--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Xenophaneros Anartaxius" <anartaxius@...> wrote: > > Well Judge Judy has convicted me for being a cop and handing > out tickets, though I am not sure what the ticket I seem to > have issued was for. > > What is my sentence Judge?
I don't believe I suggested that your taking a cop role and handing out tickets was a crime. I do the same thing myself. So does Barry. So do quite a few others here. What I *did* suggest was that cops and infractions and tickets are functions of duality, and that I wasn't going to accept your authority to hand out tickets unless you stayed in the perspective of duality to defend them rather than retreating to the nondual perspective of enlightenment. Ravi had it on the nose, referring to another poster who had a habit of invoking nonduality in discussions that were taking place from the duality perspective: "He would start talking about non-dual stuff when situation in the duality would require us to show respect for truth, values and morals." Truth (lower-case "t"), values, and morals may not ultimately matter in the context of nonduality, but if that's the case, perhaps the enlightened should not poke their noses into the doings of duality and take sides therein. I'm not sure, though, that this is what enlightenment mandates. It seems to me the enlightened ought to be able to come down from their mountains and mix it up with the rest of us on duality's terms, observing respect for truth, values, and morals. Sparaig had a neat comment last night in response to one of Curtis's posts: "The point of enlightenment isn't to ignore the interesting stuff [i.e., duality], but to simply not lose sight of the simplicity behind the diversity." (Which should not, IMHO, mean *preaching* the simplicity in such a way as to diminish the significance of the diversity.) > As for the last question you asked here, I simply do not > think Barry devotes much energy to what he writes. Not positive what question you're referring to. I think you may mean my observation that you hadn't commented on the point I made about him, that "he has enormous amounts of energy invested in fantasizing about his critics--not just about their inner lives but about factual elements of their behaviour and what they've said." (Several more examples of this appeared this morning.) This > is what I think. It is an hypothesis, because I have no > way to measure what he does. But because I think this, > and that is all there is to it, it is an opinion. It is > not a fact. Opinions are not knowledge. So why must I > justify and manufacture an answer for that thought to > satisfy you? That's the way Barry handles differences of opinion. I don't have much respect for it. I thought it was an interesting issue, whether creating and maintaining fantasies that become one's reality takes more energy than just going with reality as it is. (Again, that's "reality," lower-case, the dualistic reality of facts-on-the-record, not the "Reality" of enlightenment.) Of course you don't have to justify anything if you choose not to. I agree with you that Barry doesn't put much thought into what he writes and thus saves his energy. But his thinking references already- constructed fantasies, and I have the sense that constructing and maintaining them is where a lot of his energy goes. I also think he spends a great deal of his energy maintaining his self-image as one who doesn't care much about anything, including his self-image. > I probably expend a huge amount of energy compared to him. > How much do you expend? Do you feel expending energy is a bad thing? You seem to be holding Barry up as an example of some ideal. > You definitely try to check facts, scan old posts for > inconsistencies. Barry doesn't bother much if what he > says is correct, and what you say is correct. That's right. Seems to be OK with you if he just spews out made-up stuff that demeans other people, right? <snip> > As for the question about why you are here. It was just a > question: Why are you here? Well, it came at the end of a paragraph in which you (correctly) invoked the subjectivity of talk about enlightenment, as if that was what had raised the question in your mind. I didn't understand why it would, and I still don't. > I came here to discuss enlightenment with others. What was > your reason, if there was one? Are you still here for the > same reason? I came here primarily for news and informed opinions about the activities of the TM movement. It was just as MMY was gearing up to prepare the movement for his eventual demise--the "millionaire's course," recertification of teachers, the Rajas, and so on. I found what he was doing, and the reaction to it, of considerable interest, and the folks on alt.meditation.transcendental, where I'd been hanging out, didn't know much about it. That's still one of my reasons for being here, to follow the doings of the TMO. But I found there were a lot of people who were interesting for other reasons, who were talking about a wide range of topics, including but not limited to enlightenment. I think many of us have gravitated to FFL because most of the participants share a common background in TM, sort of like a forum for a college alumni group. We're as different from each other as the people in a group that doesn't share a background, but there's something about that common background that seems to spark more engaging conversation, not just about TM or just about enlightenment or even just about spirituality in general, but about virtually any subject (see Rick's description of the group on its home page). > I am still here for the same reason, though I seem to get > embroiled in other activities that seemingly have little > to do with deepening knowledge of experience. Right. If you were looking for a place that was limited to discussion of deepening knowledge of experience, I'm not sure FFL is it. You do have a lot to contribute in that regard, though, as you do on unrelated topics, so I hope you find enough benefit in all of it to stick around. > It's my bedtime. I hope you have a fine day tomorrow. And > I hope Barry has a fine day tomorrow. I hope Ravi has a > fine day tomorrow. I hope whynotnow7 has a fine day > tomorrow, and all the others here have a fine day tomorrow. > I even hope I have a fine day tomorrow. Likewise, I'm sure.
