--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues" <curtisdeltablues@...>
wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, maskedzebra <no_reply@> wrote:
>
MZ: No, this guy is solid in his mystical integrityeven as I challenge anyone
to point out a single example where this is true in the case of any other one
of Maharishi's living initiators.
Still, everything you say in response to the video can be seen to be truebut
not at the purely intuitive level of my experience. I think my response to
Peter Wallace and your response to Peter Wallace are both valid.
CDB: Absolutely. I can dig both perspectives. I spend so much time with my
nose stuck in books about out cognitive gaps and "shaping" in the retelling of
stories is a big one. His stories have been shaped with conscious or
unconscious enthusiasm over many retellings.
But I can certainly remember when tales like his would be inputted directly
without the speedbumps of skepticism and would serve as more proof that I was
living on the cusp of something magical. Like I said, just the Maharishi story
alone might have made it through unscathed, it was just the cumulative effect
that sent me over.
RESPONSE: No matter what the past is, I attempt to interpret my experience in
the present without reference to any antecedents. My predilection here was to
see (and feel) the evidence of someone who is trying to make TM and MMY be what
TM and MMY used to be (in those best of timesPeter Wallace beat me to it:
meeting Maharishi in 1963, that's pretty early, and it must have been so
good)but no longer can be. But despite my extreme skepticism regarding the
capacity of *any* old initiator to produce in his performance any of the old
grace of the Movementno matter how long they had been around MaharishiI was,
in that first viewing of the video of Peter Wallace, completely won over. Not a
false note there, in my opinion, although I think it more than an opinion. The
guy's in touch with the highest reality of what TM and Maharishi were when the
whole thing peakedthis is utterly astonishing to me. Besides, I got to
vicariously re-experience what was beautiful and sublime about my TM and MMY
pastdespite my disavowal of the validity of all those past TM and MMY
experiences.
It proved to me that I had no alternative back then (for me, early and mid
seventies) but to go for Maharishi and the TM experience. *And nothing since
has come close to the beauty and power and magic of that era in my life*. TM
was It. Maharishi was It. Watching Peter Wallace, I realize I didn't have a
chance. So the wisdom and maturity of my present perspective, acquired from
realizing how naive and susceptible I was thenand how problematic TM really
is, and how complex and even corrupt Maharishi really wasdid not get in the
way of receiving the truth of Peter Wallace's experience. He is still living
out the truth of what I have renounced*and it is working for him*. He is in
the spiritual space which validates TM and Maharishi, and there is no
possibility of taking him out of this state of consciousness. And I even think
this is right for him. He embodies a reality which although I reject the truth
of its metaphysics (that isn't the way life really is, that isn't the way
reality is), I can intuit that, for him, this is his destiny. And he is meant
to take this experience and truth into even his death.
No, I reject his experience; yet I know what he is experiencing is beautiful
and true and real (for him). There is no contradiction being lived out here.
The same cannot be said for Bevan Morris or John Hagelin or even Tony Nader:
those guys aren't chosen to uphold the grace of TM and Maharishieven though
they believe they are so chosen. Why not chosen? *Because they can't do it.*
They are fighting life and life is fighting them. And they suffer because of
this. Those three guys should pass through a crisis of belief so they can
become healthy normal real human beings once again. They are just apparatchiks
now.
No, Peter Wallace is doing what I estimated no one else (left in the Movement)
can do. He is himself a living holy relic of TM and Maharishi. He experiences
no doubt, no dissonance, no pretence. It is all very real, because *he has
become it*.
CDB: And I don't mean it as some indictment of the guy personally. Overcoming
a stroke is miracle enough and whatever gets him through the night and all.
RESPONSE: I don't think of it at all as "whatever gets him through the night
and all." Stroke or no stroke, Peter Wallace, is living out the truth of his
experience. And not through any kind of compensationelse I would have felt the
connection between his spiritual orientation and that trauma and brokenness he
has passed through because of his stroke.
CDB: But I think you may be a bit hard on the many initiator old timers who are
still just as sincere and every bit as guileless as you imagined him to be. I
believe there are a whole bunch of them. I went to a sidha gathering about 15
years of no contact and most people have grown up with the ambiguity of their
spiritual interests and an organization that is kind of a buzzkill. As the
token spawn of Satan I was cornered repeatedly by people with unasked for
confessions of their lack of towing the party line while still keeping their
pure connection with the part of Maharishi they always loved. I could see the
conflicts and how their maturity resolved them in the way we humans balance
ambiguity. A little denial, a little nudge, nudge, wink, wink, and some clear
duct tape to hold it all together.
