[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: snip That indeed might be the case. In which case, all of MMY's pontificating about full enlightenment meaning that one never makes mistakes was merely the wishful ramblings of yet another religious fanatic trying to justify the extremes of his religious tradition... --- authfriend jstein@... wrote: Unless what he was referring to was mistakes *from the cosmic perspective*, not the human perspective. I never even imagined that of all people, *you* would bullshit, but, now since that has happened
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Jason jedi_spock@... wrote: --- sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: snip That indeed might be the case. In which case, all of MMY's pontificating about full enlightenment meaning that one never makes mistakes was merely the wishful ramblings of yet another religious fanatic trying to justify the extremes of his religious tradition... --- authfriend jstein@ wrote: Unless what he was referring to was mistakes *from the cosmic perspective*, not the human perspective. I never even imagined that of all people, *you* would bullshit, And you were quite right. I don't bullshit. but, now since that has happened That you don't agree with something I've said does not equate to my having engaged in bullshitting. If you actually paid attention to MMY's teaching, you'd know what he said about mistakes didn't refer to mistakes from the human perspective.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
Dear Lawson, Just one thing you should know: By definition Unity Consciousness means the individual intention for one's actions does not start with oneself. It starts with cosmic intelligence. This was very much my experience. So, unless cosmic intelligence decided to make accomplishing the flying sidhi the criterion for Unity Consciousness; that is, cosmic intelligence, in a given moment decided to make someone fly through the flying sidhi, the mere demand that one prove one's enlightenment by being able to fly, well it is absurd. Because it suggests that one's behaviour becomes subject to the control and command of another person. Each and every action of some one who is enlightened is determined b cosmic intelligence, not individual intention separate from this cosmic intelligence. So Maharishi saying that being able to fly is the determinant of whether a person is enlightened or not, is just fatuousUNLESS he meant that, a person who is in Unity Consciousness, should cosmic intelligence through that person wish for him to fly, then he had better be able to fly! When I was in Unity Consciousness there was nothing anyone could say to me which would usurp the authority of this cosmic intelligence. So the demand: Prove that you are enlightened by flying right now would be the equivalent of saying: Your actions are determined by cosmic intelligence, but now I am going to be the author of your actions: Obey me, not cosmic intelligence. Maharishi himself was the classic exemplar of all this: never once attempting to prove or demonstrate he was enlightened. And this was because he was not subject to the demands or desires or judgments of anyone else. Not even to himself: he remained cosmic to the very end I believe. Do you understand what I am saying, Lawson? That if you were enlightened you would have the distinct and unchallengeable experience that all of your actions were out of your control, and therefore any person making a demand upon you simply would be computed cosmically in terms of: what is the correct and appropriate response to what this person is asking me to do, namely prove that I am enlightened by flying? And your response would NEVER be based upon satisfying the individual subjective consciousness of that person. Now it could come about that the cosmic intelligence decided: Ah, this person who is enlightened is being asked to fly in order to prove he or she is enlightened. Let's do it, then. But that would be on the terms of the cosmic intelligence and only incidentally having anything do with the individual having made this demand. Cosmic intelligence would take it out of this context and put it inside a cosmic context. That said, I believe enlightenment to be an unnatural state of consciousness, a perfect mystical hallucination. There is an experience of unboundednessperpetualand the experience of one's actions being spontaneous and creatively involuntary, guided, controlled and executed by cosmic intelligence, But the state of enlightenment is, in an ultimate sense, unrealIt is not a state of consciousness within which one is actually seeing reality as it actually is. This is NOT what is going on. One is seeing reality through a state of consciousness that does mechanically and metaphysically represent a state of consciousness other than mere waking state consciousness as known by the person before he or she became enlightened. But more than this, it is not the intelligence which created the universe which has created this state of consciousness; nor does the intelligence which created the universe have anything to do with the actions of the enlightened personI mean in the sense of being the direct and specific cause of those actions, In this sense the cosmic in cosmic consciousness is not cosmic at all. It certainly is a metaphysical power, and perhaps even is being controlled by very powerful intelligences; but those intelligences would be Maharishi's Vedic gods, or personal gods, or impulses of creative intelligence. Who have nothing to do with the creation of the universe nor the creation of Lawson, Robin, orsince she is part of this discussionJudy Stein. Even supposing there was someone who was a perfect Saintand was seen to levitate (as recorded in the lives of various Catholic Saints); in each case this levitation'flying'would never be at the behest of that person's free will; it would always be imposed upon that person 'from on high', from the intelligence of the Creator. Whatever is the nature of the intelligence which created the universe, which keeps the universe is existence, and which created you and me and keeps us in existence, that intelligence would never allow a single created being to defy the laws of gravity just at will, in order to prove the glorious truth that someone had achieved what Maharishi deemed Unity Consciousness. No one has ever been able to do something through individual will
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
All of this ignores my observation that IF you were involved with the TM-Sidhis practice at some point, you WOULD have manifested the ability to float during your TM-Sidhis practice as part of your transition to Unity, according to MMY's claim that full enlightenment can be tested by the ability to float. So, sorry, your claim that the universe is responsible in some way for your performance or non-performance of floating doesn't wash. Had you been practicing the TM-Sidhis during your transition to Unity, you would have been floating at some point. L. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Robin Carlsen maskedzebra@... wrote: Dear Lawson, Just one thing you should know: By definition Unity Consciousness means the individual intention for one's actions does not start with oneself. It starts with cosmic intelligence. This was very much my experience. So, unless cosmic intelligence decided to make accomplishing the flying sidhi the criterion for Unity Consciousness; that is, cosmic intelligence, in a given moment decided to make someone fly through the flying sidhi, the mere demand that one prove one's enlightenment by being able to fly, well it is absurd. Because it suggests that one's behaviour becomes subject to the control and command of another person. Each and every action of some one who is enlightened is determined b cosmic intelligence, not individual intention separate from this cosmic intelligence. So Maharishi saying that being able to fly is the determinant of whether a person is enlightened or not, is just fatuous�UNLESS he meant that, a person who is in Unity Consciousness, should cosmic intelligence through that person wish for him to fly, then he had better be able to fly! When I was in Unity Consciousness there was nothing anyone could say to me which would usurp the authority of this cosmic intelligence. So the demand: Prove that you are enlightened by flying right now would be the equivalent of saying: Your actions are determined by cosmic intelligence, but now I am going to be the author of your actions: Obey me, not cosmic intelligence. Maharishi himself was the classic exemplar of all this: never once attempting to prove or demonstrate he was enlightened. And this was because he was not subject to the demands or desires or judgments of anyone else. Not even to himself: he remained cosmic to the very end I believe. Do you understand what I am saying, Lawson? That if you were enlightened you would have the distinct and unchallengeable experience that all of your actions were out of your control, and therefore any person making a demand upon you simply would be computed cosmically in terms of: what is the correct and appropriate response to what this person is asking me to do, namely prove that I am enlightened by flying? And your response would NEVER be based upon satisfying the individual subjective consciousness of that person. Now it could come about that the cosmic intelligence decided: Ah, this person who is enlightened is being asked to fly in order to prove he or she is enlightened. Let's do it, then. But that would be on the terms of the cosmic intelligence and only incidentally having anything do with the individual having made this demand. Cosmic intelligence would take it out of this context and put it inside a cosmic context. That said, I believe enlightenment to be an unnatural state of consciousness, a perfect mystical hallucination. There is an experience of unboundedness�perpetual�and the experience of one's actions being spontaneous and creatively involuntary, guided, controlled and executed by cosmic intelligence, But the state of enlightenment is, in an ultimate sense, unreal�It is not a state of consciousness within which one is actually seeing reality as it actually is. This is NOT what is going on. One is seeing reality through a state of consciousness that does mechanically and metaphysically represent a state of consciousness other than mere waking state consciousness as known by the person before he or she became enlightened. But more than this, it is not the intelligence which created the universe which has created this state of consciousness; nor does the intelligence which created the universe have anything to do with the actions of the enlightened person�I mean in the sense of being the direct and specific cause of those actions, In this sense the cosmic in cosmic consciousness is not cosmic at all. It certainly is a metaphysical power, and perhaps even is being controlled by very powerful intelligences; but those intelligences would be Maharishi's Vedic gods, or personal gods, or impulses of creative intelligence. Who have nothing to do with the creation of the universe nor the creation of Lawson, Robin, or�since she is part of this discussion�Judy Stein. Even supposing there was someone who was a perfect
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@... wrote: All of this ignores my observation that IF you were involved with the TM-Sidhis practice at some point, you WOULD have manifested the ability to float during your TM-Sidhis practice as part of your transition to Unity, according to MMY's claim that full enlightenment can be tested by the ability to float. Even though MMY couldn't be bothered to demonstrate it himself. Nor has anyone else, ever. So, sorry, your claim that the universe is responsible in some way for your performance or non-performance of floating doesn't wash. Are the laws of physics optional then Lawson? Maybe that would be a good question for reddit. Had you been practicing the TM-Sidhis during your transition to Unity, you would have been floating at some point. May I predict from this that no-one in the TMO will ever reach unity according to MMYs definition? L. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Robin Carlsen maskedzebra@ wrote: Dear Lawson, Just one thing you should know: By definition Unity Consciousness means the individual intention for one's actions does not start with oneself. It starts with cosmic intelligence. This was very much my experience. So, unless cosmic intelligence decided to make accomplishing the flying sidhi the criterion for Unity Consciousness; that is, cosmic intelligence, in a given moment decided to make someone fly through the flying sidhi, the mere demand that one prove one's enlightenment by being able to fly, well it is absurd. Because it suggests that one's behaviour becomes subject to the control and command of another person. Each and every action of some one who is enlightened is determined b cosmic intelligence, not individual intention separate from this cosmic intelligence. So Maharishi saying that being able to fly is the determinant of whether a person is enlightened or not, is just fatuous�UNLESS he meant that, a person who is in Unity Consciousness, should cosmic intelligence through that person wish for him to fly, then he had better be able to fly! When I was in Unity Consciousness there was nothing anyone could say to me which would usurp the authority of this cosmic intelligence. So the demand: Prove that you are enlightened by flying right now would be the equivalent of saying: Your actions are determined by cosmic intelligence, but now I am going to be the author of your actions: Obey me, not cosmic intelligence. Maharishi himself was the classic exemplar of all this: never once attempting to prove or demonstrate he was enlightened. And this was because he was not subject to the demands or desires or judgments of anyone else. Not even to himself: he remained cosmic to the very end I believe. Do you understand what I am saying, Lawson? That if you were enlightened you would have the distinct and unchallengeable experience that all of your actions were out of your control, and therefore any person making a demand upon you simply would be computed cosmically in terms of: what is the correct and appropriate response to what this person is asking me to do, namely prove that I am enlightened by flying? And your response would NEVER be based upon satisfying the individual subjective consciousness of that person. Now it could come about that the cosmic intelligence decided: Ah, this person who is enlightened is being asked to fly in order to prove he or she is enlightened. Let's do it, then. But that would be on the terms of the cosmic intelligence and only incidentally having anything do with the individual having made this demand. Cosmic intelligence would take it out of this context and put it inside a cosmic context. That said, I believe enlightenment to be an unnatural state of consciousness, a perfect mystical hallucination. There is an experience of unboundedness�perpetual�and the experience of one's actions being spontaneous and creatively involuntary, guided, controlled and executed by cosmic intelligence, But the state of enlightenment is, in an ultimate sense, unreal�It is not a state of consciousness within which one is actually seeing reality as it actually is. This is NOT what is going on. One is seeing reality through a state of consciousness that does mechanically and metaphysically represent a state of consciousness other than mere waking state consciousness as known by the person before he or she became enlightened. But more than this, it is not the intelligence which created the universe which has created this state of consciousness; nor does the intelligence which created the universe have anything to do with the actions of the enlightened person�I mean in the sense of being the direct and specific cause of those actions, In this sense the cosmic in cosmic consciousness is not cosmic at all. It
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, salyavin808 fintlewoodlewix@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: All of this ignores my observation that IF you were involved with the TM-Sidhis practice at some point, you WOULD have manifested the ability to float during your TM-Sidhis practice as part of your transition to Unity, according to MMY's claim that full enlightenment can be tested by the ability to float. Even though MMY couldn't be bothered to demonstrate it himself. Nor has anyone else, ever. So, sorry, your claim that the universe is responsible in some way for your performance or non-performance of floating doesn't wash. Are the laws of physics optional then Lawson? Maybe that would be a good question for reddit. Had you been practicing the TM-Sidhis during your transition to Unity, you would have been floating at some point. May I predict from this that no-one in the TMO will ever reach unity according to MMYs definition? That indeed might be the case. In which case, all of MMY's pontificating about full enlightenment meaning that one never makes mistakes was merely the wishful ramblings of yet another religious fanatic trying to justify the extremes of his religious tradition... ... and so? Whatever benefits I may or may not get from my own TM and TM-Sidhis practice have nothing to do with MMY's purported state of perfection or lack thereof. You can certainly make the argument that if MMY wasn't perfect, than basing your decision to meditate, etc., only on his say-so is foolish, but, I have my own reasons for continuing that go beyond whatever beliefs I had acquired when I was a naive 18-year-old (now I have NEW reasons commensurate with being a naive 57-year-old!!!). L.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, salyavin808 fintlewoodlewix@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: All of this ignores my observation that IF you were involved with the TM-Sidhis practice at some point, you WOULD have manifested the ability to float during your TM-Sidhis practice as part of your transition to Unity, according to MMY's claim that full enlightenment can be tested by the ability to float. Even though MMY couldn't be bothered to demonstrate it himself. Nor has anyone else, ever. So, sorry, your claim that the universe is responsible in some way for your performance or non-performance of floating doesn't wash. Are the laws of physics optional then Lawson? Maybe that would be a good question for reddit. Had you been practicing the TM-Sidhis during your transition to Unity, you would have been floating at some point. May I predict from this that no-one in the TMO will ever reach unity according to MMYs definition? That indeed might be the case. In which case, all of MMY's pontificating about full enlightenment meaning that one never makes mistakes was merely the wishful ramblings of yet another religious fanatic trying to justify the extremes of his religious tradition... ... and so? Whatever benefits I may or may not get from my own TM and TM- Sidhis practice have nothing to do with MMY's purported state of perfection or lack thereof. You can certainly make the argument that if MMY wasn't perfect, than basing your decision to meditate, etc., only on his say-so is foolish, but, I have my own reasons for continuing that go beyond whatever beliefs I had acquired when I was a naive 18-year-old (now I have NEW reasons commensurate with being a naive 57-year-old!!!). A naive 57-year-old who is up (if I am not mistaken) at 4:00 am his time still obsessing on this stuff and writing about it compulsively on the Internet. Take a break from this stuff, man. Relax, and let someone else fight Maharishi's and the TMO's battles for a while. You're just making yourself sick by feeling that you have to fight them, or that they need you to fight them. Continuing to obsess here? Trying to provoke arguments on Reddit so that you can obsess about it there? These are the benefits that you've gotten from all these years of TM and the TM-Sidhis? Find a life for yourself that makes you happy, man. Get back on your meds and leave this pathetic movement to defend itself. It's not worth making yourself crazy over. It never was.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, salyavin808 fintlewoodlewix@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: All of this ignores my observation that IF you were involved with the TM-Sidhis practice at some point, you WOULD have manifested the ability to float during your TM-Sidhis practice as part of your transition to Unity, according to MMY's claim that full enlightenment can be tested by the ability to float. Even though MMY couldn't be bothered to demonstrate it himself. Nor has anyone else, ever. So, sorry, your claim that the universe is responsible in some way for your performance or non-performance of floating doesn't wash. Are the laws of physics optional then Lawson? Maybe that would be a good question for reddit. Had you been practicing the TM-Sidhis during your transition to Unity, you would have been floating at some point. May I predict from this that no-one in the TMO will ever reach unity according to MMYs definition? That indeed might be the case. In which case, all of MMY's pontificating about full enlightenment meaning that one never makes mistakes was merely the wishful ramblings of yet another religious fanatic trying to justify the extremes of his religious tradition... ... and so? Whatever benefits I may or may not get from my own TM and TM- Sidhis practice have nothing to do with MMY's purported state of perfection or lack thereof. You can certainly make the argument that if MMY wasn't perfect, than basing your decision to meditate, etc., only on his say-so is foolish, but, I have my own reasons for continuing that go beyond whatever beliefs I had acquired when I was a naive 18-year-old (now I have NEW reasons commensurate with being a naive 57-year-old!!!). A naive 57-year-old who is up (if I am not mistaken) at 4:00 am his time still obsessing on this stuff and writing about it compulsively on the Internet. Take a break from this stuff, man. Relax, and let someone else fight Maharishi's and the TMO's battles for a while. You're just making yourself sick by feeling that you have to fight them, or that they need you to fight them. Continuing to obsess here? Trying to provoke arguments on Reddit so that you can obsess about it there? These are the benefits that you've gotten from all these years of TM and the TM-Sidhis? Find a life for yourself that makes you happy, man. Get back on your meds and leave this pathetic movement to defend itself. It's not worth making yourself crazy over. It never was. You have your hobbies and I have mine. Besides, I have a blast doing this stuff, and I think (with a huge dose of suspicion that I am wrong), I just solved the hard problem or at least came up with an important insight about it. Similarly, my late-night obsession with contact juggling has given rise to a new juggling technique that almost no-one in the world has appeared to attempt. I can now credibly say that I am on the way to being able to spin two balls on the BACK of my hand, rather than in the palm (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuGuYPo9Tw8). L
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
Robin, the very moment you start to DEFEND your own enlightenment, there is already something wrong. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Robin Carlsen maskedzebra@... wrote: Dear Lawson, Just one thing you should know: By definition Unity Consciousness means the individual intention for one's actions does not start with oneself. It starts with cosmic intelligence. This was very much my experience. So, unless cosmic intelligence decided to make accomplishing the flying sidhi the criterion for Unity Consciousness; that is, cosmic intelligence, in a given moment decided to make someone fly through the flying sidhi, the mere demand that one prove one's enlightenment by being able to fly, well it is absurd. Because it suggests that one's behaviour becomes subject to the control and command of another person. Each and every action of some one who is enlightened is determined b cosmic intelligence, not individual intention separate from this cosmic intelligence. So Maharishi saying that being able to fly is the determinant of whether a person is enlightened or not, is just fatuousUNLESS he meant that, a person who is in Unity Consciousness, should cosmic intelligence through that person wish for him to fly, then he had better be able to fly! When I was in Unity Consciousness there was nothing anyone could say to me which would usurp the authority of this cosmic intelligence. So the demand: Prove that you are enlightened by flying right now would be the equivalent of saying: Your actions are determined by cosmic intelligence, but now I am going to be the author of your actions: Obey me, not cosmic intelligence. Maharishi himself was the classic exemplar of all this: never once attempting to prove or demonstrate he was enlightened. And this was because he was not subject to the demands or desires or judgments of anyone else. Not even to himself: he remained cosmic to the very end I believe. Do you understand what I am saying, Lawson? That if you were enlightened you would have the distinct and unchallengeable experience that all of your actions were out of your control, and therefore any person making a demand upon you simply would be computed cosmically in terms of: what is the correct and appropriate response to what this person is asking me to do, namely prove that I am enlightened by flying? And your response would NEVER be based upon satisfying the individual subjective consciousness of that person. Now it could come about that the cosmic intelligence decided: Ah, this person who is enlightened is being asked to fly in order to prove he or she is enlightened. Let's do it, then. But that would be on the terms of the cosmic intelligence and only incidentally having anything do with the individual having made this demand. Cosmic intelligence would take it out of this context and put it inside a cosmic context. That said, I believe enlightenment to be an unnatural state of consciousness, a perfect mystical hallucination. There is an experience of unboundednessperpetualand the experience of one's actions being spontaneous and creatively involuntary, guided, controlled and executed by cosmic intelligence, But the state of enlightenment is, in an ultimate sense, unrealIt is not a state of consciousness within which one is actually seeing reality as it actually is. This is NOT what is going on. One is seeing reality through a state of consciousness that does mechanically and metaphysically represent a state of consciousness other than mere waking state consciousness as known by the person before he or she became enlightened. But more than this, it is not the intelligence which created the universe which has created this state of consciousness; nor does the intelligence which created the universe have anything to do with the actions of the enlightened personI mean in the sense of being the direct and specific cause of those actions, In this sense the cosmic in cosmic consciousness is not cosmic at all. It certainly is a metaphysical power, and perhaps even is being controlled by very powerful intelligences; but those intelligences would be Maharishi's Vedic gods, or personal gods, or impulses of creative intelligence. Who have nothing to do with the creation of the universe nor the creation of Lawson, Robin, orsince she is part of this discussionJudy Stein. Even supposing there was someone who was a perfect Saintand was seen to levitate (as recorded in the lives of various Catholic Saints); in each case this levitation'flying'would never be at the behest of that person's free will; it would always be imposed upon that person 'from on high', from the intelligence of the Creator. Whatever is the nature of the intelligence which created the universe, which keeps the universe is existence, and which created you and me and keeps us in existence, that intelligence would
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: ...I have my own reasons for continuing that go beyond whatever beliefs I had acquired when I was a naive 18-year-old (now I have NEW reasons commensurate with being a naive 57-year-old!!!). A naive 57-year-old who is up (if I am not mistaken) at 4:00 am his time still obsessing on this stuff and writing about it compulsively on the Internet. Take a break from this stuff, man. Relax, and let someone else fight Maharishi's and the TMO's battles for a while. You're just making yourself sick by feeling that you have to fight them, or that they need you to fight them. Continuing to obsess here? Trying to provoke arguments on Reddit so that you can obsess about it there? These are the benefits that you've gotten from all these years of TM and the TM-Sidhis? Find a life for yourself that makes you happy, man. Get back on your meds and leave this pathetic movement to defend itself. It's not worth making yourself crazy over. It never was. You have your hobbies and I have mine. Besides, I have a blast doing this stuff, and I think (with a huge dose of suspicion that I am wrong), I just solved the hard problem or at least came up with an important insight about it. Similarly, my late-night obsession with contact juggling has given rise to a new juggling technique that almost no-one in the world has appeared to attempt. I can now credibly say that I am on the way to being able to spin two balls on the BACK of my hand, rather than in the palm (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuGuYPo9Tw8). Congratulations. I guess. You'll have to forgive me if it sounds almost as practical and useful to the world as becoming enlightened, TM-style. I wish you the best, and I hope you find happiness and balance in your life, Lawson. But I think that being an enabler in your ongoing obsessions is not helping that to happen, so I'll bow out now. Good luck. Really.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, iranitea no_reply@... wrote: Robin, the very moment you start to DEFEND your own enlightenment, there is already something wrong. I didn't read any of this, and won't. It's too sad to participate in, even vicariously. I'm commenting because the something wrong that you perceive probably has to do with the word your with regard to enlightenment. As long as there is someone who feels it is my state of consciousness, or my past, or even my present, and that someone feels the need to defend any of these things, there is an ego involved. The larger the defense, the larger the ego. As I've said recently, IMO to interact with that ego is to facilitate its attempts to hold onto itself (its self), and thus is not a favor. Then. Now. No difference, as far as I can tell... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ksa4VjKE3RY --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Robin Carlsen maskedzebra@ wrote: Dear Lawson, Just one thing you should know: By definition Unity Consciousness means the individual intention for one's actions does not start with oneself. It starts with cosmic intelligence. This was very much my experience. So, unless cosmic intelligence decided to make accomplishing the flying sidhi the criterion for Unity Consciousness; that is, cosmic intelligence, in a given moment decided to make someone fly through the flying sidhi, the mere demand that one prove one's enlightenment by being able to fly, well it is absurd. Because it suggests that one's behaviour becomes subject to the control and command of another person. Each and every action of some one who is enlightened is determined b cosmic intelligence, not individual intention separate from this cosmic intelligence. So Maharishi saying that being able to fly is the determinant of whether a person is enlightened or not, is just fatuousUNLESS he meant that, a person who is in Unity Consciousness, should cosmic intelligence through that person wish for him to fly, then he had better be able to fly! When I was in Unity Consciousness there was nothing anyone could say to me which would usurp the authority of this cosmic intelligence. So the demand: Prove that you are enlightened by flying right now would be the equivalent of saying: Your actions are determined by cosmic intelligence, but now I am going to be the author of your actions: Obey me, not cosmic intelligence. Maharishi himself was the classic exemplar of all this: never once attempting to prove or demonstrate he was enlightened. And this was because he was not subject to the demands or desires or judgments of anyone else. Not even to himself: he remained cosmic to the very end I believe. Do you understand what I am saying, Lawson? That if you were enlightened you would have the distinct and unchallengeable experience that all of your actions were out of your control, and therefore any person making a demand upon you simply would be computed cosmically in terms of: what is the correct and appropriate response to what this person is asking me to do, namely prove that I am enlightened by flying? And your response would NEVER be based upon satisfying the individual subjective consciousness of that person. Now it could come about that the cosmic intelligence decided: Ah, this person who is enlightened is being asked to fly in order to prove he or she is enlightened. Let's do it, then. But that would be on the terms of the cosmic intelligence and only incidentally having anything do with the individual having made this demand. Cosmic intelligence would take it out of this context and put it inside a cosmic context. That said, I believe enlightenment to be an unnatural state of consciousness, a perfect mystical hallucination. There is an experience of unboundednessperpetualand the experience of one's actions being spontaneous and creatively involuntary, guided, controlled and executed by cosmic intelligence, But the state of enlightenment is, in an ultimate sense, unrealIt is not a state of consciousness within which one is actually seeing reality as it actually is. This is NOT what is going on. One is seeing reality through a state of consciousness that does mechanically and metaphysically represent a state of consciousness other than mere waking state consciousness as known by the person before he or she became enlightened. But more than this, it is not the intelligence which created the universe which has created this state of consciousness; nor does the intelligence which created the universe have anything to do with the actions of the enlightened personI mean in the sense of being the direct and specific cause of those actions, In this sense the cosmic in cosmic consciousness is not cosmic at all. It certainly is a metaphysical power, and perhaps even is being controlled by very
