RE: [FairfieldLife] Re: Interesting MUM Developments
From: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com [mailto:fairfieldl...@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of dhamiltony2k5 Sent: Thursday, October 22, 2009 11:25 AM To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Interesting MUM Developments 300 children. Is there anyone left inside MIU that could explain the spiritual facts of life to these unruly children and those outsiders who agitate them? Bring back Jerry Jarvis? He's back. He'll be giving a lecture at the Santa Monica library sometime soon.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Interesting MUM Developments
On Oct 12, 2009, at 9:56 PM, off_world_beings wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj vajradh...@... wrote: On Oct 12, 2009, at 8:07 PM, yifuxero wrote: The bottom line is that we can (a) transcend changes, or (b) make changes. The evidence for the making changes part simply isn't there! I therefore agree with the other contributor. The connections are tenuous. There could actually be a negative payoff, in certain circumstances; although by no means approaching the levels suggested by Vaj. Usually, people just quit since they haven't seen any results. I would beg to differ--I'd actually propose mental worship and/or meditation on an ishta-devata (e.g simple mental mantra recitation) can bring and is believed to bring relative benefits. YMMV. The question is: when someone isn't aware that the relative benefit is essentially a boon from a inner goddess radiating her effects via your nervous system onto your connection with the outer world; when that inner level of intention is missing through deception, does it work or does it work as well (as if you knew you were reciting, say, a mantra to the goddess of wisdom and inspired speech)? Or can the deception block that relative effect? IME teachers who simply ask their students what are you looking for, or what do you want in life and then give a mantra for that benefit, at least the student has some involvement at the level of intention. They are aligned with the benefit. If the student is left in the dark, that specific intention is left as an ambiguity. Seeking benefits is stupid. Meditate and enjoy, that is Maharishi's advice. No need to seek, but it's good to be aware.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Interesting MUM Developments
On Oct 12, 2009, at 10:17 PM, yifuxero wrote: o bring up an example: I've been chanting mantras (japa - outloud or silently but separate from TM); since 1972 when I got my GOHONZON at a Buddhist Temple in Etiwanda, CA. With TM, relative benefits are supposedly a byproduct (although unpredictable) of a more relaxed nervous system. There's only a tenuous connection between transcendence and activity since one can attribute relative changes to the relaxation. Possibly, one might transcend and start reading books on Advaita. Calm states or transcending are not unusual with mantra recitation IME. OTOH, people in the Nichiren School - like myself - don't separate Spiritual from material, since the Founder - Nichiren, made no such distinction and in fact spent a lifetime criticizing orthodox Buddhism for that very reason: Orthodox Buddhism creates a monkish lifestyle while retreating from activity (and I might add - begging for alms). This is a common misunderstanding. There are red sanghas (monks) and their are white sanghas (married). I don't know that one is superior to the other, although different cultures may view that differently, often out of sentimentality. MMY has addressed the question of householder vs monk orientations but imo failed to come up with the goods. Back to you Vaj. What are you quibbling about now? I forgot. You'll find something to nitpick about. Re-read the post. Anyway, I'm making the following assertions: a. transcendence has unproven/demonstrated value in relation to the multitude of claims made by the TMO; but b. one can point to restful alertness as a valuable state of body-mind, IRRESPECTIVE of which technique induces the state. Thus, fewer ulcers, etc; clearer thinking...but c. In regard to making correct (Dharmic); productive actions, silent meditation if done in excess might be counterproductive - thus, BN: Bliss Ninnies or those who might borrow $$ to attend Mother Divine Courses. OK... My solution since 1972 has been to chant various mantras of Hindu and Buddhist origin; but I make no distinction between the WISDOM purpose and other purposes for chanting. Well, presumably they're different beings. A distinction worth understanding. Indeed, if you google the Green Tara, you will find a long shopping list of Green Tara practice benefits, all intermingled, with no distinguishing the Wisdom aspect from the material benefits. The person making such a false dichotomy is you, Vaj, since your Guru Norbu does it! (makes such a distinction). He's obviously not a devotee of the Green Tara. For example: Among the 21 Tara mantras, #11 addresses and counteracts the vil caused by robbers. #14 averts evil affecting cattle, #16 that of poison, and so on. But #7 is the Tara who increases Wisdom. I've not heard of this alleged, false dichotomy you mention. But since his previous incarnation left a terma relating to various Taras, it doesn't sound like you know what you're talking about. Thus, certain Buddhist schools such as Nichiren's make no distinction between various types of desires: material vs Spiritual. Neo-Advaitins typically make a distinction and attempt to capitalize on the supposed difference. Andrew Cohen is an odd character. He and his friend Ken Wilber tout evolutionary Consciousness and then beg for money. One of his followers called me at work. I basically told her to get lost and said that her Guru was a hypocrite. I therefore respectfully disagree with any Guru who makes the Wisdom vs material dichotomy; and give credit where it's due: to MMY for at least ATTEMPTING to fuse the two. Unfortunately his (TMO) claims for material benefits have not panned out -whether the supposed results be due to relaxation or transcendence or Yagyas. Never heard of the union of wisdom and method or the inseparability of the three bodies (kayas)? You really don't seem familiar with vajrayana/mantrayana but you claim to practice it. Odd. Generally the reason a distinction is made between the kayas or various unified-pairs is because either paradox is not generally comprehended by those without recognition of the nondual View, i.e. the type of audience to which such speech would typically be addressed and linear speech is the best way to convey it relatively (i.e. we're limited by certain relative constraints with dualistic speech).
