I must say, that until now, I was quite clueless of what is going on here at FFL. I mean to say, I can of course read the threads, but I was puzzled by the melodramas that seem to be going on here. I was especially puzzled by one voice, which seemd to me full of contradictions, romanticising, and endless self-reflections.
I at first thought that this was all somehow related to Ravi, which I had encountered before here, till somebody gave me hints, and I finally heard the background story, as far as it can be told, and I was led to this post here, to an old post of last june, I was abroad at the time, didn't lurk here, was very busy. I find the following post, which was here discussed quite intensely, and most of my thoughts about it, as much as I can evaluate it at all, have already been covered here by other commenters, especially Rory, Ravi, but also Barry. It's a fascinating post, somehow crazy, disturbing, and I surely don't have a final answer,but I certainly do have opinions,and also ideas I feel inspired to share. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, maskedzebra <no_reply@...> wrote: > <snip> > What I reject about Unity Consciousness is its correspondence with reality. > Reality being defined as what really is the case. > Have you heard about Edmund Husserl, the founder of phenomenology? > Now what this means is that although a person can experience the objective > and empirically undeniable state of Unity Consciousness, this does not mean > that such a state of consciousness is true to life. That is, ontologically > valid. How could anyone decide that? Also empirical reality IS reality. > Unity Consciousness does NOT mean one is the embodiment of reality. Reality > obviously permits persons to have the experienceeven to function perfectly > in the physiological and mechanical modeof Unity Consciousness. What reality > does NOT endorse is the idea that Unity Consciousness is a truthful > representation of either itself (reality: Unity Consciousness as a microcosm > of what reality is) Reality is represented by what is real. > or of the highest state that a human being is capable of achieving > spiritually. Highest or lowest are relative terms, they cannot be the ultimate definition of reality. > Indeed, as I found out even more convincingly than how I discovered myself in > Unity Consciousness, Unity Consciousness is a form of mystical deceit, a > metaphysically false state of consciousness. There can be no metaphysical false state of consciousness. States of consciousness are simply states of consciousness. > Remember: it is very real, it is an objective state of consciousness; but, > for all that, NOT IN ACCORDANCE WITH REALITY. That is a self-contradicting statement. Somehow you have defined 'Reality' before the investigation. It is a statement by definition. <snip> > Being in Unity Consciousness meant, for me, being INCAPABLE of being bested > in a one-on-one encounter with another human being. And by this, I mean that > being enlightened meant one was grounded (evidently) in a state of > consciousness which was deeper, more versatile, more creative, more attuned, > more commandingwithout even the faintest effort to BE thisthan the > consciousness of any person who was still in waking state consciousness. Others have alraedy pointed out, how problematic it is to define unity by a comparision with others, especially by a superiority you felt to others. The very first thing present in unity should be the very absense of an 'I' consciousness, the idea, that it is you being better than others. In fact, if you are truly enlightened, you would perceive everybody else as enlightened as well, you would in fact see no differences. That is what unity is supposed to be about. Otherwise it would be a one-upmanship. You would see existence as the actor, not yourself, and it does not matter if existence acts through you or somebody else. <snip> > And yet I eventually arbitrarily decided that even though my enlightenment > could not, as it were, 'go down to defeat'from ANY opposition, including > MaharishiI knew that it HAD to be rejected and dismantled. > Reality, existence does not depend on an act. It cannot be rejected or dismantled, it is always there, but can be veiled or revealed. <snip> > Well, because essentially I had exposed myself intellectually to another > paradigm of reality other than Maharishi's, other than the Eastern paradigm > of spirituality. This is another BIG misunderstanding: In fact you are equating eastern, and I'll be nice to you and only refer to indian as eastern, spirituality with advaita vedanta, and again advaita vedanta with the consciousness model of Maharishi. Both is false. Most of indian spirituality is not advaita, and also, advaita is not represented by the consciousness model of Maharishi (which is a simplification, as others have pointed out already). Therefore, the conclusions of indian spirituality are not the same as advaita. For example most indian Hindus are Vaishnavas, and they believe in a qualified monism, visisht advaita, which does not agree that you can become one with God. You can, according to them, absorb the qualities of God, and reflect His glory, like a mirror (or glas of water) reflects the sun. Yet it does not become the sun. <snip> > The mere INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY AND INTELLIGENCE AND COMPLEXITY AND PROFUNDITY > of this other paradigm made Maharishi's vision of reality, the Self, the > universe seem shallow, naive, and