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, iranitea no_reply@ wrote: Robin, the very moment you start to DEFEND your own enlightenment, there is already something wrong. I didn't read any of this, and won't. It's too sad to participate in, even vicariously. I'm commenting because the something wrong that you perceive probably has to do with the word your with regard to enlightenment. As long as there is someone who feels it is my state of consciousness, or my past, or even my present, and that someone feels the need to defend any of these things, there is an ego involved. The larger the defense, the larger the ego. As I've said recently, IMO to interact with that ego is to facilitate its attempts to hold onto itself (its self), and thus is not a favor. Yep. I am already given to the power that rules my fate. And I cling to nothing, so I will have nothing to defend. I have no thoughts, so I will see. I fear nothing, so I will remember myself. Detached and at ease, I will dart past the Eagle to be free. Then. Now. No difference, as far as I can tell... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ksa4VjKE3RY Great song! so true http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLKiMbC6s2k
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
Welcome back Robin. I did not say anything earlier, not sure you were going to stay a while. And I do not seem to have much time lately to wade through voluminous text. I think your analysis below has some weight to it. As Susan hinted at earlier, I think the state you were experiencing was a mystical state of union, not enlightenment; you cannot back out of enlightenment; you can back out of glimpses or more sustained experiences of its precursors. Enlightenment is a realisation, it is not a sustained experience of one type; it is an understanding, though not an intellectual one, and it shows one that all ideas one had about it were nonsense. It is utterly not metaphysical. The Zen master Dogen said, 'Do not think you will necessarily be aware of your own enlightenment'. The ego resists to the end its destruction, or rather its inactivation; it can hang around, like a broken watch. Yours is still ticking. This is not wrong or bad. Giving up control not bad either; but the 'correct' understanding is that it makes no difference whatever whether you are in control or not. I tend to dislike religious terminology, that metaphysical murk, but I found this passage which might interest you by C.S. Lewis, that atheist, then Christian, then an off-again and on-again Christian: 'God will invade. But I wonder whether people who ask God to interfere openly and directly our world quite realise what it will be like when He does. When that happens, it is the end of the world. When the author walks onto the stage the play is over. God is going to invade, all right: but what is the good of saying your are on His side then, when you see the whole natural universe melting away like a dream and something else --- something it never entered your head to conceive --- comes crashing in; something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others that none of us will have any choice left?' The embrace of God is terrible and crushing to the ego; I believe you are simply substituting another version of the ego's grasp for immortality, its attempt to subvert infinity for its limited ends. The ego wants God as an ally, to pump itself up; God only 'wants' to be God, because God is God - I am that I am, and, all This is That. Eventually a watch will stop. Eventually time will run out for you, and then there will be no choice, in that peculiar sense that it does not matter, but it is not a bad thing. Like Barry, you seem to have an interest in maintaining free will, that strange concept that we are agents of our own destiny. We are, but not in the sense we tend to think. In this you and Barry seem to be alike even if all else about you is not. I imagine the two of you being on the same boat, though one is perhaps starboard, and the other is on the port side. The boat I am imagining is the Titanic; nothing like a dip in the cool ocean to wake one up. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Robin Carlsen maskedzebra@... wrote: Dear Lawson, Just one thing you should know: By definition Unity Consciousness means the individual intention for one's actions does not start with oneself. It starts with cosmic intelligence. This was very much my experience. So, unless cosmic intelligence decided to make accomplishing the flying sidhi the criterion for Unity Consciousness; that is, cosmic intelligence, in a given moment decided to make someone fly through the flying sidhi, the mere demand that one prove one's enlightenment by being able to fly, well it is absurd. Because it suggests that one's behaviour becomes subject to the control and command of another person. Each and every action of some one who is enlightened is determined b cosmic intelligence, not individual intention separate from this cosmic intelligence. So Maharishi saying that being able to fly is the determinant of whether a person is enlightened or not, is just fatuousUNLESS he meant that, a person who is in Unity Consciousness, should cosmic intelligence through that person wish for him to fly, then he had better be able to fly! When I was in Unity Consciousness there was nothing anyone could say to me which would usurp the authority of this cosmic intelligence. So the demand: Prove that you are enlightened by flying right now would be the equivalent of saying: Your actions are determined by cosmic intelligence, but now I am going to be the author of your actions: Obey me, not cosmic intelligence. Maharishi himself was the classic exemplar of all this: never once attempting to prove or demonstrate he was enlightened. And this was because he was not subject to the demands or desires or judgments of anyone else. Not even to himself: he remained cosmic to the very end I believe. Do you understand what I am saying, Lawson? That if you were enlightened you would have the distinct and unchallengeable experience that all of your actions were out of your control, and therefore any
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@... wrote: All of this ignores my observation that IF you were involved with the TM-Sidhis practice at some point, you WOULD have manifested the ability to float during your TM-Sidhis practice as part of your transition to Unity, according to MMY's claim that full enlightenment can be tested by the ability to float. Except that according to Robin, there was no such transition. He was in waking state, and then all of a sudden he was in Unity. So, sorry, your claim that the universe is responsible in some way for your performance or non-performance of floating doesn't wash. If the state of consciousness that Robin achieved was Unity as MMY described it, and if Robin achieved this state of consciousness instantaneously from waking state, as he claims, then he would never have been in a position to reliably demonstrate flying on someone else's demand, i.e., by the exercise of his own intention in response to that demand. If he had ever flown, in either state, it would have been because this universal intelligence decided he should, entirely independently of his own individual intention. And this would have been the case during program as well. Had you been practicing the TM-Sidhis during your transition to Unity, you would have been floating at some point. L. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Robin Carlsen maskedzebra@ wrote: Dear Lawson, Just one thing you should know: By definition Unity Consciousness means the individual intention for one's actions does not start with oneself. It starts with cosmic intelligence. This was very much my experience. So, unless cosmic intelligence decided to make accomplishing the flying sidhi the criterion for Unity Consciousness; that is, cosmic intelligence, in a given moment decided to make someone fly through the flying sidhi, the mere demand that one prove one's enlightenment by being able to fly, well it is absurd. Because it suggests that one's behaviour becomes subject to the control and command of another person. Each and every action of some one who is enlightened is determined b cosmic intelligence, not individual intention separate from this cosmic intelligence. So Maharishi saying that being able to fly is the determinant of whether a person is enlightened or not, is just fatuous�UNLESS he meant that, a person who is in Unity Consciousness, should cosmic intelligence through that person wish for him to fly, then he had better be able to fly! When I was in Unity Consciousness there was nothing anyone could say to me which would usurp the authority of this cosmic intelligence. So the demand: Prove that you are enlightened by flying right now would be the equivalent of saying: Your actions are determined by cosmic intelligence, but now I am going to be the author of your actions: Obey me, not cosmic intelligence. Maharishi himself was the classic exemplar of all this: never once attempting to prove or demonstrate he was enlightened. And this was because he was not subject to the demands or desires or judgments of anyone else. Not even to himself: he remained cosmic to the very end I believe. Do you understand what I am saying, Lawson? That if you were enlightened you would have the distinct and unchallengeable experience that all of your actions were out of your control, and therefore any person making a demand upon you simply would be computed cosmically in terms of: what is the correct and appropriate response to what this person is asking me to do, namely prove that I am enlightened by flying? And your response would NEVER be based upon satisfying the individual subjective consciousness of that person. Now it could come about that the cosmic intelligence decided: Ah, this person who is enlightened is being asked to fly in order to prove he or she is enlightened. Let's do it, then. But that would be on the terms of the cosmic intelligence and only incidentally having anything do with the individual having made this demand. Cosmic intelligence would take it out of this context and put it inside a cosmic context. That said, I believe enlightenment to be an unnatural state of consciousness, a perfect mystical hallucination. There is an experience of unboundedness�perpetual�and the experience of one's actions being spontaneous and creatively involuntary, guided, controlled and executed by cosmic intelligence, But the state of enlightenment is, in an ultimate sense, unreal�It is not a state of consciousness within which one is actually seeing reality as it actually is. This is NOT what is going on. One is seeing reality through a state of consciousness that does mechanically and metaphysically represent a state of consciousness other than mere waking state consciousness as known by the person before he or she became
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
Xeno, can you fly? --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Xenophaneros Anartaxius anartaxius@... wrote: Welcome back Robin. I did not say anything earlier, not sure you were going to stay a while. And I do not seem to have much time lately to wade through voluminous text. I think your analysis below has some weight to it. As Susan hinted at earlier, I think the state you were experiencing was a mystical state of union, not enlightenment; you cannot back out of enlightenment; you can back out of glimpses or more sustained experiences of its precursors. Enlightenment is a realisation, it is not a sustained experience of one type; it is an understanding, though not an intellectual one, and it shows one that all ideas one had about it were nonsense. It is utterly not metaphysical. The Zen master Dogen said, 'Do not think you will necessarily be aware of your own enlightenment'. The ego resists to the end its destruction, or rather its inactivation; it can hang around, like a broken watch. Yours is still ticking. This is not wrong or bad. Giving up control not bad either; but the 'correct' understanding is that it makes no difference whatever whether you are in control or not. I tend to dislike religious terminology, that metaphysical murk, but I found this passage which might interest you by C.S. Lewis, that atheist, then Christian, then an off-again and on-again Christian: 'God will invade. But I wonder whether people who ask God to interfere openly and directly our world quite realise what it will be like when He does. When that happens, it is the end of the world. When the author walks onto the stage the play is over. God is going to invade, all right: but what is the good of saying your are on His side then, when you see the whole natural universe melting away like a dream and something else --- something it never entered your head to conceive --- comes crashing in; something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others that none of us will have any choice left?' The embrace of God is terrible and crushing to the ego; I believe you are simply substituting another version of the ego's grasp for immortality, its attempt to subvert infinity for its limited ends. The ego wants God as an ally, to pump itself up; God only 'wants' to be God, because God is God - I am that I am, and, all This is That. Eventually a watch will stop. Eventually time will run out for you, and then there will be no choice, in that peculiar sense that it does not matter, but it is not a bad thing. Like Barry, you seem to have an interest in maintaining free will, that strange concept that we are agents of our own destiny. We are, but not in the sense we tend to think. In this you and Barry seem to be alike even if all else about you is not. I imagine the two of you being on the same boat, though one is perhaps starboard, and the other is on the port side. The boat I am imagining is the Titanic; nothing like a dip in the cool ocean to wake one up. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Robin Carlsen maskedzebra@ wrote: Dear Lawson, Just one thing you should know: By definition Unity Consciousness means the individual intention for one's actions does not start with oneself. It starts with cosmic intelligence. This was very much my experience. So, unless cosmic intelligence decided to make accomplishing the flying sidhi the criterion for Unity Consciousness; that is, cosmic intelligence, in a given moment decided to make someone fly through the flying sidhi, the mere demand that one prove one's enlightenment by being able to fly, well it is absurd. Because it suggests that one's behaviour becomes subject to the control and command of another person. Each and every action of some one who is enlightened is determined b cosmic intelligence, not individual intention separate from this cosmic intelligence. So Maharishi saying that being able to fly is the determinant of whether a person is enlightened or not, is just fatuousUNLESS he meant that, a person who is in Unity Consciousness, should cosmic intelligence through that person wish for him to fly, then he had better be able to fly! When I was in Unity Consciousness there was nothing anyone could say to me which would usurp the authority of this cosmic intelligence. So the demand: Prove that you are enlightened by flying right now would be the equivalent of saying: Your actions are determined by cosmic intelligence, but now I am going to be the author of your actions: Obey me, not cosmic intelligence. Maharishi himself was the classic exemplar of all this: never once attempting to prove or demonstrate he was enlightened. And this was because he was not subject to the demands or desires or judgments of anyone else. Not even to himself: he remained cosmic to the very end I believe. Do you understand what I
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
Dear Lawson, I was NOT practising the TM-Sidhis during [my] transition to Unity. Maharishi introduced us (on my Sixth Month Course) to the sidhis *after* I 'slipped into Unity', and even then they were not formalized; there was no hopping; they were given out just like mantras, and we did them in groups. I think we may have even pronounced them aloud. [Phil Goldberg will remember; he was in my group, and I remember his comment when we first did them together: He felt the experience was similar to getting high on something else.] I believe it was only the Six Month Course after mine when Maharishi designed the sidhis so that they became systematically part of what came to be called the TM-Sidhi program, and they were done as part of one's individual program. Which would mean that anyone on my Six Month Course would have to be instructed into these techniques. I never was. Except unlawfully. But had I been practising the TM-Sidhis before I became enlightened, I think you make a very good point: For had Maharishi *at that time* declared that full enlightenment can be tested by the ability to float I think I would have been in a dilemma. Not that this could affect the actual *mechanical style of functioning* which is Unity: Charlie Donahue once wrote an essay (this is approximately the title): Criteria of Cosmic Consciousness, where he listed about 25 experiential and behavioural characteristics of CC [taken from Maharishi's speeches and writing]. In that essay he conclusively demonstrates that Enlightenment is as different from waking state as waking state is different from sleep. The nervous system is operating in an objectively different way in the case of the transition from waking state to sleep state, and from waking state to Unity Consciousness. But logically, and taking Maharishi at his word here, it would seem conceptually that had Maharishi decidedwhich he had never done for the first quarter of a century of bringing his Teaching to the worldthat enlightenment can be tested by the ability to floatand against all the other Eastern sages and teachers who had ever lived before him that unless you could do this you were not enlightenedthen this would have presented meat least in terms of that part of me which was a witness to my enlightenmenta stress. And I think your argument a good one if everyone ahead of time on all those long-rounding courses that Maharishi offered knew: No matter what the Buddha said, no matter what any other tradition said, *the only valid proof of full enlightenment* would be a criterion that Maharishi would not stipulate until many years later and then only inside a specific context, namely: IF you were involved with the TM-Sidhis practice at some point, you WOULD have manifested the ability to float during your TM-Sidhis practice as part of your transition to Unity. Now as I write that I realize that perhaps you are saying that anyone who reached Unity Consciousness before this test was available still would be considered to have reached this state of consciousness? I am just looking at the logical implication of what have said, Lawson. In any event, from where you understand Maharishi, it seems conceptually you are right; and therefore I am going to say that if Maharishi was actually correct in making this the acid test of Unity Consciousness, then, according to that definition I could not have been in Unity. What impresses me about your line of argument, Lawson, is the perfect obedience and adherence of yourself to Maharishi's Teachings. You obtain your sense of freedom and integrity from your beautiful enslavement to the Master. I am sure this had everything to do with Maharishi becoming enlightened under his Master, Guru Dev. And it would seem in a profound way (even though I must assume you are not a teacher of TM, therefore not really subject to the level and extent of disillusionment of some of the rest of us) you are remaining true to Maharishi and uninfluenced by any stories that have come out which would tend to challenge the truth that Maharishi was a perfect Teacher and was therefore the embodiment of Truth. I am going to insist that I was helplessly and *seemingly* irreversibly put into another state of consciousness; but I am not going to quarrel with your understanding of what Maharishi has said, and therefore your judgment of the validity of my claim to be enlightened. Because the context within which you are making this argument is that context which isas I understood Maharishi in relationship to Guru Devhow Maharishi himself became englightened: that is, perfect docility and surrender and obedience to the Master. I doubt Bevan or Tony or JHagelin or anyone has a more faithful and innocent and meritorious orientation to Maharishi and the TM-Sidhis than you do. That is, in the assumption that Maharishi was speaking on behalf of the highest truth that exists inside the universe for a
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
I am not a siddha. What does this have to do with enlightenment? Who in the TMO, including MMY have demonstrated this? I am speaking of scientifically confirmed levitation, even temporary and partial (reduction of body mass, not necessarily floating). Names, places, researchers, and peer reviewed papers please. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@... wrote: Xeno, can you fly? --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Xenophaneros Anartaxius anartaxius@ wrote: Welcome back Robin. I did not say anything earlier, not sure you were going to stay a while. And I do not seem to have much time lately to wade through voluminous text. I think your analysis below has some weight to it. As Susan hinted at earlier, I think the state you were experiencing was a mystical state of union, not enlightenment; you cannot back out of enlightenment; you can back out of glimpses or more sustained experiences of its precursors. Enlightenment is a realisation, it is not a sustained experience of one type; it is an understanding, though not an intellectual one, and it shows one that all ideas one had about it were nonsense. It is utterly not metaphysical. The Zen master Dogen said, 'Do not think you will necessarily be aware of your own enlightenment'. The ego resists to the end its destruction, or rather its inactivation; it can hang around, like a broken watch. Yours is still ticking. This is not wrong or bad. Giving up control not bad either; but the 'correct' understanding is that it makes no difference whatever whether you are in control or not. I tend to dislike religious terminology, that metaphysical murk, but I found this passage which might interest you by C.S. Lewis, that atheist, then Christian, then an off-again and on-again Christian: 'God will invade. But I wonder whether people who ask God to interfere openly and directly our world quite realise what it will be like when He does. When that happens, it is the end of the world. When the author walks onto the stage the play is over. God is going to invade, all right: but what is the good of saying your are on His side then, when you see the whole natural universe melting away like a dream and something else --- something it never entered your head to conceive --- comes crashing in; something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others that none of us will have any choice left?' The embrace of God is terrible and crushing to the ego; I believe you are simply substituting another version of the ego's grasp for immortality, its attempt to subvert infinity for its limited ends. The ego wants God as an ally, to pump itself up; God only 'wants' to be God, because God is God - I am that I am, and, all This is That. Eventually a watch will stop. Eventually time will run out for you, and then there will be no choice, in that peculiar sense that it does not matter, but it is not a bad thing. Like Barry, you seem to have an interest in maintaining free will, that strange concept that we are agents of our own destiny. We are, but not in the sense we tend to think. In this you and Barry seem to be alike even if all else about you is not. I imagine the two of you being on the same boat, though one is perhaps starboard, and the other is on the port side. The boat I am imagining is the Titanic; nothing like a dip in the cool ocean to wake one up. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Robin Carlsen maskedzebra@ wrote: Dear Lawson, Just one thing you should know: By definition Unity Consciousness means the individual intention for one's actions does not start with oneself. It starts with cosmic intelligence. This was very much my experience. So, unless cosmic intelligence decided to make accomplishing the flying sidhi the criterion for Unity Consciousness; that is, cosmic intelligence, in a given moment decided to make someone fly through the flying sidhi, the mere demand that one prove one's enlightenment by being able to fly, well it is absurd. Because it suggests that one's behaviour becomes subject to the control and command of another person. Each and every action of some one who is enlightened is determined b cosmic intelligence, not individual intention separate from this cosmic intelligence. So Maharishi saying that being able to fly is the determinant of whether a person is enlightened or not, is just fatuousUNLESS he meant that, a person who is in Unity Consciousness, should cosmic intelligence through that person wish for him to fly, then he had better be able to fly! When I was in Unity Consciousness there was nothing anyone could say to me which would usurp the authority of this cosmic intelligence. So the demand: Prove that you are enlightened by flying right now would be the equivalent of saying: Your
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
Just to acknowledge that according to what Robin says in his post to Lawson on this, what I've said here is irrlevant/off base. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: All of this ignores my observation that IF you were involved with the TM-Sidhis practice at some point, you WOULD have manifested the ability to float during your TM-Sidhis practice as part of your transition to Unity, according to MMY's claim that full enlightenment can be tested by the ability to float. Except that according to Robin, there was no such transition. He was in waking state, and then all of a sudden he was in Unity. So, sorry, your claim that the universe is responsible in some way for your performance or non-performance of floating doesn't wash. If the state of consciousness that Robin achieved was Unity as MMY described it, and if Robin achieved this state of consciousness instantaneously from waking state, as he claims, then he would never have been in a position to reliably demonstrate flying on someone else's demand, i.e., by the exercise of his own intention in response to that demand. If he had ever flown, in either state, it would have been because this universal intelligence decided he should, entirely independently of his own individual intention. And this would have been the case during program as well. Had you been practicing the TM-Sidhis during your transition to Unity, you would have been floating at some point. L.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Xenophaneros Anartaxius anartaxius@... wrote: I am not a siddha. What does this have to do with enlightenment? Has to do with a conversation Lawson and I and Robin were having about MMY's statement that being able to fly is the sine qua non of enlightenment. I had assumed you were following it and would recognize the relevance. Robin is saying MMY was fibbing; if you're enlightened and you can't fly, that would be two votes for a fib on MMY's part. Who in the TMO, including MMY have demonstrated this? I am speaking of scientifically confirmed levitation, even temporary and partial (reduction of body mass, not necessarily floating). Names, places, researchers, and peer reviewed papers please. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: Xeno, can you fly? --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Xenophaneros Anartaxius anartaxius@ wrote: Welcome back Robin. I did not say anything earlier, not sure you were going to stay a while. And I do not seem to have much time lately to wade through voluminous text. I think your analysis below has some weight to it. As Susan hinted at earlier, I think the state you were experiencing was a mystical state of union, not enlightenment; you cannot back out of enlightenment; you can back out of glimpses or more sustained experiences of its precursors. Enlightenment is a realisation, it is not a sustained experience of one type; it is an understanding, though not an intellectual one, and it shows one that all ideas one had about it were nonsense. It is utterly not metaphysical. The Zen master Dogen said, 'Do not think you will necessarily be aware of your own enlightenment'. The ego resists to the end its destruction, or rather its inactivation; it can hang around, like a broken watch. Yours is still ticking. This is not wrong or bad. Giving up control not bad either; but the 'correct' understanding is that it makes no difference whatever whether you are in control or not. I tend to dislike religious terminology, that metaphysical murk, but I found this passage which might interest you by C.S. Lewis, that atheist, then Christian, then an off-again and on-again Christian: 'God will invade. But I wonder whether people who ask God to interfere openly and directly our world quite realise what it will be like when He does. When that happens, it is the end of the world. When the author walks onto the stage the play is over. God is going to invade, all right: but what is the good of saying your are on His side then, when you see the whole natural universe melting away like a dream and something else --- something it never entered your head to conceive --- comes crashing in; something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others that none of us will have any choice left?' The embrace of God is terrible and crushing to the ego; I believe you are simply substituting another version of the ego's grasp for immortality, its attempt to subvert infinity for its limited ends. The ego wants God as an ally, to pump itself up; God only 'wants' to be God, because God is God - I am that I am, and, all This is That. Eventually a watch will stop. Eventually time will run out for you, and then there will be no choice, in that peculiar sense that it does not matter, but it is not a bad thing. Like Barry, you seem to have an interest in maintaining free will, that strange concept that we are agents of our own destiny. We are, but not in the sense we tend to think. In this you and Barry seem to be alike even if all else about you is not. I imagine the two of you being on the same boat, though one is perhaps starboard, and the other is on the port side. The boat I am imagining is the Titanic; nothing like a dip in the cool ocean to wake one up. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Robin Carlsen maskedzebra@ wrote: Dear Lawson, Just one thing you should know: By definition Unity Consciousness means the individual intention for one's actions does not start with oneself. It starts with cosmic intelligence. This was very much my experience. So, unless cosmic intelligence decided to make accomplishing the flying sidhi the criterion for Unity Consciousness; that is, cosmic intelligence, in a given moment decided to make someone fly through the flying sidhi, the mere demand that one prove one's enlightenment by being able to fly, well it is absurd. Because it suggests that one's behaviour becomes subject to the control and command of another person. Each and every action of some one who is enlightened is determined b cosmic intelligence, not individual intention separate from this cosmic intelligence. So Maharishi saying that being able to fly is
