--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, nablusoss1008 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Thank you for posting this. If there, by some struck of fortune, > happens to be some dignity left you would collect all these > marvelous and personal stories, including those from Ravi > Shankar and the Chopra family in a folder on FFL.
Strangely, I find myself and all of my 9.5 points on the Nabby Scale partially agreeing with him. Partially. Here's my reponse to his idea, and the reasons for it. When the teacher I worked with for a long time died, there was a website that collected the stories of some of his students and kept a permanent record of them. It gave the individual seekers themselves -- the people who had actually served time "in the trenches" with the man -- a chance to express their feelings about him. Some were positive, some were not. But they're all still there, archived, so that anyone in the future who might be curious as to what these everyday seekers had to say about their time with the man can read them. This provided a great deal of closure for many people who were trying to come to some sense of balance with the time they had spent with this gentleman. And it inspired many people who otherwise might NOT have tried to put pen to paper (or keyboard to phosphor) and say a few things about their experiences and their feelings to do so. I think it was a great idea, and I think a similar forum would be a great idea here on Fairfield Life. With some caveats. First, I think that nothing should be included in this "Remembrance Folder" unless the authors themselves request that their words be put there. No one should go through the posts of the last week and try to / have to decide what is "worthy" to be included and what is not. Let the writers themselves decide, by writing to Rick or the other moderators offline and requesting that their post -- or their private sub- mission -- be included. Or let Rick write to them and ask them if they want their writings to be included, if they are not regular posters to FFL. Second, let it be "post only" and not open to replies and responses. Let this folder be a place where a person can put his or her most intimate and loving -- or scathing and damning -- remarks about Maharishi and have them NOT subject to a dozen followup posts. Third, I think that it would be a more balanced and dignified monument if the submissions were limited to the people who actually wrote them *to this forum*. In other words, no public articles, or if they are included, make sure that they are in *another* folder, one specifically for obituaries or articles in the press. I think it would be better to keep the FFL "Remembrance Folder" reserved for those people who regularly write to this forum, and to those who have been inspired to write to it recently, or to send their remembrances to Rick specifically so that he could post them here. I think that would be dignified. One of the reasons that Nabby wants all the public articles posted is a common trait among TMers -- the belief that if some- one "famous" or someone "in the media" says something good about their teacher, that makes him good. It's the worst type of Misplaced Authority Fallacy in my opinion. Some Beatle says something negative; does that make MMY negative? Of fucking course not. Another Beatle says something positive about MMY. Does that make him positive? Of fucking course not. Same with the Chopras. Same with the other spiritual teachers who have "logged in" on the subject in the press. If such things are to be collected and preserved here, please let it be in a separate folder FOR press statements. Nothing that ANY of these people says is "the truth," or a whit more truthful than anything anyone ELSE says. It's all just opinion. The fact that the opinionee is more famous than someone else doesn't mean a damned thing. But the "Remembrance Folder" itself? Please let that be for the statements of normal, everyday seekers who paid their dues over the years with Maharishi. Give them a private place to publicly share their feelings. Don't make someone who spent 20 years "in the trenches" "compete" with some person who is famous, but who like the Beatles or their ex-wives spent at most a total of a couple of months in his presence. Or like some of the teachers who have written things, never met him at all. Let the "Remembrance Folder" be for US, the people who spent some time with the man and who have come here to Fairfield Life to try to figure things out. We've been trying to figure things out for some time now, and I dare say not ONE of us has. As far as I can tell, no one on this forum is any more clueful than anyone else. We are all -- each and every one of us -- still trying to figure out our feelings about this man we spent time with, and about the things he taught, and about how and whether they affected us and the world. And I don't think that any of us will EVER come up with a definitive, final "take" on the situation. One day we'll feel positively about the man, and the next we'll feel negatively. And both are fine, and both are "correct," because both are the honest feelings of a spiritual seeker who is trying to do what every spiritual seeker in history has done before him -- figure things out. I really LIKE Nabby's idea of some area in the FFL archives where we preserve our feelings and remem- brances of Maharishi. But please, let it be OUR feelings and remembrances of the man, not a bunch of "dueling obituaries" by some talking head in the press.
