonna happen. :-)
>
> Many TM teachers -- both those I've encountered in real life and those
> I've run into in cyberspace -- feel that the part of teaching TM they
> liked best was the synthetic, by-the-numbers part. Giving intro
> lectures, exactly the way that they'd been taught to give them.
> Performing the puja and actually teaching TM to someone, repeating the
> words of the puja and the steps of initiation *exactly* as they'd been
> taught to do. Or doing the three nights of checking, again just as
> they'd been taught.
>
> All of this was neat, I guess, but I wasn't as into it as many other
TM
> teachers were. What I liked were the "advanced lectures," either at
> center meetings on on residence courses. Even though I now know that
not
> a single one of them I ever gave was in any sense "advanced" -- more
> like "advanced kindergarten" as opposed to really "advanced" -- I had
> more fun with them because they allowed for a more interesting form of
> the teaching process: synthesis.
>
> Synthesis I define to some extent as "reversing the flow" of spiritual
> learning. Instead of kicking back and "taking it all in" from some
> supposed expert or authority, you allow all the data bits you've taken
> in over the years to percolate inside you, to "mix and match" with
other
> data bits you've heard from other sources or discovered in your own
> meditations or spiritual experiences, and then you "reverse the flow"
> and send them out to the world. It's a real high, in a way that merely
> parroting someone else's thoughts and words is not.
>
> This would happen to some extent when thinking up the talks themselves
> -- choosing a subject, researching it, and putting it into a proper
> order for presentation. I had FUN with some of the topics I came up
> with, and became notorious in the Western Region for talks such as
"SCI
> and Sci-Fi."
>
> But the most fun for me was answering questions. For me, *not* every
> question was the perfect opportunity to parrot the answer I'd already
> prepared. In fact, when some of the questions were asked, I'd realize
> that I had no earthly idea how to answer them.
>
> But then an answer would form. Because I was still a TB, none of these
> answers deviated in any significant way from the canned, synthetic
> answers Maharishi preferred, but they were *my* answers, based on a
> combination of things he'd said, things I'd read, and things I'd
> experienced. Feeling th

[FairfieldLife] Re: An Exemplar of Civic Virtue

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Buck"  wrote:
>
> Obituary: J Christopher Stevens.
> 
> In a dark place he was one of us.
> An Arjuna,
> A Statesman,
> A Mediator,
> A Meditator.
> Om
> Shanti.
> 
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-19571272

Don't know why you call him a meditator, although he
may well have been one, having grown up in California
and been in the Peace Corps. 

What strikes me about this whole sad business is that
it's all caused by religion. The Embassy was stormed,
presumably by fanatical Muslims, because they'd seen
or heard about a couple of clips on YouTube of an
anti-Islam film made by an Israeli Jew and promoted
by an Egyptian Christian.

[FairfieldLife] Called Me Back

Continuing in the noble tradition of posting clips of
music that mean something to one person but probably
nothing to anyone else, here's a song for those who 
have a history of throwing snit-fits because someone 
doesn't reply to something they felt should or *must*
be replied to. This is the only clip I could find on 
YouTube, and is preceded by an instrumental with 
violinist Jenny Scheiman, but if you want to cut 
to the chase, the song starts at about 5:40.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyZD8PWNAnA

My so-called buddy never called me back
called me back, called me back
my so-called buddy never called me back
I don't know what to think about that

I coulda been croaking on the floor of my flat
floor of my flat, floor of my flat
I coulda been croaking on the floor of my flat
the bugger never called me back

Then again he could have troubles himself
troubles himself, troubles himself
then again he could have troubles himself
I better try him once more

He could be going through a bitter divorce
bitter divorce, bitter divorce
he could be going through a bitter divorce
or a quadruple bypass

Maybe his mother ran afoul of the law
afoul of the law, afoul of the law
maybe his mother ran afoul of the law
you never know with that gang

He coulda slid into a society scene
society scene, society scene
he coulda slid into a society scene
and left his old friends behind

My so-called buddy never called me back
called me back, called me back
my so-called buddy never called me back
I don't know what to think about that
the bugger never called me back
I better try him once more 

- Bruce Cockburn, January 2009

:-)

[FairfieldLife] Re: Robin's picture

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "feste37"  wrote:
>
> Pictures of Robin made my life so wonderful
> Pictures of Robin helped me sleep at night
> Pictures of Robin solved my childhood problems
> Pictures of Robin helped me feel alright
> 
> Pictures of Robin
> Robin, oh Robin
> Robin, oh Robin
> Pictures of Robin

This is hilarious, feste. I am old enough and enough
of a rock trivia guy to know not only who sang the
original "Pictures Of Lily," but who they were 
singing about, and why. :-)

> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues"  
> wrote:
> >
> > Robin sent me a picture, which I appreciate since we have been discussing 
> > so much for so long.  If my reaction had been negative I wouldn't be 
> > posting.  Like if I saw something that gave me pause.  Without meaning to 
> > gay up the place too much:
> > 
> > Handsome guy.  Could be any Beltway professional in any field.  Still has 
> > that good mediator skin. (Did we all get that? Is it a TM thing?  Maybe 
> > vegetarian for all those years?) Eyes used to looking through a camera 
> > lens, so he expresses intelligence and perhaps a bit of mirth. 
> > Unselfconscious smile partially formed, shows being relaxed in being 
> > captured like this.  
> > 
> > Totally positive photographic impression to me.  And I know that you can't 
> > see the mind, but we all make these judgements don't we?
> > 
> > Anyway I felt obligated to report the positive impression since anyone 
> > interested in our posts knew I asked.  If the ladies want to give him a 
> > holla you will forget that swarthy Ravi guy once you see him.  (pssst, did 
> > that degay this post by mentioning the ladies?  Not so much?  Damn!)
> >
>

[FairfieldLife] Re: Robin's picture

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "feste37"  wrote:
>
> So who the hell was Lily? All I know from the song is that 
> she died in 1929. 

>From Wikipedia:

Pictures of Lily

"Pictures of Lily" is a single by the British rock band 
The Who, written by guitarist and primary songwriter 
Pete Townshend. It was released in 1967 as a single, and 
made the top five in the UK, but failed to break into 
the top 50 in the United States.

In the beginning of the song, the singer laments his 
insomnia. When his father gives him the pictures of the 
song's eponymous Lily, he feels better, and is able to 
sleep. Soon, he feels desire for Lily as a person 
instead of a photo, and asks his father for an 
introduction. His father informs him however that "Lily" 
has, in fact, been dead since 1929. Initially, the 
singer laments, but before long turns back to his 
fantasy.

According to Pete Townshend in the 2006 book "Lyrics" by 
Rikky Rooksby, "the idea was inspired by a picture my 
girlfriend had on her wall of an old Vaudeville star - 
Lily Bayliss [sic]. It was an old 1920s postcard and 
someone had written on it 'Here's another picture of 
Lily - hope you haven't got this one.' It made me think 
that everyone has a pin-up period."

Lillie Langtry, the music hall star, died in 1929, the 
year in the song. Townshend's statement is unlikely to 
refer to Lilian Baylis, the theatre manager, who died 
in 1937.