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
It's amazing how both of you seem to keep forgetting, over and over, that Robin has said--also over and over-- that he's no longer enlightened. Yet you keep trying to hold him to your standards of enlightenment and suggesting he's a fraud because he doesn't meet them. This tag-team, pile-on approach to dissing Robin that you've taken is making you look extremely foolish, especially since Barry refuses to read what Robin writes, and iranitea can't seem to understand what he's read of what Robin has written. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, iranitea no_reply@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, iranitea no_reply@ wrote: Robin, the very moment you start to DEFEND your own enlightenment, there is already something wrong. I didn't read any of this, and won't. It's too sad to participate in, even vicariously. I'm commenting because the something wrong that you perceive probably has to do with the word your with regard to enlightenment. As long as there is someone who feels it is my state of consciousness, or my past, or even my present, and that someone feels the need to defend any of these things, there is an ego involved. The larger the defense, the larger the ego. As I've said recently, IMO to interact with that ego is to facilitate its attempts to hold onto itself (its self), and thus is not a favor. Yep. I am already given to the power that rules my fate. And I cling to nothing, so I will have nothing to defend. I have no thoughts, so I will see. I fear nothing, so I will remember myself. Detached and at ease, I will dart past the Eagle to be free. Then. Now. No difference, as far as I can tell... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ksa4VjKE3RY Great song! so true http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLKiMbC6s2k
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@... wrote: snip That indeed might be the case. In which case, all of MMY's pontificating about full enlightenment meaning that one never makes mistakes was merely the wishful ramblings of yet another religious fanatic trying to justify the extremes of his religious tradition... Unless what he was referring to was mistakes *from the cosmic perspective*, not the human perspective.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
Good one. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: snip That indeed might be the case. In which case, all of MMY's pontificating about full enlightenment meaning that one never makes mistakes was merely the wishful ramblings of yet another religious fanatic trying to justify the extremes of his religious tradition... Unless what he was referring to was mistakes *from the cosmic perspective*, not the human perspective.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: snip That indeed might be the case. In which case, all of MMY's pontificating about full enlightenment meaning that one never makes mistakes was merely the wishful ramblings of yet another religious fanatic trying to justify the extremes of his religious tradition... Unless what he was referring to was mistakes *from the cosmic perspective*, not the human perspective. Yar. I developed a quasi theory about this: what constitutes a mistake is different in different states of consciousness... Someone in normal waking state hears MMY talking about freedom from mistakes and assumes he means perfection in every action. Never even makes a arithmetic error, or whatever. Someone in CC assumes he means doing something that would would somehow take him out of CC (some overwhelming stress might conceivably do this for the non-jivan mukti). Someone in GC assumes he means doing something that might hurt other people. Someone in Unity assumes he means perfection in every action. Of course, all of the above, especially the last, might be a simplification, assuming that I am even remotely on teh right track here. L
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
Hmmm, I wonder if perfection is like karma. You know, unfathomable (-: From: sparaig lengli...@cox.net To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Monday, June 18, 2012 1:07 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL - --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: snip That indeed might be the case. In which case, all of MMY's pontificating about full enlightenment meaning that one never makes mistakes was merely the wishful ramblings of yet another religious fanatic trying to justify the extremes of his religious tradition... Unless what he was referring to was mistakes *from the cosmic perspective*, not the human perspective. Yar. I developed a quasi theory about this: what constitutes a mistake is different in different states of consciousness... Someone in normal waking state hears MMY talking about freedom from mistakes and assumes he means perfection in every action. Never even makes a arithmetic error, or whatever. Someone in CC assumes he means doing something that would would somehow take him out of CC (some overwhelming stress might conceivably do this for the non-jivan mukti). Someone in GC assumes he means doing something that might hurt other people. Someone in Unity assumes he means perfection in every action. Of course, all of the above, especially the last, might be a simplification, assuming that I am even remotely on teh right track here. L
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Xenophaneros Anartaxius anartaxius@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Robin Carlsen maskedzebra@ wrote: Dear Xeno, Nice post. Terrific C. S,. Lewis quote. Now please don't misunderstand me, I am only asking a question, not trying tendentiously to argue with you. But here is that one question Xeno: If someone is enlightened, *who is to determine this*? For it has always seemed to me, in my understanding of Maharishi, that if a person actually does represent in his or her consciousness the actual truth of reality, then it must mean (at least I cannot see how it could be otherwise) that if someone *thought* they were enlightened, but actually, as deemed by reality, were *not* enlightened, then that person's words describing what enlightenment really was could be the very same as the words used by someone who not only thought he or she was enlightened, *but actually was enlightened*. Let us say the very words and meaning contained in your post were written by someone who was *not* enlightened; then, in an alternate case, let us say these same words and meaning somehow coincidentally were said by someone who *was* enlightened. Could a reader discriminate any difference between those words and meaning?that is, the experience of reading the post would have to be the same in terms of the content, but would the actual impact, the effect, upon the reader not be subtly or not so subtly different? This is what I would call metaphysical subtext, a dimension of reality or intrinsic truthfulness which is not based upon just what the person says or writes, but is determined by *the context within which they are experiencing reality when they speak or write*. This goes to Maharishi's brilliant idea that knowledge is different in different states of consciousness. The very same words could be used by those both enlightened and non-enlightened. The reader, as you say, will discriminate based on what they have experienced in the past, and what they are experiencing now, if they are experiencing 'now'. Those on a path are anticipating something which they imagine will come - later, that is they are distracted by images and thoughts. There is no difference between the current moment between these two except for this distraction. There are different types of experience, and some of these we could call 'states of consciousness', but consciousness itself, Being, God, whatever you want to call it is not a state, it is everything as it is, and that can include our musing and imagination. You cannot rationally understand it, but you can be it. The yearning goes, but the mystery remains, and there is no need to solve it. As the philosopher Wittgenstein said, 'It is that the world *is* that is mystical, not how it is. Everyone lives this all the time, but some of us are distracted, so 'enlightenment' in one sense does not really exist at all. It is just what you are, you cannot escape what you are. I do not regard enlightenment as a state of consciousness. If consciousness were a state, that state could change. Experience always changes. Let us suppose for the sake of argument that you are indeed enlightened, and therefore, quite automatically *the actual integrity of your enlightenment* is manifesting itself in the very act of your writing this post. Now let us, contrariwise, suppose that you *think* and *believe* you are enlightened, but you are *not* really enlightened, and you write the same post. Would there be any difference? You see, Xeno, no matter what I may think about Maharishi now in terms of the extent to which he really did have a hold of the ultimate truth about the universe and the self, there was one thing that was always true about Maharishiat least in his heyday (1968-1977)*he brought along with him a whole lot of energy, intelligence, integrity, bliss, and power*. For those who practise TM (and I think you have to be schooled and cultivated in TM in order to 'get' Maharishi) if Maharishi posted something on FFLat, I say, at the height of his powers and influence and prestige*we would recognize that this postereven if we didn't know who he waswas, in his discussion and analysis of enlightenment, providing the most potent metaphysical subtext of anyone posting on FFL*. You know, many people are very powerful personalities 'without enlightenment'. You could be walking by an 'enlightened' person on the street and never know it. Remember that in his commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita, where Arjuna asks what are the characteristics of an enlightened person are, the response was that all these things were internal. This is though, an interesting point, because enlightenment is a self-validating experience, and yet, one can be delusional about it as well, thinking one is enlightened. It
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, salyavin808 fintlewoodlewix@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: Siddhi means perfection. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/siddhi?s=t LOL. You're going by an online English dictionary's definition of a technical Sanskrit term? Technical term interpreted for you by who? The guy who told you you could fly? Besides that isn't really the only definition I could find just the one most suited to an emial discussion. I could photograph someothers or scan them and post if you like? http://dictionary.babylon.com/siddhi/ several different definitions. The TM research that everyone likes to malign shows very clearly that TM is twice as effective as other forms of meditation and relaxation at addressing anxiety. While many people like to point at the meta-analyses that say that TM research sucks, they miss the important point that according to those same meta-analyses, ALL meditation research, without fail, sucks. Probably because it's an old type of coping mechanism, pleasant to do but not worth the effort compared to other techniques of self development if you have a particular complaint to address. Or not. THe studies the US military are conducting will provide some pretty interesting data points. THis includes the most recent studies on mindfulness published in the past few days, weeks, months, etc, because those analyses claim that unless you use a true double-blind study performed by only by researchers who have no attachment to the techniques being tested, the study is pretty much worthless. I'm not tub thumping for anything other than common sense. Common sense is neither, as the saying goes, and common sense doesn't predict highly unusual events, by definition. If, on the other hand, you reject that extreme position, TM comes out far ahead. L
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: [...] snip By the time I actually learned Yogic Flying in the Summer of 1985 (84?) I can't recall for sure, but I think you and I figured out at some point that we took the same CIC course and were on the same flying block. I'm pretty sure that was '86, and I think it was CIC #16. I'm pretty sure I noted my 11th anniversary of TM on the course, which would put it in 1984. I got out of the USAF 1.5 years earlier but they wouldn't accept me the first time I applied and I had to reapply the next year. My son was born in August 1986 so it had to be before then... Of course, I may be wrong on his birthday (blush). L L
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, salyavin808 fintlewoodlewix@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: Siddhi means perfection. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/siddhi?s=t LOL. You're going by an online English dictionary's definition of a technical Sanskrit term? Technical term interpreted for you by who? The guy who told you you could fly? Besides that isn't really the only definition I could find just the one most suited to an emial discussion. I could photograph someothers or scan them and post if you like? http://dictionary.babylon.com/siddhi/ several different definitions. Whatever, I remember the lectures and can't help noticing it all came to nought. The TM research that everyone likes to malign shows very clearly that TM is twice as effective as other forms of meditation and relaxation at addressing anxiety. While many people like to point at the meta-analyses that say that TM research sucks, they miss the important point that according to those same meta-analyses, ALL meditation research, without fail, sucks. Probably because it's an old type of coping mechanism, pleasant to do but not worth the effort compared to other techniques of self development if you have a particular complaint to address. Or not. THe studies the US military are conducting will provide some pretty interesting data points. Or not. Still wont change my experience from actually knowing many people who have done it for many years and aren't exactly the best adverts. THis includes the most recent studies on mindfulness published in the past few days, weeks, months, etc, because those analyses claim that unless you use a true double-blind study performed by only by researchers who have no attachment to the techniques being tested, the study is pretty much worthless. I'm not tub thumping for anything other than common sense. Common sense is neither, as the saying goes, and common sense doesn't predict highly unusual events, by definition. Highly unusual things like flying unaided or seeing through walls?
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, seventhray1 steve.sundur@... wrote: Just kind of curious Barry. Science as far as I know does not examine the notion of breath, or prana, and the different types of pranas. And yet eastern literature discusses prana and the different types of prana quite a bit, and often authoritatively. Because science, or at least western science has not considered this, would you consider what has been said about prana to be hooey? Absolutely. From a Can it be verified by objective measurement point of view. I would also suggest that anything authoritative said about prana or any other subject by people living in essentially the dark ages and filtering *everything* they experienced and thought through the myths and superstitions of those times...uh...isn't. :-) For me, I am not ready to let science yet be the final arbiter of reality. Nor am I. I think both science and Woo Woo are what they are -- belief systems. I think both tend to impose their beliefs on the world around them far more than they use them to interpret or explain the world around them. If I had to guess at what percentage of its supposed authoritative knowledge Woo Woo got right, I'd guess 10%. Science, maybe 20%. Certainly I have great faith in science. But I'm also not afraid of trusting my own experiences, even if they run counter to the science of the day. I agree. I stop short of what *both* what Woo Woo-ers and scientists tend to say, which is, The way we see things is the truth. Anyone who says this is, in my opinion, either a lousy Woo Woo-er or a lousy scientist, or both. I don't think anyone in the history of human beings has ever known the truth about anything, and suspect that they never will. Being an admirable human being -- whether as a Woo Woo-er or a scientist -- is having the humility to admit this. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Share Long sharelong60@ wrote: I've continued my TM Sidhi practice and added healing modalities such as EFT tapping. I actually think TM helps me make wiser decisions concerning such. No personal offense meant, but this is just priceless. Can you imagine trying to explain to 99% percent of the people on this planet what *either* the TM Sidhis *or* EFT Tapping are, and while doing so using the phrase wiser decisions and keeping a straight face? :-) Don't get me wrong. Both have their cadre of believers. Both -- for all I know -- have benefit. But most people on the planet are going to bag them as New Age Hooey and, from the standpoint of real science, both are. But there's no accounting for belief, just as there is no accounting for taste. It's as individual as there are individuals, and that's the way it should be. I say, Carry on with whatever delusions make you happy. I say this to the scientists, too. :-)
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
Robin you say that you had to transfer your allegience to another reality. There is only one reality. Has it occured to you that both east and west could be wrong or both partially right.? Do you realise that by completely rejecting the east, you have in effect 'thrown the baby along with the bathwater'. The five paras that you have written below conclusively, authoritatively and empricaly prove that you were never in Unity, Robin. Scientists say that any technology that is once unleashed into the enviornment can never be rolled back. Same is the case of enlightenment or awakening. There is no such thing as de-enlightenment Robin. It's a one way trip. Face it Robin, you were *never* enlightened in the first place. Either the East was right, or Gerard Manley Hopkins was right. But the critical moment occurred when I realized: Well, either Christ is right or Maharishi is right. But truth is truth, and reality is reality. I came to the conclusion that Christ was right, that Aquinas was right, that Saint Theresa of Avila was right, and that Maharishi was deceived. I had to transfer my allegiance to another reality. That was easy while I was a Catholic, but in the fall of 1987 while in Lourdes, France, I became convinced that the Roman Catholic Church was without the power to save souls; that the Holy Ghost had abandoned it, that the Virgin Mary was not there but the suffering of deconstructing my enlightenment with help that was agony, confusion, terror beyond anything I could imagine. But it (getting de-enlightened) seems more or less to have come to an end. --- Robin Carlsen maskedzebra@... wrote: The apotheosis of all this occurred when I went into Unity Consciousness September 19, 1976 at 1:23 PM in Arosa, Switzerland on my Six Months Course. In this moment Mother was not only at Home in the sense of being present in one's life and watching over and protecting and nourishing one; Mother now took up personal residence *inside my own consciousness*. Reality instead of bringing about transcending and supporting my life now embodied itself in my consciousness, and in in this act of making me enlightened *reality took command and authority over not just my life but my very actions as a human being*. So in effect *I* became the embodiment of this reality in my own person. And I could feel the effect of my Unity Consciousness upon other personsbut only in any perceptible way if they were doing TM; if they were initiators the impact was even more pronounced. So eventually, once I formally converted to Catholicism, there was bound to be a crisis. Theologically, metaphysically, psychologically. And boy! was there ever. But I think Catholicism, even though I eventually came see that it had lost its supernatural vitality and efficacy, nevertheless, intellectually, philosophically, and psychologically confronted me with some irreconcilable truths. Either the East was right, or Gerard Manley Hopkins was right. *The Science of Being and The Art of Living* could not be more different in its conception of reality, of the self, of the universe, of God from Aquinas's *The Summa Theologica*. The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola does not read like anything one experienced on Teacher Training with Maharishi. But the critical moment occurred when I realized: Well, either Christ is right or Maharishi is right. And if Christ is right my enlightenment is an hallucination, a mystical illusionand Maharishi, he is as deceived as I amno matter what influence and power and integrity he seems to possess. And I have never seen anyone one thousandth as beautiful and impressive and seraphic as Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. But truth is truth, and reality is reality. I came to the conclusion that Christ was right, that Aquinas was right, that Saint Theresa of Avila was right, and that Maharishi was deceived. What about, then, The Support of Nature and Mother is at Home once I renounced my enlightenment and all things TM? Well, interestingly enough I had to disavow , abjure 'nature' and therefore 'Mother'. I had to transfer my allegiance to another reality. That was easy while I was a Catholic, but in the fall of 1987 while in Lourdes, France, I became convinced that the Roman Catholic Church was without the power to save souls; that the Holy Ghost had abandoned it, that the Virgin Mary was not there (except in some mystically deceitful way). In a sense, I felt I was now on my own. In any event, I very much do sense, feel, perceive this reality; but it does not contain God, or some Truth, or salvation, or perfection. No, it does not. So there can be nothing there which can take one to heaven, make one into a beautiful human being. But what it did for me was to disassemble my enlightenment, and allow me to find myself again, to return to waking state consciousness,
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, salyavin808 fintlewoodlewix@ wrote: Whatever, I remember the lectures and can't help noticing it all came to nought. Except the part about creating a situation where some of the physiological correlates of pure consciousness appear simultaneously with higher levels of brain activation, the purported purpose of practicing the techniques in the first place. Sparaig, I really wish you and others here would stop saying this. It really marks you as a newbie, someone who wasn't there when the TM-Sidhis came out. There was NO QUESTION when they were introduced that they were for the development of the siddhis them- selves. That was how they were promoted, and that was how they were measured. There used to be daily reports gathered at all the course locations and sent back to Maharishi, hoping to report the first person to truly levitate or perform any of the other objective siddhis. None ever happened. It was only AFTER none ever happened -- for years -- that the TM-Sidhi course began to be marketed in terms of expansion of consciousness or something to speed up enlightenment, or whatever euphemism you were sold. This happened because the TM-Sidhis FAILED, not because they succeeded. According to the definition you profess to believe in (Maharishi's), UC involves being able to fully perform the siddhis, objectively. According to that same definition, therefore, the TM movement has failed to produce even one person in over 40 years of teaching who was in UC. Yet you seem to think the odds are in your favor to keep on keepin' on. It's *fine* that you settled for the things you settled for, with TM and with the TM-Sidhis. But please don't pretend that the things you settled for were either how they were originally sold or that they were the goals of either at the time. The height of the high jump bar was lowered to match actual performance, that's all.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Jason jedi_spock@... wrote:
Robin you say that you had to transfer your allegience to
another reality. There is only one reality.
Has it occured to you that both east and west could be wrong
or both partially right.?
Do you realise that by completely rejecting the east, you
have in effect 'thrown the baby along with the bathwater'.
The five paras that you have written below conclusively,
authoritatively and empricaly prove that you were never in
Unity, Robin.
Scientists say that any technology that is once unleashed
into the enviornment can never be rolled back. Same is the
case of enlightenment or awakening.
There is no such thing as de-enlightenment Robin. It's a
one way trip.
Face it Robin, you were *never* enlightened in the first
place.
Bingo! The conclusion is therefore: not the Maharishi was deceived, but Robin
was (and still is)
I found these two videos of Osho very helpful in understanding enlightenment:
You Are in Prison and You Think You Are Free
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XyOmYVIsig
Spiritual Growth and Enlightenment
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uP5J3i1H5dA
There are several things that strike me as improbably on the account below. One
of these is the fact that Robin presents his 'enlightenment' in a straight line
leading up from his encounters with Maharishi and the experiences he has had on
courses or through plain TM ('transcending'). But in my own humble experiences,
this is not like it is. I remember Maharishi talking about the 'shock of unity'
(I am not totally sure now, if it as 'shock of unity' or 'shock of Brahman')
These were not very well known tapes, but I am sure, more than just me, who are
here, have seen it. This is what actually coincides with my own experiences in
this direction (I don't claim enlightenment though.)
Think of somebody being in a prison, and coming out of it! If you were your
whole life in a prison, you don't know what freedom is, you will only realize
it the moment you come out. It is not just a slowly and natural fading into
something you had already known before - as Robin depicts it.
Think of Plato's cave analogy, how the person, who is led outside of the cave,
first is blended by the bright sun light, before, he only knew the reflection
of light, not even the sun, but of fire.
I cannot help, and notice the strong emotional sense of nostalgia in Robins
report. I think many TM teachers can identify with these feelings, the memories
of being on rounding courses and so on. I know these feelings, but I don't in
no way, have any sense of nostalgia about it. It is simply gone, was nice at
the time, but has been replaced by something better, more true and more
liberating. So. I believe firmly, once you are liberated, there will be a break
to all of your past life, that cannot be reverted.
Either the East was right, or Gerard Manley Hopkins was
right.
But the critical moment occurred when I realized: Well,
either Christ is right or Maharishi is right.
But truth is truth, and reality is reality. I came to the
conclusion that Christ was right, that Aquinas was right,
that Saint Theresa of Avila was right, and that Maharishi
was deceived.
I had to transfer my allegiance to another reality. That
was easy while I was a Catholic, but in the fall of 1987
while in Lourdes, France, I became convinced that the
Roman Catholic Church was without the power to save souls;
that the Holy Ghost had abandoned it, that the Virgin Mary
was not there
but the suffering of deconstructing my enlightenment with
help that was agony, confusion, terror beyond anything I
could imagine. But it (getting de-enlightened) seems more
or less to have come to an end.
--- Robin Carlsen maskedzebra@ wrote:
The apotheosis of all this occurred when I went into Unity Consciousness
September 19, 1976 at 1:23 PM in Arosa, Switzerland on my Six Months
Course. In this moment Mother was not only at Home in the sense of being
present in one's life and watching over and protecting and nourishing one;
Mother now took up personal residence *inside my own consciousness*.
Reality instead of bringing about transcending and supporting my life now
embodied itself in my consciousness, and in in this act of making me
enlightened *reality took command and authority over not just my life but
my very actions as a human being*. So in effect *I* became the embodiment
of this reality in my own person. And I could feel the effect of my Unity
Consciousness upon other personsbut only in any perceptible way if they
were doing TM; if they were initiators the impact was even more pronounced.
So eventually, once I formally converted to Catholicism, there was bound to
be a crisis. Theologically, metaphysically, psychologically. And boy! was
there ever. But I think Catholicism, even though I
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, iranitea no_reply@... wrote:
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Jason jedi_spock@ wrote:
Face it Robin, you were *never* enlightened in the first
place.
Bingo! The conclusion is therefore: not the Maharishi was deceived, but Robin
was (and still is)
I found these two videos of Osho very helpful in understanding enlightenment:
You Are in Prison and You Think You Are Free
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XyOmYVIsig
Spiritual Growth and Enlightenment
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uP5J3i1H5dA
There are several things that strike me as improbably on the account below.