RESPONSE: I am grateful to you for this, Curtis, because obviously I have been
living under a false impression: I would have sworn what you tell me here was
not, could not be, true. Not that there aren't "many initiator old timers"
still living out the TM-MMY dream; but that they continue to be as sincere and
guileless as they once were [or as Peter Wallace is here], that I would never
have anticipated. I would have thought they would be like Bevan, Hagelin, Nader
(I hope I am not misjudging these persons: but when I see them in action, I
sense being a Party member has become a strain, an act, even an existential
crisis: deep in their souls they are in conflictalthough they might go to
their deaths in denial of this).
I have a feeling at that sidha gathering you attended ("as the token spawn of
Satan") that the response to you was based upon the inimitable status and
reputation you have as a human being, both inside the Movement and outside the
Movement. You would be a very hard person to dismiss, because whether people
have worked this out in their minds or not, they sense something authentic,
honest, and honourable about you, and they know in leaving the Movement and
renouncing Maharishi as your Guru you were acting inside your own integrity,
With almost anyone else, I rather think they would have looked down
disapprovingly upon you, and felt a sense of righteousness in your presence.
But your own individual being forced the response out of them that you describe
here. I don't think you have a perfect sense of how you come across to other
people, Curtis. You are not a self-conscious dissembler. There is something so
transparently true about you as a character. You could show your face anywhere
inside the Movementeven nowand no one would feel the authority or right to
judge you whatsoever. What you have inside of you is something that commands
respect and affection, and it has nothing to do with TM or Maharishi. And your
ultimate immunity to the influence of TM and Maharishi remains a beautiful
mystery to me. Because I would have thought this impossible. This will sound
like nonsense to you, but I have to believe somewhere you have a special
destiny, even as there appears to be no sign of what that destiny might be even
now, after all these years.
Dozens of persons on FFL wished you a happy birthday. I doubt there is one
other person on FFL who gets birthday greetings. This is the same tribute that
was paid to you by those sidhas, even as they knew you had essentially broken
with their religion, and became, given who you are, a kind of challenge to
themthus their justification of their continued allegiance to MMY and the
Movement: which becomes indirectly the expression of the respect they have for
you.
>
>
>
>
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, maskedzebra <no_reply@> wrote:
> >
> > I get this, Curtisand I love it. But I will say that Peter Wallace did
> > convince me that all these supernatural coincidences did in fact happen to
> > him around these Big Eastern Boys (and Girls). I watched for the slightest
> > affectation or guile in his story-telling; but in fact it all came out so
> > naturally that I knew he was telling the truthMore than this: at this time
> > (mid to late sixties) the universe did in fact cooperate with Maharishiand
> > get behind his whole project. That Nature Support thing: did Maharishi just
> > make that up? No, I felt it (Mother is at Home = variant, and even more
> > convincing) to be real. And it *was* very real.
> >
> > But then it gradually attenuated'Nature" withdrew 'her' support from
> > Maharishi, and now, if one feels the state of grace of the TMO, one is
> > forced to conclude: There has been an actual reversal of fortunebecause
> > the grace is gone. You could go to an Introductory Lecture in the late
> > seventies and feel the metaphysical buzz. Yeah, the invisible powers in the
> > universe seemed to like TM and Maharishi. But then something happened and
> > now the buzz has all gone. The love has gone. The magic has gone.
> >
> > BUT there is Peter Wallace, somehow holding inside himself the more halcyon
> > days of TM and MMY: the reality of what it all *was* is still inside of
> > him. This to me is a kind of miracle. I doubt you would find this reality
> > living inside one other initiator in the world. Why, how, does Peter
> > Wallace become the repository of these more glorious days? I supposejust a
> > guess herebecause we need to remember once what TM and Maharishi were.
> > There was nothing like subjective estimation of the phenomenon.
> >
> > But I detected no attempt by Peter Wallace to make himself special. He
> > *was* special, for the reasons I have given: someone has to keep the whole
> > history of TM and Maharishi and the Movement inside of themso it can be
> > seen longitudinally, and not just in its decline.
> >
> > Consider this thought experiment, Curtis, if you will: Take you at the
> > zenith of your enthusiasm for TM, Maharishi, and the Teaching: If you fell
> > into a coma between that moment (when you were most devoted and keen) and
> > now, and you suddenly woke up and listened to Peter Wallace, what would be
> > your experience? More significantly, if you woke up now and tried to get a
> > bead on where things have gone, how would you go about adjusting to the
> > change between just before your coma and now, September 2011?and of course
> > you would be informed that Maharishi had died.