Mark Wilkerson quotes Townshend as writing that the song 
is "Merely a ditty about masturbation and the importance 
of it to a young man." However, the song does not mention 
masturbation explicitly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BmkBroiw1s

> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb  wrote:
> >
> > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "feste37"  wrote:
> > >
> > > Pictures of Robin made my life so wonderful
> > > Pictures of Robin helped me sleep at night
> > > Pictures of Robin solved my childhood problems
> > > Pictures of Robin helped me feel alright
> > > 
> > > Pictures of Robin
> > > Robin, oh Robin
> > > Robin, oh Robin
> > > Pictures of Robin
> > 
> > This is hilarious, feste. I am old enough and enough
> > of a rock trivia guy to know not only who sang the
> > original "Pictures Of Lily," but who they were 
> > singing about, and why. :-)
> > 
> > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues" 
> > >  wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Robin sent me a picture, which I appreciate since we have been 
> > > > discussing so much for so long.  If my reaction had been negative I 
> > > > wouldn't be posting.  Like if I saw something that gave me pause.  
> > > > Without meaning to gay up the place too much:
> > > > 
> > > > Handsome guy.  Could be any Beltway professional in any field.  Still 
> > > > has that good mediator skin. (Did we all get that? Is it a TM thing?  
> > > > Maybe vegetarian for all those years?) Eyes used to looking through a 
> > > > camera lens, so he expresses intelligence and perhaps a bit of mirth. 
> > > > Unselfconscious smile partially formed, shows being relaxed in being 
> > > > captured like this.  
> > > > 
> > > > Totally positive photographic impression to me.  And I know that you 
> > > > can't see the mind, but we all make these judgements don't we?
> > > > 
> > > > Anyway I felt obligated to report the positive impression since anyone 
> > > > interested in our posts knew I asked.  If the ladies want to give him a 
> > > > holla you will forget that swarthy Ravi guy once you see him.  (pssst, 
> > > > did that degay this post by mentioning the ladies?  Not so much?  Damn!)
> > > >
> > >
> >
>

[FairfieldLife] Movie review: "Peace, Love and Misunderstanding"

I have been waiting for this film for months. I saw early reviews of it
when it first came out, but have had to wait until it was released to
DVD/Bluray and thus become available on the Piratenet to see it. I had
an immediate "hit" on it when I first read about it, and that intuition
seems to have been -- at least for me and my family, who all watched it
together tonight -- to have been well-founded.

It's that rarest of the rare these days, a family drama/comedy that is
willing to leave the drama at the front door and focus on the comedy and
the family. The basic plot concerns an uptight New York City lawyer
(Catherine Keener) who is informed by her even more uptight New York
City husband (Kyle MacLachlan) that he wants a divorce. She packs up the
BMW 4WD with some belongings and her two kids (played by Nat Wolff and
Elizabeth Olsen) and goes off to Woodstock, NY to hide out for a while
with the mother she hasn't spoken to in 20 years. Uptight lawyer lady
dumped her all those years ago because she was such a hippie, and still
is. She arrives on Mom's doorstep and immediately demands that she keep
her pot-smoking, free love ways in her pants during the visit, so as not
to adversely affect the youngun's. This is not to be.

Why I got such a hit on this film, besides the fact that it is directed
by the estimable Bruce Beresford, is his choice of who to play Hippie
Mom. None other than Jane Fonda, in her first starring role in a film in
decades.

She has never been more brilliant -- as an actress, as a woman, and as a
larger-than-life persona. Yes, it's a light romantic comedy, but Jane
just ROCKS. Not to mention the fact that she looks better at 74 than
most women look at 44.

Part of the magic of this may be that Jane Fonda, as she has admitted in
the press run-ups to the release of this film, never *was* a hippie.
Although that may have been her image, especially among uptight
Republicans, she was always far too intellectual and far too uptight to
ever live like her character in this film. So this movie gives her an
opportunity to send up the popular but untrue image of herself.

Another part is that in this film Jane Fonda is *generous* in the way
that 74-year-old actresses can afford to be. She allows Catherine
Keener, whose film this really is, to take it and run with it. She
equally allows Elizabeth Olsen (sister to the "Olsen twins," but a much
better actress) to do the same. The smaller supporting characters are
all wonderful, as is the "character" played by Woodstock itself.

A delight. If you need a break from the trials of the world, this film
might provide you with one.

http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi3109659417/

[FairfieldLife] Re: Does YF...

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "card"  wrote:
>
> ...decrease the risk of diabetes??

Having written several articles on the worldwide diabetes
epidemic lately, I seriously doubt it. The only component
of "yogic flying" that would fall into known risk-reducing
categories would be the five minutes or so of exercise
gained from using one's muscles to bounce around. That
*would* be an advantage to those who lead an otherwise 
sedentary lifestyle (one of the biggest risk factors for 
Type 2 diabetes), but a greater effect would be seen from 
just walking 20 minutes per day.

BTW, the country with the highest percentage of diabetes
on the planet is India. An estimated 11% to 20% of India's 
urban population has diabetes, and 3% to 5% of the adult 
rural population has the disease. Estimates from the World 
Health Organization say that the disease currently costs 
India about $250 billion per year, and that in the next 
ten years this figure will skyrocket to $335 billion.

The worst part is that these figures can only continue
to skyrocket. This is partly due to cultural differences
(what is seen as "fat" in the US is seen as "normal" or
even "desired" in much of India), genetic predisposition,
and the adoption of an unhealthy American lifestyle 
(lots of nutrition-free fast foods and less and less
exercise) that make India the population most at risk from
diabetes. What is worst is who is being affected. In the 
West, the onset of Type 2 diabetes is most commonly seen 
in adults in their 40s and 50s. In India, it's affecting 
people in their early to mid 20s.

According to the International Journal of Diabetes in 
Developing Countries, the alarming increase in diabetes in 
India "has gone beyond epidemic form to a pandemic one."

[FairfieldLife] Re: Eastwooding: PS to Ann "I'm not going to shut up; it's my turn!"

LOL. Your reply, eloquent in its wordlessness and its use of one
simple graphic to capture the essence of the situation, is priceless.

I'm glad I'm not the only person here who has perceived something
a little "off" in Ann's behavior. I mean, this is a person who was, at
the end of her "Robin experience," herded up onto a stage in front
of other followers and (as I understand it) told that she was possessed
by demons, and then cast out of the group. She reacted at the time
(again, as I understand it, based on things she has said here) by
turning whistleblower and orchestrating a media expose of Robin
and his antics that resulted in him being essentially chased out of
town and ending his reign as Cult Leader In Chief.

Robin himself has neither said hello to her since her arrival here,
interacted with her in any way, or even recognized her existence.

Yet Ann has teamed up with Judy and others to constantly defend
him and chastise those who suspect he's more insane than spirit-
ually "advanced," and that essentially nothing has changed in
his behavior over the years. His act here on Fairfield Life strikes
us as *remarkably* like what his act was described as being
"back in the day." Ann seems to disagree, and has essentially
taken upon herself the role of groupie to an aging spiritual rock
star who, from his side, doesn't even acknowledge that she exists.

This all strikes me as somewhat curious. But then, on FFL,
many things do.  :-)

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "seventhray1"
 wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, awoelflebater no_reply@
> wrote:
> >
> > It is not that things don't happen, and good things too, online. It
is
> > just that the essential dynamic is very different from offline.
People
> > are usually much more accessible and careful when they are standing
next
> > to you. I give people the benefit of the doubt that they are
probably
> > much easier to talk to in person, that the internet can give them an
> > edge and a licence to be different than they are in the flesh.
Really,
> > all I am saying is don't take things too personally here. Some
posters
> > are very honest and real (Emily for example) and some are hiding
behind
> > all sorts of personas and agendas (AZ and Vaj for example) and
others
> > just don't give a poop what they say to hurt people (Barry). If you
get
> > too closely wedded to  taking all of these characters into your
personal
> > space and opening yourself up too deeply to some of them you will
find
> > you will get slammed at some point.
>
>   > (I am not talking in the least about Robin here by the way, he
falls
> > into none of these categories.)
>
>

[FairfieldLife] Re: Arab Spring Turns Against the US

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "John"  wrote:
>
> It smells like Al Qaeda is involved in this attack in 
> Yemen and Libya. They may be paying off protestors to 
> create havoc in American embassies in the Middle East.  

John, when was the last time you actually *left* 
the United States, traveled in other parts of the
world, and talked with the people who live there?

While it is possible that extremist groups such as
Al Quaeda are involved in the demonstrations and
turmoil, their participation is not necessary to
create anti-American sentiment. They would not have
to "pay off" people in the Middle East or anywhere
else to distrust and dislike America and all it
stands for; they do that anyway. America is one of
the most potent symbols of the global oppression
that has rendered their lives as miserable as they
are. 

