TurquoiseB wrote:
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu <noozg...@...> wrote:
>
>> TurquoiseB wrote:
>>
>>> Another is the fact that many teachers really
>>> *did* feel a "buzz" from doing puja. I never
>>> felt much of one, but some did, and they assoc-
>>> iate that buzz with magical thinking and feel
>>> that something about *their* buzz helped give
>>> their initiates a buzz, too.
>>>
>>
>> That certainly explains a lot! :-D
>>
>
> Bhairitu, because I like you I'll reply
> again, without the Snide Factor. It's
> just that when you get on your "It works
> because it's magic, and because *I* am
> magic because *I* have been taught to
> manifest 'shakti'" soapbox, I react with
> the same uncontrollable laughter as when
> I hear similar things from TM TBs.
>
> Put this into perspective, eh? You are
> advancing the argument that the important
> thing in the teaching of meditation is
> NOT the techniques themselves, but the
> "magic" ("shakti") with which they are
> taught.
>
> I, on the other hand, am advancing the
> argument that sometimes techniques just
> work because they work.
>
> That frees me to not develop any kind of
> self-importance because they worked when
> I was teaching them. With the belief
> system you espouse, you pretty much have
> to assume that an important part of *why*
> the things you teach work is the fact
> that *you* have developed special, magical
> powers to "make" them work.
>
> That may float your boat, but it doesn't
> float mine. In my experience, teaching
> someone to, say, focus their attention on
> the heart chakra works just fine, and the
> students have *remarkable* results with
> the practice. And they have those results
> *without* me thinking that anything *I*
> did "made" those results possible.
>
> If you believe the things you're saying,
> you can't believe that. You pretty much
> have to believe that the simple technique
> wouldn't work as well if it hadn't been
> "amped up" by your own shakti, and your
> own personal power, and by...well...you.
>
> I'm not being nihilist; I'm being honest.
> If the techniques in question work, they
> don't need the trappings of magic or
> magical thinking to "make" them work.
> And if the techniques *do* need to con-
> vince both students and teachers that all
> this magical thinking is necessary to
> "make" them work, maybe they just don't
> work, and the only thing that convinces
> people that they do is their own addiction
> to magical thinking.
>
> Something that a humble person might ponder.
I just had to give you a hard time because you claimed you never got a
buzz off the puja (or seldom did) and yet I know lots of people
(including myself) that did including from pujas from other systems.
Indians are a pretty lazy bunch and if this stuff didn't work they would
drop it in a heartbeat. But these things have survived for thousands of
years.
I'm not saying I'm anything special, its just my experience and also the
experience of many others I know. In fact I am more puzzled by people
who don't have that experience.
The tantric concept is that you build up shakti in your system sort of
like a battery. This comes even from just doing a "simple technique"
twice a day. There are more powerful techniques which can be learned to
really build up shakti. Of course you can put this in the "belief
realm" if you want but I have it from the experience realm. As one of
my astrology teachers who was also a tantric once told me when I told
him I learned to teach TM but wasn't using it anymore he said, "it
doesn't matter, once you have been initiated then you can enliven any
mantra." So since you DID learn mantra meditation and practiced it for
a number of years we have no idea how much that has influenced any later
teaching you did.
As for your being a nihilist, IMHO that is how you come off at the
moment to others and I think it is a phase. Something will happen which
will change that. But I've been there myself so that is why I know
something will change that perspective.
And my tantra guru will hammer down anyone with an "I am something"
attitude.
There's my two cents for what it's worth and I'm sure that and a $1.85
will get me a Americano at Starbucks. ;-)
