> > What triggered your asking that question? > > ME: It was after I had dropped out of TM. I was doing an > epistemological overhaul on myself, and a friend who had > shared my journey out of TM told me that he had taped a > show on TV called the American Atheist with Madalyn O'Hair. > I had no interest in even considering atheism, but I got > kinda trapped. He said to me, "We want to examine all > points of view right? Here is the extreme from believing > in God." I couldn't deny that I had to see it, but honestly > I was only doing it to be true to my idea of open mindedness. > I thought it was a waste of time since I was so comfortable > with my belief. It was one of the most belief shattering > experience of my life to listen to her presenting atheism > as an option for the first time in my life. She was really > funny and I literally laughed my self out of my own belief!
This last sentence is really great, Curtis. But I'm really replying because of one later on... > To enjoy her humor my POV shifted from assumption to the > question, "why do I believe this". Of course I read > a lot later to really understand the details of the POV > I wanted to adapt on the topic, but the first shift was > pretty quick. It was humbling in the extreme. I felt it > was just an extension of me being a "seeker of truth" > when I was in TM. *This* last sentence is the one I wanted to riff on. That's the thing that so amazed me about the way that the TBs within the TM movement regarded those of us who walked away -- the *inability* to see what we were doing from this point of view. I mean, these are people who, like us, gave lectures from time to time in which they talked about the "natural tendency of the mind is to seek greater and greater levels of satisfaction (or bliss or fulfil- lment...whatever)." And yet, when one of their friends chose a greater level of satisfaction or bliss that wasn't On The Program, they felt sad for us. Or they felt betrayed in some way by us. We were no longer following our Way; we had *lost* our way. We had strayed from the "highest path," and thus there was something *wrong* with us. And yet they gave these talks about "the natural tendency of the mind is to seek greater and greater levels of satisfaction and bliss and fulfillment." Go figure. As I've said earlier in these discussions, I never had any kind of epiphany regarding my unbelief in a sentient God. There was never any *transition* from believing in God to not for me to experience, or to provide the moments of strong *contrast* that we as humans tend to experience subjectively as epiphanies. I had never *had* any real belief in God, so all that ever happened for me was becoming more intellectually comfortable with what had always already been. But if there had been such an epiphany, and I had talked about it openly with my TM friends, how do you think they would have reacted? Would they have been happy for me that I had achieved an epiphanal moment and had a real breakthrough in my own self discovery? Would they even notice the body language of relief that they saw in my body, or the smile on my face? I think that anyone here who has ever had such an Off The Program realization and has tried to express it within the confines of the TM movement can answer this question. Right? So where did our focus shift from "The natural tendency of the mind is to seek greater and greater levels of fulfillment" to "You shouldn't be think- ing that...that is Off The Program Thinking...you might be in danger of straying off of the highest path, and if you do, I'm probably going to have to shun you?" What HAPPENED to turn us so damned JUDGMENTAL and OLD, man? What HAPPENED that we became more protective of the Dogma Status Quo than we were appreciative of one of our friends having an epiphanal moment, and set- ting forth on a new adventure, following the *same* bliss or satisfaction that inspired him to learn TM? What Curtis seems to be describing here, if I read what he's written (and between the lines) correctly, is that the sense of elation he felt at letting go of the strong conviction that there is a God and becoming open to the possibility that maybe there isn't one is the *same* elation he felt upon first finding TM? It's a mind having *found* something that is more satisfying, more blissful, and more fulfilling. That it has been just that for Curtis permeates almost every word he writes here. Curtis is having a pretty happy life, as far as I can tell. And some of the folks who occasionally want him to think it's *not* a happy life, and that he's really Off The Program and lost -- well...let's face it...*their* happiness does not exactly permeate *their* posts. Their posts sound *constricted* to me, trying to *cling* to something, *defensive* about things. Curtis rarely does. So if I were a betting man, I'd be more likely to bet that Curtis was ONTO SOMETHING when he followed his bliss and bailed from the TM movement and from God than I would be to bet that he had somehow strayed away from the "highest path."
