Turquoise"During the 4-5 years that I taught meditation while studying with Rama - Fred Lenz, I *didn't* get paid. *I* paid. That's just the way it worked in that org. The talks and the instruction were free to anyone who showed up, and so were all the cassette tapes, books, CDs and other materials we gave away. Those who chose to teach went into it with the understand- ing that they were to pay for everything themselves."
Who did you buy the cassette tapes, books, CDs and other materials from? ________________________________ From: TurquoiseB <no_re...@yahoogroups.com> To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wed, 30 June, 2010 12:37:02 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Spiritual Consumerism: Has DIY been rendered a taboo? --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, nablusoss1008 <no_re...@...> wrote: > > You may ask this Barry-fellow how he is paid. You'll get > an answer but it will not be truthful. Since you're the only person who replied to this thread yet, Nabby, I'll answer you, and truthfully, because you really don't seem to get the concept. During the 4-5 years that I taught meditation while studying with Rama - Fred Lenz, I *didn't* get paid. *I* paid. That's just the way it worked in that org. The talks and the instruction were free to anyone who showed up, and so were all the cassette tapes, books, CDs and other materials we gave away. Those who chose to teach went into it with the understand- ing that they were to pay for everything themselves. It may sound crazy to you, but I really dug it. It was *much* more fun and felt subjectively "cleaner" than the years I spent teaching TM. I made a fair amount of money as a consultant, more than enough to cover my needs, and so I spent a little of the extra renting halls, paying for posters and advertising, and doing the whole teaching bit for free. Way fun. Difficult to explain why to someone who hasn't done it. That's one of the reasons why I really liked the RSAnimate video on what really motivates us: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc I loved the breakdown of things that *really* motivate us -- autonomy, mastery, and purpose. I identified with the example used in the talk of how Linux was developed, by people like me working 40+ hours a week at a good job, but then working another 20-30 hours a week for free, on a product that in the end is itself given away for free. Linux now powers 1 out of 4 corporate servers in the world, its entire success driven by people who were working not for money or for more money, but for a greater sense of autonomy, mastery, and purpose. There are many pragmatic, practical reasons that can be presented for teaching meditation for free. But I'm focusing on a subjective reason -- what it *felt like* to teach meditation for free, vs. teaching it for pay. Teaching for free provided all the motivations above for me in ways that teaching TM for pay never did. And I suspect that because I was enjoying the teaching more, I was better at it, and more able to teach effectively. If I were ever to teach meditation again, that's the way I would do it -- paying for everything myself -- because that would make it more fun for me. I can talk about this subjective thing because I've taught both ways. Those who have only taught meditation one of those ways can't really speak to what teaching the other way *feels like*, can they? And if they've never taught meditation at all, call me crazy but I'm not quite sure what makes them think they're competent to even weigh in on the subject.
