[FairfieldLife] Re: Letting Go / Hanging On
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Rick Archer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: on 8/27/06 1:35 PM, nablus108 at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: As long as the paychecks keep coming in, why should Barry stop posting rubbish here ? He is a young and aggressive soul that needs something to focus on and a father to sponsor him. He has that now; so he will not stop. Hey Barry, shouldn¹t I get a commission? The check is in the mail... :-) BTW, here's the last post I wrote that day that I spent writing about my reactions to seeing FFL after not having read it for three weeks: Balance In these musings, I've said too much about the angry and compulsive TBs on this forum, those who are allowing their own self hatred to ruin their lives. But today I've realized that I need to say some things about the vast majority of the posters to Fairfield Life, and the obvious fact that -- in contrast -- they actually *have* lives, and that those lives are far from in ruin. FFL has been really good for me in that it taught me that many of my attitudes about TM and its adherents were formed by too long a period spent on alt.meditation. transcendental, where the angry compulsive TBs prevailed, and consistently shouted down and attempted to drive away any more positive voices. Fairfield Life has taught me that a.m.t. is the aberration, and that balance is more the norm among long-term practitioners of TM. The examples provided here by the many folks who have found some sense of *balance* with regard to their many years of participation in TM and the TMO are nothing short of inspiring. These people have *not*, on the whole, grown bitter as a result of years of involvement with an organization that couldn't do more to inspire such bitterness if it tried. You guys still have HOPE. The vast majority of you still follow a strongly spiritual path, whatever form it may take (even if that form involves a strong belief in pathlessness). I find this encouraging, and inspiring. So this is just a short thank you note to Rick and Jim and Tom T. and new.morning and Sal and Ingegerd and cardemeister and Curtis and Dr. Pete and George and Mike H. and Michael and Paul and MDixon and scienceofabundance and Shemp and JohnY and Kirk and Rory and LBS and all the many others I've forgotten for your contributions here. Your posts consistently remind me that a person who has devoted years of their lives to TM does *not* have to turn into an angry, bitter old fuck. They remind me that the spiritual path is endless, without any of the boundaries that lesser seekers attempt to impose on it. Thanks to you all for providing a positive example of how to walk the walk, especially on a forum on which a few noisy parrots do nothing but talk the talk. To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Letting Go / Hanging On
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Rick Archer groups@ wrote: on 8/27/06 1:35 PM, nablus108 at nablus108@ wrote: As long as the paychecks keep coming in, why should Barry stop posting rubbish here ? He is a young and aggressive soul that needs something to focus on and a father to sponsor him. He has that now; so he will not stop. Hey Barry, shouldn¹t I get a commission? The check is in the mail... :-) BTW, here's the last post I wrote that day that I spent writing about my reactions to seeing FFL after not having read it for three weeks: Balance In these musings, I've said too much about the angry and compulsive TBs on this forum, those who are allowing their own self hatred to ruin their lives. But today I've realized that I need to say some things about the vast majority of the posters to Fairfield Life, and the obvious fact that -- in contrast -- they actually *have* lives, and that those lives are far from in ruin. FFL has been really good for me in that it taught me that many of my attitudes about TM and its adherents were formed by too long a period spent on alt.meditation. transcendental, where the angry compulsive TBs prevailed, and consistently shouted down and attempted to drive away any more positive voices. Fairfield Life has taught me that a.m.t. is the aberration, and that balance is more the norm among long-term practitioners of TM. The examples provided here by the many folks who have found some sense of *balance* with regard to their many years of participation in TM and the TMO are nothing short of inspiring. These people have *not*, on the whole, grown bitter as a result of years of involvement with an organization that couldn't do more to inspire such bitterness if it tried. You guys still have HOPE. The vast majority of you still follow a strongly spiritual path, whatever form it may take (even if that form involves a strong belief in pathlessness). I find this encouraging, and inspiring. So this is just a short thank you note to Rick and Jim and Tom T. and new.morning and Sal and Ingegerd and cardemeister and Curtis and Dr. Pete and George and Mike H. and Michael and Paul and MDixon and scienceofabundance and Shemp and JohnY and Kirk and Rory and LBS and all the many others I've forgotten for your contributions here. Your posts consistently remind me that a person who has devoted years of their lives to TM does *not* have to turn into an angry, bitter old fuck. They remind me that the spiritual path is endless, without any of the boundaries that lesser seekers attempt to impose on it. Thanks to you all for providing a positive example of how to walk the walk, especially on a forum on which a few noisy parrots do nothing but talk the talk. To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Letting Go / Hanging On
