I would be interested in reading a post that was a few lines by you and Ravi
Yoga defining your two current understanding of "reality" for you as it relates
to an "enlightened state" for you. How do you define each and where do you
reside today?
Is it really this complicated?
--- On Mon, 6/27/11, maskedzebra <no_re...@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
From: maskedzebra <no_re...@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: another question for MZ, and maybe William of Occam
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
Date: Monday, June 27, 2011, 6:55 AM
RESPONSE: Ah, those Vedic gods that I thought I had exorcized from my
consciousness, they have returned to tempt me. As in: we can (through our good
friend Ravi Yogi) draw you back into your metaphysical theatre by an outrageous
and manic putdown of your so-called enlightenment (Unity Consciousness).
We (we Vedic gods) through the instrumentality of RY will draw you [MZ] back
into Unity Consciousness where you would, almost involuntarily, begin
confronting whatever was resisting reality. There's Phantom Limb Syndrome,
where a person continues to feel the sensation of flesh and bone where now
there is nothing, because the limb has been amputated. I have now discovered
Phantom Enlightenment Syndrome, where in the provocative presence of someone
'going off' on my enlightenment, the old context of cosmic theatre renews its
angelic presence and vitality—and thus the apparent resurrection of
enlightenment (the latter an essential given in order to precipitate the
dynamic process of metaphysical confrontation). Even after my claim of having
amputated my enlightenment.
But I mustn't go for the bait, right Ravi?—even as you had no idea you were
doing this.
Try this thought experiment: if you had never heard of enlightenment: it was a
concept about which you were entirely ignorant (you didn't know of its
existence, either in your vocabulary or in your experience), and you were
describing what it was like to be Ravi Yogi RIGHT NOW, would you be forced
to—virginally, innocently—describe, and thus discover, the necessity of, the
reality of enlightenment (as classically delineated in your own scriptures)?
Would, then, enlightenment, as a concept, as an empirical description of a
certain style of functioning of your consciousness and your self, be required
in order for you to 1. explain your experience to yourself; 2. explain your
experience to others?
In my case, the violent shift from one state of consciousness to another state
of consciousness (although occurring seemingly smoothly and irresistibly) was
dramatic and extraordinary. And the attendant powers and abilities immediately
conferred upon one simultaneous with effecting that transition from one state
of consciousness into another, never-before-experienced state of consciousness,
COULD NOT EXIST INSIDE ORDINARY WAKING STATE CONSCIOUSNESS.
I, then, in making sense of what happened to me in Arosa in September 1976,
WOULD [in this same thought experiment] REQUIRE a concept that entailed, in its
nascent articulation, a perfect and felicitous conformity to what Maharishi
defined as Unity Consciousness. So I would not have had to have an idea of
enlightenment, in order to experientially validate its existence and its
components for the first time when it happened to me.
My putative enlightenment occurred not with respect to everything I had learned
or knew about what enlightenment was before the moment I became enlightened. It
happened, and I recognized what it was that was happening, based upon what I
had learned from Maharishi.
Now I don't say this same situation CANNOT apply to yourself, but I am
interested in whether it DOES so apply. Because if it does, then there is no
such thing as enlightenment, since if enlightenment has anything to do with a
true state of consciousness, it must represent reality accurately, and your
critique (as expressed here in this post) of my enlightenment is at variance
(obviously without your conscious knowledge of this) with reality. It is indeed
the evidence of the non-fit between your subjective experience and the reality
out of which you even have your individual existence—and your capacity to form
the very judgment you have in this instance.
>From the standpoint of the context of enlightenment—at least as it was
>profoundly and decisively imposed upon my consciousness and person in
>September 1976—the very act of your interpreting my long post in the manner
>you have here—having drawn the conclusions that you have—constitutes
>manifestly an act that, because it can ultimately be proven—in the stream of
>life, that is, as an event for others to witness—to be objectively out of
>accordance with reality, necessarily draws around it a context which
>spontaneously and inexorably demonstrates to you, and to the rest of reality,
>that you are deceived. You get it, Ravi: contained implicitly within this act
>of judgment of my enlightenment is the means of proving that judgment false.
{I mean it is either THIS, or this same process can be turned against ME,
especially in THIS post. There cannot be two different kinds of ultimate
truthful perspective on reality.]
Now this does not mean that you cannot argue against the validity of my
enlightenment—as others (including the very credible Rick Archer) have done.
