Here is a work in progress. A bit raggedy. But I'm getting somewhere I think. Thanks to everyone who has helped me find my way for my own POV about certain yoga terms.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <jst...@...> wrote: > Has nothing to do with Peter's post, however. Like > Curtis, Ruth is talking about nonattachment as a > psychological state, whereas Peter's talking about it > as a state of consciousness. So it's a straw-man > argument. Yes, I agree that I got a bit sidetracked in my mental wandering considering the implications of the terms in their ordinary usage. So lets get back to the terms in their yogic context and with the whole body of beliefs and claims they imply. We'll start with Peter's excellent post: Peter I'd like to argue that you don't know what > > > > attachment is until you experience pure > > > > consciousness while the mind functions. So the assumption is that ordinary non yoga practitioners folks are not witnessing with the best of meditators? That people don't experience the silent quality of their mind if they choose to bring their attention to it? That they are as Maharishi claims "ignorant" of their true Self and therefor overshadowed by the objects of perceptions including their mind's functioning and everything else they experience. Again from Peter's post: <What is unattached in enlightenment is pure conscious which has ALWAYS been unattached. But prior to realization pure consciousnessidentifies with something other than itself (primarily the mind, secondarily thebody) and an ego is created. So pure awareness experiences itself as limited.This is a delusion.> So is this what most of us experienced before we meditated? Personally I had plenty of experiences of witnessing in activity and sleep and plenty of transcending experiences before I did TM. And when I taught people TM I heard a lot of other people describe that they had experienced this before. (Of course I was always quick to point out that this type of unofficial access to an aspect of their own self was inferior to the TM access like a good little initiator.) I give TM credit for being a convenient technique for experiencing the silent quality of our minds, but since it is after all already there, not being created by TM, why should we assume that most people are not walking around with plenty of this quality already? Why should be buy into Maharishi's condescension that he is addressing the "peaceless and suffering humanity?" Is that really how it is for non meditators? Not the people I know. This is the assumption I find bogus in the yoga system. That people aren't already familiar with this aspect of their minds to a lesser or greater degree. They just don't have the belief system that glorifies this natural experience so they don't make a big deal out of it like meditators do. Maybe it is due to the assumptive stress theory that it is assumed that people's nervous systems aren't pure enough to maintain pure consciousness with activity without TM. But is it really people's experience that they as meditators are so radically different from everyone around them? Meditators may be a bit more attentive to the silent aspect of their minds, and due to reinforcement practice may notice it more. But how much more? Do we know that this amount is the key difference for a person''s life? I know for me personally that there can be too much of this style of awareness brought on by TM. A little meditation goes a long way for me. Perhaps this is the same for non meditators who are happy with their silence/active mind balance. I find that people are more similar than different in their functioning if I bother to ask them about their internal experience. If they are given a reason to, they can notice the quieter aspect of their mind as clearly as any meditator. I find people doing other mental techniques who describe similar things to what I experience in meditation. Or people whose internal functioning has a calm inner witness, try hanging out with an emergency room doctor sometime, or a mother of 3. They all exhibit the mental qualities of having inner calm and ability to function clearly under stress that is one of the big brags about CC. So I am challenging that people KNOW what others around them experience inside without asking them, and especially that it is assumed that somehow that this state of mind needs to be cultivated through meditation. I know from my experience that paying attention to it does in fact make it more obvious. If I meditate then I feel very aware of that quality of my mind afterwards. But I also get this when I sink into silence before a show or in the woods or in my kayak in the Potomac. It is a choice of attention that doesn't require all the supporting beliefs for it to work. I am proposing that the people around regular meditators are not "ignorant" of their true inner nature. They are not overshadowed by the objects of attention or identified with their bodies or minds if they would chose to look at it that way. In a few moments someone could be led to an awareness that there is a part of themselves that is silent inside and most people are already using that choice when they want to or it is present in their activity already. Without years of meditation. But without the supporting belief package, it is not such a big deal perhaps. It is the active part of my mind that is the interesting part,the part that is most ME. Calling the silent part of my mind my real self strips me of what I value so I don't buy into that POV. The assumption that non medtitaors are identified with their minds or bodies and are "ignorant" of their true inner nature is obnoxiously self serving as a belief. It reminds me of those perky Christians who insist that without me having their experience of giving myself to Jesus, I am missing out on the joy of being saved. And they are completely sure that what TMer call "pure consciousness" is in fact a dangerous state of empty mind that the devil can slip into. I wish. So my question is, how does any meditator "know" that people around them do NOT have an awareness of their pure consciousness, but without the belief system that makes such a tremendous fuss about it?