One of these is the fact that Robin presents his 'enlightenment' in a
straight line leading up from his encounters with Maharishi and the
experiences he has had on courses or through plain TM ('transcending'). But
in my own humble experiences, this is not like it is. I remember Maharishi
talking about the 'shock of unity' (I am not totally sure now, if it as
'shock of unity' or 'shock of Brahman') These were not very well known tapes,
but I am sure, more than just me, who are here, have seen it. This is what
actually coincides with my own experiences in this direction (I don't claim
enlightenment though.)
Think of somebody being in a prison, and coming out of it! If you were your
whole life in a prison, you don't know what freedom is, you will only realize
it the moment you come out. It is not just a slowly and natural fading into
something you had already known before - as Robin depicts it.
Think of Plato's cave analogy, how the person, who is led outside of the
cave, first is blended by the bright sun light, before, he only knew the
reflection of light, not even the sun, but of fire.
I cannot help, and notice the strong emotional sense of nostalgia in Robins
report. I think many TM teachers can identify with these feelings, the
memories of being on rounding courses and so on. I know these feelings, but I
don't in no way, have any sense of nostalgia about it. It is simply gone, was
nice at the time, but has been replaced by something better, more true and
more liberating. So. I believe firmly, once you are liberated, there will be
a break to all of your past life, that cannot be reverted.
On rereading my post above, I felt it wasn't really strong enough. So let me
add some thoughts and a little bit of context.
One is best made by a reference to Sankhya, something Willy referred to in a
post recently. Sankhya is all about separating Purusha and Prakriti. The
confusion in ignorance is the mixing of both. This discrimination (viveka) is
also important in Advaita. Now, Prakriti, that's all of nature, that's also all
the gods governing nature. The Upanishad says, that the gods keep man like
cattle, that they don't like man to get liberated (I don't remember which
Upanishad says it, but I am sure many of you have read it, and Carde would know
for sure). The point is, you are not just gathering the support of nature, you
are actually going out of nature, you are separating from Prakriti in your
consciousness.
Now I am aware of the influence of Gnosticism in the spiritual strata, and I
came recently across an Indian example of a teacher, obviously making
references to basically Gnostic thought, by calling all the Vedic gods archons.
I also discovered similar references in Aurobindean philosophy. Talking with my
friend in India, I pointed it out, being surrounded everywhere by all these
temples to various deities, in rural areas festivals are en vogue, where animal
sacrifice is still very popular, normal for the people there, as turkey is at
Xmas in our countries. My friend pointed out that all the Indian gods, but
especially a certain type of goddess worship is always ambivalent. The goddess
of smallpox has to be pacified, in order to not bring smallpox.
So he made an interesting point. He said, when you step outside of the circle,
where the gods have an influence on you, they might feel revengeful, and it
would be the role of the guru, to sort of pacify the gods in you. I know it
sounds weird, but this pacification would be a way, to reconcile your stepping
out of prakriti, but still live within prakriti in relative harmony. So, when
Maharishi speaks of support of nature, (he does so traditionally of course)
then, maybe, it is this what is meant. But the way he speaks about it, just
cuts the story short. It's sort of euphemistic.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, salyavin808 fintlewoodlewix@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, salyavin808 fintlewoodlewix@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: Siddhi means perfection. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/siddhi?s=t LOL. You're going by an online English dictionary's definition of a technical Sanskrit term? Technical term interpreted for you by who? The guy who told you you could fly? Besides that isn't really the only definition I could find just the one most suited to an emial discussion. I could photograph someothers or scan them and post if you like? http://dictionary.babylon.com/siddhi/ several different definitions. Whatever, I remember the lectures and can't help noticing it all came to nought. Except the part about creating a situation where some of the physiological correlates of pure consciousness appear simultaneously with higher levels of brain activation, the purported purpose of practicing the techniques in the first place. Oh yeah, except that part, silly of me to forget I've got physiological correlates appearing simultaneously with higher levels of brain activation going on. As I said, a stress reduction technique may not touch symptoms if they don't have anything to do with stress. It's funny how you can quote the brochures like you do above then contradict them like you do here. It's all a kind of mix and match thing for you but I don't seperate any of it, the teaching is what it is and, according to SCI, all health problems are stress related and TM is the cure for them all, have you ever even read the Science of Being? You should give it a try, I warn you though you might end up on my side of the sceptical fence. THis includes the most recent studies on mindfulness published in the past few days, weeks, months, etc, because those analyses claim that unless you use a true double-blind study performed by only by researchers who have no attachment to the techniques being tested, the study is pretty much worthless. I'm not tub thumping for anything other than common sense. Common sense is neither, as the saying goes, and common sense doesn't predict highly unusual events, by definition. Highly unusual things like flying unaided or seeing through walls? Or staring at goats, or having a single wave form appear on more than a dozen widely spaced electrodes simultaneously, or... There's no end of bullshit some people will believe. L
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL - mahavakyas
Tea wrote:
I remember Maharishi talking about the 'shock of unity'
my reply:
I'm not sure of the exact wording either, whether shock of unity or Brahman.
And I think in this context Maharishi talked about the mahavakyas, phrases that
the Master said to the disciple to help calm down the shock of this transition:
I am That
Thou art That
All This is That
That alone is
Probably best if said in Sanskrit (-:
And, just to add to the soup, I've been told there are different versions of
mahavakyas.
My guess is that their power stems from the shaktipat of the Master as well as
from their own inherent high vibe.
From: iranitea no_re...@yahoogroups.com
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, June 17, 2012 8:56 AM
Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Jason jedi_spock@... wrote:
Robin you say that you had to transfer your allegience to
another reality. There is only one reality.
Has it occured to you that both east and west could be wrong
or both partially right.?
Do you realise that by completely rejecting the east, you
have in effect 'thrown the baby along with the bathwater'.
The five paras that you have written below conclusively,
authoritatively and empricaly prove that you were never in
Unity, Robin.
Scientists say that any technology that is once unleashed
into the enviornment can never be rolled back. Same is the
case of enlightenment or awakening.
There is no such thing as de-enlightenment Robin. It's a
one way trip.
Face it Robin, you were *never* enlightened in the first
place.
Bingo! The conclusion is therefore: not the Maharishi was deceived, but Robin
was (and still is)
I found these two videos of Osho very helpful in understanding enlightenment:
You Are in Prison and You Think You Are Free
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XyOmYVIsig
Spiritual Growth and Enlightenment
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uP5J3i1H5dA
There are several things that strike me as improbably on the account below. One
of these is the fact that Robin presents his 'enlightenment' in a straight line
leading up from his encounters with Maharishi and the experiences he has had on
courses or through plain TM ('transcending'). But in my own humble experiences,
this is not like it is. I remember Maharishi talking about the 'shock of unity'
(I am not totally sure now, if it as 'shock of unity' or 'shock of Brahman')
These were not very well known tapes, but I am sure, more than just me, who are
here, have seen it. This is what actually coincides with my own experiences in
this direction (I don't claim enlightenment though.)
Think of somebody being in a prison, and coming out of it! If you were your
whole life in a prison, you don't know what freedom is, you will only realize
it the moment you come out. It is not just a slowly and natural fading into
something you had already known before - as Robin depicts it.
Think of Plato's cave analogy, how the person, who is led outside of the cave,
first is blended by the bright sun light, before, he only knew the reflection
of light, not even the sun, but of fire.
I cannot help, and notice the strong emotional sense of nostalgia in Robins
report. I think many TM teachers can identify with these feelings, the memories
of being on rounding courses and so on. I know these feelings, but I don't in
no way, have any sense of nostalgia about it. It is simply gone, was nice at
the time, but has been replaced by something better, more true and more
liberating. So. I believe firmly, once you are liberated, there will be a break
to all of your past life, that cannot be reverted.
Either the East was right, or Gerard Manley Hopkins was
right.
But the critical moment occurred when I realized: Well,
either Christ is right or Maharishi is right.
But truth is truth, and reality is reality. I came to the
conclusion that Christ was right, that Aquinas was right,
that Saint Theresa of Avila was right, and that Maharishi
was deceived.
I had to transfer my allegiance to another reality. That
was easy while I was a Catholic, but in the fall of 1987
while in Lourdes, France, I became convinced that the
Roman Catholic Church was without the power to save souls;
that the Holy Ghost had abandoned it, that the Virgin Mary
was not there
but the suffering of deconstructing my enlightenment with
help that was agony, confusion, terror beyond anything I
could imagine. But it (getting de-enlightened) seems more
or less to have come to an end.
--- Robin Carlsen maskedzebra@ wrote:
The apotheosis of all this occurred when I went into Unity Consciousness
September 19, 1976 at 1:23 PM in Arosa, Switzerland on my Six Months
Course. In this moment Mother was not only at Home in the sense of being
present in one's life and watching over and protecting and nourishing one;
Mother
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, iranitea no_reply@... wrote: I cannot help, and notice the strong emotional sense of nostalgia in [deleted]'s report. I think many TM teachers can identify with these feelings, the memories of being on rounding courses and so on. I know these feelings, but I don't in no way, have any sense of nostalgia about it. It is simply gone, was nice at the time, but has been replaced by something better, more true and more liberating. If you don't mind, I'd like to avoid the personalities and focus on the general phenomenon. I agree with you about the sense of *nostalgia* that many TMers seem to feel, and empathize with your experience. I have almost no sense of nostalgia about those days, either. As you say, any such feelings are simply gone. I don't know whether this is a good thing or a bad thing; it just is. It's been striking me today that one of the things that many people seem to be most nostalgic *for* (beside The Days When It Was All Still Fun, of course) is the sharing of hopeful memes, and how EASY it was to share them, because people would almost automatically believe even the most unbelievable of memes. You'd hear a Tall Tale Of Power from one of the early Sidhi courses of someone walking through a wall, or suddenly finding themselves out on the lawn in their skivvies, when the last they knew they were practicing the Sidhis in their room. And, more often than not, people *believed* this shit. They bought it hook, line, and sinker, and just couldn't *wait* to pass the meme along. Now, not so much. Claim to have seen someone levitate (as in real floating, hanging there in mid air in the same way that a brick doesn't), and I'd bet that fewer that 10% of the *TM True Believers* would believe you. The other 90% would say, How nice for you, or Wow, that's really cool...what *about* that Mets game last night, eh? Right? Let alone how such a sighting would be greeted here on FFL. :-) Now imagine how such a story would be received out in the world. That is, among an audience that had never heard of TM or meditation and had never cared to. Would they even bother with the How nice for you? I'm thinkin' that much of the nostalgia people feel for the Good Old Days of the TM movement is because it was easier to say shit like this back then and have it automatically believed. People's standards were lower, and their gullibility was higher. Now you can't just breeze into Dodge City, push your way through the swinging doors of the saloon, and say, Hey there...I'm the new guy in town. I'm enlightened, and expect something -- anything -- to happen. Whether on FFL or out in the world, my experience is that pronouncements such as this are greeted with a short interval of silence, followed by the audience going back to something more important, like taking another sip of whatever you are drinking. :-) I *like* this new, more saloon-like ambiance of spirituality. There is a Been-There-Done-That-ed-ness about it that I find also contains balance, and a greater sense of acceptance of and comfort with Who One Is Right Here, Right Now, than the I'll believe anything mindset of the past. I find the newer, more laissez-faire Whatever 'tude, if anything, *more* spiritual than the former 'tude. In the past (and among some even today) I always got a feeling that the seeker reacting to Tall Tales Of Power with automatic and enthusiastic belief really *needed* to hear them. These stories were, for them, like a canteen of water in the desert. *Of course* we believed them at the time; we *needed* to believe them, to keep on believing in other stuff. I can't feel nostalgic about that. I can remember it, and have compassion for my younger self for feeling that way, but I don't miss it, and wouldn't want to be in that mindset again, ever.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, salyavin808 fintlewoodlewix@ wrote: Whatever, I remember the lectures and can't help noticing it all came to nought. Except the part about creating a situation where some of the physiological correlates of pure consciousness appear simultaneously with higher levels of brain activation, the purported purpose of practicing the techniques in the first place. Sparaig, I really wish you and others here would stop saying this. It really marks you as a newbie, someone who wasn't there when the TM-Sidhis came out. There was NO QUESTION when they were introduced that they were for the development of the siddhis them- selves. That was how they were promoted, and that was how they were measured. There used to be daily reports gathered at all the course locations and sent back to Maharishi, hoping to report the first person to truly levitate or perform any of the other objective siddhis. None ever happened. It was only AFTER none ever happened -- for years -- that the TM-Sidhi course began to be marketed in terms of expansion of consciousness or something to speed up enlightenment, or whatever euphemism you were sold. This happened because the TM-Sidhis FAILED, not because they succeeded. Exactly. I think the real discrepancy between anything Lawson or Judy say here about Sid(d)his, (see I don't even know anymore how to write it properly, shall I write it as in the original brochure, that came out 1977, or in the subsequent marketing maybe a year later), is all due to the fact that they were on courses about 10 years later. That's about the time, we had either already left the movement, or were about to leave it. In this sense, there is no doubt in what you say, but the notion, that the main aim of the Siddhis (as of 1977) as described as the development of enlightenment. Because at that time, the notion of 'capture the fort' in order to achieve everything that is around the fort, was still strong going in the movement. In the brochure of 1977 'Enlightenment and the Siddhis' (siddhis still written with dd), all these experiences of the siddhis were described as 'by-products' of the development of enlightenment, which would be, as you describe, incomplete without the full development of the siddhis, those special abilities, like flying of course.) This is of course also a reflection on the usual scriptural critique of the siddhis. The brochure had a lot of experience reports from six month courses, all describing various cosmic experiences, or well, experience of the super normal.) There were adds out showing seemingly flying people, saying something like 'breakthrough in human potential'. There was a banner/ exhibition showing people seemingly levitate. While it was always said, that these were mere byproducts, they were nevertheless stressed as necessary for enlightenment. There was a constant expectation fueled by rumors and sayings of Maharishi, some of them I was even present myself, that people would soon actually fly, first hoover and then fly, and that it was only due to stress in world consciousness, that it didn't yet happen. Maharishi also said this in videotapes circulated at the time, as I remember, he commented, that people would be surprised if somebody wouldn't sit inside a taxi, but hoover above it. This was on normal video tapes around 1978. This was also reflected in all the expectations we had at the time, I was living IN the movement, and the comments, you would hear from your fellow practitioners. For example people would comment that they feel that they are very close to REALLY fly, or that they were actually a few spit seconds longer in the air, or saw somebody like this during program. Why would the movement put people on 6 month courses on a wage to measure if they got actually lighter, videotaping it, to have evidence, if that wasn't what they expected? According to the definition you profess to believe in (Maharishi's), UC involves being able to fully perform the siddhis, objectively. According to that same definition, therefore, the TM movement has failed to produce even one person in over 40 years of teaching who was in UC. Yet you seem to think the odds are in your favor to keep on keepin' on. It's *fine* that you settled for the things you settled for, with TM and with the TM-Sidhis. But please don't pretend that the things you settled for were either how they were originally sold or that they were the goals of either at the time. The height of the high jump bar was lowered to match actual performance, that's all.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Jason jedi_spock@... wrote: Robin you say that you had to transfer your allegience to another reality. There is only one reality. Has it occured to you that both east and west could be wrong or both partially right.? Do you realise that by completely rejecting the east, you have in effect 'thrown the baby along with the bathwater'. The five paras that you have written below conclusively, authoritatively and empricaly prove that you were never in Unity, Robin. Scientists say that any technology that is once unleashed into the enviornment can never be rolled back. Same is the case of enlightenment or awakening. There is no such thing as de-enlightenment Robin. It's a one way trip. Well, at least per Patañjali that seems to be true. So, kaivalya refers to the pratiprasava of the three guNa-s after they have become puruSaarthashuunya... :D (YS IV 34) But of course everyone can define enlightenment as they like, I guess... :o pratiprasavam. counter-order , suspension of a general prohibition in a particular case S3am2k. Ka1tyS3r. Sch. Kull. ; an exception to an exception TPra1t. Sch. ; ***return to the original state*** Yogas. Face it Robin, you were *never* enlightened in the first place.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@... wrote: I *like* this new, more saloon-like ambiance of spirituality. There is a Been-There-Done-That-ed-ness about it that I find also contains balance, and a greater sense of acceptance of and comfort with Who One Is Right Here, Right Now, than the I'll believe anything mindset of the past. I find the newer, more laissez-faire Whatever 'tude, if anything, *more* spiritual than the former 'tude. In the past (and among some even today) I always got a feeling that the seeker reacting to Tall Tales Of Power with automatic and enthusiastic belief really *needed* to hear them. These stories were, for them, like a canteen of water in the desert. *Of course* we believed them at the time; we *needed* to believe them, to keep on believing in other stuff. I can't feel nostalgic about that. I can remember it, and have compassion for my younger self for feeling that way, but I don't miss it, and wouldn't want to be in that mindset again, ever. Just to prove that I include myself in my description of how twiffy and gullible we were in those days, today I was sent a scan of the only photo of myself with long hair that I've been able to find. And it's all pulled back into a pony tail, so you can't even see it here. :-( But this is how much of a twif I was at Squaw Valley in 1968. And I should be nostalgic about that? :-) [Me at Squaw Valley, 1968 :-)]
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
What's a twif? Wasn't in official welcoming glossary (-: From: turquoiseb no_re...@yahoogroups.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Sunday, June 17, 2012 11:08 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL - --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@... wrote: I *like* this new, more saloon-like ambiance of spirituality. There is a Been-There-Done-That-ed-ness about it that I find also contains balance, and a greater sense of acceptance of and comfort with Who One Is Right Here, Right Now, than the I'll believe anything mindset of the past. I find the newer, more laissez-faire Whatever 'tude, if anything, *more* spiritual than the former 'tude. In the past (and among some even today) I always got a feeling that the seeker reacting to Tall Tales Of Power with automatic and enthusiastic belief really *needed* to hear them. These stories were, for them, like a canteen of water in the desert. *Of course* we believed them at the time; we *needed* to believe them, to keep on believing in other stuff. I can't feel nostalgic about that. I can remember it, and have compassion for my younger self for feeling that way, but I don't miss it, and wouldn't want to be in that mindset again, ever. Just to prove that I include myself in my description of how twiffy and gullible we were in those days, today I was sent a scan of the only photo of myself with long hair that I've been able to find. And it's all pulled back into a pony tail, so you can't even see it here. :-( But this is how much of a twif I was at Squaw Valley in 1968. And I should be nostalgic about that? :-)
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
Adding to soup: I definitely remember hearing Maharishi say on a tape that in
each cell, at the deepest level, Purusha is Prakriti.
From: iranitea no_re...@yahoogroups.com
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, June 17, 2012 9:37 AM
Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, iranitea no_reply@... wrote:
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Jason jedi_spock@ wrote:
Face it Robin, you were *never* enlightened in the first
place.
Bingo! The conclusion is therefore: not the Maharishi was deceived, but Robin
was (and still is)
I found these two videos of Osho very helpful in understanding enlightenment:
You Are in Prison and You Think You Are Free
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XyOmYVIsig
Spiritual Growth and Enlightenment
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uP5J3i1H5dA
There are several things that strike me as improbably on the account below.
One of these is the fact that Robin presents his 'enlightenment' in a
straight line leading up from his encounters with Maharishi and the
experiences he has had on courses or through plain TM ('transcending'). But
in my own humble experiences, this is not like it is. I remember Maharishi
talking about the 'shock of unity' (I am not totally sure now, if it as
'shock of unity' or 'shock of Brahman') These were not very well known tapes,
but I am sure, more than just me, who are here, have seen it. This is what
actually coincides with my own experiences in this direction (I don't claim
enlightenment though.)
Think of somebody being in a prison, and coming out of it! If you were your
whole life in a prison, you don't know what freedom is, you will only realize
it the moment you come out. It is not just a slowly and natural fading into
something you had already known before - as Robin depicts it.
Think of Plato's cave analogy, how the person, who is led outside of the
cave, first is blended by the bright sun light, before, he only knew the
reflection of light, not even the sun, but of fire.
I cannot help, and notice the strong emotional sense of nostalgia in Robins
report. I think many TM teachers can identify with these feelings, the
memories of being on rounding courses and so on. I know these feelings, but I
don't in no way, have any sense of nostalgia about it. It is simply gone, was
nice at the time, but has been replaced by something better, more true and
more liberating. So. I believe firmly, once you are liberated, there will be
a break to all of your past life, that cannot be reverted.
On rereading my post above, I felt it wasn't really strong enough. So let me
add some thoughts and a little bit of context.
One is best made by a reference to Sankhya, something Willy referred to in a
post recently. Sankhya is all about separating Purusha and Prakriti. The
confusion in ignorance is the mixing of both. This discrimination (viveka) is
also important in Advaita. Now, Prakriti, that's all of nature, that's also all
the gods governing nature. The Upanishad says, that the gods keep man like
cattle, that they don't like man to get liberated (I don't remember which
Upanishad says it, but I am sure many of you have read it, and Carde would know
for sure). The point is, you are not just gathering the support of nature, you
are actually going out of nature, you are separating from Prakriti in your
consciousness.
Now I am aware of the influence of Gnosticism in the spiritual strata, and I
came recently across an Indian example of a teacher, obviously making
references to basically Gnostic thought, by calling all the Vedic gods archons.
I also discovered similar references in Aurobindean philosophy. Talking with my
friend in India, I pointed it out, being surrounded everywhere by all these
temples to various deities, in rural areas festivals are en vogue, where animal
sacrifice is still very popular, normal for the people there, as turkey is at
Xmas in our countries. My friend pointed out that all the Indian gods, but
especially a certain type of goddess worship is always ambivalent. The goddess
of smallpox has to be pacified, in order to not bring smallpox.
