--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, blusc0ut <no_reply@...> wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <jstein@> wrote:
> >
> > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, blusc0ut <no_reply@> wrote:
<snip>
> > > But as I tell you! Why do you call this deragotory 'bit
> > > of esoterica'?It's exactly this "not understanding" and
> > > also unwillingness to look at this, which makes it
> > > impossible.
> >
> > Whoa there. I didn't say I was unwilling to look at it,
> > only that I didn't have any basis to comment on it.
> >
> > You used an esoteric term, "Sahasrada," that I'm not
> > familiar with. I do know what a chakra is. I did a
> > search for "Sahasrada chakra" and couldn't find
> > anything useful. The search suggested "Sahasrara chakra,"
> > a different spelling.
>
> But nevertheless gives the WP article as first choice.
> What you say is allright for your first comment, but
> not for your second - after I had underlined this
> experience, by using it as the only quote. If you
> didn't know what it was, you could have simply asked
I looked at the Wikipedia article for "Sahasrara chakra"
because I assumed you had just mispelled it, or were
using some alternate spelling. That's how I knew it was
the crown chakra, as I went on to say.
> - but never mind, let's finish this quibble.
>
> > That's the crown chakra. OK, I
> > figured that's what you meant. But you say "I may be in
> > the Sahasrada chakra as well." I don't know what "I may
> > be in" a chakra means,
>
> At times, for example while driving.
No, I'm asking what it means to be "in" a chakra. I've
never heard that terminology before. Is it the same as
having a chakra open?
<snip>
> Never mind. But I couldn't know that you have never heard
> the term Sahasrara. It's after all one of the most important
> chakras. You are meditation and doing siddhis over 30 years,
> discussing here every week for so many years, why do you not
> know Sanskrit words of important concepts?
I'm not especially interested in chakras, so I never
paid much attention to those discussions. I'm sure I've
heard the term, it's just not part of my personal
vocabulary. I'm more familiar with the English terms
for the chakras, never bothered to memorize the
Sanskrit ones.
> > And you say "I just mention it," as if it weren't
> > that relevant to our discussion. What do you want me to
> > say? I figured if it was important for our discussion
> > that I understand it--rather than a side comment aimed
> > at Vaj or Rory--you'd elaborate.
>
> At that point it was a side comment. But when you started
> to press me, just how my experience was in terms of
> 'refinement of mantra', you wanted to know my experiences,
> and here I had just given it to you.
As I said, I didn't know it was something you had "given"
to me.
<snip>
> > If you, and only you define the margins of
> > > such a discussion, what's the point?
> >
> > That's really not fair at all. The margins of this
> > discussion, on my side, are defined by where my
> > experience and intellectual understanding end. I can't
> > help that. At that point it's up to you to expand the
> > margins of my intellectual understanding, otherwise
> > it's impossible for *me* to continue.
>
> Not everything *can* be intellectualy understood.
I realize that, as I've noted several times. But as I
say, if I haven't had an experience, and you can't
expand my intellectual understanding of it, I'm stuck.
I'm not "defining the margins of the discussion," I'm
coming up against my own limitations.
I have
> tried to show you where such limits are, but it seems
> you like to hold on to these very concepts I'm pointing
> out as limitations.
Can you give me a couple of examples?
You (and others here) are making the notion of "concepts"
carry an awful lot of freight. At times it seems as
though you (plural) dismiss an idea as "just a concept"
rather than taking a crack at dealing with the idea, or use
it as a putdown of the person who mentioned it.
<snip>
> > What I don't get is why you seem to be angry
> > with me that whatever you're talking about isn't my
> > experience and that I told you I couldn't comment on it.
> > The way you put it, with reference to Vaj and Rory and
> > "I just mention it," I couldn't even tell if you thought
> > it was relevant to our discussion.
>
> I surely was a little thin-skinned in my first reaction.
> Sorry for that.
Thank you.
> I didn't know that you never had heard the term.
I have heard it; it's just not part of my vocabulary. "Crown
chakra" is. "In" a chakra isn't.
> I just thought you would push anything away that didn't
> explicitely match a TM concept.
You didn't have any basis for that assumption. I may
push it away if it doesn't seem relevant to the
immediate discussion, but not because it doesn't match
a TM concept.
> I had tried to talk to you in terms you understand, and
> brought this in as a side concept, when I realized, there
> isn't much I could tell you about my experience without
> making any reference to it. Fact is, I can not have ANY
> experience, without the involvement of the Sahasrara.
OK.
<snip>
> > It's recommended that TMers don't use their TM bija
> > mantra as a japa mantra in activity (just restating
> > what the issue is).
