|
Oh yeah, in some ways Rama is the
avatara or John the Baptist of the TMO Raaj Raam. Showing through his life the
source, course, and goal of the TMO Raaj.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, May 16, 2005 6:38 AM
Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Kaplan's
money
> > You may have missed out. I worked with a
spiritual
> > teacher who took his students to Disneyland often.
> > http://ramalila.net/RoadTripMind/rtm13.html
>
> Unc, how have you "come to terms (if that's the right
> term)"
with your powerful experiences with Rama and
> his rather bizarre death
and less than "enlightened"
> behavior at times?
>
-Peter
In two words, "Shit happens."
I had already left his
study a couple of years before
he died, and thus wasn't as affected by it
as a lot of
folks who hung in there to the end. I don't really know
anything about the "whys" of it all; it's a koan. I spent
some
time pondered it in one of the stories I wrote, at:
http://ramalila.net/RoadTripMind/rtm53.html
As
I suggested in a recent post, for many reasons I do
not believe in the
idea that the enlightened are perfect
and don't make mistakes. I
don't think they're any
different than anyone else, except on the level of
subjec-
tive realization. So I have no tendency to suggest
that
odd or questionable behavior means that someone
wasn't
enlightened. All it suggests to me is that they indulge
in
odd or questionable behavior. So did many teachers
whom history
regards as enlightened. Big deal.
I'm also not a person who is
terribly impressed by the
ability to perform siddhis, and wasn't when I met
the Rama
guy. I got to see and experience some neat stuff,
and
enjoyed it, but I did not then and do not now make any
link between
being able to, say, levitate and turn invisible
and do fascinating things
with light and that person's state
of consciousness. The main thing
that impressed me about
the guy was his ability to meditate. When
you sat with him
in the early days, it was just silence -- pure
samadhi. It
was *impossible* to have a thought. All the other
stuff
was bells and whistles, IMO.
To be honest, not all of his
students felt as I did. They
definitely consider the enlightened
perfect by definition,
so his suicide fucked with their heads
Big-Time. If you
believe that your teacher is enlightened and that
the enlight-
ened are by definition perfect, then you have to jump
through
a lot of mental hoops to justify suicide. I'm not much
in
touch with them, so I can't tell you how they've come to
terms with
things.
For me, it was a wild and wacky Mister Toad ride that I
shall
always be thankful for but don't spend a lot of time missing
or
even thinking about. Right here and now is too wild and
wacky and
wonderful to leave much time for
that.
Unc
To subscribe, send a
message to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Or go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/
and
click 'Join This Group!'
To subscribe, send a message to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Or go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/
and click 'Join This Group!'
Yahoo! Groups Links
|
