[FairfieldLife] Re: Fancy that!
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, wrote : ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, wrote : Gary Larson is one of my all-time favourites. To constantly and consistently turn out those surreal cartoons of his that catch one off guard and leave you chuckling in a good frame of mind show that he has a hotline to the Creative Intelligence running the show. He certainly seems to have a feel for how seriously anyone should take religion. I believe he was the first syndicated cartoonist to feature god, and he got a lot of stick for it. It didn't bother the letter writers that he portrayed the great man as dignified with a flowing beard and light emanating from his halo, just by featuring the creator in a humorous setting he had blasphemed and his career nearly came to an early end. But then it did almost every week as nervous editors, scared of controversy, sought to censor the "offending" items. To be sure I'd have to dig out my copy of Larson's kinda biography The prehistory of the Far Side - where he details all his early battles to stay unmoderated - but I think the below is god's first appearance in a panel cartoon. Hard to believe that cartoons like these were ever considered contraversial by anyone: But then there are a lot of people who would kill you still for portraying an image like this of a holy figure, religious people can be fucking nuts I shouldn't have to tell you. They fear other people being different to them to the point that they will chop your head off. Saudi Arabia has executed 100 people this year for crimes like witchcraft and having opinions contrary to those of the religious authority. One guy got 10 years in jail and 1000 lashes for daring to suggest that religious societies stifle free speech and keep you in a self-perpetuating circle of fear. Nice of them to underline his point by punishing him like that really. Doubt he's seeing the funny side though the lashes are administered 10 a week. The UK minister for that sort of thing was asked in the commons what she thought about Saudi Arabia's shockingly medieval approach to crime and punishment and said that the UK supports free speech but isn't going to object to the Saudi's because the punishment gets the approval of the majority of Saudi society. The hell it does. Maybe it didn't occur to her that maybe people don't object for a reason? And it's nothing to do with the massive amounts of weapons we sell them, oh no. Or that our respective "royal" families are very good friends. Society seems to be held together by such slender threads. We used to bullshit that the reason we do trade with hideous foreign regimes is so they can be exposed to our superior values and then change their societies once they'd seen the light. I can't tell if that was just a sinister or self-deluding joke or not. But now that China holds all the trump cards I can't help feeling we're going to be sorry for not demanding social justice in countries we trade with before we ship them advanced weaponry systems.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Fancy that!
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, wrote : Gary Larson is one of my all-time favourites. To constantly and consistently turn out those surreal cartoons of his that catch one off guard and leave you chuckling in a good frame of mind show that he has a hotline to the Creative Intelligence running the show. He certainly seems to have a feel for how seriously anyone should take religion.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Fancy that!
Gary Larson is one of my all-time favourites. To constantly and consistently turn out those surreal cartoons of his that catch one off guard and leave you chuckling in a good frame of mind show that he has a hotline to the Creative Intelligence running the show. This one (below) is on the office wall of one of my bosses! ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, wrote : From: "anartaxius@... [FairfieldLife]" To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, June 16, 2015 7:54 PM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Synthesizing a Vedic Psychiatry You are obviously an idiot — that was a new post with new material. You writers are just an elitist bunch of crappers. On another benign note, I was once on a walk with a couple of people in Washington D.C. who were working for the college of natural law (real estate speculation). One of these fellows said that creativity was 'working to accepted standards'. I disagreed. The discussion had begun because I had brought up Gary Larson, the artist/writer who at the time was the creator of the Far Side comic published in the newspapers then. This fellow did not think Larson creative. Another in the same profession, Bill Waterson who wrote and drew Calvin and Hobbes is another who I considered creative. These two guys gave depth to comics because their writing and art had subtext, it did not hit you directly as most comics did with a rather flat model of humour, they forced you to think and draw lines between the dots and appreciate the irregularities of human behaviour. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, wrote : As much as I hate to admit it, as a writer I must admit that the version with all the [explicative deleted] and {phrase deleted} entries had better alliterative qualities than the unexpurgated version below. Go figure. :-) From: "anartaxius@... [FairfieldLife]" To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, June 16, 2015 6:26 PM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Synthesizing a Vedic Psychiatry Now just what the #$&*@# do you mean by that you son of a #@&%$, sitting there in some ultra liberal Dutch coffee shop with a bunch of god$#$%#& non-believers spouting off your irreligious claptrap while drinking that vile brown forsaken liquid you use as a drug. No doubt that will lead to some substantial behaviour faults that will lead to serious and damning consequences like watching TV. Don't you know THAT I DO KNOW THE SECRET OF LIFE you insignificant squashed bug. I have a certificate from the Institute of Incomprehensible Ascended Masters of Ultimate Wisdom. You should be grovelling on your knees with your face in the mud you $%#&@#!!