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Interesting MUM Developments
On Oct 11, 2009, at 11:22 PM, ShempMcGurk wrote: My first reaction to the fascinating post below is that ever since the advent of all the extras that the TMO sells and emphasizes these days -- schtapatyaveda, ayurveda, yagyas, sidhis, etc. etc. -- has, simply, watered down the core message of TM. Bad rationale. I bet the students still get the same spiel they used to: boring SCI, and a required set of interdisciplinary courses filled with quantum nonsense that are simply transparent cult-crap to todays savvy students--even if they do try to censor the web from them. They just don't fall for it like the glassy-eyed rounders of yesteryear. Not only are people NOT starting TM in droves they way they did in the '70s but those that do start, such as the students described here, don't put much priority on it BECAUSE THE TMO DOESN'T EITHER. Bullshit. TM is still the central core of their consciousness-based scam. In fact the sidhis don't even work (that is, if you believe they work at all) without TM.
RE: [FairfieldLife] Re: Interesting MUM Developments
From: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com [mailto:fairfieldl...@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of ShempMcGurk Sent: Monday, October 12, 2009 12:01 AM To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Interesting MUM Developments I don't understand what or who mud people are. Please elaborate. It's a racial slur against dark-skinned people. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife%40yahoogroups.com , It's just a ride bill.hicks.all.a.r...@... wrote: On Sun, Oct 11, 2009 at 10:22 PM, ShempMcGurk shempmcg...@... wrote: My first reaction to the fascinating post below is that ever since the advent of all the extras that the TMO sells and emphasizes these days -- schtapatyaveda, ayurveda, yagyas, sidhis, etc. etc. -- has, simply, watered down the core message of TM. Not only are people NOT starting TM in droves they way they did in the '70s but those that do start, such as the students described here, don't put much priority on it BECAUSE THE TMO DOESN'T EITHER. I mean, how can they when the message is watered down with all this other stuff. You can't say out of one side of your mouth that capturing the fort with 20 minutes of TM is all you need to have access to the goldmines that are in control of the fort and then, out of the other side of your mouth, sell and promote all those goldmines as extras. Something's gotta give, and in this case it's TM. TM meditators were in the eyes of Maharishi lower than whale shit. I remember how low I was. Locked out of courses, couldn't see tapes, which tapes I can't understand why they need to be kept from the whale shit. Couldn't attend meetings, WPAs. It got down to a residence course a year offered at MIU if you were lucky. And the residence courses were offered for rising sidhas and as infomercials for the sidhis. So MUM can't have it both ways. There's no equation to factor meditators into the Dome numbers. The TMers don't count. Furthermore, when I go to the mens dorms, I don't see a single white face. Well, now there's one, an RA who's on IA. They are all mud people who came here because someone else was paying. These people don't give a shit for MUM, Fairfield, Iowa, the United States or TM. They came to get what they could because they couldn't join a pirate ship or score it big spending spam as a solicitor looking to smuggle money out of their countries. Arise, wretched of the earth Arise, convicts of hunger Reason thunders in its crater This is the eruption of the end Of the past let us wipe the slate clean Enslaved masses, arise, arise The world is about to change its foundation We are nothing, let us be all This is the final struggle Let us group together, and tomorrow The Internationale Will be the human race.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Interesting MUM Developments
On Oct 12, 2009, at 9:08 AM, feste37 wrote: Have to agree with Doug here. When I was at MUM, the TM practice was considered a course, just like any other. It was a required course. Students saying they are being forced to meditate is absurd. It's like students at another uni saying they are forced to take a course in the humanities, or forced to take English composition, in order to graduate. If you don't like the mandatory courses at a college, go somewhere else, but don't whine about being forced to take them. Man were you brainwashed! They may pass TM off as a course, but a course isn't something you repeat en masse two times a day for the rest of your college years. A course is also something where you are taught the state of the art for a certain relative truth. It is not something where you are supposed to be deliberately deceived as to what's going down! Normally you take your course, pass it and you move on. At MIU/MUM if you do not comply to daily trance induction, you're kicked out. As a mandatory element, daily, for years, it was a thought-reform exercise for those not into it (i.e. 90% on the current MUM student body). For we know that the hypnotized never lie, Do ya? -Pete Townsend We Won't Get Fooled Again
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Interesting MUM Developments