So he made an interesting point. He said, when you step outside of the circle,
where the gods have an influence on you, they might feel revengeful, and it
would be the role of the guru, to sort of pacify the gods in you. I know it
sounds weird, but this pacification would be a way, to reconcile your stepping
out of prakriti, but still live within prakriti in relative harmony. So, when
Maharishi speaks of support of nature, (he does so traditionally of course)
then, maybe, it is this what is meant. But the way he speaks about it, just
cuts the story short. It's sort of euphemistic.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Share Long sharelong60@... wrote: What's a twif? Wasn't in official welcoming glossary (-: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=twif
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Alex Stanley j_alexander_stanley@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Share Long sharelong60@ wrote: What's a twif? Wasn't in official welcoming glossary (-: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=twif I dispute this, and confess to never having heard any similar definitions before. :-) I know the term from friends who worked at the Bodhi Tree bookstore. They used it to refer to customers who were so spaced out and spiritual that they made you wonder whether they could find their mouths with a fork, much less hold a job. That is the sense in which I use the word twif.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
Oy! Who says FFL isn't educational? (-: From: Alex Stanley j_alexander_stan...@yahoo.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Sunday, June 17, 2012 11:38 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL - --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Share Long sharelong60@... wrote: What's a twif? Wasn't in official welcoming glossary (-: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=twif
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
It isn't clear what discrepancy iranitea is referring to between anything Lawson or Judy say here about Sid(d)his, because Lawson and I have been saying the same things. I suspect what he meant to suggest is that there's a discrepancy between what Lawson and I are saying *and something else*, but he doesn't specify what. He may not quite know what discrepancy means or how it's used. I'm sure what he means to convey is that Lawson and I don't know what we're talking about, just as Barry claims. But the really interesting thing is that what iranitea goes on to describe of the early days of the TM-Sidhis not only is no different from what I've always understood, but also *confirms* what Lawson and I were saying. Barry is, of course, completely wrong to say Lawson wasn't there. He was there, and so was I, in 1976 when the TM-Sidhis were introduced to the TM rank and file. That we took the course 10 years or so later is irrelevant, contrary to what iranitea appears to think (although what he was trying to say in that regard wasn't at all clear). Both Barry and iranitea seem to believe we've been claiming nobody in the movement was talking about the supernormal performances that were said to be a result of the practice. We never said or suggested that. Barry and iranitea haven't been following the context of the discussion Lawson was having with salyavin. In fact, we were referring only to *how the course was marketed*, i.e., in the brochures, in the lectures that were given about the purpose of the TM-Sidhis course. *Certainly* supernormal performances and their significance were discussed at considerable length in the marketing materials and the lectures. Certainly that's what TMers talked about most, if not exclusively, among themselves. As Lawson and I have both said, however, and as iranitea confirms below (he's actually correcting Barry's rant), the *goal* of the practice was said to be facilitating the development of enlightenment, the supernormal performances being a byproduct and a benchmark of that development. That was the case in 1976, and it remained the case in the mid-'80s when Lawson and I took the course. Lawson did mention one difference: by the time we took the course, we were required to write out in longhand and sign a statement to the effect that we understood the goal of the course was *not* to achieve supernormal performances but to develop enlightenment. That was apparently a result, as Lawson said, of the TMO having being sued for false advertising. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, iranitea no_reply@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, salyavin808 fintlewoodlewix@ wrote: Whatever, I remember the lectures and can't help noticing it all came to nought. Except the part about creating a situation where some of the physiological correlates of pure consciousness appear simultaneously with higher levels of brain activation, the purported purpose of practicing the techniques in the first place. Sparaig, I really wish you and others here would stop saying this. It really marks you as a newbie, someone who wasn't there when the TM-Sidhis came out. There was NO QUESTION when they were introduced that they were for the development of the siddhis them- selves. That was how they were promoted, and that was how they were measured. There used to be daily reports gathered at all the course locations and sent back to Maharishi, hoping to report the first person to truly levitate or perform any of the other objective siddhis. None ever happened. It was only AFTER none ever happened -- for years -- that the TM-Sidhi course began to be marketed in terms of expansion of consciousness or something to speed up enlightenment, or whatever euphemism you were sold. This happened because the TM-Sidhis FAILED, not because they succeeded. Exactly. I think the real discrepancy between anything Lawson or Judy say here about Sid(d)his, (see I don't even know anymore how to write it properly, shall I write it as in the original brochure, that came out 1977, or in the subsequent marketing maybe a year later), is all due to the fact that they were on courses about 10 years later. That's about the time, we had either already left the movement, or were about to leave it. In this sense, there is no doubt in what you say, but the notion, that the main aim of the Siddhis (as of 1977) as described as the development of enlightenment. Because at that time, the notion of 'capture the fort' in order to achieve everything that is around the fort, was still strong going in the movement. In the brochure of 1977 'Enlightenment and the Siddhis' (siddhis still written with dd), all these experiences of the siddhis were described as 'by-products' of
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
Ah, higher education (-: From: turquoiseb no_re...@yahoogroups.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Sunday, June 17, 2012 11:44 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL - --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Alex Stanley j_alexander_stanley@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Share Long sharelong60@ wrote: What's a twif? Wasn't in official welcoming glossary (-: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=twif I dispute this, and confess to never having heard any similar definitions before. :-) I know the term from friends who worked at the Bodhi Tree bookstore. They used it to refer to customers who were so spaced out and spiritual that they made you wonder whether they could find their mouths with a fork, much less hold a job. That is the sense in which I use the word twif.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- turquoiseb no_reply@ wrote: I *like* this new, more saloon-like ambiance of spirituality. There is a Been-There-Done-That-ed-ness about it that I find also contains balance, and a greater sense of acceptance of and comfort with Who One Is Right Here, Right Now, than the I'll believe anything mindset of the past. I find the newer, more laissez-faire Whatever 'tude, if anything, *more* spiritual than the former 'tude. In the past (and among some even today) I always got a feeling that the seeker reacting to Tall Tales Of Power with automatic and enthusiastic belief really *needed* to hear them. These stories were, for them, like a canteen of water in the desert. *Of course* we believed them at the time; we *needed* to believe them, to keep on believing in other stuff. I can't feel nostalgic about that. I can remember it, and have compassion for my younger self for feeling that way, but I don't miss it, and wouldn't want to be in that mindset again, ever. --- turquoiseb no_reply@... wrote: Just to prove that I include myself in my description of how twiffy and gullible we were in those days, today I was sent a scan of the only photo of myself with long hair that I've been able to find. And it's all pulled back into a pony tail, so you can't even see it here. :-( But this is how much of a twif I was at Squaw Valley in 1968. And I should be nostalgic about that? :-) [Me at Squaw Valley, 1968 :-)] [Me at Squaw Valley, 1968 :-)] I guess, we all were like that once upon a time. But then it's evolution. We learn and evolve. For me it's a windfall in terms of learning from the experiences of others. Give some credit to the internet too.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@ wrote: I *like* this new, more saloon-like ambiance of spirituality. There is a Been-There-Done-That-ed-ness about it that I find also contains balance, and a greater sense of acceptance of and comfort with Who One Is Right Here, Right Now, than the I'll believe anything mindset of the past. I find the newer, more laissez-faire Whatever 'tude, if anything, *more* spiritual than the former 'tude. In the past (and among some even today) I always got a feeling that the seeker reacting to Tall Tales Of Power with automatic and enthusiastic belief really *needed* to hear them. These stories were, for them, like a canteen of water in the desert. *Of course* we believed them at the time; we *needed* to believe them, to keep on believing in other stuff. I can't feel nostalgic about that. I can remember it, and have compassion for my younger self for feeling that way, but I don't miss it, and wouldn't want to be in that mindset again, ever. Just to prove that I include myself in my description of how twiffy and gullible we were in those days, today I was sent a scan of the only photo of myself with long hair that I've been able to find. And it's all pulled back into a pony tail, so you can't even see it here. :-( But this is how much of a twif I was at Squaw Valley in 1968. And I should be nostalgic about that? :-) [Me at Squaw Valley, 1968 :-)] You were allowed long hair! Things were different in those days...
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
just for fun for other lurkers It's partly just a habit I accidentally picked up and now can't kick, partly a perplexing puzzle..Uli Hesse [;)] .lol Aber unter uns: So ein ordentliches Männerspiel ist schon ein bisschen kraftvoller ... Hm ... Vielleicht ist es doch besser, wenn der Trainer kokst. [:D] (=Habitually does cocaine) Ich bitte um etwas Niveau, ist ja bodenlos hier. Mia san Mia: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Udk9oMJRuKY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpKOV-EaFj8 Fußball-Club Bayern München www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpKOV-EaFj8 nicknames: Die Bayern (The Bavarians) Die Roten (The Reds) FC Hollywood [:D] http://www.fcbayern.telekom.de/en/news/start/index.php http://scoreshelf.com/qmjb/en/Bayern_Munich/German_Bundesliga --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, iranitea no_reply@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Robin Carlsen maskedzebra@ wrote: Bayern Munich Yep, I tried to translate it into English --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, iranitea no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Robin Carlsen maskedzebra@ wrote: Beautiful stuff, Barry. A life well-lived. What happened to Orange in those first two games? The orange was squeezed out. Are they mourning there in Amsterdam? Arjen Robben seemed angry at being replaced. Is there an 'attitude' problem with the Dutch side? Don't know about that, but Robben has a bit of a down now. Remember also he is playing for Bavaria Munich. Many of the German players are his buddies. That would make sense to me. Nice goal by Robin, however. Can't beat that German discipline. Riiight! But not just discipline, also cleverness and great technique.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
Judy, you do at times have the tendency to go off on a tangent. The point is in the begining MMY didn't consider siddhis as important. Then for a brief period of time it was considered important. Then, in the 80's due to lawsuits again a U-turn was made that it was meant only for enlightenment. This is actually absurd. No other school practices this approach. --- authfriend jstein@... wrote: As Lawson and I have both said, however, and as iranitea confirms below (he's actually correcting Barry's rant), the *goal* of the practice was said to be facilitating the development of enlightenment, the supernormal performances being a byproduct and a benchmark of that development. That was the case in 1976, and it remained the case in the mid-'80s when Lawson and I took the course. Lawson did mention one difference: by the time we took the course, we were required to write out in longhand and sign a statement to the effect that we understood the goal of the course was *not* to achieve supernormal performances but to develop enlightenment. That was apparently a result, as Lawson said, of the TMO having being sued for false advertising. There was NO QUESTION when they were introduced that they were for the development of the siddhis them- selves. That was how they were promoted, and that was how they were measured. There used to be daily reports gathered at all the course locations and sent back to Maharishi, hoping to report the first person to truly levitate or perform any of the other objective siddhis. None ever happened. It was only AFTER none ever happened -- for years -- that the TM-Sidhi course began to be marketed in terms of expansion of consciousness or something to speed up enlightenment, or whatever euphemism you were sold. This happened because the TM-Sidhis FAILED, not because they succeeded.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, iranitea no_reply@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Jason jedi_spock@ wrote: snip Face it Robin, you were *never* enlightened in the first place. Bingo! The conclusion is therefore: not the Maharishi was deceived, but Robin was (and still is) Except that Maharishi appeared to confirm his enlightenment at the time. snip Think of somebody being in a prison, and coming out of it! If you were your whole life in a prison, you don't know what freedom is, you will only realize it the moment you come out. It is not just a slowly and natural fading into something you had already known before - as Robin depicts it. Um, but that isn't how Robin depicts it. He depicts it as a a sudden, overwhelming experience, a massive, instantaneous shift in his relationship to reality, just as in the Plato's Cave analogy: Think of Plato's cave analogy, how the person, who is led outside of the cave, first is blended by the bright sun light, before, he only knew the reflection of light, not even the sun, but of fire. He doesn't go into it in the post iranitea is commenting on, but he's done so in many other posts here, which iranitea either never bothered to read or has forgotten. Robin's current post has gotten mangled in the quoting; the original is here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/message/312354
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Jason jedi_spock@... wrote: Judy, you do at times have the tendency to go off on a tangent. Could you identify the tangent I went on for me, please? The point is in the begining MMY didn't consider siddhis as important. Before he started to develop the practice, right. Then for a brief period of time it was considered important. Then, in the 80's due to lawsuits again a U-turn was made that it was meant only for enlightenment. Nope, wrong, sorry. The presentations and brochures when the TM-Sidhis course was first made available to the rank and file in 1976 said the practice was for developing enlightenment, the supernormal performances being byproducts of the practice and benchmarks of one's progress in that development. The point was that, as Patanjali warns, it's a bad idea to go after the siddhis *for their own sake*. But supernormal performances and experiences were considered an integral part of the development of enlightenment via the practice of the TM-SIdhis. The supernormal performances and experiences were no less important in this regard in the '80s. The lawsuits just made it necessary to have course applicants sign a statement that they understood they weren't being *promised* that they would be able to fly, etc., as a result of taking the course.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, salyavin808 fintlewoodlewix@ wrote: Whatever, I remember the lectures and can't help noticing it all came to nought. Except the part about creating a situation where some of the physiological correlates of pure consciousness appear simultaneously with higher levels of brain activation, the purported purpose of practicing the techniques in the first place. Sparaig, I really wish you and others here would stop saying this. It really marks you as a newbie, someone who wasn't there when the TM-Sidhis came out. There was NO QUESTION when they were introduced that they were for the development of the siddhis them- selves. That was how they were promoted, and that was how they were measured. There used to be daily reports gathered at all the course locations and sent back to Maharishi, hoping to report the first person to truly levitate or perform any of the other objective siddhis. None ever happened. MMY was a PR person at heart. He was well aware that a full-blown demo of the Sidhis, especially Yogic Flying, would have instantly fulfilled the World Plan of teaching everyone in the world to meditate. I've no doubt there was a bit of wishful thinking to confirm his own belief system mixed in there, as well. Of course, at least a year before the TM-Sidhis were announced, I was hearing rumors that someone had walked in on MMY floating himself. The cute young GF of a friend had allegedly been summoned to MMY's room and she arrived early and poked her nose in to see him floating 2 feet off the ground, so perhaps (just perhaps) he had his own experience to back up his expectations. Of course, maybe she saw him hopping like everyone else or perhaps the guy's GF lied to him. I DO believe that his GF told him *something* as he was a follower of Yogananda and had no interest in TM or MMY. What SHE actually saw is unknowable, of course. My own reaction to the story at that time was that if MMY was so enlightened that he could float around the room, he would have sensed her presence and made sure she didn't see him. These days, I consider THAT reaction naive: had he been practicing anything like what he taught, he would have been no more sensitive to the outside world that any other randomly hopping TM sidha would be, regardless of whether he was floating or merely hopping. It was only AFTER none ever happened -- for years -- that the TM-Sidhi course began to be marketed in terms of expansion of consciousness or something to speed up enlightenment, or whatever euphemism you were sold. This happened because the TM-Sidhis FAILED, not because they succeeded. As I said, the first time I formally heard about the TM-SIdhis course, which was within a few weeks of when I first heard rumors about it in 1976, I believe, it was presented as a course in the development of consciousness. The fact that you are hung up on the powers thing is your own problem. According to the definition you profess to believe in (Maharishi's), UC involves being able to fully perform the siddhis, objectively. According to that same definition, therefore, the TM movement has failed to produce even one person in over 40 years of teaching who was in UC. Yet you seem to think the odds are in your favor to keep on keepin' on. Full-blown UC includes being able to fully perform the siddhis. Of course, Vaj maintains that full-blown CC is all that is required to fully perform the siddhis, and perhaps he is right. However, in order to be in full-blown UC, one must already be in full-blown CC, so it's not an important distinction in the long run, as far as being in full-blown UC is concerned. It's *fine* that you settled for the things you settled for, with TM and with the TM-Sidhis. But please don't pretend that the things you settled for were either how they were originally sold or that they were the goals of either at the time. The height of the high jump bar was lowered to match actual performance, that's all. In fact, as I said, the official presentation of the TM-sidhis in 1976 was all about growth in consciousness. The official presentation of them in the first Collected [scientific] Papers was all about growth of consciousness. MMY's wishful thinking and really over the top publicity posters notwithstanding, that is how he presented them to the world, and since you weren't (if I recall correctly) involved with the TM organization at all by that time, your knowledge of MMY's attitude about them is 2nd or 3rd hand, at best. The fact that some TM teacher got hung up on the flying thing might be MMY's fault, although, as I have said, by 1976 the formal presentation of the TM-sidhis was in terms of enlightenment, and we still, more than 35 years later, hear people
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, salyavin808 fintlewoodlewix@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: [...] Whatever, I remember the lectures and can't help noticing it all came to nought. Except the part about creating a situation where some of the physiological correlates of pure consciousness appear simultaneously with higher levels of brain activation, the purported purpose of practicing the techniques in the first place. Oh yeah, except that part, silly of me to forget I've got physiological correlates appearing simultaneously with higher levels of brain activation going on. Well, that's what was said. It was said explicitly by Rick Archer to me in 1976, though he didn't say it in quite those words. It was said explicitly in the 1976 Collected Papers Volume 1. It was said explicitly to the world press in July 1986 when the first public Yogic Flying demos were held. And it was what I was required to write on that piece of paper I mentioned earlier when I applied for the TM-sidhis in 1985. I also applied in 1984, but I don't recall if it was required of me then. I may not have gotten far enough along in the application process to go through that little ritual since I had just gotten out of the USAF only a year earlier. As I said, a stress reduction technique may not touch symptoms if they don't have anything to do with stress. It's funny how you can quote the brochures like you do above then contradict them like you do here. It's all a kind of mix and match thing for you but I don't seperate any of it, the teaching is what it is and, according to SCI, all health problems are stress related and TM is the cure for them all, have you ever even read the Science of Being? You should give it a try, I warn you though you might end up on my side of the sceptical fence. Hmmm? Certainly, one can make a case that all health problems have a stress component, but if that component isn't the primary issue, than enlightenment (CC) won't address the primary issue. If you are missing an arm, gaining CC won't give you that arm back. Of course, one could make the case that one could voluntarily direct one's arm to grow back if one was in full-blown UC (but that goes back to the Sidhis in that case). I have read the Science of Being a few dozen times. Likewise with MMY's Gita commentary. There's no end of bullshit some people will believe. Obviously. However, if one suspends all common sense (to use your term) while participating in something, and then decides that that something doesn't jive with common sense, it isn't surprising that you would suddenly decide that the self-created straw-man of your own belief system was bullshit. One can make the case that ALL belief systems are bullshit. L
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, iranitea no_reply@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, salyavin808 fintlewoodlewix@ wrote: Whatever, I remember the lectures and can't help noticing it all came to nought. Except the part about creating a situation where some of the physiological correlates of pure consciousness appear simultaneously with higher levels of brain activation, the purported purpose of practicing the techniques in the first place. Sparaig, I really wish you and others here would stop saying this. It really marks you as a newbie, someone who wasn't there when the TM-Sidhis came out. There was NO QUESTION when they were introduced that they were for the development of the siddhis them- selves. That was how they were promoted, and that was how they were measured. There used to be daily reports gathered at all the course locations and sent back to Maharishi, hoping to report the first person to truly levitate or perform any of the other objective siddhis. None ever happened. It was only AFTER none ever happened -- for years -- that the TM-Sidhi course began to be marketed in terms of expansion of consciousness or something to speed up enlightenment, or whatever euphemism you were sold. This happened because the TM-Sidhis FAILED, not because they succeeded. Exactly. I think the real discrepancy between anything Lawson or Judy say here about Sid(d)his, (see I don't even know anymore how to write it properly, shall I write it as in the original brochure, that came out 1977, or in the subsequent marketing maybe a year later), is all due to the fact that they were on courses about 10 years later. That's about the time, we had either already left the movement, or were about to leave it. Was in 1976 or 1977? And yet, this is all enthusiasm and doesn't change what the formal presentation was to us peons as early as 1976. Rick, do you remember when you first did that tour with Purusha presenting stuff about the TM-Sidhis to local centers? Regardless, we heard what we (and MMY) wanted us to hear. My own belief is that he was indeed convinced that floating was just around the corner and wanted everyone to start as fast as possible in order to usher in the 'full dawn of the Age of Enlightenment' so he was willing to play a bit fast and loose with the current reality in the belief that the result would be reality catching up with his rhetoric. In this sense, there is no doubt in what you say, but the notion, that the main aim of the Siddhis (as of 1977) as described as the development of enlightenment. Because at that time, the notion of 'capture the fort' in order to achieve everything that is around the fort, was still strong going in the movement. In the brochure of 1977 'Enlightenment and the Siddhis' (siddhis still written with dd), all these experiences of the siddhis were described as 'by-products' of the development of enlightenment, which would be, as you describe, incomplete without the full development of the siddhis, those special abilities, like flying of course.) This is of course also a reflection on the usual scriptural critique of the siddhis. exactly as I have said. Over enthusiasm of everyone (including myself at that time) aside, the core message was and always has been the same: development of the siddhis is a by-product of becoming enlightened. MMY merely claimed that it was possible, in the correct context (TM-Sidhis course) to develop siddhis in order to speed up development of enlightenment. The brochure had a lot of experience reports from six month courses, all describing various cosmic experiences, or well, experience of the super normal.) There were adds out showing seemingly flying people, saying something like 'breakthrough in human potential'. There was a banner/ exhibition showing people seemingly levitate. While it was always said, that these were mere byproducts, they were nevertheless stressed as necessary for enlightenment. Full-blown UC, at least or, as Vaj claims, full-blown CC, which is, as we all know, something that MMY claimed was a pre-requisit for full-blown UC. There was a constant expectation fueled by rumors and sayings of Maharishi, some of them I was even present myself, that people would soon actually fly, first hoover and then fly, and that it was only due to stress in world consciousness, that it didn't yet happen. Maharishi also said this in videotapes circulated at the time, as I remember, he commented, that people would be surprised if somebody wouldn't sit inside a taxi, but hoover above it. This was on normal video tapes around 1978. I recall at least hearing about that before I left for the USAF in 1978. The PR
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@... wrote: There's no end of bullshit some people will believe. Obviously. However, if one suspends all common sense (to use your term) while participating in something, and then decides that that something doesn't jive with common sense, it isn't surprising that you would suddenly decide that the self-created straw-man of your own belief system was bullshit. It depends what the belief system is, the idea that I self- created a belief around the siddhis is laughable, I got my knowledge and understanding about it from the reesh himself it's just that I don't try and kid myself about what it meant now it's turned out not to work. In the case of levitation via yogic hopping I can honestly, but shamefully, say that I brought into it for a while. I find it hard to comprehend that I once really did believe, even for a second, that the laws of physics were optional due to having a few very unlikely phrases from Maharishi. But yes, I think I was dumb enough to believe it for a while. That's the power of cults, they can turn everyone into an idiot for a while or as long as the need to hold the belief outweighs the fear of having to think for yourself. We live and learn don't we. Hopefully. One can make the case that ALL belief systems are bullshit. I try and avoid them, all we have really are things that are more or less likely to be true. And it all comes down to what you accept as evidence. L
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Jason jedi_spock@... wrote: Judy, you do at times have the tendency to go off on a tangent. The point is in the begining MMY didn't consider siddhis as important. Then for a brief period of time it was considered important. Then, in the 80's due to lawsuits again a U-turn was made that it was meant only for enlightenment. This is actually absurd. No other school practices this approach. You still don't understand. Floating is a by-product of becoming enlightened. Becoming enlightened is a by-product of cultivating the ability to float via practice of the TM-Sidhis. Everyone fully expected to eventually be floating when I took the TM-Sidhis in the mid 80's. However, we had to prove legally that we understood that they were for enlightenment and no guarantee of any power was made. I would venture to say that people STILL expect eventually to be floating when they take the course. Myself, I have become far more skeptical over the last 25 years, but I dutifully attempt to set my skepticism aside when I sit down to practice and remind myself that Yogic Flying is for floating. L.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, iranitea no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Jason jedi_spock@ wrote: snip Face it Robin, you were *never* enlightened in the first place. Bingo! The conclusion is therefore: not the Maharishi was deceived, but Robin was (and still is) Except that Maharishi appeared to confirm his enlightenment at the time. I heard that Robin was asked to speak about his valid experiences of UC, not that MMY had confirmed that he was floating around the room. L
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Robin Carlsen maskedzebra@... wrote: [...] . Now it is mostly ignored�except for people like David Orme-Johnson. But I suppose the writing was on the wall when the judge in New Jersey ruled that TM was a religion (Malik versus Yogi 1977). That for me, was the beginning of The End. A slight nit: Malnak vs Yogi didn't rule that TM was a religion but that teaching TM + its theoretical component, SCI, in the public schools was a violation of the separation of church and state. That distinction is important because it allows the David Lynch Foundation to offer the Quiet Time program where every student and teacher in a school can learn TM for free and voluntarily practice it during the Quiet Time period at the start and end of each school day. Had TM itself been ruled a religion, they couldn't get away with doing that. L
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@... wrote: [...] Nope, wrong, sorry. The presentations and brochures when the TM-Sidhis course was first made available to the rank and file in 1976 said the practice was for developing enlightenment, the supernormal performances being byproducts of the practice and benchmarks of one's progress in that development. The point was that, as Patanjali warns, it's a bad idea to go after the siddhis *for their own sake*. But supernormal performances and experiences were considered an integral part of the development of enlightenment via the practice of the TM-SIdhis. BTW, either the Yogativa (sp) Upanishad or the Shiva Samhita describes Yogic Flying as a practice that benefits the entire world. So MMY's take on things can be supported by at least one traditional text. L
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