# infidel! A pox on you and your generation. A pox on your descendents (as if there will be any)! A pox on your Oh, what the $#@%. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, wrote : And thus, the formulae to grasp the secret of life is delineated. Secret of life, my ass. I find this post almost completely offensive, especially the next-to-the-last paragraph, which is as egregious an example of "personalized insult" as anything I've ever seen here on FFL. And just when we were doing so much better, too... From: "anartaxius@... [FairfieldLife]" To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, June 16, 2015 5:21 PM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Synthesizing a Vedic Psychiatry [explicative deleted] [explicative deleted] [explicative deleted] [explicative deleted] [explicative deleted] [explicative deleted] [explicative deleted] [explicative deleted] ...
[FairfieldLife] Re: Fancy that!
Re " I would have said "Guy Wilson's book on the Great Escape."": Excellent! I must get into the habit of dropping into my conversation lines like: "As I was finishing my monograph on The Latin Alexander Trallianus: the Text and Transmission of a late Latin Medical Book . . . " before quickly moving on to talk about The X Factor. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, wrote : ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, wrote : Re : "But as I was finishing my book on The Great Escape ": I asked you a short while back if you were a professional writer as you do post polished prose in your messages. You said you weren't! I am undone! But not really. To excuse the poor writing here I was refering to a book I mentioned earlier in the day in another post. Without that pre-loading I would have said "Guy Wilson's book on the Great Escape." And if I could write I'd love to have the sort of patience that can plough through endless old files and letters in dusty foreign archives, looking for things nobody knew before. It must take years unless you have a team of researchers. You also seem to have lived in a lot of TMO mansions! You don't have a golden crown at home do you? I coulda been a contender... They really wanted me to do TTC for some reason, probably because I'm relatively outgoing and don't look like one of those pale cave fish that most long term movement types remind you of after their years of eating rice and dhal on long rounding courses. But to do that you have to have studied SCI - Science of Creative Intelligence, and after my experience of the Total Knowledge course the whole thing was pretty much out of the question. I seriously doubt they'd let me teach as promoting the "knowledge" is part of the job description. Their loss. So eventual elevation to the heights of Rajadom wasn't going to happen as all TM hoops have to be jumped through before you get a gig like that I should think. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, wrote : In the late '90's the TMO acquired a mansion in a highly sought after part of London. Namely Kensington palace gardens. It was a fabulous house, right opposite Kensington palace. Huge place with double iron gates and a massive ballroom. It faced east too. The heads of the movement all lived there and all said how amazing the perfect vastu felt. I lived there too for a while, just helping out the media department. Great place to stay as the big knobs sure knew how to live, bespoke silk carpets and the best food eaten off mahogany tables. The idea was that they'd use it to wine and dine the rich and famous thus spreading TM to the top of society, as was Marshy's wish at the time. "The rich won't eat in a poor house" he said, they sure didn't here! Not that all that many came. Hardly any in fact, but the intention was a good one if you approve of that sort of elitism. I didn't but staying there made a nice change from our draughty, cold and empty mansion in the Bedfordshire countryside. But as I was finishing my book on The Great Escape I was reminded that the house had a rather more chequered history than expected. It was owned and used by MI6 to interrogate captured Nazi officers during and after WW2. Including the masterminds of the massacre that wiped out 50 allied airmen in 1944. Fancy that, I might have slept in a room that was once occupied by a terrified Gestapo murderer who sat awake all night dreading his fate at the hands of a war crimes tribunal. I wonder if they appreciated the vastu at all? ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, wrote : ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, wrote : Re : "But as I was finishing my book on The Great Escape ": I asked you a short while back if you were a professional writer as you do post polished prose in your messages. You said you weren't! I am undone! But not really. To excuse the poor writing here I was refering to a book I mentioned earlier in the day in another post. Without that pre-loading I would have said "Guy Wilson's book on the Great Escape." And if I could write I'd love to have the sort of patience that can plough through endless old files and letters in dusty foreign archives, looking for things nobody knew before. It must take years unless you have a team of researchers. You also seem to have lived in a lot of TMO mansions! You don't have a golden crown at home do you? I coulda been a contender... They really wanted me to do TTC for some reason, probably because I'm relatively outgoing and don't look like one of those pale cave fish that most long term movement types remind you of after their years of eating rice and dhal on long rounding courses. But to do that you have to have studied SCI - Science of Creative Intelligence, and after my experience of the Total Knowledge course the whole thing was pretty much out of the question. I seriousl
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Fancy that!