Are these protestors possibly religious fanatics,
who have have a completely unrealistic view of the
importance of Mohammed and what people should be
allowed to say about him? Absolutely. ALL religious
fanatics are...uh...fanatics, and thus arguably
insane. But the things they dislike about America,
its influence in their countries, and its actions
over the last few decades are based in fact, not
in religious doctrine. America is simply not to
be trusted. Even Europeans understand that.

[FairfieldLife] Re: Eastwooding: PS to Ann "I'm not going to shut up; it's my turn!"

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Share Long 
wrote:
>
> Thanks, Ann but too late about being slammed. I was slammed
> for my very second post, my first being a reply to Marek's
> surf report. Me asking about body surfing on west coast. I
> guessed it was a safe topic for my FFL debut. As for my
> second post, it was very brief, mentioned Hagelin. So gave
> me a chance to, in true nurse fashion, take the temperature
> of the group.

Although I rarely read Share's posts, much less reply
to them, I'm going to do what I know that Judy (our
official Upholder Of Truth And Honesty) will not and
point out a few discrepancies in the account above.

First, the post mentioning Hagelin was Share's fifth
on FFL, not her second. Second, I just glanced through
the replies to this post, and the closest I can even
*imagine* to being a "slam" was one of mine, replying
to Hagelin's silly theories  -- not to Share -- with a simple
graphic:

  [Can I get A Woo-Woo! Shirt by 1392255]

I didn't read all of the responses in the thread, but glancing
through them briefly I saw *none* that "slammed Share."
Not a one. I challenge her to produce the one or ones that did.

I'm posting this as a reminder of the thing that happens so often
here, and that I think that happened in this case, and has warped
Share's memory of events. A number of people responded to
her posting of Hagelin's silly ideas by making fun of his *ideas*
or of *him*. Why do I get the feeling that Share interpreted
this as "slamming her?"

[FairfieldLife] Re: Eastwooding: PS to Ann "I'm not going to shut up; it's my turn!"

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues"  
wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, doctordumbass@  wrote:
> >
> > DD: "Sal Sunshine": sounds like a crazy, invasive 
> > personality to me.
> 
> I believe she has some sincere concerns about some 
> of the posters here.  

You mean that she could become *concerned* about
people here? Like the guy who is now on his fifth
"posting ID" on Fairfield Life, at least one of
which was spent pretending to be a woman?  

Or the woman who is still hounding her and taking
every possible opportunity to ruin her reputation,
months after she stopped posting at FFL?

What could there possibly be to be concerned about?  :-)

[FairfieldLife] Proposing a new term for use in Fairfield

Chatting with a friend last night over Skype, we were
discussing our former TM connection, and people we had
known in common. When discussing one of them, a woman
who we both dated and who was sweet and attractive 
but...uh...not exactly the sharpest pencil in the box,
I found myself describing her using a term I tend to 
use affectionately, because I know the etymology of 
the word: "Bimbo." 

My friend laughed and said, "Chances are she is still
in Fairfield, and still buying *everything* they tell
her to buy, believing *everything* they tell her to
believe, and still bouncing on her bum every day in 
the domes. Does that make her a 'Bumbo'?"

Cracked me right up. 

It's the perfect word for that kind of gal who is 
sweet but so gullible she'll believe *anything*, no
matter how outlandish or Newagey.

Here's raising a toast in my Bimbo Club shot glasses
(I really do have a set) to the Bumbos of Fairfield. :-)

[FairfieldLife] The fraud who made the movie that has rocked the world

The "making of" the film "The Innocence of Muslims" that is
rocking the Islamic world and causing death and destruction
is undoubtedly far more fascinating than the film itself.
In this article Wired shows that it still has the ability
to do a great investigative journalism piece when it wants
to. My favorite quote: 

"This is the man whose work is now at the center of one of 
the gravest diplomatic disasters in recent memory, whose 
video is at least partially responsible for attacks that 
claimed the lives of four U.S. employees, including the 
American ambassador to Libya. It shows how U.S. foreign 
policy in the 21st century is at risk of being derailed by 
a single, pseudonymous fraudster."

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/09/anti-islam-flick/all/

[FairfieldLife] A few Internet thoughts on revenge and those who live for it

Given the intensity with which some people seem to base their lives on
the pursuit of revenge against those who they feel have affronted them,
I thought I'd pass along a few thoughts for their entertainment and
edification:

Revenge is a harmful action against a person or group in response to a
grievance, be it real or perceived. It is also called payback,
retribution, retaliation or vengeance...

Some societies believe that the punishment in revenge should exceed the
original injury. For example, a poll of over 1,800 Americans showed that
about 40% would support the death penalty for child rape.

Detractors argue that revenge is a simple logical fallacy, of the same
design as "two wrongs make a right". Some assert that the Hebrew Bible's
concept of reciprocal justice "an eye for an eye" (Exod. 21:24)
validates the concept of proportionate revenge, in which there would be
a simple 'equality of suffering'; however Rabbinic law states this verse
indicates a person should provide a monetary payment for the eye or
tooth that was damaged, and does not require the assailant to receive
physical damage. This view confounds the concepts of "justice" and
"revenge," and disregards the fact that "eye for an eye" justice was a
philosophical advance on the normative practice of the day (see blood
feud, infra) and that Judaic scripture elsewhere prescribes "Do not
seek revenge . . . love your neighbor as yourself" (Leviticus
19:18). Also, the Hebrew Bible illustrates the concept that '"vengeance
is mine" says the Lord' (Deut. 3:25, cf., in the NT, Rom. 12:19).

Desire for the sustenance of power motivates vengeful behavior as a
means of impression management: "People who are more vengeful tend to be
those who are motivated by power, by authority and by the desire for
status. They don't want to lose face," says social psychologist Ian
McKee.

Many religions condemn revenge, or promote it as eternal punishment.
Some denominations of Christianity command their followers to forgive
their enemies. Whether the death penalty and the use of the military are
compatible with Christianity vary on the individual's beliefs and
interpretation of the Bible.
Judaism forbids revenge for small sins such as insults and things like
stealing. For large crimes, such as murder, the issue of revenge is more
complicated. While some rabbis condemn all revenge, others consider
feelings (though not necessarily actions) of revenge permissible in
extreme cases such as murder, where the forgiveness of the person
offended cannot be attained (in Judaism, nobody, not even God, can
forgive crimes committed towards another person).
In Islam, revenge is sometimes permissible (depending on the situation
and sect/group of Islam), but forgiveness is preferable. However, murder
for the sake of vengeance is forbidden in Islam, and killing is only
permitted in self-defense.
Buddhism condemns revenge as stemming from ego and attachment.
In contrast to many other religions, LaVeyan Satanism promotes
"vengeance" as a core tenet.

Some modern societies use tales of revenge to provide catharsis, or to
condition their members against acting out of desire for retribution. In
many of these works, tragedy is compounded when the person seeking
revenge realizes he/she has become what he/she wished to destroy.


He that studieth revenge keepeth his own wounds green, which otherwise
would heal and do well.
John Milton

Anger ventilated often hurries towards forgiveness; anger concealed
often hardens into revenge.
Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.
Marcus Aurelius

While seeking revenge, dig two graves - one for yourself.
Douglas Horton

Meekness: Uncommon patience in planning a revenge that is worthwhile.
Ambrose Bierce

Evil is always devising more corrosive misery through man's restless
need to exact revenge out of his hate.
Ralph Steadman

To refrain from imitation is the best revenge.
Marcus Aurelius

Revenge is barren of itself: it is the dreadful food it feeds on; its
delight is murder, and its end is despair.
Friedrich Schiller

Revenge is the naked idol of the worship of a semi-barbarous age.
Percy Bysshe Shelley

Revenge... is like a rolling stone, which, when a man hath forced up a
hill, will return upon him with a greater violence, and break those
bones whose sinews gave it motion.
Jeremy Taylor

Revenge proves its own executioner.
John Ford

When a man steals your wife, there is no better revenge than to let him
keep her.
Sacha Guitry

The best revenge is massive success.
Frank Sinatra

[FairfieldLife] This is not me throwing a petty tantrum! Not! Not! NOT!