On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 7:47 AM, Rick Archer r...@searchsummit.com wrot *From:* FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com [mailto: fairfieldl...@yahoogroups.com] *On Behalf Of *ShempMcGurk *Sent:* Monday, October 12, 2009 12:01 AM *To:* FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com *Subject:* [FairfieldLife] Re: Interesting MUM Developments ** I don't understand what or who mud people are. Please elaborate. It's a racial slur against dark-skinned people. Wrong. It's part of the beliefs of a Christian sect. The sect follows the Christian Identity Beliefs, vis http://www.rickross.com/reference/christian_identity/christianidentity10.html or http://tinyurl.com/3ybxd . Rick is getting racism confused with religious beliefs, which beliefs are protected by the Bill of Rights of the US Constitution.**
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Interesting MUM Developments
On Oct 12, 2009, at 11:09 AM, ShempMcGurk wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj vajradh...@... wrote: [snip] Man were you brainwashed! [snip] On a daily basis, Vajina, you insist on telling us how badly we TMers were brainwashed by the TMO. I have only occasionally made this remark, and it is not one I like to make. I do not make it every day. You're exaggerating. Yes, I suppose the TMO has and continues still to brainwash and, yes, I suppose there are a certain contingent of TBers that will drink the kool-aid any chance they get. But to paint the ENTIRE meditating population -- even those of us that went to MIU or were teachers -- is silly. If we were brainwashed as much as you suggest we were, we'd all still be in the TMO...and certainly not posting on a rogue forum such as this. I don't consider involvement in the TMO a prerequisite for being thought reformed or brainwashed. In fact, it seems like the majority of the brainwashed people here do not have an involvement in the TMO. So clearly, your assumption seems false, to me. Perhaps it was YOU who was brainwashed and you assume everyone else was like you? Why else would you keep insisting upon it...and to do it with such ferocity and so consistently for these many years -- nay, decades -- in itself suggests a kind of brainwashing, I suggest. I am responding to the topics as they arise. It probably would be a good idea to find a more scientifically based term than brainwashed. Let me think about it a little more. Thanks.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Interesting MUM Developments
Vaj wrote: On Oct 12, 2009, at 11:09 AM, ShempMcGurk wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj vajradh...@... wrote: [snip] Man were you brainwashed! [snip] On a daily basis, Vajina, you insist on telling us how badly we TMers were brainwashed by the TMO. I have only occasionally made this remark, and it is not one I like to make. I do not make it every day. You're exaggerating. Yes, I suppose the TMO has and continues still to brainwash and, yes, I suppose there are a certain contingent of TBers that will drink the kool-aid any chance they get. But to paint the ENTIRE meditating population -- even those of us that went to MIU or were teachers -- is silly. If we were brainwashed as much as you suggest we were, we'd all still be in the TMO...and certainly not posting on a rogue forum such as this. I don't consider involvement in the TMO a prerequisite for being thought reformed or brainwashed. In fact, it seems like the majority of the brainwashed people here do not have an involvement in the TMO. So clearly, your assumption seems false, to me. I don't know when you became involved with TM but I noted that the cultish aspects only began to appear towards the end of the 70's. I wasn't much troubled because I wasn't looked upon as someone to knock the local shakers and movers off their thrown. I only learned of some of their fanaticism years later. After 1982 I didn't have much contract with the movement outside of their ayurvedic introductory lecture in 1985 that they charged $185 for and should have been free. That was it for me. At least where I was the TM centers were pretty easy going in the mid 1970s and a fun social group to hang out with. We saw real cults all around and steered clear of those. Even the president of my high school had a cult going in the Northwest. Pretty funny. When I went to TTC I had been informed of the minefields to be found there and steered clear of them. Some of the professionals in my group almost got bumped off the course because they didn't like the rules. I played the game and in Maharishi parlance got the goods. :-D
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Interesting MUM Developments
On Oct 12, 2009, at 4:03 PM, Bhairitu wrote: I don't consider involvement in the TMO a prerequisite for being thought reformed or brainwashed. In fact, it seems like the majority of the brainwashed people here do not have an involvement in the TMO. So clearly, your assumption seems false, to me. I don't know when you became involved with TM but I noted that the cultish aspects only began to appear towards the end of the 70's. I wasn't much troubled because I wasn't looked upon as someone to knock the local shakers and movers off their thrown. I only learned of some of their fanaticism years later. After 1982 I didn't have much contract with the movement outside of their ayurvedic introductory lecture in 1985 that they charged $185 for and should have been free. That was it for me. At least where I was the TM centers were pretty easy going in the mid 1970s and a fun social group to hang out with. We saw real cults all around and steered clear of those. Even the president of my high school had a cult going in the Northwest. Pretty funny. When I went to TTC I had been informed of the minefields to be found there and steered clear of them. Some of the professionals in my group almost got bumped off the course because they didn't like the rules. I played the game and in Maharishi parlance got the goods. :-D It became acutely obvious to me as the first people I knew came back from (then) MIU. TTC folks learned to hide it well or be gone. One of the most disturbing was the unspoken caste system where wealth = more support of nature = more evolved. And conversely less money = less support of nature = less evolved. Of course Fairfield has to be the only place I know where Utopia was a trailer park. :-)