From: "Michael Jackson mjackso...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]" To: "FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com" Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2015 1:35 PM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Fancy that! "And if I could write I'd love to have the sort of patience that can plough through endless old files and letters in dusty foreign archives, looking for things nobody knew before. It must take years unless you have a team of researchers." Patrick O'Brien did that very thing. I used to love reading his Aubrey/Maturin series of nautical novels. Later I started reading about that period and read up on some of the naval engagements of the time and discovered that some of the descriptions of battles he lifted almost verbatim from old records and eye witness accounts. Still, he was a grand writer in my opinion. My favorite author is Dorothy Dunnett, who did the same thing. She has actually been praised for being precise and accurate in her citations of real history "in the same way that Patrick O'Brian was, but better." Numerous historians have commented that her two great historical novel sets -- "The Game of Kings" and "The House of Nicolo" are "on the whole, more accurate than most of the history books you can find that deal with the same eras. Dorothy also wrote a marvelous book called "King Hereafter" that was a telling of the story of the *real* Scottish king Macbeth. She considered it her masterpiece. From: salyavin808 To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2015 12:45 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Fancy that! ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, wrote : Re : "But as I was finishing my book on The Great Escape ": I asked you a short while back if you were a professional writer as you do post polished prose in your messages. You said you weren't! I am undone! But not really. To excuse the poor writing here I was refering to a book I mentioned earlier in the day in another post. Without that pre-loading I would have said "Guy Wilson's book on the Great Escape." And if I could write I'd love to have the sort of patience that can plough through endless old files and letters in dusty foreign archives, looking for things nobody knew before. It must take years unless you have a team of researchers. You also seem to have lived in a lot of TMO mansions! You don't have a golden crown at home do you? I coulda been a contender... They really wanted me to do TTC for some reason, probably because I'm relatively outgoing and don't look like one of those pale cave fish that most long term movement types remind you of after their years of eating rice and dhal on long rounding courses. But to do that you have to have studied SCI - Science of Creative Intelligence, and after my experience of the Total Knowledge course the whole thing was pretty much out of the question. I seriously doubt they'd let me teach as promoting the "knowledge" is part of the job description. Their loss. So eventual elevation to the heights of Rajadom wasn't going to happen as all TM hoops have to be jumped through before you get a gig like that I should think. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, wrote : In the late '90's the TMO acquired a mansion in a highly sought after part of London. Namely Kensington palace gardens. It was a fabulous house, right opposite Kensington palace. Huge place with double iron gates and a massive ballroom. It faced east too. The heads of the movement all lived there and all said how amazing the perfect vastu felt. I lived there too for a while, just helping out the media department. Great place to stay as the big knobs sure knew how to live, bespoke silk carpets and the best food eaten off mahogany tables. The idea was that they'd use it to wine and dine the rich and famous thus spreading TM to the top of society, as was Marshy's wish at the time. "The rich won't eat in a poor house" he said, they sure didn't here! Not that all that many came. Hardly any in fact, but the intention was a good one if you approve of that sort of elitism. I didn't but staying there made a nice change from our draughty, cold and empty mansion in the Bedfordshire countryside. But as I was finishing my book on The Great Escape I was reminded that the house had a rather more chequered history than expected. It was owned and used by MI6 to interrogate captured Nazi officers during and after WW2. Including the masterminds of the massacre that wiped out 50 allied airmen in 1944. Fancy that, I might have slept in a room that was once occupied by a terrified Gestapo murderer who sat awake all night dreading his fate at the hands of a war crimes tribunal. I wonder if they appreciated the vastu at all? #yiv7218093320 #yiv7218093320 --
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Fancy that!