Has it ever occured to you that you threw out the baby with the bath water? That TM and TM-Sidhis practice are beneficial in their own right, regardless of the overblown rhetoric that was used to sell them to you? L. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, salyavin808 fintlewoodlewix@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: There's no end of bullshit some people will believe. Obviously. However, if one suspends all common sense (to use your term) while participating in something, and then decides that that something doesn't jive with common sense, it isn't surprising that you would suddenly decide that the self-created straw-man of your own belief system was bullshit. It depends what the belief system is, the idea that I self- created a belief around the siddhis is laughable, I got my knowledge and understanding about it from the reesh himself it's just that I don't try and kid myself about what it meant now it's turned out not to work. In the case of levitation via yogic hopping I can honestly, but shamefully, say that I brought into it for a while. I find it hard to comprehend that I once really did believe, even for a second, that the laws of physics were optional due to having a few very unlikely phrases from Maharishi. But yes, I think I was dumb enough to believe it for a while. That's the power of cults, they can turn everyone into an idiot for a while or as long as the need to hold the belief outweighs the fear of having to think for yourself. We live and learn don't we. Hopefully. One can make the case that ALL belief systems are bullshit. I try and avoid them, all we have really are things that are more or less likely to be true. And it all comes down to what you accept as evidence. L
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@... wrote: snip And full blown UC is different than having valid experiences of UC which is what apparently MMY said about Robin at one point. I make the case that many of Robin's issues stemmed from the fact that he missed [or rejected] MMY's point about floating being a _sine qua non_ for full blown UC (or CC -waves to Vaj). FWIW, if Robin was having only experiences of UC, they were, according to him, totally stable 24/7 throughout the 10 years during which he considered himself to be enlightened. Regarding MMY's comment about flying being the sine qua non for full-blown UC, I do not think that was meant the way we tend to interpret it, if we take MMY's definition of UC seriously. Maybe Robin will have something to say to clarify this.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@... wrote: Has it ever occured to you that you threw out the baby with the bath water? Nope, I still do TM but because I like it not because I'm kidding myself it's doing anything more than put a nice shine on things. Any further benefits will be appreciated. The siddhis were abandoned a long time ago as a waste of time and not a particularly pleasant one at that. And it took a long time to admit to myself that they were doing me no good rather than simply that something good is happening. If you get more out of it I'm happy for you but the TM mythos is great at keeping you at it when it aint working and I know a lot of people who should stop and also loads who like it, we're all different. That TM and TM-Sidhis practice are beneficial in their own right, regardless of the overblown rhetoric that was used to sell them to you? L. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, salyavin808 fintlewoodlewix@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: There's no end of bullshit some people will believe. Obviously. However, if one suspends all common sense (to use your term) while participating in something, and then decides that that something doesn't jive with common sense, it isn't surprising that you would suddenly decide that the self-created straw-man of your own belief system was bullshit. It depends what the belief system is, the idea that I self- created a belief around the siddhis is laughable, I got my knowledge and understanding about it from the reesh himself it's just that I don't try and kid myself about what it meant now it's turned out not to work. In the case of levitation via yogic hopping I can honestly, but shamefully, say that I brought into it for a while. I find it hard to comprehend that I once really did believe, even for a second, that the laws of physics were optional due to having a few very unlikely phrases from Maharishi. But yes, I think I was dumb enough to believe it for a while. That's the power of cults, they can turn everyone into an idiot for a while or as long as the need to hold the belief outweighs the fear of having to think for yourself. We live and learn don't we. Hopefully. One can make the case that ALL belief systems are bullshit. I try and avoid them, all we have really are things that are more or less likely to be true. And it all comes down to what you accept as evidence. L
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, iranitea no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Jason jedi_spock@ wrote: snip Face it Robin, you were *never* enlightened in the first place. Bingo! The conclusion is therefore: not the Maharishi was deceived, but Robin was (and still is) Except that Maharishi appeared to confirm his enlightenment at the time. I heard that Robin was asked to speak about his valid experiences of UC, not that MMY had confirmed that he was floating around the room. Non sequitur, actually. See my previous post.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: [...] Nope, wrong, sorry. The presentations and brochures when the TM-Sidhis course was first made available to the rank and file in 1976 said the practice was for developing enlightenment, the supernormal performances being byproducts of the practice and benchmarks of one's progress in that development. The point was that, as Patanjali warns, it's a bad idea to go after the siddhis *for their own sake*. But supernormal performances and experiences were considered an integral part of the development of enlightenment via the practice of the TM-SIdhis. BTW, either the Yogativa (sp) Of these http://sanskritdocuments.org/doc_upanishhat/doc_upanishhat.html ...probably, yoga-tattva... Upanishad or the Shiva Samhita describes Yogic Flying as a practice that benefits the entire world. So MMY's take on things can be supported by at least one traditional text. L
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: snip And full blown UC is different than having valid experiences of UC which is what apparently MMY said about Robin at one point. I make the case that many of Robin's issues stemmed from the fact that he missed [or rejected] MMY's point about floating being a _sine qua non_ for full blown UC (or CC -waves to Vaj). FWIW, if Robin was having only experiences of UC, they were, according to him, totally stable 24/7 throughout the 10 years during which he considered himself to be enlightened. And yet... He never claimed he could float as far as I know. MMY's comment about how the TM-sidhis would clarify people's real state of consciousness, regardless of what they thought, is not only relevant, but directed at least partly at Robin and others like him. Regarding MMY's comment about flying being the sine qua non for full-blown UC, I do not think that was meant the way we tend to interpret it, if we take MMY's definition of UC seriously. Or perhaps it was. Maybe Robin will have something to say to clarify this. If Robin doesn't claim that he was floating at that time, then it supports my conclusions, I think. L.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, cardemaister no_reply@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: [...] Nope, wrong, sorry. The presentations and brochures when the TM-Sidhis course was first made available to the rank and file in 1976 said the practice was for developing enlightenment, the supernormal performances being byproducts of the practice and benchmarks of one's progress in that development. The point was that, as Patanjali warns, it's a bad idea to go after the siddhis *for their own sake*. But supernormal performances and experiences were considered an integral part of the development of enlightenment via the practice of the TM-SIdhis. BTW, either the Yogativa (sp) Of these http://sanskritdocuments.org/doc_upanishhat/doc_upanishhat.html ...probably, yoga-tattva... BTW, the alphabetical order is that of Sanskrit, here in Harvard- Kyoto transliteration scheme: Vowels (short and long), anusvaara (M) and visarga (H): a A i I u U R RR lR lRR e ai o au M H Consonants, starting from the deepest series: (guttural) k kh g gh G ( = ng in thing) (palatal) c ch j jh J ( = ñ in mañana) (retroflex aka cerebral) T Th D Dh N (dental)t th d dh n (labial) p ph b bh m Semivowels: y (as in 'yes') r l v Sibilants and 'h': z ( = palatal 'sh') S ( = retroflex 'sh'), s, h Upanishad or the Shiva Samhita describes Yogic Flying as a practice that benefits the entire world. So MMY's take on things can be supported by at least one traditional text. L
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
I'm chiming in late on this topic, but I was there when the siddhis were first taught to us. And my recollection (contrary to yours Barry) is that, right from the beginning, MMY talked about them as a technique to promote the ability to maintain PC while in activity, and also as a test of one's ability to do that. I don't recall his ever saying that the siddhi results alone were the object of the practice. He said that was a limited view of the the whole endeavor. Personally, I never got much from the practice, and it seemed to devour so much time, time I did not really have as a parent who needed to cook meals, take care of kids, read and do all the other fun things in life. I decided it was incompatible with my householder life. While doing it form time to time, I did feel energy during the flying technique, I never really flew anywhere - except once out of the blue I lifted high for a few seconds - no effort on my part. Otherwise, I sat and sat. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Jason jedi_spock@... wrote: Judy, you do at times have the tendency to go off on a tangent. The point is in the begining MMY didn't consider siddhis as important. Then for a brief period of time it was considered important. Then, in the 80's due to lawsuits again a U-turn was made that it was meant only for enlightenment. This is actually absurd. No other school practices this approach. --- authfriend jstein@ wrote: As Lawson and I have both said, however, and as iranitea confirms below (he's actually correcting Barry's rant), the *goal* of the practice was said to be facilitating the development of enlightenment, the supernormal performances being a byproduct and a benchmark of that development. That was the case in 1976, and it remained the case in the mid-'80s when Lawson and I took the course. Lawson did mention one difference: by the time we took the course, we were required to write out in longhand and sign a statement to the effect that we understood the goal of the course was *not* to achieve supernormal performances but to develop enlightenment. That was apparently a result, as Lawson said, of the TMO having being sued for false advertising. There was NO QUESTION when they were introduced that they were for the development of the siddhis them- selves. That was how they were promoted, and that was how they were measured. There used to be daily reports gathered at all the course locations and sent back to Maharishi, hoping to report the first person to truly levitate or perform any of the other objective siddhis. None ever happened. It was only AFTER none ever happened -- for years -- that the TM-Sidhi course began to be marketed in terms of expansion of consciousness or something to speed up enlightenment, or whatever euphemism you were sold. This happened because the TM-Sidhis FAILED, not because they succeeded.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: snip And full blown UC is different than having valid experiences of UC which is what apparently MMY said about Robin at one point. I make the case that many of Robin's issues stemmed from the fact that he missed [or rejected] MMY's point about floating being a _sine qua non_ for full blown UC (or CC -waves to Vaj). FWIW, if Robin was having only experiences of UC, they were, according to him, totally stable 24/7 throughout the 10 years during which he considered himself to be enlightened. And yet... He never claimed he could float as far as I know. MMY's comment about how the TM-sidhis would clarify people's real state of consciousness, regardless of what they thought, is not only relevant, but directed at least partly at Robin and others like him. You have no way of knowing who it was directed to, Lawson. Regarding MMY's comment about flying being the sine qua non for full-blown UC, I do not think that was meant the way we tend to interpret it, if we take MMY's definition of UC seriously. Or perhaps it was. I think not. Not the way you're interpreting it, at any rate. And it would be important to know the exact words he said, as well as the context in which he said them. Maybe Robin will have something to say to clarify this. If Robin doesn't claim that he was floating at that time, then it supports my conclusions, I think. He doesn't, but I think it would be prudent to hear what he has to say before deciding that the absence of such a claim supports one's conclusions on this point. You could also review what he wrote about his experience in the post he left about it yesterday. That *should* give you a clue. This is very much a case where Knowledge is different in different states of consciousness applies. Bottom line, there's no way we can tell what state of consciousness Robin was in. But it's entirely possible to rule out some of the reasons that have been given for believing he was not in UC.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, salyavin808 fintlewoodlewix@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: Has it ever occured to you that you threw out the baby with the bath water? Nope, I still do TM but because I like it not because I'm kidding myself it's doing anything more than put a nice shine on things. Any further benefits will be appreciated. Fair enouigh. The siddhis were abandoned a long time ago as a waste of time and not a particularly pleasant one at that. And it took a long time to admit to myself that they were doing me no good rather than simply that something good is happening. If you get more out of it I'm happy for you but the TM mythos is great at keeping you at it when it aint working and I know a lot of people who should stop and also loads who like it, we're all different. I definitely notice a difference when I don't practice them and so do friends and family. Whether this is anything beyond placebo, who can say. L
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Jason jedi_spock@ wrote: Judy, you do at times have the tendency to go off on a tangent. The point is in the begining MMY didn't consider siddhis as important. Then for a brief period of time it was considered important. Then, in the 80's due to lawsuits again a U-turn was made that it was meant only for enlightenment. This is actually absurd. No other school practices this approach. You still don't understand. Floating is a by-product of becoming enlightened. Becoming enlightened is a by-product of cultivating the ability to float via practice of the TM-Sidhis. That's somehow circular logic here, don't you think? A (Siddhis) is the result (by-product) of B (full enlightenment). B (full enlightenment) is the result of (practicing) A (siddhis). Now what? Everyone fully expected to eventually be floating when I took the TM-Sidhis in the mid 80's. However, we had to prove legally that we understood that they were for enlightenment and no guarantee of any power was made. I would venture to say that people STILL expect eventually to be floating when they take the course. Bingo! One other difference, between you course, and the one I was on, is, that we actually expected to float on the course itself. I mean, we didn't see any videos or demonstrations of YF, we were just exposed to photos presented in a very manipulated way, so we had the feeling people were actually staying longer in the air then they actually did. I remember how disappointed I was, when I actually saw the first person hopping on my course. And, after swallowing that, when I had started hopping myself, and it started to be 'fun' and good, we were still expecting floating in the nearby future. There was this rumor about a press conference announced, where Maharishi would fly across Lake Lucerne, and that would prepare world consciousness to rise enough, so that we all would float. Now the point I was making, was actually, while it was always stated that enlightenment was the MAIN goal, even in 1977, the full experience of the siddhis were a secondary goal, and at the time, this secondary goal was much more emphasized in publications and talks, than it was later on. For example, there were posters showing the Sidha Man, cross legged floating like a Superman. The goal to ultimately fly was always there. It is obvious, that through time, and failing to achieve these, this secondary goal was pushed more into the background as a distant possibility, while at the same time it was more and more substituted by the goals of reaching enlightenment, and, as this also didn't work out for most people, by the goal to change collective consciousness and achieve world peace. It's a classic case of goal replacements. Myself, I have become far more skeptical over the last 25 years, but I dutifully attempt to set my skepticism aside when I sit down to practice and remind myself that Yogic Flying is for floating. L.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL - mahavakyas
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Share Long sharelong60@... wrote:
Tea wrote:
I remember Maharishi talking about the 'shock of unity'
my reply:
I'm not sure of the exact wording either, whether shock of unity or
Brahman. And I think in this context Maharishi talked about the mahavakyas,
phrases that the Master said to the disciple to help calm down the shock of
this transition:
Yes, it was about Mahavakyas
I am That
Thou art That
All This is That
That alone is
Probably best if said in Sanskrit (-:
Not sure about that.
And, just to add to the soup, I've been told there are different versions of
mahavakyas.
Right. Generally four Mahavakyas are selected as the main ones, each being from
a different Upanishad, corresponding to one of the different 4 Vedas. All the
Mahavakyas confirm the identity between individual soul, atma, and Brahman.
My guess is that their power stems from the shaktipat of the Master as well
as from their own inherent high vibe.
Sure, they have to be taught by the guru at the right moment, when the disciple
is ready for it.
From: iranitea no_re...@yahoogroups.com
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, June 17, 2012 8:56 AM
Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
Â
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Jason jedi_spock@ wrote:
Robin you say that you had to transfer your allegience to
another reality. There is only one reality.
Has it occured to you that both east and west could be wrong
or both partially right.?
Do you realise that by completely rejecting the east, you
have in effect 'thrown the baby along with the bathwater'.
The five paras that you have written below conclusively,
authoritatively and empricaly prove that you were never in
Unity, Robin.
Scientists say that any technology that is once unleashed
into the enviornment can never be rolled back. Same is the
case of enlightenment or awakening.
There is no such thing as de-enlightenment Robin. It's a
one way trip.
Face it Robin, you were *never* enlightened in the first
place.
Bingo! The conclusion is therefore: not the Maharishi was deceived, but Robin
was (and still is)
I found these two videos of Osho very helpful in understanding enlightenment:
You Are in Prison and You Think You Are Free
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XyOmYVIsig
Spiritual Growth and Enlightenment
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uP5J3i1H5dA
There are several things that strike me as improbably on the account below.
One of these is the fact that Robin presents his 'enlightenment' in a
straight line leading up from his encounters with Maharishi and the
experiences he has had on courses or through plain TM ('transcending'). But
in my own humble experiences, this is not like it is. I remember Maharishi
talking about the 'shock of unity' (I am not totally sure now, if it as
'shock of unity' or 'shock of Brahman') These were not very well known tapes,
but I am sure, more than just me, who are here, have seen it. This is what
actually coincides with my own experiences in this direction (I don't claim
enlightenment though.)
Think of somebody being in a prison, and coming out of it! If you were your
whole life in a prison, you don't know what freedom is, you will only realize
it the moment you come out. It is not just a slowly and natural fading into
something you had already known before - as Robin depicts it.
Think of Plato's cave analogy, how the person, who is led outside of the
cave, first is blended by the bright sun light, before, he only knew the
reflection of light, not even the sun, but of fire.
I cannot help, and notice the strong emotional sense of nostalgia in Robins
report. I think many TM teachers can identify with these feelings, the
memories of being on rounding courses and so on. I know these feelings, but I
don't in no way, have any sense of nostalgia about it. It is simply gone, was
nice at the time, but has been replaced by something better, more true and
more liberating. So. I believe firmly, once you are liberated, there will be
a break to all of your past life, that cannot be reverted.
Either the East was right, or Gerard Manley Hopkins was
right.
But the critical moment occurred when I realized: Well,
either Christ is right or Maharishi is right.
But truth is truth, and reality is reality. I came to the
conclusion that Christ was right, that Aquinas was right,
that Saint Theresa of Avila was right, and that Maharishi
was deceived.
I had to transfer my allegiance to another reality. That
was easy while I was a Catholic, but in the fall of 1987
while in Lourdes, France, I became convinced that the
Roman Catholic Church was without the power to save souls;
that the Holy Ghost had abandoned it, that the Virgin Mary
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@ wrote: I *like* this new, more saloon-like ambiance of spirituality. There is a Been-There-Done-That-ed-ness about it that I find also contains balance, and a greater sense of acceptance of and comfort with Who One Is Right Here, Right Now, than the I'll believe anything mindset of the past. I find the newer, more laissez-faire Whatever 'tude, if anything, *more* spiritual than the former 'tude. In the past (and among some even today) I always got a feeling that the seeker reacting to Tall Tales Of Power with automatic and enthusiastic belief really *needed* to hear them. These stories were, for them, like a canteen of water in the desert. *Of course* we believed them at the time; we *needed* to believe them, to keep on believing in other stuff. I can't feel nostalgic about that. I can remember it, and have compassion for my younger self for feeling that way, but I don't miss it, and wouldn't want to be in that mindset again, ever. Just to prove that I include myself in my description of how twiffy and gullible we were in those days, today I was sent a scan of the only photo of myself with long hair that I've been able to find. And it's all pulled back into a pony tail, so you can't even see it here. :-( But this is how much of a twif I was at Squaw Valley in 1968. And I should be nostalgic about that? :-) [Me at Squaw Valley, 1968 :-)] Wow, nice photo, you look like you are just coming from Star Trek (what's the star at your chest?). Yeah, you do look a bit dreamy here, but so did I at the time I remember. 1968, quite early on, before my time.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, iranitea no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Jason jedi_spock@ wrote: snip Face it Robin, you were *never* enlightened in the first place. Bingo! The conclusion is therefore: not the Maharishi was deceived, but Robin was (and still is) Except that Maharishi appeared to confirm his enlightenment at the time. I heard that Robin was asked to speak about his valid experiences of UC, not that MMY had confirmed that he was floating around the room. Non sequitur, actually. See my previous post. But, as I pointed out, MMY's comment about the TM-Sidhis letting people know where they REALLY are at, enlightenment-wise, seems directed to Robin and anyone else who was certain they were fully in UC. L.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@... wrote: [...] Bottom line, there's no way we can tell what state of consciousness Robin was in. But it's entirely possible to rule out some of the reasons that have been given for believing he was not in UC. Fred Travis sometimes refers to the subjects who score at the extreme end of his Brain INtegration Scale, who were all selected for testing because they were reporting 24/7 witnessing for at least a year, as enlightened subjects. IN that sense, Robin's UC experience, which apparently lasted 10 years, according to him, could indeed be called real UC. However, MMY made it very clear that the ability to perform any and all of the sidhis at will (and if you were practicing the TM-Sidhis during the period in which you started to claim full enlightenment, this would mean during your daily sutra practice), was a requisit for full enlightenment. If Robin wasn't floating when practicing the TM-SIdhis and if MMY declared that he was having valid UC experiences, then it follows that MMY wasn't declaring Robin to be in UC permanently, but only that his UC episodes were real in a temporary sense rather than he was a fully enlightened person forever more. L.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, iranitea no_reply@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Jason jedi_spock@ wrote: Judy, you do at times have the tendency to go off on a tangent. The point is in the begining MMY didn't consider siddhis as important. Then for a brief period of time it was considered important. Then, in the 80's due to lawsuits again a U-turn was made that it was meant only for enlightenment. This is actually absurd. No other school practices this approach. You still don't understand. Floating is a by-product of becoming enlightened. Becoming enlightened is a by-product of cultivating the ability to float via practice of the TM-Sidhis. That's somehow circular logic here, don't you think? A (Siddhis) is the result (by-product) of B (full enlightenment). B (full enlightenment) is the result of (practicing) A (siddhis). Now what? Being able to benchpress xxx kg is long-term outcome of practicing benchpressing x(xx) kg and building up to xxx kg. benchpressing x(xx) kg on a regular basis and building up your weight is the only way of becoming able to benchpress xxx kg unless you have some other exercise that develops the some muscles to the same degree. Everyone fully expected to eventually be floating when I took the TM-Sidhis in the mid 80's. However, we had to prove legally that we understood that they were for enlightenment and no guarantee of any power was made. I would venture to say that people STILL expect eventually to be floating when they take the course. Bingo! One other difference, between you course, and the one I was on, is, that we actually expected to float on the course itself. I mean, we didn't see any videos or demonstrations of YF, we were just exposed to photos presented in a very manipulated way, so we had the feeling people were actually staying longer in the air then they actually did. I remember how disappointed I was, when I actually saw the first person hopping on my course. And, after swallowing that, when I had started hopping myself, and it started to be 'fun' and good, we were still expecting floating in the nearby future. There was this rumor about a press conference announced, where Maharishi would fly across Lake Lucerne, and that would prepare world consciousness to rise enough, so that we all would float. Sure, MMY was very confident, but either he was exagerating his confidence in hopes of getting everyone else enthusiastic and regular and perhaps speed up the process, or he was simply wrong to be so confident. Or, you can argue that he didn't believe his rhetoric at all. Is that what you are suggesting? Now the point I was making, was actually, while it was always stated that enlightenment was the MAIN goal, even in 1977, the full experience of the siddhis were a secondary goal, and at the time, this secondary goal was much more emphasized in publications and talks, than it was later on. For example, there were posters showing the Sidha Man, cross legged floating like a Superman. The goal to ultimately fly was always there. It is obvious, that through time, and failing to achieve these, this secondary goal was pushed more into the background as a distant possibility, while at the same time it was more and more substituted by the goals of reaching enlightenment, and, as this also didn't work out for most people, by the goal to change collective consciousness and achieve world peace. It's a classic case of goal replacements. And, obviously, MMY's expectations weren't fulfilled in the timeframe he suggested. By definition, this makes him less than perfectly enlightened, assuming that perfect enlightenment means you can't be wrong about an estimation of how long it will take for something to happen. Myself, I have become far more skeptical over the last 25 years, but I dutifully attempt to set my skepticism aside when I sit down to practice and remind myself that Yogic Flying is for floating. L
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, iranitea no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Jason jedi_spock@ wrote: snip Face it Robin, you were *never* enlightened in the first place. Bingo! The conclusion is therefore: not the Maharishi was deceived, but Robin was (and still is) Except that Maharishi appeared to confirm his enlightenment at the time. I heard that Robin was asked to speak about his valid experiences of UC, not that MMY had confirmed that he was floating around the room. Non sequitur, actually. See my previous post. But, as I pointed out, MMY's comment about the TM-Sidhis letting people know where they REALLY are at, enlightenment- wise, seems directed to Robin and anyone else who was certain they were fully in UC. If they were *not* fully in UC. And we'd have to know exactly what he meant: in what way would the TM-Sidhis let people know where they REALLY were at? Look, it's really just so silly even to be speculating about this. But here's one thing to keep in mind: from 1976 until 1983, MMY could at any time have told Robin he wasn't in UC, or made an announcement to that effect, for that matter, and stopped Robin and Robin's group in its tracks. But he didn't. It wasn't until he was under a court order that he finally spoke up, at a point when validating Robin's enlightenment could have created serious problems for MIU and the movement generally. Why did he wait until Robin had precipitated a crisis at MIU--even telling Bevan prior to that to leave Robin alone--if he knew all along Robin wasn't in UC? There doesn't seem to be any way we can know what was going on in MMY's mind where Robin was concerned.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@... wrote: [...] Why did he wait until Robin had precipitated a crisis at MIU--even telling Bevan prior to that to leave Robin alone--if he knew all along Robin wasn't in UC? He was having valid experiences of UC, according to all accounts Why discourage Robin in his growth rather then letting him draw his own conclusions by MMY's generalized public statements? Robin never went back and asked MMY to revalidate things, did he? Had he done so, MMY might have said don't worry or he might have said go and be practical in society as he did with Curtis. Either way... There doesn't seem to be any way we can know what was going on in MMY's mind where Robin was concerned. Of course there is. MMY made a very clear statement about full success in any of the sidhis, such as yogic flying, and full enlightenment. It was up to Robin to make the connection, and apparently he never did. L.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: [...] Why did he wait until Robin had precipitated a crisis at MIU--even telling Bevan prior to that to leave Robin alone--if he knew all along Robin wasn't in UC? He was having valid experiences of UC, according to all accounts Why discourage Robin in his growth rather then letting him draw his own conclusions by MMY's generalized public statements? How would telling Robin he wasn't quite there yet have discouraged Robin's growth? In 1983, he was causing big problems at MIU. Why didn't MMY interfere then? Robin never went back and asked MMY to revalidate things, did he? They were in personal contact at least once after Robin had set up his own group in Victoria (before coming to MIU). Had he done so, MMY might have said don't worry or he might have said go and be practical in society as he did with Curtis. I think that was Joe Kellett, not Curtis. Either way... There doesn't seem to be any way we can know what was going on in MMY's mind where Robin was concerned. Of course there is. MMY made a very clear statement about full success in any of the sidhis, such as yogic flying, and full enlightenment. You're still assuming you understand that statement. It was up to Robin to make the connection, and apparently he never did. Or he did, and knew it didn't mean what you think it meant. Like I say, best to ask him how he sees all this. You and I aren't in a position to say what's what.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL - mahavakyas
Do you mean: Not sure about That? (-:
From: iranitea no_re...@yahoogroups.com
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, June 17, 2012 5:46 PM
Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL - mahavakyas
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Share Long sharelong60@... wrote:
Tea wrote:
I remember Maharishi talking about the 'shock of unity'
my reply:
I'm not sure of the exact wording either, whether shock of unity or
Brahman. And I think in this context Maharishi talked about the mahavakyas,
phrases that the Master said to the disciple to help calm down the shock of
this transition:
Yes, it was about Mahavakyas
I am That
Thou art That
All This is That
That alone is
Probably best if said in Sanskrit (-:
Not sure about that.