>
> But you would be okay, if they use another mantra, a more
> commonly known, general one? Would you agree, would the
> TMO agree in your opinion?
Dunno, good question. I would *guess* it wouldn't be
approved of for the rank and file to whom the recommendation
not to use the bija mantra is directed. What reasons they'd
give, if any, I have no idea. That's one of the things I
was trying to suss out by asking you about your experience
with japa, but it's become clear your practice is so
different from TM that your responses don't really tell me
anything useful in that regard.
As to whether I'd be OK with it, I'd want to hear what
the TMO's response was, then decide for myself whether
it made sense.
> > > You offered me the standard division-of-mind explanation,
> > > and when it was debunked by me and others, you switched
> > > to another, as you found it not useful anymore.
> >
> > No, I brought up the dying-the-cloth analogy before you
> > even started discussing this with me. I "offered" it to
> > emptybill, not you, in response to his demand for a
> > definition of "dividing the mind." And I mentioned it
> > again in the middle of our discussion.
>
> emptybill only answered the dividing-mind argument, when
> you brought it up as an argument against Japa.
I don't know what this has to do with it. I brought up
the cloth-dying analogy when he demanded that I define
"dividing the mind." It had nothing to do with your
having "debunked" (or belief that you had debunked) the
dividing-the-mind part.
> > "Dividing the mind" and dying the cloth are part of the
> > same basic concept.
>
> No, they aren't. There is no logical connection. The
> dividing-mind argument is all about distraction at work,
> not being able to focus either on one or the other thing.
> What it means is having ones attention on more than just
> one thing at a time.
Where I first encountered the concept of dividing the
mind was from a TM teacher who mentioned it in connection
with Gurdjieff followers practicing "self-remembering"
in activity, which was said to result in their speaking
very slowly and haltingly as they paused every few words
to "self-remember." (I don't know if this is true of
Gurdjieff folks, but it's what the teacher said.)
This was in the context of a discussion on a residence
course of why TMers shouldn't use their bija mantra in
activity, and the teacher related it directly to the
cloth-dying analogy. It was said the Gurdjieff folks
were "dividing the mind" by mixing what should be a
meditative technique with activity, with the result
that their activity wasn't as effective as it could
have been because their full attention wasn't on it,
nor would the meditative practice be very effective
for the same reason.
This relates to what I said earlier about activity
"challenging" silence so it becomes stronger in one's
experience. The more fully involved one is in one's
activity (the less divided the mind), the theory goes,
the greater the challenge and the faster one's progress
in integrating silence with activity.
<snip>
> > In the TM context you can't discuss
> > one without the other: You can't dye the cloth properly
> > if you're trying to dye and fade the cloth at the same
> > time, i.e., if you're dividing the mind.
>
> You are very creative Judy, but this is just a mental
> construction you are making.
See above. I didn't invent the connection, and it's
what I had in mind from the start.
> I have learned all these analogies at TTC, but we do not
> even mention dividing-the-mind in this context. The TM
> teaching does not even bring this together.
Again, see above. Maybe the teacher was being "very
creative," but I don't see how you can say it doesn't
all fit together.
> > You claim you and others "debunked" the division-of-mind
> > explanation, but that explanation doesn't exist in a
> > vacuum in the TM context. To mention dividing the mind
> > in the TM context *implies* the dying-the-cloth concept.
>
> Look, IMHO, there is not special TM context. All meditations
> do basically the same thing: refine the mind.
Yes, yes, I know. I'm just saying that other contexts may
not link dividing the mind with dying the cloth. That's
almost always what I mean when I refer to "the TM context"--
that I'm not speaking about any other context, not that TM
is unique (that's a different discussion).
<snip>
> > You say in a subsequent post that "dividing the mind" and
> > the cloth-dying analogy are two different arguments. That
> > is most definitely *not* the case TM-wise; one is a
> > function of the other.
>
> There is no special TM case. Laws are universal. They either
> apply or don't apply. There are no special TM laws.
Again, all I'm saying is that I'm speaking only about
the TM context. And good grief, I'm only talking about
how a particular teaching is structured, not any
universal laws!
<snip>
> > > I can remember them as they where for me in the beginning,
> > > but they lost all practical value for me. To talk in their
> > > terms is like trying to get into a mental corset for me.
> >
> > I can understand why it would be. Sounds like you took
> > a big jump all at once rather than go through the longer
> > process that many/most people experience.
>
> Judy, I respect whatever experiences you may have. But
> there is no slow process in this regard. Brahman is one,
> whole, you can not get it in bits and pieces. There is
> no slow growth of Brahman, it's an ignorant concept.