"And if I could write I'd love to have the sort of patience that can plough through endless old files and letters in dusty foreign archives, looking for things nobody knew before. It must take years unless you have a team of researchers." Patrick O'Brien did that very thing. I used to love reading his Aubrey/Maturin series of nautical novels. Later I started reading about that period and read up on some of the naval engagements of the time and discovered that some of the descriptions of battles he lifted almost verbatim from old records and eye witness accounts. Still, he was a grand writer in my opinion. From: salyavin808 To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2015 12:45 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Fancy that! ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, wrote : Re : "But as I was finishing my book on The Great Escape ": I asked you a short while back if you were a professional writer as you do post polished prose in your messages. You said you weren't! I am undone! But not really. To excuse the poor writing here I was refering to a book I mentioned earlier in the day in another post. Without that pre-loading I would have said "Guy Wilson's book on the Great Escape." And if I could write I'd love to have the sort of patience that can plough through endless old files and letters in dusty foreign archives, looking for things nobody knew before. It must take years unless you have a team of researchers. You also seem to have lived in a lot of TMO mansions! You don't have a golden crown at home do you? I coulda been a contender... They really wanted me to do TTC for some reason, probably because I'm relatively outgoing and don't look like one of those pale cave fish that most long term movement types remind you of after their years of eating rice and dhal on long rounding courses. But to do that you have to have studied SCI - Science of Creative Intelligence, and after my experience of the Total Knowledge course the whole thing was pretty much out of the question. I seriously doubt they'd let me teach as promoting the "knowledge" is part of the job description. Their loss. So eventual elevation to the heights of Rajadom wasn't going to happen as all TM hoops have to be jumped through before you get a gig like that I should think. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, wrote : In the late '90's the TMO acquired a mansion in a highly sought after part of London. Namely Kensington palace gardens. It was a fabulous house, right opposite Kensington palace. Huge place with double iron gates and a massive ballroom. It faced east too. The heads of the movement all lived there and all said how amazing the perfect vastu felt. I lived there too for a while, just helping out the media department. Great place to stay as the big knobs sure knew how to live, bespoke silk carpets and the best food eaten off mahogany tables. The idea was that they'd use it to wine and dine the rich and famous thus spreading TM to the top of society, as was Marshy's wish at the time. "The rich won't eat in a poor house" he said, they sure didn't here! Not that all that many came. Hardly any in fact, but the intention was a good one if you approve of that sort of elitism. I didn't but staying there made a nice change from our draughty, cold and empty mansion in the Bedfordshire countryside. But as I was finishing my book on The Great Escape I was reminded that the house had a rather more chequered history than expected. It was owned and used by MI6 to interrogate captured Nazi officers during and after WW2. Including the masterminds of the massacre that wiped out 50 allied airmen in 1944. Fancy that, I might have slept in a room that was once occupied by a terrified Gestapo murderer who sat awake all night dreading his fate at the hands of a war crimes tribunal. I wonder if they appreciated the vastu at all? #yiv3245315669 #yiv3245315669 -- #yiv3245315669ygrp-mkp {border:1px solid #d8d8d8;font-family:Arial;margin:10px 0;padding:0 10px;}#yiv3245315669 #yiv3245315669ygrp-mkp hr {border:1px solid #d8d8d8;}#yiv3245315669 #yiv3245315669ygrp-mkp #yiv3245315669hd {color:#628c2a;font-size:85%;font-weight:700;line-height:122%;margin:10px 0;}#yiv3245315669 #yiv3245315669ygrp-mkp #yiv3245315669ads {margin-bottom:10px;}#yiv3245315669 #yiv3245315669ygrp-mkp .yiv3245315669ad {padding:0 0;}#yiv3245315669 #yiv3245315669ygrp-mkp .yiv3245315669ad p {margin:0;}#yiv3245315669 #yiv3245315669ygrp-mkp .yiv3245315669ad a {color:#ff;text-decoration:none;}#yiv3245315669 #yiv3245315669ygrp-sponsor #yiv3245315669ygrp-lc {font-family:Arial;}#yiv3245315669 #yiv3245315669ygrp-sponsor #yiv3245315669ygrp-lc #yiv3245315669hd {margin:10px 0px;font-weight:700;font-size:78%;line-height:122%;}#yiv3245315669 #yiv3245315669ygrp-sponsor #yiv3245315
[FairfieldLife] Re: Fancy that!