And, just to add to the soup, I've been told there are different versions of
mahavakyas.
Right. Generally four Mahavakyas are selected as the main ones, each being from
a different Upanishad, corresponding to one of the different 4 Vedas. All the
Mahavakyas confirm the identity between individual soul, atma, and Brahman.
My guess is that their power stems from the shaktipat of the Master as well
as from their own inherent high vibe.
Sure, they have to be taught by the guru at the right moment, when the disciple
is ready for it.
From: iranitea no_re...@yahoogroups.com
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, June 17, 2012 8:56 AM
Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
Â
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Jason jedi_spock@ wrote:
Robin you say that you had to transfer your allegience to
another reality. There is only one reality.
Has it occured to you that both east and west could be wrong
or both partially right.?
Do you realise that by completely rejecting the east, you
have in effect 'thrown the baby along with the bathwater'.
The five paras that you have written below conclusively,
authoritatively and empricaly prove that you were never in
Unity, Robin.
Scientists say that any technology that is once unleashed
into the enviornment can never be rolled back. Same is the
case of enlightenment or awakening.
There is no such thing as de-enlightenment Robin. It's a
one way trip.
Face it Robin, you were *never* enlightened in the first
place.
Bingo! The conclusion is therefore: not the Maharishi was deceived, but Robin
was (and still is)
I found these two videos of Osho very helpful in understanding enlightenment:
You Are in Prison and You Think You Are Free
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XyOmYVIsig
Spiritual Growth and Enlightenment
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uP5J3i1H5dA
There are several things that strike me as improbably on the account below.
One of these is the fact that Robin presents his 'enlightenment' in a
straight line leading up from his encounters with Maharishi and the
experiences he has had on courses or through plain TM ('transcending'). But
in my own humble experiences, this is not like it is. I remember Maharishi
talking about the 'shock of unity' (I am not totally sure now, if it as
'shock of unity' or 'shock of Brahman') These were not very well known tapes,
but I am sure, more than just me, who are here, have seen it. This is what
actually coincides with my own experiences in this direction (I don't claim
enlightenment though.)
Think of somebody being in a prison, and coming out of it! If you were your
whole life in a prison, you don't know what freedom is, you will only realize
it the moment you come out. It is not just a slowly and natural fading into
something you had already known before - as Robin depicts it.
Think of Plato's cave analogy, how the person, who is led outside of the
cave, first is blended by the bright sun light, before, he only knew the
reflection of light, not even the sun, but of fire.
I cannot help, and notice the strong emotional sense of nostalgia in Robins
report. I think many TM teachers can identify with these feelings, the
memories of being on rounding courses and so on. I know these feelings, but I
don't in no way, have any sense of nostalgia about it. It is simply gone, was
nice at the time, but has been replaced by something better, more true and
more liberating. So. I believe firmly, once you are liberated, there will be
a break to all of your past life, that cannot be reverted.
Either the East was right, or Gerard Manley Hopkins was
right.
But the critical moment occurred when I realized: Well,
either Christ is right or Maharishi is right.
But truth is truth, and reality is reality. I came to the
conclusion that Christ was right, that Aquinas was right,
that Saint Theresa of Avila was right, and that Maharishi
was deceived.
I had to transfer my allegiance to another reality. That
was easy while I
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: [...] Why did he wait until Robin had precipitated a crisis at MIU--even telling Bevan prior to that to leave Robin alone--if he knew all along Robin wasn't in UC? He was having valid experiences of UC, according to all accounts Why discourage Robin in his growth rather then letting him draw his own conclusions by MMY's generalized public statements? How would telling Robin he wasn't quite there yet have discouraged Robin's growth? MMY had ALREADY told Robin and everyone else that the TM-Sidhis would give them a feel for whether or not they were quite there. OBviously, Robin didn't get the memo. In 1983, he was causing big problems at MIU. Why didn't MMY interfere then? Robin never went back and asked MMY to revalidate things, did he? They were in personal contact at least once after Robin had set up his own group in Victoria (before coming to MIU). And MMY llike as not gave him the same advice he gave everyone else: be practical in society and, the TM-Sidhis gives you a signpost of whether or not you are fully enlightened, etc. As I said, Robin obviously didn't get the memo. Had he done so, MMY might have said don't worry or he might have said go and be practical in society as he did with Curtis. I think that was Joe Kellett, not Curtis. THought it was Curtis. No matter. Either way... There doesn't seem to be any way we can know what was going on in MMY's mind where Robin was concerned. Of course there is. MMY made a very clear statement about full success in any of the sidhis, such as yogic flying, and full enlightenment. You're still assuming you understand that statement. I think that I do, at least on a certain level. It was up to Robin to make the connection, and apparently he never did. Or he did, and knew it didn't mean what you think it meant. Or he didn't and hasn't. Like I say, best to ask him how he sees all this. You and I aren't in a position to say what's what. I believe he has already addressed this in a post from some time ago: he rejects MMY's position on this outright. L.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, salyavin808 fintlewoodlewix@... wrote:
You've been had is what. But the TMO train you to rationalise
your way round that, you'll probably tell me that the siddhis are
designed to speed up the positive effects of TM and not to gain
supernormal powers - which is what the word siddhi actually means.
I think for instance in Patañjali's times they were totally normal
powers. Only after the supreme Vedic knowledge was degenerated,
mostly because of Muslims and Christians, they started to be
considered as supernormal:
sidh, sidhyati (-te), pp. {siddha} 2 (q.v.) reach an aim, hit the
[[-,]] mark; succeed, be fulfilled or accomplished; result, follow, be valid,
boot, avail; submit to, obey (gen.); reach the highest aim, become perfect or
blessed. --
siddhi 2 f. (for 1. see p. 1215 , col. 1) accomplishment , performance ,
fulfilment , complete attainment (of any object) , success MBh. Ka1v. c. ; the
hitting of a mark (loc.) Ka1m. ; healing (of a disease) , cure by (comp.)
Ya1jn5. ; coming into force , validity ib. ; settlement , payment , liquidation
(of a debt) Mn. viii , 47 ; establishment , substantiation , settlement ,
demonstration , proof. indisputable conclusion , result , issue RPra1t. Up.
Sarvad. ; decision , adjudication , determination (of a lawsuit) W. ; solution
of a problem ib. ; preparation , cooking , maturing , maturity ib. ; readiness
W. ; prosperity , personal success , fortune , good luck , advantage Mn. MBh.
c. ; supreme felicity , bliss , beatitude , complete sanctification (by
penance c.) , final emancipation , perfection L. ; vanishing , making one's
self invisible W. ; a magical shoe (supposed to convey the wearer wherever he
likes) ib. ; the acquisition of supernatural powers by magical means or the
supñsupposed faculty so acquired (the eight usually enumerated are given in the
following S3loka , %{aNimA}
%{laghimA@prA7ptiH@prAkAmyam@mahimA@tathA@IzitvaM@ca@vazitvaM@ca@tathA@kAmA7vasAyitA}
[1216,3] ; sometimes 26 are added e.g. %{dUra-zravaNa} , %{sarvajJa-tva} ,
%{agni-stambha} c.) Sa1m2khyak. Tattvas. Sarvad. ; any unusual skill or
faculty or capability (often in comp.) Pan5cat. Katha1s. ; skill in general ,
dexterity , art Car. ; efficacy , efficiency Ka1v. Pan5cat. ; understanding ,
intellect W. ; becoming clear or intelligible (as sounds or words) BhP. ; (in
rhet.) the pointing out in the same person of various good qualities (not
usually united) Sa1h. ; (prob.) a work of art Ra1jat. iii , 381 ; a kind of
medicinal root (= %{Rddhi} or %{vRddhi}) L. ; (in music) a partic. S3ruti
Sam2gi1t. ; a partic. Yoga (either the 16th or 19th) Col. ; Success or
Perfection personified MBh. VarBr2S. ; N. of Durga1 Katha1s. ; of a daughter of
Daksha and wife of Dharma Pur. ; of the wife of Bhaga and mother of Mahiman
BhP. ; of a friend of Danu Katha1s. ; of one of the wives of Gan2e7s3a RTL. 215
, 2 ; N. of S3iva (in this sense m.) MBh.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, salyavin808 fintlewoodlewix@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: [...] Not really the point though is it? If TM lived up to its claims you wouldn't be able to get stuck. Hmmm??? People get stuck in all sorts of situations, TM or no. If you have made a conscious decision not to explore new hobbies, new sports, new educational opportunities, then of course you get stuck, no matter what you are or are not doing. Erm, I meant stuck with mental health problems like anxiety, control freaker, obsessive behaviours, depression, anger management. I've seen all of this a lot in the TMO and in people that have been doing it 20-30 years, when the claim is that TM eradictes stress related problems. Welll Perhaps they aren't stress-related in those people. Everyone is different or perhaps TM just doesn't work for those people. Or... Lots of possibilities there. And I believe it does shift one's overall mental and physical health towards the better and the preliminary results of the research being done at Norwich University definitely support my belief. However, the kind of overwhelmingly dynamic activity that you see in a cadet in a 4 year military academy is at the far edge of healthy activity,, while the kind of thing you (from what I have heard) see sidhas do in Fairfield, is at the other. Shame the researchers aren't studying some of the long term TMers I've come across. As I said above... Mind you, in certain contexts, perfection for perfection's sake is useful. For example, I'm trying to revive my classical guitar technique by developing specific contact juggling techniques that overlap the coordination needed for classical guitar. The fact that these juggling techniques aren't very pretty and probably I will never master them to the point that I can perform them in public, isn't relevant to my purposes. I can sit quietly in a waiting room trying to balance a pool ball on my fingertip(s) without bothering anyone, and still, in a sense, be practicing the guitar. At last I know what people are doing with their pool balls! But again, I'm doing the exercise in the moment, rather than thinking about how I'm going to wow the crowds with a virtually invisible trick, so the search for perfection in this context isn't a big deal, on its own. It's just a preparation for something else... Just like TM and the TM-Sidhis. Poor analogy, I can see how stronger fingers might help guitar playing but for the life of me don't get how it translates to yogic flying? The belief that twitching with your eyes closed might one day turn into flying unaided seem like a stretch to this casual observer. and so,, what if it doesn't? You've been had is what. But the TMO train you to rationalise your way round that, you'll probably tell me that the siddhis are designed to speed up the positive effects of TM and not to gain supernormal powers - which is what the word siddhi actually means. Siddhi means perfection. And... it was presented to me that the purpose of the TM-Sidhis was to create a situation where pure consciousness would somehow be carried into extremely dynamic activity in very unusual ways, and that that was the real purpose of the TM-Sidhis program, NOT to attain some specific power. Come to think of it, 'twas Rick Archer and friends who came to Tucson, AZ in the mid-70s who I first heard that bit of [according to you] rationalization about the purpose of the siddhis, so from the very first formal presentation I heard, about 35 years ago, I was getting this rationalization as the official TM explanation for why I might want to learn the TM-Sidhis program. Mind you, RIck and friends assured as that floating was just around the corner and that every session, people were hopping higher and higher, but that can be excused as marketing speak, in MY opinion. MMY, for reasons that he has made clear for 35 years, wanted as many people to learn the TM-sidhis as fast as possible and practice in groups, so he empathized the theoretical extreme of the practice as a hook to bring people in to learn more about the program. By the time I actually learned Yogic Flying in the Summer of 1985 (84?) the TM organization had been sued for false advertising, so just to prevent that from happening again, they required me to write out, in long-hand, sign, date and mail in essentially the stuff I said in the original post [see below], which was essentially, as I recall it, what Rick Archer told us in the mid-70's, BEFORE I would be accepted on the course. In other words, the rationalization has ALWAYS been the official TM stance since the TM-Sidhis were first introduced to the masses. The TM-Sidhis are meant to be a special kind
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
Hmmm, maybe it has something to do with the difference between every day stress and trauma from childhood. In my experience, the latter necessitates attention that is more about healing than about evolving. I do experience more settledness in the physiology and this I also attribute to decades of TM and TMSP. And I recognize that it's not the best path for everybody. Or the best path for any one individual all the time. I also recognize that there are those who won't agree with me (-: From: sparaig lengli...@cox.net To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Saturday, June 16, 2012 8:08 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL - --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, salyavin808 fintlewoodlewix@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: [...] Not really the point though is it? If TM lived up to its claims you wouldn't be able to get stuck. Hmmm??? People get stuck in all sorts of situations, TM or no. If you have made a conscious decision not to explore new hobbies, new sports, new educational opportunities, then of course you get stuck, no matter what you are or are not doing. Erm, I meant stuck with mental health problems like anxiety, control freaker, obsessive behaviours, depression, anger management. I've seen all of this a lot in the TMO and in people that have been doing it 20-30 years, when the claim is that TM eradictes stress related problems. Welll Perhaps they aren't stress-related in those people. Everyone is different or perhaps TM just doesn't work for those people. Or... Lots of possibilities there. And I believe it does shift one's overall mental and physical health towards the better and the preliminary results of the research being done at Norwich University definitely support my belief. However, the kind of overwhelmingly dynamic activity that you see in a cadet in a 4 year military academy is at the far edge of healthy activity,, while the kind of thing you (from what I have heard) see sidhas do in Fairfield, is at the other. Shame the researchers aren't studying some of the long term TMers I've come across. As I said above... Mind you, in certain contexts, perfection for perfection's sake is useful. For example, I'm trying to revive my classical guitar technique by developing specific contact juggling techniques that overlap the coordination needed for classical guitar. The fact that these juggling techniques aren't very pretty and probably I will never master them to the point that I can perform them in public, isn't relevant to my purposes. I can sit quietly in a waiting room trying to balance a pool ball on my fingertip(s) without bothering anyone, and still, in a sense, be practicing the guitar. At last I know what people are doing with their pool balls! But again, I'm doing the exercise in the moment, rather than thinking about how I'm going to wow the crowds with a virtually invisible trick, so the search for perfection in this context isn't a big deal, on its own. It's just a preparation for something else... Just like TM and the TM-Sidhis. Poor analogy, I can see how stronger fingers might help guitar playing but for the life of me don't get how it translates to yogic flying? The belief that twitching with your eyes closed might one day turn into flying unaided seem like a stretch to this casual observer. and so,, what if it doesn't? You've been had is what. But the TMO train you to rationalise your way round that, you'll probably tell me that the siddhis are designed to speed up the positive effects of TM and not to gain supernormal powers - which is what the word siddhi actually means. Siddhi means perfection. And... it was presented to me that the purpose of the TM-Sidhis was to create a situation where pure consciousness would somehow be carried into extremely dynamic activity in very unusual ways, and that that was the real purpose of the TM-Sidhis program, NOT to attain some specific power. Come to think of it, 'twas Rick Archer and friends who came to Tucson, AZ in the mid-70s who I first heard that bit of [according to you] rationalization about the purpose of the siddhis, so from the very first formal presentation I heard, about 35 years ago, I was getting this rationalization as the official TM explanation for why I might want to learn the TM-Sidhis program. Mind you, RIck and friends assured as that floating was just around the corner and that every session, people were hopping higher and higher, but that can be excused as marketing speak, in MY opinion. MMY, for reasons that he has made clear for 35 years, wanted as many people to learn the TM-sidhis as fast as possible and practice in groups, so he empathized the theoretical extreme of the practice
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, salyavin808 fintlewoodlewix@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: [...] Not really the point though is it? If TM lived up to its claims you wouldn't be able to get stuck. Hmmm??? People get stuck in all sorts of situations, TM or no. If you have made a conscious decision not to explore new hobbies, new sports, new educational opportunities, then of course you get stuck, no matter what you are or are not doing. Erm, I meant stuck with mental health problems like anxiety, control freaker, obsessive behaviours, depression, anger management. I've seen all of this a lot in the TMO and in people that have been doing it 20-30 years, when the claim is that TM eradictes stress related problems. Welll Perhaps they aren't stress-related in those people. Everyone is different or perhaps TM just doesn't work for those people. Or... Heresy on both counts, you're supposed to say maybe the stress in collective consciousness is too high you'll never make TTC at this rate. Lots of possibilities there. And I believe it does shift one's overall mental and physical health towards the better and the preliminary results of the research being done at Norwich University definitely support my belief. However, the kind of overwhelmingly dynamic activity that you see in a cadet in a 4 year military academy is at the far edge of healthy activity,, while the kind of thing you (from what I have heard) see sidhas do in Fairfield, is at the other. Shame the researchers aren't studying some of the long term TMers I've come across. As I said above... No, it would skew the results totally. and so,, what if it doesn't? You've been had is what. But the TMO train you to rationalise your way round that, you'll probably tell me that the siddhis are designed to speed up the positive effects of TM and not to gain supernormal powers - which is what the word siddhi actually means. Siddhi means perfection. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/siddhi?s=t And... it was presented to me that the purpose of the TM-Sidhis was to create a situation where pure consciousness would somehow be carried into extremely dynamic activity in very unusual ways, and that that was the real purpose of the TM-Sidhis program, NOT to attain some specific power. So you don't remember the MMY lectures on your siddhi course? :-D Smile all you want. I've been practicing TM regularly (with a few bouts of depression interrupting my practice) for 38.9 years, and the TM-Sidhis (see caveat) regularly for 28.8 years and my experience has been that I have been able to cope with some pretty insanely stressful life experiences. Mind you, most of said experiences were the result of some pretty stupid life choices that I have made over the years so obviously, my practice hasn't been as beneficial as one would hope, but coping-wise, TM and related techniques have been extremely beneficial for me. I think it's all well overrated. In fact, most of the people who go on about it the most seem to lack the self-awareness of where it has let them down. Shame really as there are other more effective ways they could help themselves but TM dogma tells them TM is all they need. L
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
I think it's all well overrated. In fact, most of the people who go on about it the most seem to lack the self-awareness of where it has let them down. Shame really as there are other more effective ways they could help themselves but TM dogma tells them TM is all they need. my reply: I've continued my TM Sidhi practice and added healing modalities such as EFT tapping. I actually think TM helps me make wiser decisions concerning such. Just to present another angle on the whole question. And again, TM is not for everyone yada yada From: salyavin808 fintlewoodle...@mail.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Saturday, June 16, 2012 9:41 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL - --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, salyavin808 fintlewoodlewix@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: [...] Not really the point though is it? If TM lived up to its claims you wouldn't be able to get stuck. Hmmm??? People get stuck in all sorts of situations, TM or no. If you have made a conscious decision not to explore new hobbies, new sports, new educational opportunities, then of course you get stuck, no matter what you are or are not doing. Erm, I meant stuck with mental health problems like anxiety, control freaker, obsessive behaviours, depression, anger management. I've seen all of this a lot in the TMO and in people that have been doing it 20-30 years, when the claim is that TM eradictes stress related problems. Welll Perhaps they aren't stress-related in those people. Everyone is different or perhaps TM just doesn't work for those people. Or... Heresy on both counts, you're supposed to say maybe the stress in collective consciousness is too high you'll never make TTC at this rate. Lots of possibilities there. And I believe it does shift one's overall mental and physical health towards the better and the preliminary results of the research being done at Norwich University definitely support my belief. However, the kind of overwhelmingly dynamic activity that you see in a cadet in a 4 year military academy is at the far edge of healthy activity,, while the kind of thing you (from what I have heard) see sidhas do in Fairfield, is at the other. Shame the researchers aren't studying some of the long term TMers I've come across. As I said above... No, it would skew the results totally. and so,, what if it doesn't? You've been had is what. But the TMO train you to rationalise your way round that, you'll probably tell me that the siddhis are designed to speed up the positive effects of TM and not to gain supernormal powers - which is what the word siddhi actually means. Siddhi means perfection. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/siddhi?s=t And... it was presented to me that the purpose of the TM-Sidhis was to create a situation where pure consciousness would somehow be carried into extremely dynamic activity in very unusual ways, and that that was the real purpose of the TM-Sidhis program, NOT to attain some specific power. So you don't remember the MMY lectures on your siddhi course? :-D Smile all you want. I've been practicing TM regularly (with a few bouts of depression interrupting my practice) for 38.9 years, and the TM-Sidhis (see caveat) regularly for 28.8 years and my experience has been that I have been able to cope with some pretty insanely stressful life experiences. Mind you, most of said experiences were the result of some pretty stupid life choices that I have made over the years so obviously, my practice hasn't been as beneficial as one would hope, but coping-wise, TM and related techniques have been extremely beneficial for me. I think it's all well overrated. In fact, most of the people who go on about it the most seem to lack the self-awareness of where it has let them down. Shame really as there are other more effective ways they could help themselves but TM dogma tells them TM is all they need. L
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Share Long sharelong60@... wrote: I've continued my TM Sidhi practice and added healing modalities such as EFT tapping. I actually think TM helps me make wiser decisions concerning such. No personal offense meant, but this is just priceless. Can you imagine trying to explain to 99% percent of the people on this planet what *either* the TM Sidhis *or* EFT Tapping are, and while doing so using the phrase wiser decisions and keeping a straight face? :-) Don't get me wrong. Both have their cadre of believers. Both -- for all I know -- have benefit. But most people on the planet are going to bag them as New Age Hooey and, from the standpoint of real science, both are. But there's no accounting for belief, just as there is no accounting for taste. It's as individual as there are individuals, and that's the way it should be. I say, Carry on with whatever delusions make you happy. I say this to the scientists, too. :-)
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, salyavin808 fintlewoodlewix@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, salyavin808 fintlewoodlewix@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: [...] Not really the point though is it? If TM lived up to its claims you wouldn't be able to get stuck. Hmmm??? People get stuck in all sorts of situations, TM or no. If you have made a conscious decision not to explore new hobbies, new sports, new educational opportunities, then of course you get stuck, no matter what you are or are not doing. Erm, I meant stuck with mental health problems like anxiety, control freaker, obsessive behaviours, depression, anger management. I've seen all of this a lot in the TMO and in people that have been doing it 20-30 years, when the claim is that TM eradictes stress related problems. Welll Perhaps they aren't stress-related in those people. Everyone is different or perhaps TM just doesn't work for those people. Or... Heresy on both counts, you're supposed to say maybe the stress in collective consciousness is too high you'll never make TTC at this rate. That might be, but I'm not applying for TTC, and even within that context, its not as extreme as you seem to make out. There's just a True Believer effect of the most fanatical rising to the top and becoming the interpreters of what MMY really means (of course, MMY insulated himself quite nicely from the real world in later years, so you can argue that MMY himself became a True Believer in the pejorative sense of never allowing himself to hear negativity). Lots of possibilities there. And I believe it does shift one's overall mental and physical health towards the better and the preliminary results of the research being done at Norwich University definitely support my belief. However, the kind of overwhelmingly dynamic activity that you see in a cadet in a 4 year military academy is at the far edge of healthy activity,, while the kind of thing you (from what I have heard) see sidhas do in Fairfield, is at the other. Shame the researchers aren't studying some of the long term TMers I've come across. As I said above... No, it would skew the results totally. Really? David Lynch, Clint Eastwood, Helena Olson, are some of longest meditating folk that I am aware of. THe kids in the Norwich University study are all gung-ho TMers and the plan is to follow their military careers for the next 20-30 years. How much do you want to bet that an effective stress-management technique will make them SHINE in their chosen career? Judging TM's long-term effectiveness, simiply by the self-selected group that learned in the 60's and 70s, who were desperately seeking some way of coping with overwhelming stress that they likely couldn't handle otherwise (the average long-term TMer that I have met), isn't a wise way to do things. Look at what high achievers (and military cadets, by definition, are high achiever wannabes) get out of it, in order to get a full sense of what TM does for people. and so,, what if it doesn't? You've been had is what. But the TMO train you to rationalise your way round that, you'll probably tell me that the siddhis are designed to speed up the positive effects of TM and not to gain supernormal powers - which is what the word siddhi actually means. Siddhi means perfection. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/siddhi?s=t LOL. You're going by an online English dictionary's definition of a technical Sanskrit term? And... it was presented to me that the purpose of the TM-Sidhis was to create a situation where pure consciousness would somehow be carried into extremely dynamic activity in very unusual ways, and that that was the real purpose of the TM-Sidhis program, NOT to attain some specific power. So you don't remember the MMY lectures on your siddhi course? Not ones where he emphasized accomplishment of a siddhi technique as the primary reason to do the technique. You practice Yogic Flying in order to float, yes, but that is the point of the moments your are practicing, not the reason why you set aside time during the day to bother doing something, that at best, will take many decades to master. He who lives for the fruit of action alone... :-D Smile all you want. I've been practicing TM regularly (with a few bouts of depression interrupting my practice) for 38.9 years, and the TM-Sidhis (see caveat) regularly for 28.8 years and my experience has been that I have been able to cope with some pretty insanely stressful life experiences. Mind you, most of said experiences were the result of some pretty stupid
