--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Buck" <dhamiltony...@...> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB <no_reply@> wrote: > > > > This repost is for Buck. I wrote it just before the > > news about Dan hit the fan, and since it was one of > > my rare attempts at "prescriptive" writing about the > > TMO, I always wondered what Buck, who seems to like > > that sorta thing, thought about it. Everyone else > > can disregard it. > > Thanks, I like the video. Especially the last two minutes on > "purpose". > > Great summary of the > decline of TM in its mission, moral code and all. > Very well done and pertinent. > > In those two minutes it explains the long diaspora > of the old meditating community and why they > can't now get the numbers they would really like > to have in the domes. > > As in the video comments, 'Purpose' obviously deviated and became > deviant at points along the way for TM. Is an interesting > story in human nature and character. The video hits it good in > two minutes. > > They'd proly have to back up searching toward early less > blemished time in the TM movement to recast things now. Reaching > to Jerry Jarvis is that.
I disagree. I see the putting of "TM's glorious past" on a pedestal as just one more example of ostrich-like head-in-the-sand-ism. "Focus on the 'good old days' so that we don't have to deal with the present, and the future." All I'm saying is that if you are trying to rally people to your stated Purpose, walk the fucking walk of it, don't just talk it. The "glorious history" of the TM movement was just as lost in feeling that talking the talk and feeling that talking the talk is *enough* as its present is. > But oh the bad characters are still the ones there doing the > same stuff. IMO, the "bad characters" are the ones who keep on keepin' on in the glorification of a lie. It doesn't matter to me whether they are at the top of the "lie pyramid" or way, way at the bottom of it. Feeling autonomous while not only living within narrow boundaries but *glorifying* those boundaries and trying to justify them strikes me as the kind of thing that a person devoid of any kind of creative thought does. If one can't even *conceive* of doing something considered "off the program" because they're too dull or complacent to conceive of it, that doesn't strike me as autonomy, merely dullness. Reserving the concept of Mastery for a state of enlightenment *that the organization you are part of has NEVER certified in even one of its members* does not strike me as supportive of the idea of Mastery. And talking the talk about a glorious Purpose while never being willing to pay for it oneself does not strike me as being consistent with the stated Purpose, only with hypocrisy. My issue with the TM movement is not a bunch of "bad guys" at the top, but the sense of complacency with which people below them in the organizational hierarchy have *settled*. On one of my long rounding courses, we were served brussel sprouts every night for six weeks. The TMO obviously got a screamin' deal on them, so they became the "vegetable du jour," tous les jours. I was the only person who complained, and asked for a little more variety in my diet. > They could always start in with 'purpose' anew anytime. Like > considering old time virtue by example to help themselves. > > Om, they need help. Can't happen, for many reasons, not the least of which is the precedent of Maharishi's inability to ever admit that anything he ever did was a mistake. That was part and parcel of one of his key "myths of enlightenment," that *anything* done by a supposedly-enlightened being was perfect. To change direction would be to admit the...uh...less-than- perfection-ness of past directions. Won't happen. I wrote the other day about "spiritual inertia." I see THAT as the main problem, and the main issue. When the allegiance to concepts and dogma becomes stronger than the allegiance to reality, the train of spirituality has not only taken a wrong turn IMO, but has gone off the tracks. The fundamental assumption that prevents the TM organization from ever becoming relevant again is IMO that one needs an organization to teach medi- tation and self discovery. Once one buys into that, the perpetuation of the organization becomes more important than its professed goal. That was as true in the "good old days" as it is today. Anyone who ever learned how to teach TM could do so today. That they do not is the issue, not what they claim about what is preventing them from doing so.
