Bronte wrote some weeks back: "And where does it leave the new
visitors, often people disillusioned
or questioning TM, looking for a safe place to talk about and share
experiences? They can't do it at Fairfield Life, unless they want to
be fried and eaten for breakfast."
Judy wrote today:
Which may be why the woman Bronte has just fried
and eaten for breakfast chooses not to join us here
to share her experiences.
Rick wrote:
Isnt it always that when we try to reform others behavior, were really
concerned about those same tendencies within ourselves? Ive been flagrantly
guilty of this at times during my life, and still am on occasion.
Bronte writes:
Okay, you two. Judy first.
How can I fry and eat the wholeness of the universe for breakfast? This is
what the woman in question claims to be. If such is the case, she's beyond the
ken of my criticisms. If, on the other hand, she is a self-aggrandizer who
hides behind the illusion of spiritual superiority, such people should be
publicly defrocked.
In either case, this is not a questioning person "looking for a safe place to
discuss and share experiences." This is a guru in the worst (if not the
literal) sense of the word. I have experience with this woman from the
Wednesday night satsangs. She is condescending. That I can abide, as everyone
has their faults. But when she posts an email here, that insults intuitives
everywhere (I'll get to that later) and that brags about how sought-after she
is by the local consciousness-beggars -- it's time for me to speak up.
I can't stand consciousness bullies any more than I like bullies in general,
and the consciousness bullies who work subtly are the most insidious. It's
quite blatant to say "I'm a great realized swami - bow down to my feet." It's
just as self-aggrandizing to not say it but act in a way that attracts it.
Now, for Rick:
One of the easiest ways to discount criticism is to tell yourself "always
when we try to reform others' behavior, we're concerned about the same
tendencies within ourselves." This is another dogma-crutch you've picked up,
Archer, which you use in place of reasoning. To write off a post as the
writer's ego problem is a convenient way of ignoring someone's thoughts that
challenge your own assumptions. Then you don't have to go deeper, and think
about what they said.
Is it true that every outraged criticism written by man or woman had its
source in the writer's being the very thing they criticized? Let's examine that
assumption. It would mean that all persons who, in the early part of the 20th
Century, wrote outraged rebukes of Hitler, were -- themselves -- fascists!
Well, is that true, Rick? It is, using your statement as a measuring stick.
I am outraged at anyone who sets themselves up above others as greater in
consciousness. Why don't I get upset with Flanigan, who says he experiences
higher states consistently, if I'm going to take Queenie to task? Because,
Flanigan doesn't place himself above the rest of us, talking down to people as
inferiors. He doesn't "avoid the beggars" or preach. He simply states his
experience. That's very different from her majesty, whose very tone of voice in
the Wednesday night meetings lets you know that SHE speaks from experience of
how the universe works, and anything you say that may contradict her comes from
your pitiful ignorance.
This woman makes clear to all that she and other "special" people in the
satsang have attained higher vision which the rest who attend don't have. She
came right out and said (in the post) that she attends the satsang discussions
out of "generosity" (translation: to dispense her grace). Her self-sequestering
and quiet manner add to her mystery, making this woman more sought-after by
insecure people who think the answers lie outside themselves, in the "realized
ones." Then their pursuing her adds still further to her belief in her
specialness.
I'm asking myself why I feel so passionate about this. For one thing, I
remember very strongly that in a lifetime not far in the past, I was an
arrogant teacher of esoteric knowledge. I guilded my throne with the adulation
of other people. In this lifetime, I have gone from wanting to be spiritually
superior (in my youth) to being able to feel the pain of everyone around me,
and that sensitizing has changed me into a person who truly wants EQUAL
happiness for all. I recognize now that setting myself up above others by
presenting myself as "one who has the knowledge" is a violent thing to do.
It is also untruthful. Everyone has the knowledge, just as every fish swims
in the water. To make yourself different and better because your attention is
on the water while the attention of some fellow fish is on the seaweed or sand,
creates hierarchy. It divides the fishes. Of course, it makes people chase
after you and see you as important, which is what this whole trip is about. We
are all equal in God's vision. So if I want to be Godly, the first step is to
SEE equally.
Special people don't see like that. They see themselves as having made it and
the rest of us having not. They see the masses as needing the likes of them to
get to where THEY are at. But it's all ego-illusion: one fish in the pond
thinking he's better because he notices the water when other fishes focus on
other things.
It's just silly. But boy, does make for some drama below: with kings and
courts and castles, peasants and vassals and servants. The haves and the have
nots. The be's and the wannabes. Her highness wants to make sure she's on the
right side of the line. I want to erase the damn thing.
A word about psychics and why the woman's remarks on this subject so
triggered me. I have sat in training with hundreds of sincere people who spent
hours in pure consciousness alternating with focused work in remote view,
healing and the like. They worked hard, and they achieved some outstanding
results. They learned not just to transcend but to know and act from the level
of the transcendent. Part of the reason they were in that school was to develop
higher consciousness, and they did so at the same time as they learned to use
consciousness to gain greater knowledge and make positive changes in the world.
But the attitude Queenie and so many past TMers take about psychic abilities
is that they are something to act superior to, something without useful
purpose, mere parlor tricks. Yet such esoteric knowledge can save lives, change
fortunes, and work great good in the world. Pure consciousness by itself --
unchanneled -- doesn't do that.
When the woman went into her little spiel about HER intuition being connected
to the wholeness, that it was not mere psychic abilitiy, she was discounting in
her self-importance all the little people I know who worked so hard to
cultivate their consciousness and learn how to focus it into cosmic action. She
sets herself above the whole lot of them, people I've come to love and respect,
who I see using their gifts to make the world a better place. Queenie's
intuition is superior because it is spontaneous, she implies, while psychic
knowledge that is consciously called up by intutives is -- by comparison -- not
"whole."
It burns my burritos to read such condescension. She speaks of other people's
brand of psychic abilities as if she knows what that's about -- as if they're
less than the stuff she is experiencing. From my experience, I know that's just
not the case. The siddhis only come in expansive states of awareness. We are
all the same, and that's what this woman doesn't want to realize. She says she
sees all as equal, but her words and behavior belie that.
Arrogance doth not a true master make. If self-importance is not defrocked,
it continues to take in people, trusting souls looking for their betters to
show them the way. If enlightenment and equal happiness for all beings is ever
going to be a reality on this planet, it can only happen with a spiritual
attitude of democracy -- even anarchy. As long as we draw enlightenment lines,
and declare some of us on one side, some on the other, you'll have the queens
and the supplicants.
God alone should be guru, and God's in every one of us. Down with people
wanting us to bow down. Expose them for their ordinaryness. When the illusion
of superiority is ground into the dust, only then can the human mind -- EVERY
human mind -- be free.
- Bronte
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