Pretty darn good questions again, New Morning. I think the various experiences
come from our varying expectations. I went to see Amma, got real close to her,
didn't do the hug thing. I was never impressed, felt no dharshan. Yet a friend
of mine swears by her -- the dharshan for him is intense. I read a newspaper
reporter on Amma saying she felt nothing particular from the hug. Yet others
claim that hug changed their lives.
Remember the movie "Leap of Faith" where Steve Martin plays the phony faith
healer? He was instrumental in an actual cure. The crippled man sincerely
believed in Steve Martin and in Christ and had an authenthic healing. This, in
turn, caused the phony faith healer (who up til then had been a con-man and
atheist) to change his heart and believe in something beyond what his senses
could perceive.
As far as dharshan goes, though, I don't count it as much. In fact, I'm
suspicious of it. I saw some videos George DeForest linked us to from this
site, of David Spero, a guru, and there was little doubt for me the guy is
wired to something very powerful. Lots of shakti, even coming through the
computer screen. But what is that energy, that shakti? Is it necessarily
something benign? People say guru shakti zaps them into a transcendental state.
At what possible cost? Who is it who's doing the zapping? Is it the Infinite
One? Could it be a being from outside this dimension, using the human guru as a
channel? If so, for malice or for good? Could the goal possibly be to devour
human individuality, turning people into empty bone sacks? Or does that shakti
really bring the spirit home to God?
Yes, I know the traditional answers. But they were given us by the zappers.
When you look at their lives, do those lives typically demonstrate something we
want, do they indicate people we can trust and respect? If our history with
gurus shows we so rarely can trust or respect them, can we trust their answers
about where their shakti comes from and the effect it is having in our lives? I
don't trust any of it. I consider the evidence, and draw my own conclusions.
If a teacher is hooked up to shakti, and radiates it, that simply means
they're connected to cosmic energy. Energy is only half of the
consciousness/energy equation. What is the nature of their consciousness? Is it
nihilist, annihilating individuality? Is it self-centered and sensual, having
sex with young disciples? Is it self-centered and greed-ridden?
When such qualities are present, who cares if they have shakti? The devil
himself has shakti, I'm sure, if such a person exists. Shakti is just power.
Hitler, for instance, had incredible charisma. Would he make a good guru?
"new.morning" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Peter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
> --- "BillyG." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Personally, I question whether or not he is
> > enlightened especially
> > when he started damning democracy and suggesting
> > Bush was Hitler, that
> > doesn't strike me as coming from someone who is
> > enlightened!
>
> If you have never had any personal contact with MMY I
> can easily understand why a person would say MMY is
> not Realized. Especially the last decade or so he has
> made many an outrageous comment. So, from a conceptual
> level of evaluating MMY based on his speech and
> behavior he does not meet many people's expectations
> of how a Realized person speaks and behaves.
The same dialectic / discussion and diversity survey questions to you
that I just asked Billie on this thread.
And do any expectations of how a person acts in enlightenment have
validity?
> However,
> personal contact with MMY, in my experience, pretty
> much crushes any conceptual edifice regarding
> Realization. His darshan is incredibly powerful and
> triggers deep spiritual experiences.
And Turq, I believe, and others, have a completely different
experience, indifferent,with MMY's darsan. Is your experience more
valid than his? if so, in what ways?
Does triggering deep spiritual experiences necessarily mean the source
of that experience is enlightened? Is a murti in a temple
"enlightened". It can trigger powerful spiritual experience to some.
Is love enlightened? It can trigger powerful spiritual experience to
some.
Someone said a teacher was not so good because she did not give the
viewer of her picture a strong "energy hit". If personal
interpretation of darshaan experience is valid, the is
energy-hit-ology also valid for judging a teacher?
IMO, interpreation of darshan experience, and any spiritual
"experience", altered, or beyond conventional state, is an issue.
As an example regarding darshan, when I first met SSRS, I went up to
the stage and had a nice chat with him at intermission, and he taught
my intro course, he asked me and others questions, so there was more
than a 3 second type assembly line darshan. Yet I didn't feel so much
"from his darshan". But through the day I felt some very positive
things, but did not attribute it to darshan. That night, the good
thing was huge. Still being a skeptical of many casual causal claims,
I still did not say or think SSRS caused this. When I went to a second
and third course, and the same thing happened, the correlation sank
in. (correlation i not causation .. but... for other reasons, I saw it
a causal) The effect was huge, but I was looking in the wrong place,
so to speak. I initially incorrectly "interpreted" the source of the
huge effect. YMMV
> As has been said
> here many times, MMY is an incredible paradox.
Does that make him enlightened? If so,are all sources of paradox
enlightened? If not, which are and which are not?
> To
> dismiss MMY as unenlightened is, IMHO, ridiculous
> based on my own personal experience with him.
And that is your opinion, an your interpretation of your darshan
experiences with him. Both are respected. But does your experience
sigularly establish that he is enlightened? Can he be enlightened for
you, and not for others?
What is the role of expectation of the darshan experience have with
the actual interpretation of the experience? IMO, its quite large.
That might be a factor in explaining the large variance in experiences.
Many of the former skin-boys had far far more face time with MMY than
you and yet don't share your experience of his darshan. What explains
that variance of experience? (an authentic, not pointed, question)
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