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: snip Ah. As Maharishi would say, A perfect opportunity for the answer we have already prepared. :-) I just realized something: Barry spent his vacation from this forum preparing a whole series of answers offline, which then he planned to post one by one after his return (after finding suitable segues in others' posts, so the rants wouldn't look quite so much as if they were prewritten). Too bad; he had all that time, and he *still* couldn't come up with anything new. To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Letting Go / Hanging On
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: snip Ah. As Maharishi would say, A perfect opportunity for the answer we have already prepared. :-) I just realized something: Barry spent his vacation from this forum preparing a whole series of answers offline, which then he planned to post one by one after his return Yep. I was wondering why they didn't quite fit the current mood here. Good call. To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Letting Go / Hanging On
Title: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Letting Go / Hanging On on 8/27/06 1:35 PM, nablus108 at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: As long as the paychecks keep coming in, why should Barry stop posting rubbish here ? He is a young and aggressive soul that needs something to focus on and a father to sponsor him. He has that now; so he will not stop. Hey Barry, shouldnt I get a commission? __._,_.___ To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS Visit your group "FairfieldLife" on the web. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. __,_._,___
[FairfieldLife] Re: Letting Go / Hanging On
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: I wasn't there, of course, but just from your quote I wouldn't be sure he was referring to attuning yourselves to his thinking in any case, so much as that eventually you would all be in the same state of consciousness he was. In my honest and long-considered opinion, all of Maharishi's students have *always* been in the same state of consciousness as he is -- normal old waking state. The problems arise when one or more of the students start to achieve what the teacher never has. snore P.S.: Notice, once again, that Barry has conflated What MMY sez... (or in this case, What MMY may have meant...) with What MMY sez is true. It's really a very obvious distinction, but Barry simply cannot seem to make it. Could that be because the former gives him no opportunity to recycle his old MMY-is-a-fraud- and-you-stupid-TBs-believe-him mantras? Ah. As Maharishi would say, A perfect opportunity for the answer we have already prepared. :-) Actually the answer Barry had already prepared is completely irrelevant to the point I was making. I was commenting on *Barry's* propensity to distort what TMers say in order to find opportunities to deliver the same shallow rants against TMers/the TMO/MMY, while exalting himself, over and over and OVER again. He hasn't said anything new in this area for *years*, and the elaborate fantasy that follows is no exception. snip They're convinced that their view of Maharishi is true and incontestable, even though many of these same people have never even sat in the same room with him. They're convinced that *their* interpretation of the things he says is right, and that anyone who interprets them differently is, well, wrong. Just to drive home the point, here's what I said to Jim again: I wasn't there, of course, but just from your quote I wouldn't be sure he was referring to attuning yourselves to his thinking in any case, so much as that eventually you would all be in the same state of consciousness he was. Yup, that sure does sound like I'm convinced that my interpretation of what Jim reported MMY to have said was right, doesn't it? I mean, I wouldn't be sure is precisely synonymous with I am convinced, right? Barry's vacation sure seems to have helped him clean up the habit of nastiness he was finding so burdensome when he left: I have also pondered the things that others have said about my participation here, and have come to the conclusion that they were correct. I don't belong here; the nasty things that are said get to me and all too often goad me into participating in and perpetuating -- if not deepening -- the nastiness. Kirk was right in his decision to leave FFL, and for the right reasons. He found many of the discussions here, the way they are handled, and the mindset of the 'handlers' too heartbreaking for him to endure. He wisely moved on. I join him in that decision, and in the quest for people who more closely share my own sensibilities. To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Letting Go / Hanging On
