Fresh from another forum on which the concept of one's subjective experience *not* being synonymous with Truth just came up for many of the participants -- for the first time -- I just wanted to weigh in with a hearty thank-you to Rick and to the other participants here for having talked about these things for years, and allowing me to listen, and to participate.
This really IS an interesting forum, despite what I occasionally say about its predictability. Almost by definition, everyone here is a kind of heretic w.r.t. the TM movement, which would undoubtedly say that to hang here is not only "entertaining negativity," but approaching the cusp of Off The Program-ness. I *love* that Off The Program-ness, and thank you all for indulging in it. Your openness to doing so -- whatever your stance might be -- has allowed many conversations to take place in which we've examined and dealt with fundamental questions that many spiritual seekers never "get to" in their more cloistered org environments. We've talked about the issue of subjectivity, and whether it can ever be really considered objective Truth. We've talked about God, or the absence thereof. We've talked about some heavy shit, like whether the enlightened really deserve a Get Out Of Jail Free card w.r.t. their actions just because they're enlightened. We've talked about our various views of enlightenment, period, and noticed that our definitions not only vary from person to person, they don't necessarily reflect the definition given to us by our teacher or teachers. On another forum I am dealing with long-term spiritual seekers for whom many of these issues have *never come up*, either in their own thoughts, or in conversation. Many of them reacted to their teacher's death by metaphorically locking away most of what he'd told them in a cabinet labeled Truth, and never "going there" again to investigate whether all of it really was. As a result I often find myself having to "tread lightly" to avoid bringing up subjects that *no one on this forum would bat an eyelash about*. Here they'd be de rigeur, everyday stuff. There they'd raise not only eyebrows but hackles, and be greeted as the new and threatening ideas they are, because they challenge the status quo. Here at FFL, I think that the status quo is to some extent a celebration of challenging the status quo. And IMO that's a Good Thing. People may argue the challenges, and hold to the status quo even more firmly after the arguments, but they *deal with them*. That I appreciate, even if I rarely say so. I think that Rick created a remarkable forum for dealing with hackle-raising subjects on the Internet, and I for one have learned much from it. Thanks to all concerned.