Sometimes I read Fairfield Life and just roll my eyes at the pettiness
of things that fellow FFLers obsessed on late into the night while I was
sleeping peacefully, dreaming of sorority girls in miniskirts.
Uh...wait. Did I say that last thing out loud? What I meant to say was
"...dreaming of world peace and free ice cream and panchakarma for
everyone."  :-)

Am I alone in this eye-rolling?

Some of the "offenses" that people not only take umbrage at but turn
into decade-long vendettas just blow my mind by their pettiness. I mean,
any given episode of "Jersey Shore" is full of more mature behavior.

People actually believe -- and say out loud (write out loud, actually)
that disagreeing with them is the same thing as "slamming" them. People
go ballistic and stomp around the cyberchatroom throwing a tantrum
because someone called them a drama queen, seemingly not realizing that
that's exactly what they're acting like. People suggest -- without a
hint that they understand what they're saying -- that the reason another
poster is "lost in confusion" is...wait for it...because "he doesn't
read my posts." Presumably everyone who DOES read this person's posts
has received sufficient darshan as to never be confused. What I wonder
is...if the person reads their posts and still disagrees with them, does
that still indicate that they're not confused? Does disagreeing mean
that they're "slamming" the cyberdarshan giver? Curious minds want to
know. :-)

Seriously, folks, a lot of you take yourselves FAR too seriously. I live
with a three-year-old who is more mature and who acts out less than you
do. You get overshadowed by and go ballistic and obsessive over stuff
that she would laugh off.

If you don't care about reducing a forum that theoretically is a place
to discuss spiritual matters to the level of a kindergarten sandbox
shouting match -- and clearly you don't -- at least think about what all
this pettiness says about YOU. If you have no respect for others, at
least try to have a little more respect for yourself. Do you *really*
want the people you're trying to pitch TM to as the bestest, most
effective form of meditation in the world to realize that it has made
YOU such a whiny, petty, self-absorbed drama queen?

[FairfieldLife] The Once and Future Happiness

Today, working at my "moonlighting gig," I once again had reason to
appreciate the wisdom of a quote from T. H. White's "The Once and Future
King." In that book, he had his alter ego say to Wart:

"The best thing for being sad," replied Merlyn, beginning to puff and
blow, "is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails.
You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at
night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only
love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or
know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only
one thing for it then  to learn. Learn why the world wags and what
wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never
alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream
of regretting."

Truer and wiser words have never been spoken, at least as far as I have
learned as a result of this gig. I kinda stumbled into it, in that I
originally agreed to do it to take some pressure off of my housemates,
who had gotten swamped with other work one week and couldn't get to
writing some of the short articles they'd contracted to write. So I
offered to write some of them for them, with the understanding that I'd
stop after a week of doing it.

That was several months ago. I'm still writing the articles, ten of them
a week. It brings in a little extra money, but the reason I continued at
it was because writing them was so much FUN.

The articles are for a non-profit website that collects and publishes
articles on the latest advances in medicine and science, on
heath-related topics, and even on relationship advice. The articles are
each only 500 to 800 words each, but one of the things that makes
writing them so much FUN is that I get to choose my own topics.

The other thing is that -- as a result -- I choose topics that interest
me, and that I can learn something new from. I have to research all
these topics and then synthesize what I've learned into a short,
informative article about whatever it was that I wanted to learn about.

It's not that I'm doing this to get famous or gain fans; these things
aren't even published under my real name (something I don't mind at all
because it keeps the stalkers away). I'm doing it because it's FUN, and
I get to not only learn weird shit, but get paid for learning it. Such a
deal. Merlyn would've said that I scored big-time.

Those of you whose lives seem to revolve around stalking people you have
grudges against might give Merlyn's advice a try. Learn something new
instead. You have nothing to lose but your own ignorance, in every sense
of the word.

[FairfieldLife] Re: Proposing a new term for use in Fairfield

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, awoelflebater  wrote:
>
> Bimbo, in its popular English language usage, describes a 
> woman who acts in a sexually promiscuous manner. The term 
> can also be used to describe a woman who is physically 
> attractive but is perceived to have a low intelligence or 
> poor education. Rarely, the term is used as a jocular, 
> possibly slightly flattering description. It is almost 
> always used as a derogatory insult towards a woman.
> Use of this term began in the United States as early as 
> 1919, where it was used as a slang term for an unintelligent 
> or brutish male.[1] Its first inclusion in an official 
> dictionary for its female meaning was in 1929, where the 
> definition was given simply as "a woman".[2]

Prior to 1929, the term arose from a popular nightclub
called The Bimbo Club, and possibly referred to its 
regular clientele, both male and female. I have a 
fondness for the term because I own a set of antique 
champagne and shot glasses from the original club. 

I have no such fondness for Bumbos, who tend in my
experience to take themselves far more seriously
and practice faux outrage more often than Bimbos.  :-)


> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb  wrote:
> >
> > Chatting with a friend last night over Skype, we were
> > discussing our former TM connection, and people we had
> > known in common. When discussing one of them, a woman
> > who we both dated and who was sweet and attractive 
> > but...uh...not exactly the sharpest pencil in the box,
> > I found myself describing her using a term I tend to 
> > use affectionately, because I know the etymology of 
> > the word: "Bimbo." 
> > 
> > My friend laughed and said, "Chances are she is still
> > in Fairfield, and still buying *everything* they tell
> > her to buy, believing *everything* they tell her to
> > believe, and still bouncing on her bum every day in 
> > the domes. Does that make her a 'Bumbo'?"
> > 
> > Cracked me right up. 
> > 
> > It's the perfect word for that kind of gal who is 
> > sweet but so gullible she'll believe *anything*, no
> > matter how outlandish or Newagey.
> > 
> > Here's raising a toast in my Bimbo Club shot glasses
> > (I really do have a set) to the Bumbos of Fairfield. :-)
> >
>

[FairfieldLife] Re: Eastwooding: PS to Ann "I'm not going to shut up; it's my turn!"

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues"  
wrote:
>
> That was a concise lesson in Judy ethics and hypocrisy 
> wasn't it?
> . . .
> You are slithery creature Judy. And this outcome is 
> exactly why Emily put this email into your talons.

Ahem. Both my day job work and my moonlighting work
for the day over, I'm going to indulge in a bit of
non-humble "I told you so" to those who decry my 
claimed ability to spot trends and make predictions.

Remember back a few short months ago, when FFL was 
essentially a forum dominated by the Gladys Knight
and the Pips act, with Judy and her three Pips doing
pretty much non-stop demonizations of the Curtis-Vaj-
Barry troika. Remember that they actually *called*
us that?

Then the Pips hit the fan. Within a very short period
of time, Ravi was kicked off the forum, Robin stormed
off in a snit fit, and Jim just slunk off into the 
cyber-Bardo, spending his time with the Hungry Ghosts
until he reincarnated as doctordumbass. :-)

Suddenly Gladys was stuck with no Pips, and having to
chant the Judyatri Mantra all by herself. Then I began
to notice what she was DOING about this new minion-
vacuum she found herself in, and made a few predictions.

I specifically predicted that what she would do would
be to recruit a new set of Hate Pundits, and even went
out of my way to proactively warn several women new to 
this forum that they were prime recruitment material. I 
guess I was naive, and hoping that they'd catch a clue 
from this, and not get sucked into the hatefest. But no.

I ask you...was I wrong? Did it *not* turn out exactly
as I predicted?