infinitely less persuasive as a final > reading of what reality was at bottom. So reality is a matter of a paradigm which one adopts? Rory expressed in one commentary something I have been thinking about as well: There is a transition from unity to brahman, that Maharishi describes. In traditional advaita, it is thought, that one can get final enlightenment only by intellectually studying the advaita scriptures, not solely by experience. Maharishi alludes to the fact,that in unity, after a certain time, one has to get the affirmation by the teacher that, you are that, the mahavakyas. There could come experiences, which make you doubt the reality of unity, and then you need an additional push by the teacher. So, it is not just a matter of experience, but also of intuitive knowledge. It is quite possible that here you went wrong IMO Anyway, also in indian spirituality, it remains a matter of choice, which road you go, because in bhakti, you retain a sense of duality. <snip> > I must go further than this: I must realize that the pantheistic experience > under psychedelic drugswhich first led me into TMwas false, and that my > enlightenment in essence represented the apotheosis of the Beatles, the > Sixties, Peace and Love, and the Wisdom of the East. Your equating indian spirituality, advaita vedanta, with psychedelics, is certainly completely off the point. This was maybe the experience of one generation, but for example i never took drugs before entering TM (and having unity experiences myself) > Now you must understand: TM and Maharishi provided the most beautiful and > sublime EXPERIENCES I have ever had. And even powers and abilities that I > never knew were possibleand were wondrous to display to others (all > converging upon this notion of life as metaphysical theatrebut based upon > the experience of of TM). I have never experienced anyone as remarkable, as > powerful, as mesmerizing, as charming, as Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. I am > convinced, seen from a certain angle (there's a Maharishi-ism for you), he > wasin the early and middle seventies especiallyas striking a personality as > I imagine Christ was. And certainly I thought I loved him with a love equal > to the love any disciple had for Christ. For example I have no such feelings about Maharishi. You equate him with Christ because you have been brought up Christian, if you had been brought up Hindu, you would compare him to Krishna, or to Buddha if you were Buddhist. In each century there live many great saints, just the ones who are known, there are even many more who choose to remain unknown, and work in silence, and behind public recognition. It is only extremely naive to think that the teacher with whom one studied is the greatest since the founder of the religion in which one was born. > > So, you understand, then, that the philosophy of Aquinas (as one > representative of a certain spiritual tradition) appeared to put a choice > before me: either the Self, the Atman, the Absolute is the ultimate reality, > and the perception of the oneness of one's self with creation the perfection > of the human being, or else THERE CAN BE NO SUCH THING AS THE SELF, THE > ATMAN, THE ABSOLUTE, because the final reality is a personal God who is > wholly other than any being he has created. There is a series of tapes, in which Maharishi describes, how the fullness of fullness is afraid of the emptiness. I am just describing from recollection: The fullness of fullness is afraid of the 'other', even though it contains everything, there is the possibility of the Zero. Maharishi is certainly speaking in a metaphorical language here. It ultimately comes to the point, that the fullness of fullness recognizes the 'fullness of' emptiness, it's own negation as itself. This seems to be the one step in Brahman,that unity integrates it's own opposite. Christians often describe God as the 'Other', but if the other has no relation to ourself, there would be no possibility to relate to it at all. But, as Christians believe, that we can indeed relate to God, it means there is some 'ground' on the basis of which a relation is possible. > And every created human being does not, in and of himself, containas the > person he or she isany sort of divinity whatsoever. What is divine in human > beings is not their ultimate self; what is divine in human beings is the fact > that they are the deliberate and conscious creation of a Person, and that > therefore THE FACT OF THEIR EXISTENCE is something that is GIVEN to them, and > it something other than what they, as persons, are. Being can never be GIVEN. Giving is in time, and therefore cannot constitute the ultimate. > Furthermore, no human being is capable of merging with God, with reality. The > separateness of each individual human soul is an absolute, and their > contingent status as a created being [they have no necessary existence] > incompatible with unifying themselves with the intelligence and beingness > that is the cause of the whole of creationand their existence in the first > place. Well, this is what Vaishnavas believe as well. And yet, there is something like a participation in/with God, through his qualities, what else would the point of religion otherwise at all? Then, with this participation, you do in fact have an element of unity. In advaita, it is unity with the essence, not with God as a person as well. And, because of the relative body,there is avidya lesha, even in the advaita realization. <snip>