Nor that you cannot find flaws in my argument and narration of my enlightenment
which deserve to be exposed and rebutted. But what it does mean is that if
someone determines to (however unknowingly) categorically misconstrue my
description and account of my enlightenment—somehow missing the entire meaning
of what I have expressed in that long post—that person opens themselves to a
process of intellectual retribution whereby REALTY ITSELF PROVES WHAT IS THE
CASE—to the detriment of the point of view and opinion of the person who has
got it as wrong as you have.
You understand, then, Ravi: I am NOT saying you don't have the right to
question, challenge, and even invalidate my idea of enlightenment—it is
theoretically quite possible that somewhere I have made a serious error in my
construal of what happened to me both on that mountain and afterwards and even
when I began to dismantle the mechanical foundation of my putative
enlightenment. What I am saying is that if you cross a certain line of
non-truthfulness (which can only come about by an almost perfect negative
correspondence between your own subjective experience and what constitutes
reality), then life, reality—and someone supposedly in Unity
Consciousness—will, or could, confront you in your error, such as to PROVE YOU
WRONG TO YOURSELF and the rest of the universe.
This did happen (when I did not take it beyond this, and began to accuse a
person of being consciously insincere: that's when the Vedic gods GOT ME; and
that's where unrecognized weakness, distortions, unresolved tensions in myself
were exploited [by these same Vedic gods]—because I took this process I am
describing in this post as it applies to you beyond where it was true and valid
(and I bear the onus of responsibility here: my enlightenment concealed and
covered up—from me, from others even—profound problems in myself))—: this did
happen [we are talking about the valid part of my enlightenment] during my
years of being in Unity Consciousness, and it was nothing different in
principle than a Socratic demolishing the argument of one of his interlocutors
(only with a lot more fireworks)—systematically, perfectly. Within the context
of my experience of Unity Consciousness a certain dialectical dynamic could be
set into motion by behaviour on
the part of a given person which [this behaviour] was at once 1. in violation
of that person's true nature 2. in violation of the context of reality as the
universe serves it up.
Now I am not (thank God) in the position to work on you via this original
process (I never knew of its existence before I went into Unity
Consciousness—and in the end it proved to be more destructive than beneficial
to those who submitted to it), but even though I stand apart from that terrible
compulsion of mine—which, as I have just stated extended BEYOND, well beyond,
where it should have gone—I nevertheless recognize that in this post to which I
am responding here YOU HAVE GONE OFF THE DEEP END, RAVI.
Ravi: NO I HAVEN'T, MZ. YOU HAVE GONE OFF THE DEEP END.
Well, I suppose it is possible for both of us to be right, or both of us to be
wrong. But here's the deal, Ravi: which one of us provides the greater purchase
on reality to a disinterested reader who reads my long post from Sunday (June
26) and then this post of yours: the account as it stands there or the
devastating and necessary dismemberment of that account as performed by
yourself?
Now you note that I am NOT EVEN ENTERING INTO THE REALM of disputation and
polemic here. That is, I am not attempting to defend myself, or the
truthfulness of my post from yesterday. I am merely pointing (and the irony
here, as least abstractly conceived, could be that YOU ARE ACTUALLY RIGHT, I AM
ACTUALLY WRONG—so in effect, if this dialectical process does exist within the
powers of the intelligence behind reality, than it is conceivable that instead
of me turning this process onto you, YOU COULD INDEED TURN IT ONTO ME—I am
quite ready for such a unanticipated, undreamed of possibility—and I SHOULD
always be so ready) out that, on the basis of what I have read here (your
post), I am aware of this reactivation of the context within which I acted
while under the perfect hallucination of enlightenment. (There were, after all,
some very valid things about my enlightenment: those Vedic gods know a thing or
two.)
I have been told that after Rick Archer interviewed you about your
self-realized state, you said you were actually only giving a mock-interview;
that you were playing Rick for a fool (and I believe there were unwanted
consequences to this decision of yours to publicly declare this). Well, I don't
say in this instance you are DELIBERATELY repeating that same act with me; but
I can assure you, Ravi: your categorical dismissal and denial of there being
any sort of truthful epistemological basis to my enlightenment is, just on the
face of it, a far too radical and uncompromising judgment to make. EVEN IF I AM
WRONG OBJECTIVELY ABOUT WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED TO ME. And thus my post from
yesterday, is, when it comes right down to it, more a clinical than a serious
philosophical and theological document.
So, do we understand each other, then, Ravi? I am not out of mere pique and
psychological frustration accusing you of getting me all wrong in that post.