> >
> > The thing (you might not get this) about you, Curtis, is that miraculously
> > it seems (I have referred to this before) you have regained an almost
> > perfect normalcyas if you truly were able to expunge the whole reality
> > (whatever you decided you did want to hang around inside of you) of TM and
> > Maharishi (and your commitment to the Teaching as an initiator and
> > chairperson of a large TM center). I have, I am sure, exerted more force
> > and effort and time to this very same processand still I sense I have
> > wounds and susceptibilities and weaknesses that appear singularly absent
> > from yourself.
> >
> > For me, Peter Russell, then, is an authentic living archive of the whole
> > trajectory of the MovementNo, not quite: he has been rendered immune from
> > the disillusionment that has set in with everyone else (although there are
> > probably thousands who deny that has happened to them; but unconsciously it
> > hasand it shows). Peter Wallace, he is really still living out the dream
> > that began in Rishikeshwithout pretence or falsification. He is really
> > THERE, grooving on Maharishi, TM, and his inner experience.
> >
> > Of course this is but my own point of view on this video. But those things
> > that he talks aboutthe Volvo coming into the gates of Maharishi's ashram
> > right after he was told Maharishi was not therethat, and every other
> > incident he refers to: it played for me as if he still holds the grace of
> > what touched all of us after psychedelicsand seemed to take us much higher.
> >
> > Peter Wallace *should* make himself the center of attention, because where
> > else can we go? If he put the focus on something other than his own
> > internal experience, he would be like everyone else left in the
> > Movementand we wouldn't listen to him.
> >
> > No, this guy is solid in his mystical integrityeven as I challenge anyone
> > to point out a single example where this is true in the case of any other
> > one of Maharishi's living initiators.
> >
> > Still, everything you say in response to the video can be seen to be
> > truebut not at the purely intuitive level of my experience. I think my
> > response to Peter Russell and your response to Peter Russell are both valid.
> >
> > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues"
> > <curtisdeltablues@> wrote:
> > >
> > > As Robin notes, these kinds of stories do make teachers of TM go to that
> > > tender level of feeling where many of us ex or not, would have loved to
> > > have hung out with the pre-World Government Maharishi in Rishikesh for
> > > such an extended period of time. "I partied out with Maharishi before he
> > > became Donald Trump" tales rock. And if his experience with Maharishi
> > > with its Hollywood worthy miraculous meeting was the only tale in the
> > > interview, I probably would have just gotten my vicarious buzz on about
> > > his chill'n with the guy who knew all the answers, my ex-guru daddy
> > > supreme, Maharishi.
> > >
> > > But he played the miraculous coincidence card one too many times and my
> > > "too good to be true alarm went off." Oh ye of the tender level of
> > > feeling who found this string of amazing stories to nourish your finest
> > > level of your heart, please forgive me, because it was not a conscious
> > > mind thing. It was little buoy that came up from deep down in my mind
> > > where the fish are all luminous and some don't even have eyes anymore.
> > > They don't need them down there even though they do possess vestigial
> > > nonfunctional eyes. (what a weird thing to include in an intelligent
> > > design huh? Non eyes, that don't see...but used to a long time ago.)
> > >
> > > I am my own buzz buster. I freak'n love stories like the ones Peter
> > > told. I adore them.
> > >
> > > But my Goddamn unconscious tyrant sent me a memo. One that I can't
> > > refuse, despite the price I pay in euphoria deflation over such a string
> > > of wonderful tales of encounters with special, wonderful people.
> > >
> > > So here it is. Too many perfect coincidences in a row with the same
> > > message as the subtext. And the message is that this person, Peter, is
> > > the most wonderfully, specially, coincidentally acknowledged person by
> > > each and every special person in his stories without exception. None of
> > > them were met the way I met Maharishi, each one has a story, worthy of
> > > standing alone in its magical perfection. Why did he have to put them
> > > all together? Could he have included even one story that sounded like
> > > mine? One story that didn't have the blessed perfection of a perfectly
> > > told story? Could he have shown a bit of literary discipline in what he
> > > was serving us?
> > >
> > > OK. If this is how it all really went down, then he is the single most
> > > magically blessed person I have ever heard about, with the ultimate "I
> > > hung out with Maharishi before he became Donald Trump" tales.
