--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, off_world_beings <no_re...@...> wrote: > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com > <mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> , "Ben" <brbenjaminassisi@> > wrote: > > > > > > > > wow! > > > > > > > > you "guys" are... so bored with your life huh? > > > > > > > > > > Ben, I apologize for an inappropriate public display of > long-standing squabbles with Vaj. Vaj is a TM critic who doesn't miss an > opportunity to diminish TM and trot out obscure Buddhist texts to prove > that TM is inferior to whatever flavor of the month he happens to > stumble upon in his search for "truth." I really don't care what > spiritual practice anyone wants to do. If you feel attracted to > experience TM fine, if not, fine. I don't criticize Vaj for practicing > "mindfullness" or whatever he wants, in fact he has never been clear > exactly what he does practice, I suspect a hodgepodge of several things. > Fine, whatever floats his boat. > > > > > > My objection to Vaj is that he poses as intellectual giant with > superior knowledge and misrepresents TM. Vaj thinks he has all the > answers but his answers result in and indecipherable jumble of > confusion. It's kind of like putting a penny in a gumball machine and > not getting the flavor you had hoped for. All the flavors are there, but > they are not very well organized. After many attempts to get exactly the > flavor you want, you end up with as much confusion of flavors strew > about on the floor as was once in the gumball machine. Good luck sorting > it all out. > > > > > > > well if you feel the need to "prove" your practise is better than > anothers.>> > > This is where you start to learn something from Fairfiled Life. No-one > in the real world is interested in personal opinion. In the 21st century > we can only go by robust research published in peer-reviewed scientific > journals over many decades in hundreds of independent journals and from > hundreds of indepnedent sceintific institutions around the world - over > several decades. > If we do not go by this approach, the world COULD be doomed. Can you at > least agree with this Ben?
depends on the subject.... If I was to discuss the inner meaning of the holy grail what good would years of peer reviewed texts do? none, because there isnt that kind of thing, as science deals with a specific thing...and only attempts to go beyond it. Books like "The Tao of Physics" at least attempt a marriage ,...but ultimatly of course fail I am starting to think this group is largely made up of materialists...which is fine I guess, if that is your thing from wiki, just for clarification, nothing more: The philosophy of materialism holds that the only thing that can be truly proven to exist is matter, and is considered a form of physicalism. Fundamentally, all things are composed of material and all phenomena (including consciousness) are the result of material interactions; therefore, matter is the only substance. As a theory, materialism belongs to the class of monist ontology. As such, it is different from ontological theories based on dualism or pluralism. For singular explanations of the phenomenal reality, materialism would be in contrast to idealism and to spiritualism. > > Now, Maharishi's Tm has hundreds of robust research published in > peer-reviewed scientific journals over many decades in hundreds of > independent journals and from hundreds of indepnedent scientific > institutions around the world - over several decades. > > We, on the side of TM, are defending SCIENCE, not religion or > philosophy. THAT is the WHOLE point here. > > Vaj has no proof for anything he says. Which do you prefer, myth or > science? > > OffWorld > I dont think science or myth are particularly all that great. Nor do I think religion or philosophy are. As a Gnostic, I know: If I were to say `I know God', I would be a liar. God is beyond comprehension. Better to be silent and live in humility. If I were to say, `I do not know God', I would also be a liar. Jean-Yves Leloup A spoon helps you to eat soup But it is the soup that is eaten not the spoon. I can watch porno vids for decades But I wont have had sex, until I have had sex. or to quote some buddhism: One day Mara, the Evil One, was travelling through the villages of India with his attendants. he saw a man doing walking meditation whose face was lit up on wonder. The man had just discovered something on the ground in front of him. Mara's attendant asked what that was and Mara replied, "A piece of truth." "Doesn't this bother you when someone finds a piece of truth, O Evil One?" his attendant asked. "No," Mara replied. "Right after this, they usually make a belief out of it." >From 108 Treasures for the Heart: A Guide for Daily Living by Benny Liow ................. science is great if you want to restrict yourselves to the scientific method. However you fall into the problem of the observer effecting the observed.... It all boils down to what you want to see. If you want to see a piece of paper, using your eyes is great. If you want to see the atoms that make a piece of paper you need an electron microscope. The paper has not changed, but how you view the paper has changed. We see this idea in "myth" as you call it. Besides the above example there are many more, perhaps one of the most famous being the Tao te Chin "The Tao that can be spoken of is not the Tao" We see this in science in the above mentioned Heisenberg problem of observer and obserrved. Also we see this in the ideas proposed by Benoit Mandelbrot when he "discovered" fractals and the whole of Chaos theory blossomed. I am sure there are other examples, another clear one is Goedel's incompleteness theorem. Of course there are many other parralels such as the union of opposites idea... We find this in "science" in the idea that two opposites stretched to infinity will eventually curve in upon themselves and meet. We find this in "myth" in such things as the Isa upanishad and the meaning of the star of David... Once again there are many examples that I could mention. Essentially though, science, myth, religion, philosophy are just ways of seeing things.... to get upset because someone is using a different set of rose colored glasses to yourself is foolish, and rather amounts back to the good old "My penis is bigger than yours, thus as my penis is bigger, you are inferior" argument. I guess using your language I prefer "myth"... I leave this post with a quotation from the Gnostic Gospel of Philip and a note that this is just my perspective, I am sure you will disagree: Jesus took them all by stealth, for he did not appear as he was, but in the manner in which they would be able to see him. He appeared to them all. He appeared to the great as great. He appeared to the small as small. He appeared to the angels as an angel, and to men as a man. Because of this, his word hid itself from everyone. Some indeed saw him, thinking that they were seeing themselves, but when he appeared to his disciples in glory on the mount, he was not small. He became great, but he made the disciples great, that they might be able to see him in his greatness. It is not possible for anyone to see anything of the things that actually exist unless he becomes like them. This is not the way with man in the world: he sees the sun without being a sun; and he sees the heaven and the earth and all other things, but he is not these things. This is quite in keeping with the truth. But you saw something of that place, and you became those things. You saw the Spirit, you became spirit. You saw Christ, you became Christ. You saw the Father, you shall become Father. So in this place you see everything and do not see yourself, but in that place you do see yourself - and what you see you shall become.