First, welcome back Turq. I missed your sense of humor and interest in discussing topics in detail. You have been posting some thoughtful stuff. There are a few posters here who stretch my thinking beyond my own current boundaries and that is what I am here for. Otherwise I would just hang out with Secular Humanists rather than be challenged. I am always seeking ways to discuss beliefs that I do not share, surrounded by enough humor to make it enjoyable. I have heard that the single best predictor of a therapist's success is the level of rapport established. That certainly is true for me when it comes to discussions of beliefs. There are a number of poster heres who pull it off very well, and when it works it is really great. So, having poured us a bit of Campari, I begin. Your discussion of TM beliefs being clung to, contrasted with the experience of going beyond boundaries in meditation made me think. I have come to the conclusion that the belief system is more critical to the TM experience than MMY's claim of the experience of the transcendent and the higher states being self-evident, imply. This is also a part of his own teaching of course, but not emphasized in this way. I think it goes beyond the usual knowledge supporting experience teaching of TM. My evidence for this is that we know that most people who started TM dropped it, by a huge margin. I conducted a campaign in the DC center to find out what had happened to the 10,000 people who were initiated in the center and it came out to be a tiny percent continued to meditate. The ones who continued mostly had a continuing interaction with the knowledge and the belief structure as well as the social system, the supportive group. The more time they spent building the beliefs, the more likely they were to continue. Some people seem to drop out after deep involvement because they couldn't take the movement's strong arm tactics and general bullshittery. Many of the people who had a deep commitment and left after years took on new beliefs that brought them beyond the party line and that lead them out of the ability to stay within the movement's rules and guidelines. If they continued with a belief system that supported the experience of higher states, then they might start other spiritual practices which had a form of meditation or they combined the teachings. If they dropped that model completely, as in my case, they might not continue on any traditional spiritual path at all. Although some in the movement had tried to paint me as a disgruntled member when I left, to neutralize the damage, nothing could be further from the truth. Nothing we have discussed in this group about the deceptions or shitty treatment by the movement phased me when I was in it, because the experience (combined with the belief system) was worth it all. But once I had decided that the belief system was fundamentally flawed, my value of the experience completely changed. I could still have an experience of unboundedness, but it meant nothing. The experience's bliss and compelling nature is not inherent in the experience. It is tied to it value from the belief. I actually never missed a program in 15 years, but when it switched off I never desired it again. It wasn't just because I was compulsive with TM, I craved the state twice a day. But now the desire is totally gone. Because I had such an intense exposure I can drift into the state naturally if I close my eyes, but it doesn't have any charm for me. It seems to take away more than it gives, and I no longer view that state as an experience of my Self. For me it takes away what I value of myself. But when I go out in the middle of a lake in my kayak I often close my eyes and listen to nature and can float in thoughts that seem to take me beyond my ordinary thought patterns. The contemplation that I used to put down as merely thinking level activity, can have a great value for my regaining perspective, and seems to be a good state to plan my future. It is an active state of mind, but the organization of what senses I am paying attention to seem re-arranged. So I am opened to some type of meditation being valuable for me in short doses. But not the state that TM brings, and without all the belief system structure that I am experiencing the deeper truth of life. I think some altered states are another useful state of mind in short doses, but not all altered states. I can see how many people who left TM were attracted to Buddhist practices although I don't know too much about them. If a person is really impulsive then TM may give enough dissociation to restore more choice for a person and I am opened to that value from TM for some people. But in my experience, that is the person who is the least likely to continue with TM. People like myself who might generously be called creative types, are already pretty dissociated, so a lot of TM sends me beyond the (now demoted) planet Pluto. For people
[FairfieldLife] Re: Letting Go / Hanging On
