Reply to 157719: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "lurkernomore20002000" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Curtis commenting on Turqs experience with Rama - Fred Lenz: > > > > So if this teacher had some version of this ability, and you > > were in deep rapport with him, it doesn't seem like too much > > of a stretch to think he might have developed some other > > interesting ways to shift a... > > Lurk: > I have mentioned before that when I read an interview Rama gave back > in the early 90's (I believe), I was blown away. The impression I got > was that of full blown enlightenment. A second interview six or seven > years later, still had, in my opinion, the unmistakeable mark of > enlightenment, although it was a little dulled, but enlightenment > still intact. That was my impression. Speculating, given the little I > know about the guy, it seemed like he pushed the envelope to the > extreme, but even for the enlightend, there is only so far you can > push it, before you find yourself past the point of no return.
Well, I was around the guy for quite a few years and I'd have to agree with you. During the early Eighties it *was*, in fact, like being around someone who seemed to be enlightened. Meditate with the dude and there was just no "you" there. However, as you say, the guy did "push the envelope," and IMO pushed things beyond what his karma and his body could handle. He had this "I can handle it" attitude about excess, whether it was his taste for Coca-colas or his involvement in extreme sports or his lifestyle with regard to women, and all of them probably took their toll, but I think it was the Valium that finally took him out. It got prescribed for him after a sports injury, but as far as I can tell he got to like it a lot more than he should have, and towards the end was popping handfuls of them, according to folks who saw him do it. That's when I bailed. I wasn't there for the flash and the siddhis but for what it was like to meditate with him. And at that point he'd pretty much stopped meditating with his students and his entire "program" had shifted its focus to success in one's careers, and I already had about as much success at that as I was interested in, so what was to stick around for? I suspect that the Valium had eroded his ability to meditate as well as he had previously, and that's one of the reasons he didn't do it any more. The result of all this IMO, was his own death. Towards the end (I wasn't around, having left about a year earlier), he started complaining about all sorts of serious ill- nesses that the doctors "couldn't pin down," laying it thick on his students that he thought he was dying. Well, duh. If you look up the symptoms he was complaining about and then look up the symptoms of Valium dependency, there is a complete matchup. And right beside the symptoms on the same Web pages, in BIG PRINT, is "Trying to stop a Valium addiction by just quitting cold turkey is NOT ADVISED because of the danger of depression and suicide." So what does Mr. I-Can-Handle-It decide to do? Quit cold turkey, that's what. Less than a week later he was dead, a suicide. I think it's really sad, that someone so talented as a teacher and with so much consciousness and ability to meditate well pissed it all away, but on the other hand it's an object lesson that NO ONE can "handle" certain things. They'll take you out if you're a dumb sucker with the consciousness of a rock, and they'll take you out if you're a high guy with some serious chops on your state of consciousness. Same thing happened to Chogyam Trungpa, who came with a far more impressive "pedigree" from legitimate lin- eages than Rama did and ended up drinking himself to death. Who *knows* what's going on in situations like this? I sure don't. For me the Rama trip was a great ride, real E-ticket stuff, until it wasn't any more, and at that point I split. I'm thankful for the things I learned that were positive, and I'm equally thankful for having gotten to see and learn from behaviors that I consider less positive. Both will give me a lot to think about and ponder for the rest of my life.