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, wrote : Re : "But as I was finishing my book on The Great Escape ": I asked you a short while back if you were a professional writer as you do post polished prose in your messages. You said you weren't! I am undone! But not really. To excuse the poor writing here I was refering to a book I mentioned earlier in the day in another post. Without that pre-loading I would have said "Guy Wilson's book on the Great Escape." And if I could write I'd love to have the sort of patience that can plough through endless old files and letters in dusty foreign archives, looking for things nobody knew before. It must take years unless you have a team of researchers. You also seem to have lived in a lot of TMO mansions! You don't have a golden crown at home do you? I coulda been a contender... They really wanted me to do TTC for some reason, probably because I'm relatively outgoing and don't look like one of those pale cave fish that most long term movement types remind you of after their years of eating rice and dhal on long rounding courses. But to do that you have to have studied SCI - Science of Creative Intelligence, and after my experience of the Total Knowledge course the whole thing was pretty much out of the question. I seriously doubt they'd let me teach as promoting the "knowledge" is part of the job description. Their loss. So eventual elevation to the heights of Rajadom wasn't going to happen as all TM hoops have to be jumped through before you get a gig like that I should think. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, wrote : In the late '90's the TMO acquired a mansion in a highly sought after part of London. Namely Kensington palace gardens. It was a fabulous house, right opposite Kensington palace. Huge place with double iron gates and a massive ballroom. It faced east too. The heads of the movement all lived there and all said how amazing the perfect vastu felt. I lived there too for a while, just helping out the media department. Great place to stay as the big knobs sure knew how to live, bespoke silk carpets and the best food eaten off mahogany tables. The idea was that they'd use it to wine and dine the rich and famous thus spreading TM to the top of society, as was Marshy's wish at the time. "The rich won't eat in a poor house" he said, they sure didn't here! Not that all that many came. Hardly any in fact, but the intention was a good one if you approve of that sort of elitism. I didn't but staying there made a nice change from our draughty, cold and empty mansion in the Bedfordshire countryside. But as I was finishing my book on The Great Escape I was reminded that the house had a rather more chequered history than expected. It was owned and used by MI6 to interrogate captured Nazi officers during and after WW2. Including the masterminds of the massacre that wiped out 50 allied airmen in 1944. Fancy that, I might have slept in a room that was once occupied by a terrified Gestapo murderer who sat awake all night dreading his fate at the hands of a war crimes tribunal. I wonder if they appreciated the vastu at all?
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Fancy that!