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- Share Long sharelong60@ wrote: I've continued my TM Sidhi practice and added healing modalities such as EFT tapping. I actually think TM helps me make wiser decisions concerning such. --- turquoiseb no_reply@... wrote: No personal offense meant, but this is just priceless. Can you imagine trying to explain to 99% percent of the people on this planet what *either* the TM Sidhis *or* EFT Tapping are, and while doing so using the phrase wiser decisions and keeping a straight face? :-) Don't get me wrong. Both have their cadre of believers. Both -- for all I know -- have benefit. But most people on the planet are going to bag them as New Age Hooey and, from the standpoint of real science, both are. But there's no accounting for belief, just as there is no accounting for taste. It's as individual as there are individuals, and that's the way it should be. I say, Carry on with whatever delusions make you happy. I say this to the scientists, too. :-) Most people on this planet don't really understand how science works. The methodology of science applied for the past 300 years is the reason you are able to use the computer and the internet today. That's the reason you are able to make a post today. Or else we would still be living in the pre-industrial era. I think Curtis understands science and it's processes, it's accounting of the laws of nature.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
My face is crooked anyway so straight face impossible (-: Nope, can't imagine trying to explain to 99% of the people. They happily have their own delusions. Tho will add that EFT is based on meridian points and because of wider acceptance of accupuncture, might be more accessible to some. From: turquoiseb no_re...@yahoogroups.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Saturday, June 16, 2012 10:59 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL - --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Share Long sharelong60@... wrote: I've continued my TM Sidhi practice and added healing modalities such as EFT tapping. I actually think TM helps me make wiser decisions concerning such. No personal offense meant, but this is just priceless. Can you imagine trying to explain to 99% percent of the people on this planet what *either* the TM Sidhis *or* EFT Tapping are, and while doing so using the phrase wiser decisions and keeping a straight face? :-) Don't get me wrong. Both have their cadre of believers. Both -- for all I know -- have benefit. But most people on the planet are going to bag them as New Age Hooey and, from the standpoint of real science, both are. But there's no accounting for belief, just as there is no accounting for taste. It's as individual as there are individuals, and that's the way it should be. I say, Carry on with whatever delusions make you happy. I say this to the scientists, too. :-)
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@... wrote: Siddhi means perfection. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/siddhi?s=t LOL. You're going by an online English dictionary's definition of a technical Sanskrit term? Technical term interpreted for you by who? The guy who told you you could fly? Besides that isn't really the only definition I could find just the one most suited to an emial discussion. I could photograph someothers or scan them and post if you like? The TM research that everyone likes to malign shows very clearly that TM is twice as effective as other forms of meditation and relaxation at addressing anxiety. While many people like to point at the meta-analyses that say that TM research sucks, they miss the important point that according to those same meta-analyses, ALL meditation research, without fail, sucks. Probably because it's an old type of coping mechanism, pleasant to do but not worth the effort compared to other techniques of self development if you have a particular complaint to address. THis includes the most recent studies on mindfulness published in the past few days, weeks, months, etc, because those analyses claim that unless you use a true double-blind study performed by only by researchers who have no attachment to the techniques being tested, the study is pretty much worthless. I'm not tub thumping for anything other than common sense. If, on the other hand, you reject that extreme position, TM comes out far ahead. L
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, salyavin808 fintlewoodlewix@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: Siddhi means perfection. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/siddhi?s=t LOL. You're going by an online English dictionary's definition of a technical Sanskrit term? Technical term interpreted for you by who? The guy who told you you could fly? FWIW, quark: Three quarks for Muster Mark!/Sure he hasn't got much of a bark/And sure any he has it's all beside the mark. Tee-hee... ;D
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@... wrote: snip And... it was presented to me that the purpose of the TM-Sidhis was to create a situation where pure consciousness would somehow be carried into extremely dynamic activity in very unusual ways, and that that was the real purpose of the TM-Sidhis program, NOT to attain some specific power. Achieving a power per se was presented as a byproduct of the practice, or a benchmark of one's progress in the development you describe above. It's like training for a marathon with the purpose of improving your general fitness. You may actually end up being able to run a marathon if you stick to the training, but that isn't the primary reason you're training; and even if you never get to the point of being able to run a marathon, your fitness will have improved as a result of the training. Come to think of it, 'twas Rick Archer and friends who came to Tucson, AZ in the mid-70s who I first heard that bit of [according to you] rationalization about the purpose of the siddhis, so from the very first formal presentation I heard, about 35 years ago, I was getting this rationalization as the official TM explanation for why I might want to learn the TM-Sidhis program. Same here. snip By the time I actually learned Yogic Flying in the Summer of 1985 (84?) I can't recall for sure, but I think you and I figured out at some point that we took the same CIC course and were on the same flying block. I'm pretty sure that was '86, and I think it was CIC #16. the TM organization had been sued for false advertising, so just to prevent that from happening again, they required me to write out, in long-hand, sign, date and mail in essentially the stuff I said in the original post [see below], which was essentially, as I recall it, what Rick Archer told us in the mid-70's, BEFORE I would be accepted on the course. Same here. (Except it wasn't Rick Archer for me, it was Jim McCann.) In other words, the rationalization has ALWAYS been the official TM stance since the TM-Sidhis were first introduced to the masses. Yupper.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
Just kind of curious Barry. Science as far as I know does not examine the notion of breath, or prana, and the different types of pranas. And yet eastern literature discusses prana and the different types of prana quite a bit, and often authoritatively. Because science, or at least western science has not considered this, would you consider what has been said about prana to be hooey? For me, I am not ready to let science yet be the final arbiter of reality. Certainly I have great faith in science. But I'm also not afraid of trusting my own experiences, even if they run counter to the science of the day. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Share Long sharelong60@ wrote: I've continued my TM Sidhi practice and added healing modalities such as EFT tapping. I actually think TM helps me make wiser decisions concerning such. No personal offense meant, but this is just priceless. Can you imagine trying to explain to 99% percent of the people on this planet what *either* the TM Sidhis *or* EFT Tapping are, and while doing so using the phrase wiser decisions and keeping a straight face? :-) Don't get me wrong. Both have their cadre of believers. Both -- for all I know -- have benefit. But most people on the planet are going to bag them as New Age Hooey and, from the standpoint of real science, both are. But there's no accounting for belief, just as there is no accounting for taste. It's as individual as there are individuals, and that's the way it should be. I say, Carry on with whatever delusions make you happy. I say this to the scientists, too. :-)
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
Ask him how he'd explain seeing the Rama dude levitate and make golden light and go invisible and so on in non-hooey terms. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, seventhray1 steve.sundur@... wrote: Just kind of curious Barry. Science as far as I know does not examine the notion of breath, or prana, and the different types of pranas. And yet eastern literature discusses prana and the different types of prana quite a bit, and often authoritatively. Because science, or at least western science has not considered this, would you consider what has been said about prana to be hooey? For me, I am not ready to let science yet be the final arbiter of reality. Certainly I have great faith in science. But I'm also not afraid of trusting my own experiences, even if they run counter to the science of the day. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Share Long sharelong60@ wrote: I've continued my TM Sidhi practice and added healing modalities such as EFT tapping. I actually think TM helps me make wiser decisions concerning such. No personal offense meant, but this is just priceless. Can you imagine trying to explain to 99% percent of the people on this planet what *either* the TM Sidhis *or* EFT Tapping are, and while doing so using the phrase wiser decisions and keeping a straight face? :-) Don't get me wrong. Both have their cadre of believers. Both -- for all I know -- have benefit. But most people on the planet are going to bag them as New Age Hooey and, from the standpoint of real science, both are. But there's no accounting for belief, just as there is no accounting for taste. It's as individual as there are individuals, and that's the way it should be. I say, Carry on with whatever delusions make you happy. I say this to the scientists, too. :-)
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, salyavin808 fintlewoodlewix@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Share Long sharelong60@ wrote: The only way out is through Now there's some wisdom. The thing about TM is that it promises that you don't have to got through as releasing the stress is supposed to be enough to return you to a state of perfect equillibrium. For many people, it is, but they tend to have a real life and not get stuck working for the TMO. Not really the point though is it? If TM lived up to its claims you wouldn't be able to get stuck. Sadly not the case and it goes some way towards explaining the astonishing amount of dysfunctional people I came across during my time in the TMO, all of whom were convinced they were operating at above average levels due to the fact they were in touch with the home of all the laws of nature and therefore, blah... blah Shame really, all these seekers getting stuck and not realising it. People who want perfection for the sake of perfection (e.g. seeking enlightenment and the perfection that lies therein) tend to be a bit skewed in their own thought processes. It's a variation of the you have control over action alone, never over the fruit thing. Being a bit skewed is the sort of thing one would expect TM to shift, according to the intro lecture. And it isn't what we find. TM seems to wind people tighter in a lot of cases, some sort of admission or study of this would show that MUM take TM research seriously in the sense of studying what it actually does. Mind you, in certain contexts, perfection for perfection's sake is useful. For example, I'm trying to revive my classical guitar technique by developing specific contact juggling techniques that overlap the coordination needed for classical guitar. The fact that these juggling techniques aren't very pretty and probably I will never master them to the point that I can perform them in public, isn't relevant to my purposes. I can sit quietly in a waiting room trying to balance a pool ball on my fingertip(s) without bothering anyone, and still, in a sense, be practicing the guitar. At last I know what people are doing with their pool balls! But again, I'm doing the exercise in the moment, rather than thinking about how I'm going to wow the crowds with a virtually invisible trick, so the search for perfection in this context isn't a big deal, on its own. It's just a preparation for something else... Just like TM and the TM-Sidhis. Poor analogy, I can see how stronger fingers might help guitar playing but for the life of me don't get how it translates to yogic flying? The belief that twitching with your eyes closed might one day turn into flying unaided seem like a stretch to this casual observer. L
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, salyavin808 fintlewoodlewix@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: For many people, it is, but they tend to have a real life and not get stuck working for the TMO. Not really the point though is it? If TM lived up to its claims you wouldn't be able to get stuck. Just to underscore salyavin's point, if TM had lived up to its claims, everyone here would have been in CC after 5 to 8 years, the world would be at peace, and attendance at Vedaland would be greater than attendance at Disneyland. :-) Also, Maharishi would have been remembered for real accomplishments, as opposed to having spent his last days re-enacting King Lear by filling a room with toadies who had all spent at least a million dollars to be in the room, and trying to get them to outbid each other by committing to erect the most giant phalluses called Towers Of Invincibility in his name. THAT is the lost Maharishi video I'd most like to see. I'd want to see which of the Rajas played the parts of Reagan and Goneril, falling all over themselves to stroke the the dotty old man's ego by committing to build the greatest number of giant phalluses. And I'd love to see if anyone there still had the cojones and the ethics to play Cordelia, and respond to Maharishi's demands by saying something like, The best thing I could do to honor your memory is help as many people as possible to learn TM, not create giant dicks that make you look like a giant dick yourself in the eyes of history. Hopefully there would have been at least one such Cordelia, and it would have been interesting to see what became of them, and how quickly they were disowned and excommunicated.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL -
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, salyavin808 fintlewoodlewix@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: For many people, it is, but they tend to have a real life and not get stuck working for the TMO. Not really the point though is it? If TM lived up to its claims you wouldn't be able to get stuck. Just to underscore salyavin's point, if TM had lived up to its claims, everyone here would have been in CC after 5 to 8 years, the world would be at peace, and attendance at Vedaland would be greater than attendance at Disneyland. :-) Also, Maharishi would have been remembered for real accomplishments, as opposed to having spent his last days re-enacting King Lear by filling a room with toadies who had all spent at least a million dollars to be in the room, and trying to get them to outbid each other by committing to erect the most giant phalluses called Towers Of Invincibility in his name. Considering FFL trends for the last few days, I expect that there may be some...uh...pushback to me saying these things. :-) And that is fine. I merely suggest that those who feel the need to respond somewhat angrily to my post should -- at the same time -- point out exactly what is *inaccurate* in my descriptions above. Maharishi *did* make all of those claims. He *did* spend his last days doing exactly what I described. I fully *understand* that these are not the things that TBs would *like* to remember him by. I'm just joining with Curtis, Rick, Marek and others here in suggesting that such memories are a valid part of both Maharishi's history, and the TMO's. We feel that there is a value in remembering the whole story, not just the parts of it we *want* to remember. If you disagree, or feel that my points are inac- curate, please present evidence that he did *not* make the claims I suggest, or that they came true. Or present a view of his last days that either disproves my version of it, or presents a valid reason why erecting a large number of giant dicks around the world will do anything to benefit humanity.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL - [push-back]
In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: For many people, it is, but they tend to have a real life and not get stuck working for the TMO. Not really the point though is it? If TM lived up to its claims you wouldn't be able to get stuck. Just to underscore salyavin's point, if TM had lived up to its claims, everyone here would have been in CC after 5 to 8 years, the world would be at peace, and attendance at Vedaland would be greater than attendance at Disneyland. :-) Also, Maharishi would have been remembered for real accomplishments, as opposed to having spent his last days re-enacting King Lear by filling a room with toadies who had all spent at least a million dollars to be in the room, and trying to get them to outbid each other by committing to erect the most giant phalluses called Towers Of Invincibility in his name. Considering FFL trends for the last few days, I expect that there may be some...uh...pushback to me saying these things. :-) And that is fine. I merely suggest that those who feel the need to respond somewhat angrily to my post should -- at the same time -- point out exactly what is *inaccurate* in my descriptions above. Maharishi *did* make all of those claims. He *did* spend his last days doing exactly what I described. I fully *understand* that these are not the things that TBs would *like* to remember him by. I'm just joining with Curtis, Rick, Marek and others here in suggesting that such memories are a valid part of both Maharishi's history, and the TMO's. We feel that there is a value in remembering the whole story, not just the parts of it we *want* to remember. If you disagree, or feel that my points are inac- curate, please present evidence that he did *not* make the claims I suggest, or that they came true. Or present a view of his last days that either disproves my version of it, or presents a valid reason why erecting a large number of giant dicks around the world will do anything to benefit humanity. Here's a little... 'Push Back' [as per] you(r) request... Considering that Maharishi came straight from College to reside at Guru Dev's Ashram, and considering that Maharishi spent most of that time, in the rarified air of that place... It's not a great wonder, why Maharishi would have said, back in the day, that 5-8 years of stabilizing pure consciousness would provide C.C. for most people, but because of the 'thickness of consciousness in the West, this was obviously not the case... As far as what was accomplished in the later years, with the 'Rajas' and the millions of dollars, and the Tower of Invincibility and the 'Hopping in the Dome'... All of those things happened in the later years, and is not the 'whole story'... My theory of the later years, when Maharishi was in his 70's and 80's is that 'Something Happened' in 1992, when someone attempted to assasinate Maharishi by poisoning him...(as per Deepak Chopra's account)... He never fully recovered from that incident, as you can see by the pictures and videos of him, in the days since that time... I think as a 'defense mechanism', he came up with this sort of 'Story Book' tale of Rajas and Robes and so on... In that way, he felt that the C.I.A. or whomever was behind the evil plot would think he had 'gone off the deep end' and not take him 'seriously' anymore... Bhagwan Rajneesh also felt, he was 'taken out' by a C.I.A. plot during the 'Bush 41' years of 1991-92... Remember Bush senior had been the head of C.I.A. previous to him becoming V.P. to Ronald Reagan...but that's another story... Anyway, what Maharishi will be remembered for, is still being written.. He's only been gone a few years now... As far as my experience here in Fairfield, it seems that there are people here, finally beginning to experience what has been termed to be 'Enlightenment'... The Atmosphere in the Domes, is completely different these days, with the combined value of the Pundits chanting and there numbers ranging in the 1,000-1,200 area... And the value of even one person, experiencing Enlighenment which enlivens that possibility of all in that person's area... I'm not just talking about C.C. experiences, but more and more people are reporting clear indications of 'Brahman Consciousness'... The experience of complete unboundedness within, and expressions of that unboundedness without... Very beautiful experiences of Witnessing Sleep, Witnessing activity, having desire fulfilled, appreciation of the value of the heart...on and on feelings of freedom and fulfillment...complete alignment of the intuition of the 'Big Self' being lived as an 'Everyday Reality'... The atmosphere in Fairfield, is very special these days, as those few people experiencing 'Brahman' has a huge effect on the atmosphere... As far as 'hopping' or 'butt bouncing' or 'twitching' or 'whatever' that is just the 'primal expression'
[FairfieldLife] Re: Hello FFL - [push-back]
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Robert babajii_99@... wrote: That is why Guru Dev could do a Yagya in India, to 'End WWII' and because he was 'Operating from a non-localized Place'... Of all the delusions you recount below I find this one actually offensive. I only find it offensive by comparison to say, the delusion that TM brought down the Berlin wall, because so many people died trying to turn the axis powers around - relatives of mine and possibly yours went through hell to liberate Europe and the far east but it could all have been stopped by a little prayer. Bollocks. If yagyas are such a big screaming deal why didn't the all-powerful Guru Dev do one *before* Hitler invaded Poland? And why doesn't the TMO do one now to stop the slaughter in Syria? Wake up and smell the decaffeinated dude, you're having a great time in the domes and good for you, but it doesn't translate to any sort of effect in the outside world. Obviously and I mean really obviously. Here's a little... 'Push Back' [as per] you(r) request... Considering that Maharishi came straight from College to reside at Guru Dev's Ashram, and considering that Maharishi spent most of that time, in the rarified air of that place... It's not a great wonder, why Maharishi would have said, back in the day, that 5-8 years of stabilizing pure consciousness would provide C.C. for most people, but because of the 'thickness of consciousness in the West, this was obviously not the case... As far as what was accomplished in the later years, with the 'Rajas' and the millions of dollars, and the Tower of Invincibility and the 'Hopping in the Dome'... All of those things happened in the later years, and is not the 'whole story'... My theory of the later years, when Maharishi was in his 70's and 80's is that 'Something Happened' in 1992, when someone attempted to assasinate Maharishi by poisoning him...(as per Deepak Chopra's account)... He never fully recovered from that incident, as you can see by the pictures and videos of him, in the days since that time... I think as a 'defense mechanism', he came up with this sort of 'Story Book' tale of Rajas and Robes and so on... In that way, he felt that the C.I.A. or whomever was behind the evil plot would think he had 'gone off the deep end' and not take him 'seriously' anymore... Bhagwan Rajneesh also felt, he was 'taken out' by a C.I.A. plot during the 'Bush 41' years of 1991-92... Remember Bush senior had been the head of C.I.A. previous to him becoming V.P. to Ronald Reagan...but that's another story... Anyway, what Maharishi will be remembered for, is still being written.. He's only been gone a few years now... As far as my experience here in Fairfield, it seems that there are people here, finally beginning to experience what has been termed to be 'Enlightenment'... The Atmosphere in the Domes, is completely different these days, with the combined value of the Pundits chanting and there numbers ranging in the 1,000-1,200 area... And the value of even one person, experiencing Enlighenment which enlivens that possibility of all in that person's area... I'm not just talking about C.C. experiences, but more and more people are reporting clear indications of 'Brahman Consciousness'... The experience of complete unboundedness within, and expressions of that unboundedness without... Very beautiful experiences of Witnessing Sleep, Witnessing activity, having desire fulfilled, appreciation of the value of the heart...on and on feelings of freedom and fulfillment...complete alignment of the intuition of the 'Big Self' being lived as an 'Everyday Reality'... The atmosphere in Fairfield, is very special these days, as those few people experiencing 'Brahman' has a huge effect on the atmosphere... As far as 'hopping' or 'butt bouncing' or 'twitching' or 'whatever' that is just the 'primal expression' of that particular sutra... A more advanced version of the result of that sutra, is the ability to 'fly' to a distance place, at the speed of thought... One's body becomes very still, silent and motionless in the state, the breath very still...and then there is a fluidity of motion as one feels oneself to be merged with the akasha itself, space itself, and one feels as small and light, and one can imagine oneself and 'feel oneself' to be anywhere in 'God's Great Creation'... Whatever it takes to get beyond the 'Little Self' the small ego... That's what it takes... A great deal of purification and un-stressing can also be on the road to complete enlightenment... A complete letting go of what the mind thinks it knows, and a shift to what is known by the 'Silent Stillness Itself'... When one has an experience at that level that is 'Beyond Boundaries'... Then the effect of that is 'Non-Localized'... In other words, when one is 'Vibrating the Vibration of Brahman Consciousness'...when one is having a