What I AM saying, is that in the extremist form your rebuttal has taken, you
have gone outside of the parameters where your argument—juxtaposed with my long
post—has any real meaningfulness. And because of this, it lays you open to the
charge—and supernaturally driven arraignment— whereby you could be PROVEN to be
mistaken, utterly and totally mistaken.
No Ravi: it is not a question of who is right and who is wrong between us. It
is a question of the context of metaphysical believability which forms around
what each of us has said about enlightenment: me, in that post of yesterday;
you in this post of today. I submit to you that you have recklessly and
irresponsibly chosen to argue against what I have said is the case (for me) in
a manner and form which, just in itself, refutes itself. Because measured
against the probability of the relativistic truthfulness of what I have said,
what you said in response seems almost unthinkingly dogmatic and arbitrary. You
see, Ravi, in order to make the argument that you have made, you virtually have
to ignore entirely the sincerity and vulnerability and honesty out of which I
wrote that post—however deceived I may be and remain about the extent to which
what I have said represents what really happened when viewed under the aspect
of eternity.
Now in THIS post I am not seeking vindication. I am just alerted to your
tendency (held nicely in check in your most recent reactions to me, once you
launched your first missile after I first began to post here) to suddenly 'go
off', which I believe you have done in this latest post. In this one act you
have demonstrated that your self-realized state cannot be any predictable index
of the truth of things. Indeed I would go so far as I say that however
delightful, creative, and eloquent (and I must admit witty) your present style
of functioning [another Maharishi-ism there] enables you to be, in this
instance (with this post) you are—IMHO—disassociated from reality.
But then, what I have said here may just provide the opportunity for a
refutation by the redoubtable Ravi Yogi which will shake me at my roots, and
cause me to beg you for forgiveness for having so arrogantly and quixotically
and wrong-headedly judged the merits—intellectually, metaphysically—of the
argument you make in this post.
I am prepared for such a contingency— As I have already said, I had BETTER be
so prepared.
Hey, Ravi: I really wish you would return to being a nice guy when it comes to
myself. Can't I write something which will gain your approval again, so you—as
you have already done once—revise your estimation of me and declare you have an
open mind about me?
You see, the reversal, the dramatic and anti-existential [you did not GO
THROUGH anything in order to arrive at the perspective you set out here in this
latest post] reversal that is represented in this post (in contradiction to
your recent approach to Masked Zebra) is, I submit, a symptom of a certain
uncontrollable variability and whimsicalness in yourself (although I don't mean
by this to be implying there is anything WRONG with you), such that you are, as
in the case of Rick Archer, capable of suddenly changing your attitude and
point of view WITHOUT THE SLIGHTEST SENSE OR AWARENESS of this severe
fluctuation. [For instance when I viewed that interview with Rick Archer, you
were, undeniably sincere and forthright—but you actually pretended, after the
fact, this was not the case. Did you consciously know you were dissembling when
you did this?]
I am sure both of us are sincere, Ravi. And what I have put down here will be
subjected, I am sure, to the fiercest of criticism and scrutiny. Who knows?
maybe the consensus will be that your post of today not only rivals my post in
its sincerity, but in its argumentation it is the clear victor.
That could happen. And I am prepared for that to happen. But that cannot and
will not alter the immediate and dominant impression that I formed of the
character of your post: that it came out of a self-context of perfect isolation
and impulsiveness, without the faintest contact with the subtext of pain, and
tension which was contained in that post of mine from yesterday—as potentially
objectively false as my post could be when measured against reality.
Now you will realize that I have not even begun to consider the CONTENT of your
rebuttal. And the why of this is because the personal subjectivity of the human
being Ravi Yogi so godsmacked me when I read that post that I couldn't even
attend to the argument he was making. After all, Ravi, when one argues for what
is ultimate truth, IT HAS TO COST US SOMETHING to do so. To even earn the right
to lay down our philosophy. It seems to me that your take-down of the substance
of my post cost you nothing, and did not carry with it any evidence of the
nobility, or gravity, or sincerity of feeling that I cannot doubt but exists in
that heart of yours.
Am I all wrong about this, Ravi?
