--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "seventhray1" <steve.sun...@...> wrote:
Thanks Steve. I think the more interesting (disturbing?) disconnect for me is the lack of anything exceptional coming out of awakened people, Maharishi types or otherwise. It may be enough to just bill it as a really great way to feel inside that doesn't happen to make you any less boring if that is what you are serving up before you get all enlightened up or whatever. We are so used to the Maharishi into lecture package about these states and what they mean and how wonderful every level of life becomes. Now that we have more examples of the proof of the pudding (thanks for the analogy hook-up Rick) I see no reason to reach for a spoon. I'm doing great inside, I'm just looking for more ways to express myself more effectively. And frankly the last place I would seek this information is from the people I have seen so far who have billed themselves as awakened. I would like to have seen Maharishi work a crowd on the street, without all the fawning supporters. He might have had some stand-up chops when he first started, but he quickly stacked the audience deck to make sure he couldn't flop. In the end he was able to get standing ovations on the spiritual teaching equivalent of fart jokes. (I'm not gunna top that so I had better stop here!) > > > Yea, this is a pretty neat post. Seems to me, on the surface, and for > quite a few levels below the surface, (pretty much as far as I can see) > you would expect this to be the case: namely that the development of > higher states of consciousness, especially among, someone considered > enlightened would equate to a higher standard of behavior. Now that > this has been demonstrated to not be the case (at least if you consider > his behavior of sexual relations with students/disciples to be an > example of low level behavior), then you have to deal with a pretty big > disconnect. Of course this is what we have been preoccupied for the > last three weeks. I guess each will continue processing it in his/her > own way. > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues" > <curtisdeltablues@> wrote: > > > > ...the leader sets a new date and everyone resets their count-down > clocks! > > > > I am hearing a trend of divorcing Maharishi's claims for his practice > from our evaluation of the value of his system in some posts. > > Aren't we then re-writing the whole scriptural basis of this > philosophy when we divorce the inner state and the effect of virtue on > the ethics of a person? "By their fruits yee shall know them" and all? > > > > What we have is a classic case of the counterexample attempting to be > explained away as a non-counter-example to the claim. We are changing > the bullseye to fit where the arrow landed. > > > > The abstract idea of enlightenment divorced from making a person > better in some recognizable way either through science or our own > personal observation means that any flight of inner experience fancy > qualifies as the "goal." The words are too vague to be meaningful for > evaluation like hanging around people on acid. > > > > The connection between godliness or whatever you want to call it and > ethical virtue is an indisputable cornerstone of Maharishi's teaching > and I would say of most religious systems. I think the direction of this > conversation is in the Charlie Manson direction of "If God is one, what > is right or wrong?" > > > > Again this is counter to the whole premise of scientifically verified > benefits of TM. You are making an appeal of not evaluating the broad > claims of the system against the evidence. When was that a good policy? > > >