Does Judy *not* now have a whole new team of minions
who help her to dump on the same three (and sometimes
more) "enemies" she aims them at? And have the three 
original Pips now *not* come back to the fold and 
joined in the chorus? Now it's more like Gladys Knight,
the Pips, and the Pipettes.  :-)

I haven't read Sal's letter to one of the Pipettes,
and don't care to. Chances are she saw the same trends
I did, and was similarly trying to provide a clue to
the clueless. 

The ability to spot these trends and make accurate 
predictions based on them is *not* rocket science on
my part, or any kind of "seeing." It's just the result
of watching what a certain person has DONE, repeatedly,
for over seventeen years. The patterns never change,
because *she* never changes. Her very obsessions make
her predictable. They also make her a very sad human
being, one who is in danger of becoming a parody of
herself, and the very laughingstock she most fears
becoming. Just sayin'...

[FairfieldLife] The Wind in the Bury Patch

The wind is up. Cool.

We get a lot of wind here in the Netherlands. You don't see those photos
of windmills on the postcards from this place for no reason. But this is
*serious* wind today. Have-to-lean-into-it-to-even-walk wind.
Don't-even-think-about-the-concept-of-hairdo wind.

My kinda wind. When some people feel a wind like this coming on, they
run into their homes and huddle there, as if they hear dangerous siren
voices outside and fear them. The sirens *sing* to me. When I feel a
wind like this coming on, I have to go outside and feel it in my face.
Very little else I have encountered on this rock gets me higher.

So tonight I walked over to my favorite cemetary. It's up on as much of
a "hill" as one can find in Leiden, maybe 10 meters higher than the
surrounding flatitude. But that slight elevation gives it a decided
advantage when the wind is up. Whereas down on the street the wind
merely tugs and pushes at you, here it grabs you and shakes you the way
a dog does with a rat.

And the thing is, it does this with the trees as well. One of the best
things about this particular bury patch is its treescape. There are
*enormous* trees here, among the largest I've ever seen in
shallow-soiled, mainly-reclaimed-from-the-sea Holland. And yet today,
even the majestic European Beech that is 14 meters in circumference at
its base is shaking in its roots.

Snap! That gets me thinking about something one of my housemates said
over dinner the other night. He got to visit, while it was still in
operation, an ecological experiment that attempted to replicate Earth's
ecosphere inside a gigantic dome. It failed miserably as an
eco-experiment, and had gone out of the funded research business a few
years before my friend visited it. But when he did, one of the hanger-on
ecodiehards still working there told him something very interesting.

The trees -- many of which had been in the ground and thus
well-established and healthy before the dome was built around them --
were dying. They had done all sorts of tests to try to figure out why,
and they could come up with no nutritional or known biological reasons
why. What they finally came up with was that the trees were dying
because there was no wind.

Without wind, the trees had no feedback from the world around them,
nothing that pushed and tugged at them, *and thus made them stronger*.

Snap! I immediately segued in my mind to sitting in a pleasant garden in
L.A., hearing Chinese tonic herb master Ron Teeguarden explain what made
some of the herbs he sold so expensive. They were wild. They were "free
range" herbs. Within the community that feels that the tonic herbs are
of value -- some millions of them -- the herbs that grow in the wild are
considered to have much more value than the ones that are cultivated by
humans. The theory is that having to fight harder to survive in the wild
makes them stronger. CEOs of Japanese keiretsu who believe in this stuff
are willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars for one wild gensing
root, so they can brew it up into a tea and drink it before walking into
a multi-billion-dollar merger meeting. They want that extra "edge" that
only wind-driven ginseng can give them.

Snap! Segue to a night in Santa Fe, on which I was invited to a rather
exclusive tasting of tequilas and single village mescals. The tequilas
were wonderful, but the mescals were beyond extraordinary. Each of them
was, as the name implies, made from agave grown in a single village in
Mexico, sometimes on a single hillside. Their "exclusiveness" made these
mescals extraordinary.

But then the person presenting this tasting paused, and brought out the
pièce de résistance, a mescal made from completely wild,
uncultivated agave. Tasting it, even immediately following tasting the
extraordinary liquors that had preceded it, was as day is to night.
There was just so much LIFE in this mescal, compressed into a delectable
nectar. I had to relate the experience, standing there sipping this
veritable soma, to hearing Ron talk about the tonic herbs in that garden
a couple of years earlier. The mescal was better because the agave was
better. And the wild agave was better and more powerful *because it had
had to fight harder to survive*. It had put its little leaves into the
wind and endured it and yelled back, "Is that all you've got?"

Snap! Segue to here and now, in my room having returned from the
cemetary and writing a post for a forum of people who are theoretically
interested in those things that can help them to become stronger, more
full of light, more full of power.

Carrying this train of thought with me, I can't help but think that the
rap promoted by so many spiritual traditions that one should retire out
of the world and into reclusive, protective monasteries or communities
is missing out on the lesson of the wind in the trees. Organisms raised
in domes -- devoid of feedback from the outside world -- just don't grow
up as strong as organisms that have to fight harder to

[FairfieldLife] "On my side" vs. "On your side"

It occurs to me, after a walk with my dogs during which all three of us
got to get out of the house and enjoy the wind in our faces, that there
are two types of spiritual teachers in this world.

The first is the type that tries to get you to be "on their side." Their
point of view is presented not only as The Best, but as the template
that all valid POVs must be created from. My Way as The Way.

The second is the type that may have a "side," and may have a POV, but
doesn't try to impose it or even suggest it to the students. They are
urged to find their *own* POV. Their Way.

My experience is that this distinction carries over into how the two
different types of teachers react to a student who *doesn't* abdicate to
the teacher's POV, and instead values the development of their own POV
more highly.

The first type of teacher tends to react badly, first by trying to
pressure the student into submitting to his or her will and signing on
to his or her POV. Or else. "Else" tends to be excommunication, and
subsequent demonization.

The second type of teacher, encountering students who feel that they
have the right to think for themselves, just smiles, and wishes the
student well on their Way.

[FairfieldLife] A message as applicable to FFL as the Middle East

William Saletan gets it right. From Slate.com

Peace Be Upon YouDear Muslims, Christians, Hindus, and Jews,
You're living in the age of the Internet. Your religion will be
mocked, and the mockery will find its way to you. Get over it.

If you don't, what's happening this week will happen again and
again.  A couple of idiots with a video camera and an Internet
connection will  trigger riots across the globe. They'll bait you
into killing one  another.

Stop it. Stop following their script.

Today, fury, violence, and bloodshed are consuming the Muslim world
 . Why? Because a bank fraud artist
  in California offered people $75 a day
  to come to his house
  and act out scenes that ostensibly had nothing to do with Islam
 . Then he replaced the audio
 , putting words in the actors' mouths, and stitched
together the scenes to make an absurdly bad movie ridiculing the Prophet
Mohammed

. He put out flyers to promote the movie. Nobodyliterally nobody
 came to watch it.

He posted a 14-minute video excerpt of the movie on YouTube, but  hardly
anyone noticed. Then, a week ago, an anti-Muslim activist in  Virginia
reposted the video with an Arabic translation
  and sent the link to activists and journalists
  in Egypt. An Egyptian TV show aired part of
the video
 . An Egyptian
politician denounced it. Clerics sounded the alarm. Through Facebook and
Twitter, protesters were mobilized
   to descend on the U.S. embassy in Cairo. The uprising spread.
The U.S.  ambassador to Libya has been killed, and violence has engulfed
other  countries.

When the protests broke out, the guy who made the movie claimed to be an
Israeli Jew
  funded by other Jews
 . That turned out be a lie
 . Now he says he's a Coptic Christian, even though
Coptic Christian leaders in Egypt and the United States despise the
movie
  and want nothing to do with him
 . Another guy who helped make the movie
claims to be a Buddhist
 . The movie was made in
the United States, yet Sudanese mobs have attacked British and German
embassies
 . Some Egyptians targeted the Dutch embassy
 , mistakenly
thinking the Netherlands was behind the movie. Everyone's looking
for a group to blame and attack.