P.S. I have a feeling that might be my last post at FFL. Not because of having
suffered a mortal wound or unforgettable humiliation, but because I am perhaps
veering (and have veered) a little too far beyond the standard deviation I have
set for myself in order to continue my project of self-rehabilitation. Thank
you for your post, Ravi. I wish you the greatest success and delight (and
TRUTH!) inside the movement of your own experience of purported
self-realization. Life is good—always—somewhere.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Ravi Yogi" <raviyogi@...> wrote:
>
> Dear maskedzebra - you look like a really nice guy and everything, there
> are some things I really like about you like anyone else on this list
> but you need to let go of your hallucinations and mystical deceit that
> you ever were enlightened. I have a hard time explaining what
> Enlightenment is, it can only be explained metaphorically(read some of
> Jim or Rory's posts), but I can easily catch someone who is just
> bullshitting. And I could see you are bullshitting when I first read
> your account on Mike Conley's blog that someone posted here a few months
> back. This is what you said in response to wayback71 - " I feel healthy
> and normal—at least compared my TM/Maharishi enlightenment days" and
> this makes sense you seem to coming out of your hallucinations and
> intellectual deceit, you are working, taking walks - this is a good
> thing.
> Now why do I think you never were enlightened in the first place.
>
> Maharishi seems to have done a great disservice by his detailed
> description of UC, BC, BS but then he understood the greediness of the
> mind and the intellect, it was just a carrot dangling at everyone
> understanding the goal oriented nature of the humanmind. But there will
> always be idiots like you who will take it literally and like you said
> project these sign posts, hallucinate and intellectually deceive
> themselves into enlightenment.
> MMY description were not supposed to be taken literally and that you did
> comes very clearly in your posts.
> Barry is more smarter than you. He is right - "Enlightenment has zero
> value for others" and it's a highly subjective experience. I agree with
> him, I believe its just next to impossible for someone to declare you
> enlightened because enlightenment cannot be declared for oneself and
> cannot be proclaimed on others.
> I read you descriptions from 1976 in Switzerland on how everyone around
> could feel you were enlightened (Quote "I met the standard of proof,
> even in the estimation of the most skeptical and sophisticated of
> initiators") and let me tell you it was just a hallucination if others
> could feel it and see it somehow. I talk to many people daily and though
> people might characterize me as funny, playful, sarcastic,
> irresponsible, immature - no one can access my inner expansiveness, they
> can only deduce it or have a vague suspicion of something different.
> Remember your favorite "solipsism"?
> Enlightenment in most cases doesn't result in anything significant
> outside of you and you are no Ammachi.
> From your description it's clear it's intellectual deceit - you think
> Enlightenment is something special -I quote you "(I was) INCAPABLE of
> being bested in a one-on-one encounter with another human being") ,
> "more versatile, more creative, more attuned, more commanding", "my
> enlightenment took was confronting the consciousness of those NOT in
> Unity Consciousness—those, that is, who desired to be the
> beneficiaries of my superior state of functioning".
> Another quote of yours - "Not only did my consciousness rule the
> consciousness of the other person. Any attempt by that other person to
> pit their consciousness against my own, resulted in the dramatic
> demonstration that indeed my consciousness was dominant, not just
> dominant in the influence it expressed in terms of power and integrity
> and silence, but in the actual range of creative and intelligent
> responsiveness. My repertoire of possible responses to any person, or to
> any situation, was virtually unlimited—that is, while in the state
> of Unity Consciousness.
> Enlightenment doesn't mean now you are more dominant, you have power,
> integrity or having a an unlimited repertoire of responses.
> You are well advised to read some scriptures like Vasishtha Yoga or
> Tripura Rahasyam, if not at least listen to some of the interviews on
> batgap - enlightenment is nothing special, it's pretty mundane - this is
> one of the areas where I struggled last year, I thought I need to do
> something special, become a renunciate or a wandering monk..LOL.. since
> I had nothing left to do, nowhere to go, it was only with the
> existence's and my Guru's blessings I was able to integrate and let go
> of those stupid feelings. I realized I just had to continue doing what I
> ad or continue what was for me in that moment. What I should be doing
> could change tomorrow - to be fluid, to meet every moment in its
> pristine virgin beauty - that is what enlightenment is - it is not
> something special, it is not an acknowledgement from others.
> Enlightenment is only from the perspective of oneself, never a judgment
> of others, cannot be found outside of oneself.
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, maskedzebra <no_reply@> wrote:
> >
> >
> > RESPONSE: No, I have never heard of anyone who has "achieved a
> unity-type state of consciousness or any flavor of 'enlightenment' and
> then has denounce[d] it as false." And yes, I might be "the first".
> Certainly "there is a long tradition of enlightenment in the East", and
> if my claim is correct why is it that "no one else [has] ever made the
> same claim . . ."?
> >
>