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This is my life, not an anti-TM rant. If anyone understands that, it's me. But you know as well as I do that several people here are going to see it as an anti-TM rant. That just means that encountering a different set of experiences and beliefs than their own causes them to feel attacked, not that you're attacking them. To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Letting Go / Hanging On
The squeakiest wheel doesn't always need any grease. I have learned a lot posting here. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: This is my life, not an anti-TM rant. If anyone understands that, it's me. But you know as well as I do that several people here are going to see it as an anti-TM rant. That just means that encountering a different set of experiences and beliefs than their own causes them to feel attacked, not that you're attacking them. To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Letting Go / Hanging On
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: snip Your discussion of TM beliefs being clung to, contrasted with the experience of going beyond boundaries in meditation made me think. I have come to the conclusion that the belief system is more critical to the TM experience than MMY's claim of the experience of the transcendent and the higher states being self-evident, imply. FWIW, as another data point, my experience has been that the longer I meditate, the less dependent I am on MMY's metaphysical teaching, and the more experientially aware I become that all metaphysical teaching ultimately breaks down into infinite regress and paradox. The metaphysical teaching is the right tool for the job in the begining, but it becomes less and less so as consciousness develops via repeated transcending. To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[FairfieldLife] Re: Letting Go / Hanging On
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: I wasn't there, of course, but just from your quote I wouldn't be sure he was referring to attuning yourselves to his thinking in any case, so much as that eventually you would all be in the same state of consciousness he was. In my honest and long-considered opinion, all of Maharishi's students have *always* been in the same state of consciousness as he is -- normal old waking state. The problems arise when one or more of the students start to achieve what the teacher never has. snore P.S.: Notice, once again, that Barry has conflated What MMY sez... (or in this case, What MMY may have meant...) with What MMY sez is true. It's really a very obvious distinction, but Barry simply cannot seem to make it. Could that be because the former gives him no opportunity to recycle his old MMY-is-a-fraud- and-you-stupid-TBs-believe-him mantras? Ah. As Maharishi would say, A perfect opportunity for the answer we have already prepared. :-) Actually the answer Barry had already prepared is completely irrelevant to the point I was making. I was commenting on *Barry's* propensity to distort what TMers say in order to find opportunities to deliver the same shallow rants against TMers/the TMO/MMY, while exalting himself, over and over and OVER again. He hasn't said anything new in this area for *years*, and the elaborate fantasy that follows is no exception. snip They're convinced that their view of Maharishi is true and incontestable, even though many of these same people have never even sat in the same room with him. They're convinced that *their* interpretation of the things he says is right, and that anyone who interprets them differently is, well, wrong. Just to drive home the point, here's what I said to Jim again: I wasn't there, of course, but just from your quote I wouldn't be sure he was referring to attuning yourselves to his thinking in any case, so much as that eventually you would all be in the same state of consciousness he was. Yup, that sure does sound like I'm convinced that my interpretation of what Jim reported MMY to have said was right, doesn't it? I mean, I wouldn't be sure is precisely synonymous with I am convinced, right? Barry's vacation sure seems to have helped him clean up the habit of nastiness he was finding so burdensome when he left: I have also pondered the things that others have said about my participation here, and have come to the conclusion that they were correct. I don't belong here; the nasty things that are said get to me and all too often goad me into participating in and perpetuating -- if not deepening -- the nastiness. Kirk was right in his decision to leave FFL, and for the right reasons. He found many of the discussions here, the way they are handled, and the mindset of the 'handlers' too heartbreaking for him to endure. He wisely moved on. I join him in that decision, and in the quest for people who more closely share my own sensibilities. As long as the paychecks keep coming in, why should Barry stop posting rubbish here ? He is a young and aggressive soul that needs something to focus on and a father to sponsor him. He has that now; so he will not stop. To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