The men behind the movie said it would expose Islam as a violent 
religion. Now they're pointing to the riots as proof. Muslims are
"pre-programmed
 " to rage and kill, says the movie's promoter.
"Islam is a cancer
 ,"  says the director. According to the distributor,
"The violence that it  caused in Egypt is further evidence of how
violent the religion and

[FairfieldLife] Re: A message as applicable to FFL as the Middle East

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, merudanda  wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb  wrote:
> >
> > William Saletan gets it right. From Slate.com
> >
> <http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/human_nature/2012/09/mohammed_movie_embassy_attacks_don_t_let_internet_videos_drive_you_to_violence_.single.html>
> > 
> > Peace Be Upon You Dear Muslims, Christians, Hindus, and Jews,
> > You're living in the age of the Internet. Your religion will be
> > mocked, and the mockery will find its way to you. Get over it.
> 
> AMEN
> 
> snip
> Does that includes the mockery of the Dudeist Religion of 
> Masked TurquoiseB?

Absolutely. :-)

I honestly don't care what people say about me. 
I just enjoy pointing out 1) that they seem to
feel compelled to say it, and 2) that the reason
seems to be that They Have Nothing Else To Say. 

For example, go back and look at the posts made
by one vociferous poster here last week. Of her
49 posts, by my count all but three were digs at
or outright hatred spouted at one or more of 7
people here at Fairfield Life. The other three
were "correcting" someone, to point out that
she knew more about the subject they posted about
than they did. 

Nothing creative. Nothing spiritual. Nothing even
remotely positive. 

I, on the other hand, managed to either ignore or
laugh off the mockery and derision, sufficiently 
enough to sneak in a few creative posts, a couple 
of funny ones (at least by my standards), and even
a few about the thing that never actually seems to
get discussed on this spiritual forum, spirituality.

Given Mr. Saletan's post, which of us do you think
"Got over it" more effectively, and which of us do
you think is stuck in reactive mode, dancing to the
tune of the mockers?  :-)

> Raja Bumbo Merudando
> Prepared to be sent to hell
> frightened but
> as well prepared to use his crown
> for a more urgent need [:D]

Merely hoping that your "urgent need" had nothing
to do with running out of toilet paper. :-)

[FairfieldLife] No One Murdered Because Of This Image

I would paste in the article, with the actual image referred to in the
Subject line, but I strongly suspect that some people here are so
uptight that The Onion's article title might be proved wrong if I did.
You'll have to click on the link and see it for yourself.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/no-one-murdered-because-of-this-image,2\
9553/

[FairfieldLife] Re: No One Murdered Because Of This Image

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Alex Stanley"  
wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb  wrote:
> >
> > I would paste in the article, with the actual image referred to 
> > in the Subject line, but I strongly suspect that some people 
> > here are so uptight that The Onion's article title might be 
> > proved wrong if I did. You'll have to click on the link and 
> > see it for yourself.
> 
> In terms of the rules about pornographic images being 
> posted, I'd have deleted the post had you embedded the 
> actual image. I even frown on links to pornographic 
> images, and for that reason, I declined to post that 
> link to FFL yesterday, figuring it would be uncool for 
> me to stretch a rule that I have to enforce. But, I am 
> glad the link was posted.

I thought it made an important point, as The Onion
often does. The image probably offended any number
of Jews, Christians, Hindus, and Buddhists who saw
it. But they didn't go out and burn The Onion's
offices, or try to assassinate the editors. Had
the cartoonist included Mohammed in the orgy, that
might have happened.

That said, Nikos Kazantzakis received death threats
for writing "The Last Temptation of Christ," and
Martin Scorcese received similar death threats for
making it into a movie. In Israel recently, a group
of Ultra-Orthodox Jews vandalized a Holocaust 
Memorial, painting anti-Jewish and anti-Israel
messages on it. Their beef? That the state of Israel
shouldn't exist, and the fact that it does threatens
their freedom of religion. 

In India, Hindus have not only attacked Christian
churches, but other Hindus, who are not "Vedic
enough" for them. In Sri Lanka, 40 radical Buddhists,
including members of their clergy, attacked a 
Protestant minister and his wife. 

It seems to me that the problem is not Islam, but
religion. It inspires insanity.

[FairfieldLife] Re: Arab Spring Turns Against the US to John

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "wayback71"  wrote:
>
> Hey Share, I think the idea of checking on the jyotish 
> of FFL is interesting.  I actually "believe" in jyotish 
> having had several experiences where it is so accurate 
> that it makes my hair stand on end.  Anyway, I would 
> love to know what jyotish says about FFL.
> 
> Of course, we could then get into the idea that we on 
> FFL are all just agents of changes in the planets and 
> stars. Barry, listen up here:  free will or not?  We 
> have agreed to disagree on that one, so no worries.

Susan, analyzing FFL sounds to me like a *perfect*
application for Jyotish. Just look at the past, at
things that have already happened, construct a 
"chart" for it, and then make up imaginary planetary
reasons for why what happened happened. It sounds 
exactly like what JohnR does here all the time. :-)

> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Share Long  wrote:
> >
> > Hi John, do you have software to construct jyotish charts?Â  I made a joke, 
> > I think to Susan, about seeing if FFL chart changed 5 or 6 years ago when 
> > she perceived a change in the forum.Â  Anyway here's the info taken from 
> > post 0:
> > 
> > Sept 1, 2001, 2:24 pm, Fairfield, IAÂ  though I'm assuming the latter.Â  
> > 
> > 
> > Anyway, Sun in its own sign.Â  Already explains a lot.
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> >  From: John 
> > To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
> > Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2012 5:50 PM
> > Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Arab Spring Turns Against the US to John
> >  
> > 
> > Â  
> > Share,
> > 
> > In the US chart, the Moon is placed in Aquarius and Libra is the 9th house, 
> > signifying overseas or foreign lands, from the Moon position.  Thus, we 
> > find the attack of American embassies in foreign lands.
> > 
> > In jyotish, the analysis of the chart requires the assessment of the 
> > various ascendants or lagnas aside from the usual rising sign, which is 
> > Sagittarius for the USA.
> > 
> > JR
> > 
> > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Share Long  wrote:
> > >
> > > Thanks, JR, I remembered that you said Sag is lagna.ÃÂ  Don't know 
> > > enough jyotish to make connection between 4th house and 11th.ÃÂ  Makes 
> > > sense.ÃÂ  
> > > 
> > > What might be significator that it's happening overseas rather than at 
> > > home?ÃÂ  
> > > 
> > > Share
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > >  From: John 
> > > To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
> > > Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2012 1:39 PM
> > > Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Arab Spring Turns Against the US to John
> > > 
> > > 
> > > ÃÂ  
> > > Share,
> > > 
> > > The current troubles are still due to the malefic conjunction of Mars and 
> > > Saturn in Libra.  In the US chart, Libra is the 8th house (a significator 
> > > for death) from Pisces, which represents the American homes or property.  
> > > Thus, we're finding that the American embassies overseas are being 
> > > attacked and American citizens working there are killed or harassed.
> > > 
> > > JR 
> > > 
> > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Share Long  wrote:
> > > >
> > > > What's happening in the US chart?ÃâÃÂ  I've read that Mars is 
> > > > aspecting Jupiter.
> > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > 
> > > >  From: John 
> > > > To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
> > > > Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2012 10:47 AM
> > > > Subject: [FairfieldLife] Arab Spring Turns Against the US
> > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > ÃâÃÂ  
> > > > It smells like Al Qaeda is involved in this attack in Yemen and Libya.  
> > > > They may be paying off protestors to create havoc in American embassies 
> > > > in the Middle East. 
> > > > 
> > > > http://news.yahoo.com/yemeni-protesters-storm-u-embassy-sanaa-witnesses-085414831.html
> > > >
> > >
> >
>

[FairfieldLife] Buddhist temple built with beer bottles

This one is for Nabby, or for those who claim every
so often that beer is somehow incompatible with the
spiritual life:  

http://www.treehugger.com/sustainable-product-design/buddhist-temple-built-from-beer-bottles.html

http://tinyurl.com/93udmsg

This Budh's for you... :-)

[FairfieldLife] Truly exciting news -- MDMA research underway in Britain

I am *not* posting this because I'm a user of the street/rave drug
Ecstasy. It was after my time, and I've only tried it once, being
completely underwhelmed by the experience and having no desire
whatsoever to repeat it. But I *was* an early user of another
psychotropic substance, one that was first given to me by a psychiatrist
friend of mine, who at the time was able to obtain it and prescribe it
completely legally. It came from a Swiss company named Sandoz, and was
called lysergic acid diethylamide, more popularly known as LSD. He was
excited about its potential use in therapeutic settings, especially for
the treatment of depression and anxiety, and was involved in several
clinical studies which hoped to prove its value.