> > >
> > > But if you spoke with Maharishi for 6 months and the most interesting
> > > thing you have to share is how special you were in how you were
> > > acknowledged by him...no details worthy of a person sitting day after day
> > > with the guy who was supposed to have figured it all out, the guy who had
> > > the answers about the reality of life, the best you can serve up to us is
> > > a cool coincidence story about how you knew better than anyone else the
> > > Maharishi was gunna show up...that is the most important words out of
> > > your mouth...a story not about his insights into reality but how special
> > > you were in how you met him...
> > >
> > > and all of this served up in a non-affect monotone serving up exactly
> > > zero of the qualities that might encourage me to see how reasonable it is
> > > that this is the guy who may be the luckiest guy in the world.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj <vajradhatu@> wrote:
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > On Sep 16, 2011, at 6:05 PM, maskedzebra wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > RESPONSE: These remarks don't represent the experiential context of
> > > > > TM. Are you a meditator? a former TM teacher? Not that (if you are
> > > > > not a TMer) this invalidates your point of viewbut I feel as if I am
> > > > > reading about the experience and perspective of someone who did not
> > > > > submit himself to the Pujanor to the transcendent movement within
> > > > > his mind, of TM itself. As far as TM is concerned, I intuit you are
> > > > > tone-deaf [when it comes to TM]. But standing apart from this, of
> > > > > course you are legitimately entitled to your evaluation of the merits
> > > > > of my impression of Peter Wallace.
> > > >
> > > > I'm as experienced as just about anyone here. So, yes, I'm quite
> > > > familiar with the puja, TM, etc.
> > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > If you have never gone down on your knees in front of the portrait of
> > > > > Guru Dev, your comments make much more sense to me. Just as Rick
> > > > > Archer's guests on BatGap (unless, like Phil Goldberg they are
> > > > > connected to TM and Maharishi) no nothing of what appears to be the
> > > > > unique context of spiritual reality one comes to know (and it stays
> > > > > with one) through TMand most emphatically through initiating people
> > > > > into this practice.
> > > > >
> > > > > All those, especially initiators, on this forum share a common
> > > > > metaphysical denominator: I think you would have to have join the
> > > > > club to really appreciate Peter Wallace.
> > > > >
> > > > > But perhaps I am myself just failing to get the biological and
> > > > > psychological evidence of your association with TM. TM and MMY: these
> > > > > are realities which make themselves familiar to us in the deepest
> > > > > way; at least this is what I have found since I began to meditate.
> > > > > And then initiating people into TMthat takes things to yet another
> > > > > level.
> > > > >
> > > > > If Keith Wallace did what you say he did, then that was wrong. But it
> > > > > (this act by Peter's brother) does not impugn the truthfulness of the
> > > > > impression that Peter Wallace made on me.
> > > >
> > > > I see Peter's particular sentimentality merely as a peculiar form of
> > > > suffering typical to hard-core TMers. I do not believe it requires that
> > > > one be a TM teacher, but those that are find it hardest, if not
> > > > impossible to shake.
> > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > You seem held up on the level of *content* alone; seemingly lacking
> > > > > the quality of TM engrams in your nervous system which would make you
> > > > > really know what is going on. Not that I would recommend you take up
> > > > > the practice of TM.
> > > >
> > > > Once the effect of TM's transcending is transcended, it can be dropped
> > > > like old clothing one no longer desires in the slightest. But one would
> > > > need to make the foundational shift, and heart-felt decision, to do so.
> > > >
> > > > So, to me, Peter's dronings are like watching an old man wearing long
> > > > worn out clothing that's he's never been able to remove. I guess I
> > > > would characterize the feeling I get as "pathetic".
> > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > If you are a meditator, much less a former initiator, then my
> > > > > intuition has failed me in a serious way. And this concerns me. You
> > > > > see, vajradhatu, the effects of TM (and even MMY)and initiatingthey
> > > > > go well beyond our conscious awareness.
> > > > >
> > > > > At that level you seem an innocent.
> > > >
> > > > Sorry to disappoint. While my attorney recommends I do not discuss my
> > > > involvement with TM and the TM Org, I will say I did spend one
> > > > Guru-purinima day in FF with you, repeating the puju over and over
> > > > again, to magnify it's effect. While at that time it might have seemed
> > > > important, now it just seems to be what it is: a poet and Sanskrit
> > > > scholar's old devotions that Mahesh was told to throw away by Swami
> > > > Brahmananda - but a poem he kept secretly...
> > > >
> > >
> >
>