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Interesting MUM Developments
On Oct 12, 2009, at 5:01 PM, jpgillam wrote: The faculty are about 90% devotees, so their attempts to impose their values on the students weren't working. The university is trying to translate this assessment into practical steps to become more relevant and appealing to students. I immersed myself in the TM organization because I wanted to make things happen in my life and the world, and I embraced Maharishi's selling point that transcending influences relative life. Is the connection between transcending and success really so tenuous that the dreamers and entrepreneurs are not sold on its value? Are you honestly just realizing this now? It seems like the writing has been on the wall for sometime now, the importing of foreign students on corporate-sponsored job visas, the disreputable research has been known at least since the early 80's, the growing separation between true believers and people who think they're just getting a holistic education (only to find a more cultish mindset), etc. When it became glaringly obvious was around the time of MMY's death when people began flocking to Vlodrop. The pictures looked like a day trip from an old folks home by and large, with a few grandkids straggling along. After the true believers aged, and their kids were grown, there was no one really left. So they tried to go after the green/sustainable student market. Unfortunately for them, these kids turned out to be way too savvy for MUM and the TMO IMO. If such is the case, the faculty's course of action seems clear to me: establish the connection, through research and personal example. If they cannot make the connection, the University has no reason to exist. Unfortunately their scientific reputation is already quite bad, so barring something really good suddenly happening, it would be unrealistic to place any hope there. Their main hope for survival it seems is to tone down the Vedic crapola, drop the siddhis, promote TM, come clean on what it really is and push the sustainability and green aspects in a mainstream (not vedic) way--and/or whore off corporate visas should they remain. IMO the real future for the TM org is more likely South America, where a more superstitious population, less educated in general and hidden from much of the dirty laundry via a language gap which hides what's already gone down.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Interesting MUM Developments
On Oct 12, 2009, at 4:44 PM, ruthsimplicity wrote: I am just stopping in for a quick visit, after Vaj let me know about this development. I note the number of suck it up posts. I wouldn't be surprised if that was what had been done for years by the disenchanted. Now the student population has changed. Too many students no longer care about meditation. They come to MUM primarily for reasons other than TM--foreign students interested in the computer courses, others interested in the environmental programs. Students talk, they get a feel of the lay of the land, and then they do a petition. Students are idealists. This is the kind of thing they do. They could have been kicked out, which would be in accordance with the rules. But there were too many of them. If the survey Rick mentions correctly states the attitudes of MUM students, unless MUM bends there will be no more university. I wonder what the current drop out rate is? Oh there is no drop-out rate, Ruth. The university doesn't allow that-- they just kill em first. :) There just isn't many new generation true believers in the United States. Look at who pisses and moans about TM pro and con on the net--a bunch of 50 plus year olds. Are there any new up and coming researchers or are most of them 60 year old TBs? Who is Orme- Johnson's successor? I would shed no tears if MUM went belly up. But MUM trustees may have enough sense to realize that survival depends on being more secular.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Interesting MUM Developments
On Oct 12, 2009, at 4:58 PM, Vaj wrote: Unfortunately their scientific reputation is already quite bad, so barring something really good suddenly happening, it would be unrealistic to place any hope there. Their main hope for survival it seems is to tone down the Vedic crapola, drop the siddhis, promote TM, come clean on what it really is and push the sustainability and green aspects in a mainstream (not vedic) way--and/or whore off corporate visas should they remain. IMO the real future for the TM org is more likely South America, where a more superstitious population, less educated in general and hidden from much of the dirty laundry via a language gap which hides what's already gone down. And if even that doesn't work out, I have a suggestion for them: robots. I mean, why the hell not? For one thing, it would use up a lot of scrap metal--and that's sustainability, right? And for another, there'd be no problem with programming them, which would figure into their computer science dept. No problem with kids or pets either. I can see a great future for the university going this route. Sal