Then LSD was outlawed, and all of that research stopped. Overnight.
Worldwide. The drug had become so stigmatized that no one could obtain
either the permission or the funds to do research on it, and its
possible benefits in a controlled, therapeutic situation. The same thing
happened to MDMA (the prime component of the drug now called on the
street E or Ecstasy). When it was first discovered, neuroscientists and
psychotherapists were genuinely excited by its potential value in
treating people suffering from depression, anxiety, and PTSD. Several
clinical trials were conducted, and the early research looked promising.
And then Bam! MDMA was similarly criminalized, and similarly demonized.
All research on it -- other than that conducted by ravers -- ended
overnight.

That is why this article from The Guardian
   excites me. Not because I need MDMA to fight depression, but
because a LOT of people do, and the drugs prescribed for them currently
often have dangerous and debilitating side effects. Anything that could
help them should, in my opinion, be researched. Good for the British for
not only doing something America would be terrified to do, but for doing
it on television.
Can MDMA help to cure depression?
It  is thought to have 500,000 users in the UK, yet research into MDMA
  the main ingredient in ecstasy  has been minimal. Now
Channel 4 is  funding a controversial study with volunteers including
writer Lionel  Shriver and actor Keith Allen
The patient sits on a hospital gurney. The doctor asks how she feels, 
takes her blood pressure and gives her a capsule to swallow. She is 
then led to a brain scanner that resembles a giant washing machine, and 
she lies in front of it before it sucks her in. Doctors study a series 
of vivid images of her head and brain, looking for activity before she 
is allowed to leave the scanner. The patient is asked who she would like
to have with her at this moment. She replies: "My husband."
When  asked how she feels, she replies: "Light. It's pleasant. There's
an  airiness and openness to the senses. A slight heightening of sensory
perception, which I liked. The visual feeling is vivid. The colours are 
lush, which I enjoy. I might be a bit more alert to sounds. I feel 
physically relaxed and that is a pleasure."

The patient is the writer, Lionel Shriver
 , and she has just
taken the drug MDMA as part of an experiment that will be shown on
Channel 4   at the end of this
month. She is one of six volunteers who also include the actor Keith
Allen    and a former MP
who will be shown taking the drug and undergoing a  series of tests,
some of which will be done in the scanner in order to  see the change in
brain activity caused by MDMA.

The experiment has been designed by Val Curran, professor of psychology
at University College London, and David Nutt
 ,  professor of
neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London. It  will feature 26
volunteers, only a small number of whom will appear on  television.

The broadcasting of controversial research will seem  to many like a
publicity stunt, an easy way to court controversy and  increase viewing
figures. But there is a real concern among many  scientists that the
government's classification of the drug as Class A  overstates the
danger it poses to society and inhibits important  research that could
help people suffering from depression and  post-traumatic stress
disorder (PTSD).

A spokesman for the Home Office disagrees: "Televising the use of
illegal drugs    risks
trivialising a serious issue. Our licensing regime allows  legitimate
research to take place in a secure environment so that  harmful drugs
can't get into the hands of criminals. There is no  evidence to suggest
that the current listing of MDMA as a Schedule 1  substance is a barrier
to attracting funding for legitimate purposes."

Nutt  insists that without funding from Channel 4 the study wouldn't
have  been possible: "We have failed to get

[FairfieldLife] So sweet...and yet, such a wake-up call

Just now, as I was walking out of the door on my way 
over to this pub to sit and write for a while, 3-1/2-
year-old Maya followed me to the front door and waved
and said, "Bye-bye. Have fun storming the castle."

I cracked right up. It's something the four adults in
the household say to each other sometimes in parting,
and reflects our collective love of a scene from the
film "The Princess Bride."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-3VxOqHI-4

At the same time, Maya's ability to pick up this phrase
that was never directly taught to her gave me pause.
She is about to start school in January. I shudder to
think of the notes we'll receive from her teachers
when she unthinkingly repeats other, possibly saltier
phrases she's heard us use around the house. Time to
start watching what we say. :-)

[FairfieldLife] Confrontation Addiction

Some months ago, when the term "drama queen" was first raised -- and
reacted to -- on this forum, I searched the Net and found and posted an
interesting article on drama queenery from (I think) Scientific
American.

A similar search today, on a related subject, turns up no papers or
studies, but I think it's an accurate psychological phrase anyway:
"confrontation addiction."

It's what seems to happen to some people when -- for whatever reasons --
they become accustomed to interacting with other human beings by getting
in their faces and arguing with them. I am of the opinion, given the
anecdotal evidence provided by the Internet, that this is an addiction
that should be ranked up there with heroin and crack cocaine use.

And one as hard to "kick."

I mean, haven't you encountered people like this, who seem to have
fallen into a rut of provoking arguments, *just so they can have an
argument*? The subject doesn't seem to matter, the victims they run this
routine on don't seem to matter -- all that really *does* seem to matter
is that they can get into someone's face and provoke them into arguing
with them.

WTF? What is the *payoff* from this? In many of these people, the payoff
seems to be ego-based, believing that they "won" each of these arguments
they provoke. They'll believe that they kicked the other person's butt,
no matter what bystanders may tell them, or even what
subsequently-revealed facts may prove.

Others seem to do it more for the in-the-moment pleasure of arguing.
They seem to get off on having provoked the argument, no matter who
"wins" it. It's as if what they get off *on* is having forced another
human being to interact with them PERIOD, even if the only way they
could figure out how to do it was to provoke an argument.

Me, I don't really get off on arguing. My idea of "conversation" is one
person stating what he or she believes, followed by other people stating
what they believe, followed by the next subject. I tend to be able to
say pretty much all I have to say about any given subject in one or two
exchanges, and don't understand why others feel that they need 20 or 30.
And I don't have any vested interest in proving any of my opinions
"right" or "better." They are what they are -- opinions. As with
assholes, everybody's got one, and none of them are any cleaner or less
smelly than any other.

Besides, I get off on the FLOW of conversations, two or more people
segueing from one topic to another seamlessly and effortlessly. It's
like jazz -- taking someone's idea and "riffing on it by" taking it in
another direction. And then having them "riff back" by taking your new
direction and sending it off into yet another. That's cool.

But taking a topic and holding on to it like a bulldog, trying to get
other people to hold on to it the same way and not release it until
they've squeezed every possible gram of interest out of it? Not my idea
of a good time, much less anything I'm likely to become addicted to.

[FairfieldLife] "Non-sequitur!" is not a putdown; it's an admission of failure

Although it hasn't been appearing with the regularity it once did,
regulars at the jazz club in cyberspace called Fairfield Life have
probably grown familiar with the term "Non-sequitur!," hurled at some
other poster as if it were an insult of the highest order.

The Latin term non-sequitur technically means, "That which does not
follow."

What it means when hurled as an epithet is, in my opinion, "Wait. I am
unable to follow you. You went too fast or too far afield, and I was
unable to keep up."

