--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb <no_reply@...> wrote: > > To some extent, I've been less charmed by the latest two episodes of > HBO's "Enlightened" while watching it, but in retrospect I've realized > that Mike White and Laura Dern *are* still dealing with material that is > relevant to FFL and to the cult of spiritual narcissism; it's just more > subtle than in the first 2 episodes.
It sounds like an interesting show. Being bit torrent busted, I will have to wait for netflix to get it. > It's now been a week since Amy has returned from her idyllic (although > enforced) retreat in Hawaii. Her epiphany -- whatever it was -- had > faded in significance, and now she's focused on trying to still "live an > enlightened life" out in the real world. Because clearly we need enlightened individuals who on their own, have become spectacular beacons of light, independent of all the smucks around them, having transformed Consciousness, watered it , made it grow and evolve to fantastic higher states of Consciousness, not the dirty old Consciousness of the smucks. > In Ep4, confronted with her > first weekend, she has to figure out what to do with it. She has to figure out what to do with IT in relation to the world. Right on! > She first decides to spend it meditating, which gives us a classic (and > hilarious) opportunity to listen to her inner thoughts" in pretty much > the classic TMer meditation. That is, all thoughts, no silence, all > trivia and self-involvement. Her first thoughts are about being 40 and > having wrinkles. Then she "comes back to the mantra" and tries to > visualize something more positive, and lapses into thoughts of a happier > time. But then, inspired by visions of that happy time, she sets out to > recreate this fantasy happier time. And that's where the trouble begins. > It began there? > She phones her ex-husband in the middle of the night, waking him, and > tells him that he's just got to go off river rafting with her. At 7:00 > AM the next morning. And here's where the connection to TM and to > cultism comes in; she doesn't *ask* him whether he wants to go, she > tells him that he needs to, and makes the reservations herself. Being > essentially a nice guy, he thinks she's crazy, but agrees to go anyway. > They get there, are out on the river, and for a few minutes both are > feeling a little of the fantasy happiness she was seeking. > > But then reality intrudes. She finds that he brought along a bag full of > drugs Which are the Self, a wave on the infinite ocean of Consciousness. Whats her hang up?! > and, offended in the way that only a New Age twif can be offended, > throws them away. He goes ballistic, and storms away, her following. As > he finds a new stash and gets high, she harangues him with what a > low-life he is, continually insisting that she's doing it for his own > good, trying to get him to become the person he could be. Problem is, > it's not the person he wants to be. Maybe he doesn't want to be a person. Rather to be what he actually is. > From his POV (and, by this time, the > audience's), *she* is the one living in a delusional world, Because clearly they are not delusional, their mindstates, well if not enlightened, are well, like normal, good and true. > and worse, > she's consistently treating not only him but *everyone* around her as if > they're lesser than she is. Because in the vastness and totality of silence, there are actually heirarchies of better and worse pockets of infinite silence. > The *only* way she can imagine interfacing > with these "lesser" people is to try to convert them, to infect them > with her hypomania and make them more like her. Fortunately Levi (Luke > Wilson) finally has it up to here with her condescending, superior BS > and tells her to fuck off and leave him alone. He tells her something > she has never realized, that the way she sees him makes him feel like > shit, because she sees him *as* shit, compared to her and her new > fantasy lifestyle. > > That's where I think the real connection to FFL -- especially recently > -- comes in. This place has been a hotbed Sounds kinky. Have I been missing out on something? > of people asserting that they > not only have the right to try to change people they don't like, they've > been asserting that it's some kind of ethical or moral duty, and that > anyone who *doesn't* "do as they do" and try to impose their view of how > things should be on others is ethically deficient. > > Bzzzzzt. As Curtis has pointed out so well, this just does not compute. > The only environment in which such a 'tude *does* compute is a cult, > especially one that has a history of treating its members like children > who "need" to be corrected by their betters. In other words, the TM > movement. > > Such a sense of entitlement has no place on a forum composed of adults. All good. Now we just got to find some adults to fill the forum. > Adults don't really need anyone to "stand up for them" when someone says > something about them that they might not agree with. Adults suck it up > and realize that the other person's view of them is just as valid as > their own. yes, realizing their own mind states are just as suffocating as anyone elses, blocking the appreciation of the full sun of consciousness shining on and within everything. > They don't go around trying to impose their values on other > people; they just do what adults do, try to do their best to live up to stay stuck in their own value states and boundaries. > their own values, and allow others to do the same. > Groups can't become > cults if the people in them act like adults. Which means the US, not to mention Greece, Italy UK, Germany, China Thailand, Japan, to name a few, have few if any adults. Every culture is a cult in that it sets norms, values, expectations, corrective adjustments to outliers -- all of which keep glorious mindstates flourishing and the ocean of silence hidden. But then again, my delusions are better than your delusions. :) > They can only become cults > if most of them act like children, and as if the gurus Grur Om Rush, O'Reily, Rachel, McDonell, Mathews, NY Times, Fox News > and the fellow > cultists around them trying to make them "more like them" are right. I will fight to the death to protect your freedom to gain the magnificence of my (MY, MINE) mindstate. > > Me, in this rap and in any of my others, I'm not trying to change any of > you and make you more like anything, much less me. Damn, another life without enlightenment. > All I do occasionally > is point out Ah, pointing towards the moon, towards the undescribable > that there are many on this forum who ARE trying to change > you as if the damn wheel of time was not enough! >and make you more like them. While others, the saps, are, on their own, trying to actually be like them, and everyone, and everything, by being the silence, the sun, the ocean. > If you like that, and like being > treated like children Well, children do get the Big E ticket to heaven, I have been told. > by those who feel that they are entitled to treat > you that way, go for it. Just don't tell me what to do. > I'm going to -- as Curtis suggests -- focus > more on ignoring the "entitled" and hanging out with folks who are a > little more like adults. Great. Where did you find them?