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Interesting MUM Developments
On Oct 12, 2009, at 7:44 PM, jpgillam wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj vajradh...@... wrote: On Oct 12, 2009, at 5:01 PM, jpgillam wrote: The faculty are about 90% devotees, so their attempts to impose their values on the students weren't working. The university is trying to translate this assessment into practical steps to become more relevant and appealing to students. I immersed myself in the TM organization because I wanted to make things happen in my life and the world, and I embraced Maharishi's selling point that transcending influences relative life. Is the connection between transcending and success really so tenuous that the dreamers and entrepreneurs are not sold on its value? Are you honestly just realizing this now? Forgive me; realizing what? That the connection between transcending and success is indeed tenuous? Or that the MUM faculty have done a poor job of communicating that connection? Or of making that connection? Please clarify. Are you just realizing that MUM is no longer a TM school, teaching TM ideals to people who are actually interested in TM, SCI or Vedism?
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Interesting MUM Developments
On Oct 12, 2009, at 8:07 PM, yifuxero wrote: The bottom line is that we can (a) transcend changes, or (b) make changes. The evidence for the making changes part simply isn't there! I therefore agree with the other contributor. The connections are tenuous. There could actually be a negative payoff, in certain circumstances; although by no means approaching the levels suggested by Vaj. Usually, people just quit since they haven't seen any results. I would beg to differ--I'd actually propose mental worship and/or meditation on an ishta-devata (e.g simple mental mantra recitation) can bring and is believed to bring relative benefits. YMMV. The question is: when someone isn't aware that the relative benefit is essentially a boon from a inner goddess radiating her effects via your nervous system onto your connection with the outer world; when that inner level of intention is missing through deception, does it work or does it work as well (as if you knew you were reciting, say, a mantra to the goddess of wisdom and inspired speech)? Or can the deception block that relative effect? IME teachers who simply ask their students what are you looking for, or what do you want in life and then give a mantra for that benefit, at least the student has some involvement at the level of intention. They are aligned with the benefit. If the student is left in the dark, that specific intention is left as an ambiguity.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Interesting MUM Developments
On Sun, Oct 11, 2009 at 10:22 PM, ShempMcGurk shempmcg...@netscape.net wrote: My first reaction to the fascinating post below is that ever since the advent of all the extras that the TMO sells and emphasizes these days -- schtapatyaveda, ayurveda, yagyas, sidhis, etc. etc. -- has, simply, watered down the core message of TM. Not only are people NOT starting TM in droves they way they did in the '70s but those that do start, such as the students described here, don't put much priority on it BECAUSE THE TMO DOESN'T EITHER. I mean, how can they when the message is watered down with all this other stuff. You can't say out of one side of your mouth that capturing the fort with 20 minutes of TM is all you need to have access to the goldmines that are in control of the fort and then, out of the other side of your mouth, sell and promote all those goldmines as extras. Something's gotta give, and in this case it's TM. TM meditators were in the eyes of Maharishi lower than whale shit. I remember how low I was. Locked out of courses, couldn't see tapes, which tapes I can't understand why they need to be kept from the whale shit. Couldn't attend meetings, WPAs. It got down to a residence course a year offered at MIU if you were lucky. And the residence courses were offered for rising sidhas and as infomercials for the sidhis. So MUM can't have it both ways. There's no equation to factor meditators into the Dome numbers. The TMers don't count. Furthermore, when I go to the mens dorms, I don't see a single white face. Well, now there's one, an RA who's on IA. They are all mud people who came here because someone else was paying. These people don't give a shit for MUM, Fairfield, Iowa, the United States or TM. They came to get what they could because they couldn't join a pirate ship or score it big spending spam as a solicitor looking to smuggle money out of their countries. Arise, wretched of the earth Arise, convicts of hunger Reason thunders in its crater This is the eruption of the end Of the past let us wipe the slate clean Enslaved masses, arise, arise The world is about to change its foundation We are nothing, let us be all This is the final struggle Let us group together, and tomorrow The Internationale Will be the human race.