Taking a metaphor from the world of jazz, it's like being offered the
opportunity to sit in with Heaven's Greatest Jazz Band. You plug in your
axe, wait your turn, and then fire off your best melody. Even as you're
playing it, Jaco Pastorius "gets" what you're saying so much he adds a
bass line to it. Then John Coltrane takes your basic melody and mutates
it, turning it into something even more magnificent. And then he "hands
off" to Miles Davis, who rocks back on his heels and plays with the
elegance of a musical Hemingway, taking the basic melody and not only
re-expressing it in its primal essence, but then taking the melody and
spinning it off into worlds previously undreamed of. Then Miles turns to
you and smiles, and "hands off" back to you.

And you stop the music and say, "Wait. WTF was that? I couldn't follow
that! What have you done to my original idea? I insist that you go back
and listen to it again, and then respond to it the way it *should* be
played!"

Just sayin'...

[FairfieldLife] Re: Truly exciting news -- MDMA research underway in Britain

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "salyavin808"  wrote:
>
> 50p! It [Ecstasy] was £30 a shot when I was first offered 
> it many moons ago. That's 60X the price if you didn't know, 
> and adjusted for inflation that must be the most astounding 
> bargain, hope the kids these days appreciate it!

I doubt it is. From what I understand from friends who
live for the techno scene and indulge in it, most of
this 50p E is mainly ketamine or other adulterants.
What happened to the drug once it was forced under-
ground is the same thing that happened to LSD.

> Quite a pleasant eperience too but I doubt it will make 
> reliable therapy and fully expect the study to show that 
> the come down from it is too fraught with the possibility 
> that it increases depression in those susceptible. It 
> seemed to make everyone tired and stressed by the middle 
> of the week IME. In fact, I remember a few people being 
> negatively affected to the extent they dropped out of 
> work but all of them denied it. It was obvious to their 
> friends they had changed though. Good for some maybe but 
> not others. What goes up must come down...

NOT that I disagree with you, based on some E users I
have known, some of them *do* try to balance things out
in their "Better Living Through Chemistry" lifestyles.
Many techno clubs offer "smart drinks" made from herbs
and vitamins that counter the "come down" effects of
the Ecstasy. That's what they tell me, anyway. :-)

To underscore your point, however, I have noticed more
not-being-quite-as-on-top-of-it mindsets in the habitual
Ecstasy users I know than in the habitual cannabis users.
Go figure. The literature would suggest that it should
be the other way around.

My hope for the therapeutic use of this drug is for 
"hard cases" like those suffering from depression or 
PTSD so severe that they need something to push them
into a state of catharsis, in which they can recognize
the roots of the problem and then possibly, with the
help of a trained therapist, make some inroads towards
overcoming the root problems. 

> I think LSD and psylocibin mushrooms might make a better 
> therapeutic aid as they don't force the mind to strain 
> its supply of happy drugs like MDMA does. 

As does cocaine and methamphetamine. I agree.

> There was a time I'd have volunteered for the trials
> even but all this meditating doesn't mix with 
> hallucinogenics I'm afraid, I wish it did though I had 
> some good times and they open the mind to possibilities 
> of consciousness. I can't honestly say I'd be meditating 
> if it wasn't for nature's fungal offerings, always amazed
> me that something that had such a profound effect on the 
> mind and the way it percieves itself and the world could 
> just grow in a field.

If you can find it, there was an entire issue of the
Buddhist publication "Tricycle" a few years back that
was devoted to the spiritual use of psychedelics.
Really ballsy issue, taking on the "elephant in the
room" -- the fact that most of the American proponents
of Buddhism wouldn't have been attracted to it if they
hadn't first encountered psychedelics. Some of the
articles dealt with the historical use of psychedelics
in India and in the Himalayas, sometimes by yogis.

> Almost suspicious actually, like it was a plot by God to 
> show us the light. Wouldn't surprise me if a lot of 
> religious visions were inspired by shrooms.

Religious visions and many of other sorts. There is a 
widely-held belief that much of the "witch hysteria"
of the Middle Ages was caused by changes in the weather
(more rain) that resulted in the grain that they lived
on growing mold on it and fermenting, causing widespread
ergot poisoning. Ergot is the compound that LSD was
first synthesized from.

[FairfieldLife] The Romney Solution


[https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/264044_438377766\
213290_1480945850_n.jpg]
https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/264044_4383777662\
13290_1480945850_n.jpg

[FairfieldLife] Roger Ebert on the film that caused four murders

Roger Ebert's Journal, from his website. He nails it, as he often does.
I particularly like his phrase to describe the events in the Middle
East: "remote controlled ignorance."

Tonight at dinner one of my housemates brought up a point I hadn't
thought of with regard to this whole lamentable mess, and why people in
Libya and other countries in the Middle East would assume that because
the film in question was made in America, America the nation must be
behind it and support it.

It's because where they live, that is the only way a film can be made.
The filmmakers have to petition the government for the right to make it,
and submit their scripts to them for pre-approval. If the government
does NOT approve, the film is never made. Many people in the Middle East
probably assumed that the same is true in the United States.
A statement and a "film"
By Roger Ebert on September 12, 2012 10:39 PM
| 396 Comments
| No TrackBacks

Set aside for a moment all of the  controversy. Do me the favor of
reading the actual words of the  statement released by our Egyptian
Embassy six hours before it was  attacked by radicals, and before a
similar attack in Libya that took  four innocent lives. Here it is:

"The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing 
efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of 
Muslims -- as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions. 
Today, the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on 
the United States, Americans are honoring our patriots and those who 
serve our nation as the fitting response to the enemies of democracy. 
Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy. We
firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of 
free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others."
What  exactly, is wrong with those words? Which ones do you disagree
with?  Let me set the stage for the statement. A "trailer" of dubious
origin,  for a film that has not been seen, was released some time ago
on YouTube  and widely overlooked. Then the "trailer" was translated
into Arabic,  and predictably stirred up outrage. As outrage spread in
the Middle  East, a press official for the Embassy wrote and released
the statement  without higher approval.

I agree with every word of this statement. Which parts would you
disagree with? Why?

Sentence One:  One-quarter of the earth's population is  Muslim,
including many Americans. Yes, their feelings can be hurt by a  crude
attack on the Prophet. I would go so far as to suggest those who  made
the trailer hoped to hurt their feelings. Why else, when their  original
effort failed to attract attention, did they pay to have it  translated
into Arabic, so it could be understood in nations where the  box office
appeal of the so-called film would be non-existent? The only purpose
must have been to hurt feelings.

Sentence Two:  True. Sincere. Heartfelt.

Sentence Three: I'll repeat it. "Respect for religious beliefs  is a
cornerstone of American democracy." This expresses one of the 
fundamental founding principles of our nation.

Sentence Four: The statement rejects the actions of the  mysterious
people responsible for posting the trailer and the having it  translated
into Arabic.

Point me to the sentence that represents the "apology" that Gov.  Romney
referred to in his ill-advised statement. There is none. This  statement
amounts to a defense and explanation of our guarantees of  freedom of
speech. It might well have quoted: "I disapprove of what you  say, but I
will defend to the death your right to say it."

I agree that the press officer acted in haste and without 
authorization--certainly not from the White House, although Romney 
characterized his press release as coming from President Obama. The 
president himself, acting with greater maturity and wisdom, pointed out 
that the statement came from Embassy people who had reason to fear for 
their lives. In such a situation, he said, his tendency is to "cut 
people some slack."

This is possibly explained by the Embassy staffer's fear for his  life.
A lamentable number of Islamic extremists have short fuses and are 
programmed to take offense at America after the slightest provocation. 
The famous Rage Boy is the poster child of this tendency. Google him for
yourself. The film has the effect of crying out "fire" in a crowded 
theater.

The Romney attack was made in such unseemly haste that we had still  not
learned of the deaths in Benghazi. But you know all about that. My 
heart goes out to those victims of remote-controlled ignorance. The 
murdered Ambassador was by all accounts considered by Libyans to be a 
friend of theirs, and there has been a quiet demonstration in his 
memory.

I want to focus on the "effort

[FairfieldLife] Re: lecture on research on adverse effects of meditation