--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, blusc0ut <no_reply@...> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb <no_reply@> wrote: > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "sparaig" <LEnglish5@> wrote: > > > > > > > On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 9:30 PM, Peter <drpetersutphen@> wrote: > > > > > > > > > > "No effort on this path is every wasted" -- Krishna, > > > > > *Bhagavad Gita* > > > > > > "No effort is wasted because no effort is used!" -MMY > > > commentary. > > > > There are times when reading FFL is like reading a > > forum on which most people's education stopped at > > the sixth grade. This is one of those times. > > > > Just because you were told something 'way back > > when doesn't make it true. > > > > I find it mind-boggling that people are still so > > attached to the "effortlessness" meme that they > > are still willing to defend it as if it were true. > > *Especially* when they do so in the face of state- > > ments from Maharishi himself saying that the > > reality is more like "minimal effort." > > I agree with you here, so statements like this are more an > approximation, or true seen from a sort of absolute level.
Or, as in this case, not completely true on any level. Except the one joked about earlier in which there is no effort if one believes in the "There is no doer" bullshit. :-) > I remember on my TTC, when we did checking every day, we all > started to think that we do it somehow wrong. I defenitly > thought so, until Maharishi himself explained it in a tape, > it must have been a fairly common phenomenon. In learning, > and repeating the phrases, we of course *tryed* to do it > right, and this intention, unvoluntarily created quite > some effort. All we could do is relax, take it easy, and > wait till this phase was over. In a way, much of it is > the confirmation that you are doing it alright, which > relaxes people. While this "relaxation" thang might be true when dealing with the isolated instance of "checking" and whether one is doing TM "properly," I actually had in mind a wider and, in my opinion, more debilitating phenomenon. That is, the fallout of Maharishi's famous "Every ques- tion is a perfect opportunity for the answer we have already prepared." THAT was -- and still is -- the TM mindset. You ask questions, we give you the "pat answer" we have already prepared, and you STFU (Shut The Fuck Up). Unlike other spiritual traditions I've been exposed to there is generally no tolerance in the TMO for a seeker *challenging* the pat answer. To do so, in fact, risks ridicule or, if you *keep* challenging it after having been told to STFU a couple of times, excommunication. The pat answer is Truth. You are expected to *accept* the Truth. The problem with this, as I see it, is that NO pat answer in the history of answers has ever been Truth. At best, it's a partial, relative truth, "true" only from one point of view and one state of consciousness. Shift points of view, shift states of consciousness, and even the pat answers become untrue, or at best only partially true. My experience on the spiritual path has left me feel- ing that this "pat answer" approach is a Really Dumb Idea. It not only creates in those who accept the pat answers as Truth a false belief that they "know the Truth," it also creates in them (IMO) a reluctance to question further, and often an angry, attached overreaction to those who suggest that in their own interest they may want to examine these pat answers in more detail to see how "true" they really were, or are. Pat Answer Syndrome explains a LOT of the behavior we see on FFL, and in the TMO at large. People who heard the pat answers just parrot them out every time a "perfect opportunity" arises to do so, with- out ever questioning whether the pat answers were ever true. Push the issue -- point out that the pat answers were possibly not true, and even present quotes from Maharishi indicating this -- and they plant their feet in the dirt like a dog pulling on a leash and get first defensive, and then angry. In other words, IMO, Pat Answer Syndrome -- present- ing theories or partial truths as Truth -- has in the long run a deleterious effect. It breeds stasis in those who accept the pat answers as Truth, breeds a lack of curiosity as to finding out more about the subjects dismissed by the pat answers, and eventually (after years or decades) breeds heavy-duty attachment to "knowing" the Truth, just because they learned to re-parrot the pat answers used to dismiss their questions. That's my theory, anyway. Others may have other theories, and are welcome to present them. I might suggest, however, that those who become angry at my suggestion in this post and resort to namecalling and insults in reply to it are proving my thesis, not disproving it.
