[ I'm going to assume that this is my last post of the week. The Post Count says I've only made 44 posts so far, but my personal count says that this is #49, and I don't want to go over the limit. As some have mentioned, something may in fact be rotten in the Denmark of the FFL PostCount mechanism. -) ]
One of the things that makes Fairfield Life interesting for me, and keeps me around, is that I get an intuitive feeling that quite a few people here have "walked the walk" of their spiritual talk. That is, they've "paid their dues," and that's what makes their POV inter- esting to me. For example, there probably couldn't be two more dif- ferent POVs than Curtis' and Nabby's. But when I read what they write, I get an intuitive feeling that both have "paid their dues" walking their talk. Curtis has definitely spent some time working full-time for the TMO, and it "feels" to me that Nabby has, too. The fact that they have, over the years, come to very different conclusions about the TMO and about the worth of what they did for it is, in a way, irrelevant. The impor- tant part for me is that they were there, "on the front lines," putting their spiritual beliefs to the test. So when they talk about what it is like to be a TM teacher, I respect their POV. Similarly, when some on this forum speak about enlight- enment, I get a subjective intuitive "feeling" about whether they are talking about something they have personally experienced (even if only for a while, or not "fully") or whether they are only repeating some- thing they have read or something they have been told. I tend to respect the POVs of those who seem to be speaking from personal experience more than I do those who are not. When others write, especially when they write as if they "know the truth" about enlightenment or some nit- picky detail of TM philosophy, I don't get the feel- ing that they've ever really *experienced* what they're talking about. It's more like they are just repeating something they've been told or something they've read somewhere. What seems to be "missing" for me is that feeling that they've "walked the walk." This intuitive feeling is what I was talking about yesterday when I lit into enlightened_dawn11. I have nothing against her personally, but when I saw her project onto Vaj the *exact* same thing I've been feeling from *her* posts, I thought it would be fun to say that, and see how she reacted. She reacted as if my intuitive feeling was right on, and that she really never *has* "walked the walk" of all the talk she spouts here. I might be wrong about this, and if so I apologize to her. But I don't think I am, and I don't think I'm alone in perceiving this lack of having "paid her dues" underlying the things she writes here. Is my tendency to respect those who have "walked the walk" more than those who only "talk the talk" a failing and a samskara on my part? Damn straight it is, but there you jolly well are, aren't you. In general, the standards are so low in spiritual communities and in the Newage (rhymes with sewage) community that a *lot* of people get away with talking the talk of things they've never walked the walk of, for years, or decades. Whole spiritual traditions have probably been founded on the talk of someone who never walked the walk of it. And if the ability to talk convincingly is enough for you to respect what a person says, cool. It isn't enough for me. I'm looking for that underlying feeling that indi- cates that the person has actually experienced the things he or she is talking about. If that's elitist, shoot me.