From: "s3raph...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]" To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, June 9, 2015 11:40 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Fancy that! Re "I experienced it, in states of mind that were as high and clear as I have ever experienced in this incarnation": Barry - apologies if you've answered this query in past posts - do you still today engage in any "spiritual" practices? Could be meditation (TM even?); self-flagellation; ritual magic; saying your bedtime prayers every night; pranayama; . . . I meditate. Not TM, and not every day like clockwork, mainly when I feel like meditating. And that's just sitting meditation. I also practice various walking meditations and mindfulness exercises when I feel like it. Never into self-flagellation, unless you count still posting on Fairfield Life. :-) ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, wrote : Edg, because you're so...uh...edgy and all, I suspect you'll take my quickie response below as if it was intended as some kind of affront, and it really wasn't. I was just taking advantage of these "revalidated FFL guidelines" vibes to just be honest. To expand on this a bit, to be honest I've always gotten the impression from your writing that your approach to most spiritual topics is intellectual, as opposed to experiential. When you get into how much you know about Advaita, for example, my impression is that this is stuff that you "know" -- intellectually -- about Advaita, but without ever having experienced the states of consciousness that are being written about. Correct me if I'm wrong about this. I say this not to take a dig at you but to point out a possible distinction between the two of us. I haven't just read about and thought about the basic principle of Tantra -- the peaceful co-existence of complete opposites -- I've *lived* it. I've spent fourteen years with Rama -- and all the time since -- living it. Please try to remember who you're talking to here. I write science articles for a living. I have a strong feel for what science considers "real" in this world and what it does not. At the same time, *I cannot deny my own experience*. While knowing all of this about science, I have personally witnessed many of the siddhis you have only read about. I have sat in the desert -- or in a Dennys along a California highway -- and watched someone just gently lift up off the ground (or the naugahyde Dennys benches) and float in the air for a while. The morning after experiencing something like that, if you are a bit of a cynical scientist like myself, you tend to wake up thinking, "OK, what the fuck was that?" I still don't know. All I know is that I experienced it, in states of mind that were as high and clear as I have ever experienced in this incarnation, and that were completely free from the effects of any kinds of drugs, and that for me it all really fuckin' happened. I am NOT saying that I know exactly *what* happened. What I'm saying is that *something* fairly extraordinary happened, and that until someone proves to me exactly what it was, I'm going to go easy on myself for not getting all anal about what is "real" and what isn't. That "real" enough for you, dude? :-) From: "TurquoiseBee turquoiseb@... [FairfieldLife]" To: "FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com" Sent: Tuesday, June 9, 2015 8:53 PM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Fancy that! I have *absolutely no problem* with such seeming contradictions. If you do, I would suggest that they just might be *your* problems. :-) From: Duveyoung To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, June 9, 2015 8:49 PM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Fancy that! Barry -- you are on record here being quite against most "magical thinking," but here we find you being quite the believer. "That explained quite a few of my dreams during the period I lived there. :-)" Would this be hypocrisy or you just playing loose with "what's real?" I ask this in the fullest sincerity to honor the recently re-validated FFL guidelines. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, wrote : Excellent. A few years ago, before we actually moved from Spain to the Netherlands, my odd extended family and I spent a month living in Amsterdam in a house we'd rented there. It was a really cool house, with multiple floors and a grand piano and a great kitchen, but at the same time there was always something "off" about it. So I asked around the neighborhood and found that it had in previous centuries been an asylum for crazy women. That explained quite a few of my dreams during the period I lived there. :-) From: salyavin808 To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, June 9, 2015
[FairfieldLife] Re: Fancy that!
