--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb <no_reply@...> wrote: >
> I know nothing of Sri Aurobindo, but didn't Ramakrishna > spend years dressing in women's clothing and spend some > time living in a tree as a monkey? Crazy wisdom, or just > crazy? Well yes, there is a book about that out as well, not half as 'positive' as Heehs book. But for dressing with womens cloth, there is a cultural format in India, especially in the Krishna Bhakti (all souls except Krishna are considered female). HWL Poonja, father of the satsang movement did the same. > As for "intellectual clarity," have you ever read any of > the books by Chogyam Trungpa? Some are utterly brilliant, > despite the fact (as we know now) that he was totally in > the bag (meaning falling down drunk) while writing most > of them. I know him mainly through the writings of others, which is about exactly this topic. > Go figure. I guess my point is that while one > may admire Trungpa's writing and its clarity on the one > hand, you wouldn't really want him driving you anywhere > or making decisions that strongly affected your life, > would you? He's never been my cup of tea. > I guess I bring this up because I see an increasingly > disturbing trend here on FFL. Many people seem to have > lost any sense of perspective on the things that happen > here. It's just a chat forum; maybe a total of 40 people > interact on it regularly. But for some it seems to have > become a deadly serious business. They regularly LOSE > IT over -- let's face it -- minor insults or petty > affronts that a sane person would hardly notice. Some > develop grudges and then recruit "teams" to help them > obsess on their common grudgees. Yes, agreed. This is part of the usenetization of the internet, not uncommon at all. The mechanics has nothing to do with TM or spiritual movements per se. People just lose it as they get involved, you could say it is a lack of detachment. > THIS is what 30 to 40 years of TM does for a person? Or doesn't do. I get your point is, that TM ers were supposed to be more detached than the average internet user, but obviously they aren't. Another issue, I think is old age. With some people, reaching a certain age, mental abilities start to fail. Then there is the issue of lonliness, isolation. > But worse, IMO, some of the folks whom I think have lost > perspective don't seem to know what they're messing with > when they start trying to recruit people with borderline > personality disorders into their petty grudge wars I think > that in doing this they're playing with fire, and I hope > that it doesn't escalate into something a lot more serious, > or tragic. I know exactly what you mean here. I have been watching the soap opera that is going on here with bewilderment, but I simply fail to get it. I am not sure what is ironic or serious. Most posts are simply tl;dr http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=tl%3Bdr I guess some people, are simply fed up with the overly intelectual culture of these boards, and they just like to get emotionally turned on. Otherwise, I am just clueless myself. But for me, any enlightened, crazy or not, should show a level of detachment, which I simply expect, which includes not boasting about ones own enlightenment. Among crazy saints, I prefer the type, who go in rags, if at all, stare at you in the streets of India, live outside, talk if anything gibberish not comprehensible to anyone, and don't know where America or Europe is, and yes, get food from the trashbin. ;-)