I know all this. I never said anything about "slow growth
of Brahman." I'm talking about the gradual integration of
silence and activity.
<snip>
> > > you seem to make it a rule, that
> > > there shouldn't be an element of spiritual refinement
> > > during activity.
> >
> > Good heavens, no! If that's what happens spontaneously,
> > terrific. For many/most TMers, activity becomes refined
> > gradually by (according to MMY) the mechanism of the
> > alternation of full involvement in activity with full
> > involvement in meditation. Ultimately, as you go on to
> > say, that distinction is erased completely. But that's
> > the whole point of the alternation: The cloth becomes
> > color-fast; the sun can't fade it any longer.
>
> But that's just an analogy. You didn't even get to *real*
> transcendence, so how can you make it permanent? There is
> no way you can *do* anything about it. This would be like
> aiming an arrow at a goal, you don't even know where it is.
> You can only do things that purify the mind, that's all.
Right. How is that different from what I said?
> There is nothing you can stabilize
Right. The stabilization *happens*, spontaneously, as
the mind becomes "purer."
<snip>
> > > Yes, it does undermine your argument, that it should be
> > > either "full" TM or "full" activity. Your argument was,
> > > that doing japa would not be full activity anymore. You
> > > see, you can change the balance on two sides, not just
> > > on one side.
> >
> > But I think changing the balance on the meditation side
> > is a very different animal. Introducing some very quiet
> > activity into meditation is not equivalent to
> > introducing meditation into activity.
>
> It's not introducing meditation in activity, but a very
> soft level of mental focus, refined in the background if
> you so want. Your language makes an unfair distinction
> here I think.
So substitute your language for mine. It's the same idea.
> > > Just to give you an example, when I am running, doing
> > > workout, it's a perfect opportunity to do japa. Yet I am
> > > very much active. I will sweat and be exhausted afterwards.
> > > I may do so for two hours. You can't say I am blurring the
> > > devision between meditation and activity at that time.
> >
> > Yes, I can!
>
> So, have you ever done a half marathon? GMAB.
It doesn't *matter*. Whatever part of your attention is
devoted to this "soft mental focus refined in the
background" is not on your running.
I found an interesting quote awhile back from a Buddhist
master:
"We should always try to be active coming out of samadhi.
For this, we have to forget things like 'I should be
mindful of this or that'. If you are mindful, you are
already creating a separation ('I - am - mindful - of -
....'). Don't be mindful, please! When you walk, just
walk. Let the walk walk. Let the talk talk....Let the
eating eat, the sitting sit, the work work. Let sleep
sleep."
Or let running run...
Obviously mindfulness is very different from japa, but
the principle is strikingly similar to the TM one.
<snip>
> > > I am very active, likewise if I do any physical activity it
> > > has of course a stabilizing effect. Now think of the purushas
> > > and MDs, what about them? The do only little work and many
> > > hours of meditation/program. You should complain to them!
> >
> > They're *recluses*, blusc0ut, not householders. The TM
> > recommendation is only for householders, who *must* engage
> > in a lot of activity.
>
> I know Purushas very well Judy, believe me. They are just
> ordinary folks like you and me, no different.
I don't believe I suggested they weren't "ordinary folk."
They're ordinary folk who are on a recluse path.
> They even don't take a lifelong pledge, not even any pledge
> AFAIK. Why then would their enlightenment mechanism (which
> doesn't exist of course) be any different from ordinary folks?
> Would they have to switch back to a different mechanics once
> they leave Purusha/MD?
Different type of practice, I would imagine. I would also
guess that they aren't doing a whole-hog recluse program
but one that's been modified. I don't know what their
program is, but what you described in another post--"doing
only subtle mental activities"--sounds very much like
what MMY describes in SBAL in the section "Intellectual
Path to God-Realization" (which is about recluses, but
he doesn't use that term).
The point is that for however long they're in Purusha or
Mother Divine, they aren't following a householder lifestyle,
which *demands* a lot of activity. So it doesn't seem strange
that they would be taking a different practice approach than
householders.
No, there is only one set of nature
> laws, not one for Purusha and one for others
More than one set is not necessary to account for
different practices for different lifestyles, nor is it
what I suggested. There's more than one way to skin a
cat, as we say here, but each of them removes the skin
from the cat.
<snip>
> > Not to recluses, no. It's a different path. The mechanics
> > are different, the "engine" of development of consciousness
> > is different, from that of householders.
>
> There is no 'enlightenment engine, except enlightenment
> itself.
It's just a figure of speech. That's why I put it in scare
quotes, don'cha know?