Re "I experienced it, in states of mind that were as high and clear as I have ever experienced in this incarnation": Barry - apologies if you've answered this query in past posts - do you still today engage in any "spiritual" practices? Could be meditation (TM even?); self-flagellation; ritual magic; saying your bedtime prayers every night; pranayama; . . . ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, wrote : Edg, because you're so...uh...edgy and all, I suspect you'll take my quickie response below as if it was intended as some kind of affront, and it really wasn't. I was just taking advantage of these "revalidated FFL guidelines" vibes to just be honest. To expand on this a bit, to be honest I've always gotten the impression from your writing that your approach to most spiritual topics is intellectual, as opposed to experiential. When you get into how much you know about Advaita, for example, my impression is that this is stuff that you "know" -- intellectually -- about Advaita, but without ever having experienced the states of consciousness that are being written about. Correct me if I'm wrong about this. I say this not to take a dig at you but to point out a possible distinction between the two of us. I haven't just read about and thought about the basic principle of Tantra -- the peaceful co-existence of complete opposites -- I've *lived* it. I've spent fourteen years with Rama -- and all the time since -- living it. Please try to remember who you're talking to here. I write science articles for a living. I have a strong feel for what science considers "real" in this world and what it does not. At the same time, *I cannot deny my own experience*. While knowing all of this about science, I have personally witnessed many of the siddhis you have only read about. I have sat in the desert -- or in a Dennys along a California highway -- and watched someone just gently lift up off the ground (or the naugahyde Dennys benches) and float in the air for a while. The morning after experiencing something like that, if you are a bit of a cynical scientist like myself, you tend to wake up thinking, "OK, what the fuck was that?" I still don't know. All I know is that I experienced it, in states of mind that were as high and clear as I have ever experienced in this incarnation, and that were completely free from the effects of any kinds of drugs, and that for me it all really fuckin' happened. I am NOT saying that I know exactly *what* happened. What I'm saying is that *something* fairly extraordinary happened, and that until someone proves to me exactly what it was, I'm going to go easy on myself for not getting all anal about what is "real" and what isn't. That "real" enough for you, dude? :-) From: "TurquoiseBee turquoiseb@... [FairfieldLife]" To: "FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com" Sent: Tuesday, June 9, 2015 8:53 PM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Fancy that! I have *absolutely no problem* with such seeming contradictions. If you do, I would suggest that they just might be *your* problems. :-) From: Duveyoung To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, June 9, 2015 8:49 PM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Fancy that! Barry -- you are on record here being quite against most "magical thinking," but here we find you being quite the believer. "That explained quite a few of my dreams during the period I lived there. :-)" Would this be hypocrisy or you just playing loose with "what's real?" I ask this in the fullest sincerity to honor the recently re-validated FFL guidelines. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, wrote : Excellent. A few years ago, before we actually moved from Spain to the Netherlands, my odd extended family and I spent a month living in Amsterdam in a house we'd rented there. It was a really cool house, with multiple floors and a grand piano and a great kitchen, but at the same time there was always something "off" about it. So I asked around the neighborhood and found that it had in previous centuries been an asylum for crazy women. That explained quite a few of my dreams during the period I lived there. :-) From: salyavin808 To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, June 9, 2015 8:02 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Fancy that! In the late '90's the TMO acquired a mansion in a highly sought after part of London. Namely Kensington palace gardens. It was a fabulous house, right opposite Kensington palace. Huge place with double iron gates and a massive ballroom. It faced east too. The heads of the movement all lived there and all said how amazing the perfect vastu felt. I lived there too for a while, just helping out the media department. Great place to stay as the big knobs sure knew how to live, bespoke silk carpets and the best food eaten off mahogany tables. The idea was that they'd use i
[FairfieldLife] Re: Fancy that!
Re : "But as I was finishing my book on The Great Escape ": I asked you a short while back if you were a professional writer as you do post polished prose in your messages. You said you weren't! You also seem to have lived in a lot of TMO mansions! You don't have a golden crown at home do you? ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, wrote : In the late '90's the TMO acquired a mansion in a highly sought after part of London. Namely Kensington palace gardens. It was a fabulous house, right opposite Kensington palace. Huge place with double iron gates and a massive ballroom. It faced east too. The heads of the movement all lived there and all said how amazing the perfect vastu felt. I lived there too for a while, just helping out the media department. Great place to stay as the big knobs sure knew how to live, bespoke silk carpets and the best food eaten off mahogany tables. The idea was that they'd use it to wine and dine the rich and famous thus spreading TM to the top of society, as was Marshy's wish at the time. "The rich won't eat in a poor house" he said, they sure didn't here! Not that all that many came. Hardly any in fact, but the intention was a good one if you approve of that sort of elitism. I didn't but staying there made a nice change from our draughty, cold and empty mansion in the Bedfordshire countryside. But as I was finishing my book on The Great Escape I was reminded that the house had a rather more chequered history than expected. It was owned and used by MI6 to interrogate captured Nazi officers during and after WW2. Including the masterminds of the massacre that wiped out 50 allied airmen in 1944. Fancy that, I might have slept in a room that was once occupied by a terrified Gestapo murderer who sat awake all night dreading his fate at the hands of a war crimes tribunal. I wonder if they appreciated the vastu at all?