On 02/11/2011 08:02 AM, turquoiseb wrote: > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Buck"<dhamiltony2k5@...> wrote: >>> "Retirement" was the Shaker word they used for 'meditation' >>> like we would know it. >> ",,,attend to your retirements, meetings and meals, and not >> let trifles hinder you; and when the signal is given, either >> for retiring time or for meals, drop your work, go into the >> house and sit down and retire, and have no loud or unnecessary >> conversation." [1845] >> >> Sounds a lot like TM in Fairfield in earlier days through the >> 1980's and the mid-1990's. People's lives and work was set >> up to attend the meditations and folks could drop what they >> were doing to go as an additional call was made. > With all due respect, it also sounds a lot like what > the MUM Dean did when he was supposed to be watching > a student who had already stabbed another student and > thus was demonstrably dangerous to himself and others. > Meditation time (or if you prefer, "retirement time") > came around, and he just left Suvender Sem to look > after himself. The result was a murder, one that > could have been prevented if the Dean in question > had simply had a more realistic view of what consti- > tutes a "trifle" and what does not. > > The TMO dogma centered around "regular meditation," > and probably still does. All else stops or is dropped > when it's "meditation time," or "program time." I know > of quite a few situations that were caused over the > years when parents (diehard TM teachers) left their > kids to look after themselves so they could "retire" > from their responsibilities. At least two of the > kids wound up in the hospital, and one wound up in > jail. > > There is a difference between a suggestion offered as > if the believers to whom it is offered lived in an > idealized, utopian world, and one offered to people > who know that no such utopia really exists, and that > the real world has a nasty habit of intruding. > > Personally, one of the most liberating things I did > when I walked away from the TMO was to drop the feel- > ing that I "had" to meditate, and to a fixed schedule. > I meditate if and when I feel like it, and only if > the time spent in meditation does not interfere with > other tasks that involve me being responsible for > others or responsible for accomplishing something > to a deadline that matters. The result has been that > each meditation is a more pleasant experience, much > deeper than when I was doing it by rote because I > felt I "had" to as a result of swallowing the TMO > dogma. I've also seen far more benefits in my life > outside of meditation than I ever did when I was > compulsively "retiring" twice a day, like an > automaton. YMMV.
How soon with Fairfield build a minaret and have singers doing blues phrases for the two "daily calls to prayer?" :-D I think I've mentioned several times before a paperback by a chiropractor back in the 1970s who had practiced TM but noticed that he had two sets of patients: ones that benefited from "slowing down" or meditating twice a day and other ones who did better "speeding up" or getting exercise twice a daily instead.
