Finally, a Socratic dialogue! I now may be able to make some posters happy and go away. I want to thank both feste37 and MZ. for teaching me something. Comment below.
________________________________ --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "feste37" <feste37@...> wrote: > This struck a chord with me because my own experience seems to have followed > at >least something of the path you outline, but without the feeling that one >perspective must be right and the other wrong. By that I do not mean that I >have >ever experienced unity consciousness, but I have all my adult life (I started >TM >when I was 17) imbibed the Indian philosophy of "unity is all there is." And >thanks to spiritual teachers who showed me how simple it is, I do experience >myself, whenever I choose, it seems, as existing within a vast Nothing that is >also myself (there seems to be no other way of describing it)-- although I do >not experience that Nothing as God. That's not the word that comes to mind at >all. > > > My experience of God -- and it is an unmistakable and quite recent > experience, >unlike anything else I've ever had -- is of a being who is quite Other than >me, >completely separate from me, and yet who knows me intimately, and has infinite >compassion and a complete lack of judgement about me (neither of which >qualities >have I ever been able to muster by myself to apply to myself), and all without >making a big deal out of it -- it's very gentle and quiet and simple and >practical. I find it rather humbling to have such experiences, the most recent >of which came at a time of crisis, and I don't think I am fooling myself about >it. I was being guided at that time by a Being who, one would have to say, >even >though it feels rather awkward, is worthy of the name Lord or Heavenly Father, >just as the Christians say. I did not in any way at that time feel that I was >being guided by my "higher self," an overused New Age term which is probably >due >for retirement. feste37 I relate a lot to your experience and insights. Like you, it's always seemed to me that my experience and understanding of the east and the west enrich me and each other. You and I started meditating around the same age and by my early 20's I had consumed a lot of the east and developed a thirst for enlightenment. But it was through crisis, much later, as you described, that I came to experience and understand God. The Other, that I think you and MZ are describing. There was no white light, complete awareness of nothing that I found thorough psychedelics or intense Kundalini, arrival, and complete liquid consciousness I experienced through Maharishi's technique. None of that. My experience of God or the Other was much more fundamental and in many ways real. About 23 years ago, the year after Maharishi decided to change the goal posts on RC, I realized I was going to die. More precisely I realized that I was killing myself. And I was doing it in the most humiliating manner. At some point, for whatever reason, I admitted to myself that I was afraid to die and I asked God to help me. There was nothing heroic or poetic about the way I asked, just a child's cry to its parent. Nothing really dramatic happened, no burning bush, I just seemed to have a moment of clarity and I realized I did not have to do what I had be doing to myself anymore. What happened after that was more to the point. I met people who helped me understand my experience and taught me a very profound, for me, lesson. What they taught me was that if I wanted to stay sane I had to change my behaviour. That I couldn't wish or meditate my way into life supporting behaviour, I had to behave my way there. It was not easy, I don't think there is any more committed narcissist than me on FFL. But these people taught me if I wanted a meaningful life I had to live by the Golden Rule, scrutinize myself closely and behave as well as I could. For a all-in Peter Pan adolescent who has to be the centre of attention and thinks 80% of the oxygen in the room must be his, it's work. I'm sure many have noticed I'm more comfortable with spitballs than Socrates. I have no evidence for this, but I believe there is a God and I know its not me and the only thing that explains her/him to me is love. And hard as I try, I expect to continue to be a royal pain but as long as I try to be a better person that's OK too. Unfortunately if Maharishi was teaching this I missed it. When I was an initiator I understood that if I meditated everything else would take care of itself. Any frankly it didn't. One of the reasons I left the movement was that I just couldn't keep mustering the "cognitive dissonance" required to give the "improved social behaviour" part of the intro and be honest with myself about my own behaviour and the behaviour of the many initiators I knew. I see improvement in energy and many other things from meditation, heck I'll give them the research study record as big as the LA yellow pages (sorry about that Sal), and even the higher states of consciousness. But I just don't see better behaviour in meditators and frankly I don't see how we get to love without better behaviour. And fundamentally I believe all the east and the west is teaching is love. And heck, I'm not even a Bhakti yogi. You might say its just me and the turkeys I hang with and of course I couldn't prove you wrong. But then again I have this forum to point to:)! As much as I love everything eastern and and am grateful to Maharishi (although I have not figured out why he told me, one on one, I needed to be celibate when he was not himself) and many others from the east, value my meditation practise and consider myself a seeker in the eastern sense I had to come home to the west to find what I described above. Please don't send any letters to the editor for this comment but frankly gentlemen I think the christian is waxing us on the behaviour front! There is so much good stuff to ponder on the exchange between MZ and feste37, so I'll STFU and start pondering. OM Shanti. PS: MZ, thank you for your post yesterday, made my evening. Even the wife laughed. I may start attending mass again but that doesn't mean I'll let you off the hook on the inquisition! Thank you for staying around FFL and standing up for yourself._,_._,___
