--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <jstein@...> wrote:
>
<snip>
> > > As I see it, Robin had to force himself to give up something
> > > that had meant the world to him because he found it to be
> > > *ultimately*--in the full meaning of the term--deceptive.
> >
> > Which is a deceptive perception IMO-
>
> I'm not arguing for its validity. It seems very strange
> to me as well, but I don't doubt his sincerity in
> expressing it.
Deception is deception. I don't have to doubt that he believes in it. Is that
what you mean, that he 'sincerly' believes? Yet sincerity would also imply to
have a willingness to investigate things really.
> > > Whether or not one is inclined to agree with him, it must
> > > have been extraordinarily painful, and it's reflected in
> > > his posts about what was for him a profound loss.
> >
> > Yes, this is understood. It is so for many people who were
> > heavily involved, myself included, but it is the normal
> > process, many are going through.
>
> None of them, however, have had the same huge challenges
> to deal with. You really can't call what Robin has had to
> go through a "normal process."
I hope with the word 'normal' process no pun is intended.
<snip>
> > Sure, that kind of relationship can be compared, and it is
> > really like a divorce, (I think, as I have never been
> > divorced). But there is a difference: If I cut a
> > relationship with my wife, I am not making assumptions
> > about anybody elses relationship to my wife having to be
> > equal, otherwise I couldn't take him serious. If I do that
> > I am a pimp, who is trying to sell my wife. It is these
> > kind of statements I am arguing about. If somebody says as
> > if he is betraying Guru Dev, because of whatever he says,
> > not knowing about Guru Dev from any type of first hand
> > account etc.
>
> I'm not getting what you're after here. Could you give it
> another shot?
If you are in love, it is a private thing. You don't use it as a model how
others have to see things.
I mean statements like these:
"Now, if you did, Vaj, it would cause me to have a criterion to prove to you
that you lie about TM, Maharishi, and being an initiator. Because, you see, in
divulging what your real and genuine take on Ravi Chivukula was, you would be
acting in a manner and inside a context contrary to how you act when you write
about TM, Maharishi, and being an initiator."
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/message/298522
This was one of the first posts I read of Robin, I am not studying like you do,
Judy, and it made me stumble at how a person could make such an absurd
statement. It is full of emotional hyperbole. What would a statement Vaj makes
about Ravi have to do with TM/MMY etc?
Or from the same post, again to Vaj:
"Your insinuation that you have, remains just an invisible simulacrum of
reality: you have no conviction about Ravi that you would submit as the
truth—say, on point of death."
Judy, if you don't get what I mean, then I can't help you, I am simply missing
the words. I mean, he asks Vaj to make his statement of 'truth', 'at the point
of death.'
Don't get the drama? Then I can't help. What puzzles me, nay what I really
don't like is, the matter of factly voice he wants to impose his own emotions
on to someone else as a moral rule. I have no excuse for this, it is deeply
manipulative. That's totally different from a person who lost his love, and is
still mourning.
> > I mean these typical TB statements, which as you rightly
> > point out, almost don't occure on this forum anymore, and
> > then unexpected out of the mouth of a person who makes the
> > most outrageous claims with regard to all knowledge eastern.
>
> Again, the bit about Eastern knowledge doesn't work for
> me, but I'm not sure why that should somehow *negate* his
> sincerity regarding the TB stuff, given that he's made it
> very clear that what he's describing is his perspective
> before he renounced it all. It's still vivid in his mind;
> you would hardly expect it to be otherwise.
So you don't think that his demonizing this path, his own path, and
simultaneausly eulogizing it, is completely normal, not somehow schizophrenic?
Btw. time usually heals wounds, when did this happen, when did he leave TM, or
his 'unity-reality', I mean it wasn't yesterday, right? Maybe 10 years gone?
How could you truly love somebody and at the same time demonize that person?
Sorry, I pass here.
> > > And who are you, pray tell, to call someone's expression
> > > of their adoration "overly romantic"?
> >
> > Do you know? How doyou know?
>
> Do I know what? "Who are you" is just a figure of speech,
> if that's what you're asking. It's shorthand for, "Why do
> you think you're in a position to decide what is 'overly'
> romantic for anyone besides yourself?"
Give me a break, that's my healthy judgment.
<snip>
> I don't remember exactly what you said, but it doesn't
> have anything to do with believing you or not believing
> you. I used "falling in love" to mean the kind of intense
> personal devotion some, including Robin, had for MMY.
I had love for Maharishi, I had devotion and worked for him, I did what he, or
the movement told me at the time. And I think I can rightly say, you don't need
to teach me about intense bhakti. But what he is doing is romantizising, that's
different. Romantizising means to impose your own fancy ideas on a lover, ideas
that aren't true, ideas you will not care to validate. Love is not just a
feeling, you have to act upon it, if you have a Guru, you have to see what the
guru is actually saying, and not project something onto him. Robin creates a
world of his own.
>
> > No, what I am refering to overly romantic are statements,
> > where, matter of factly, he says that since Christ there
> > was nobody like Maharishi. I call this overly romantic,
> > because he can have only second hand knowledge even of the
> > existence of Christ, and he just doesn't know anyone else,
> > any of all the great masters who even lived in the last
> > century or throughout history.
>
> He'll have to justify the validity of that comparison for
> himself; seems hyperbolic to me as well. But I assume he
> has some basis for it, and it would be interesting to hear
> him explain it. I wouldn't want to dismiss it out of hand
> as "overly" anything until I had a better idea of how he
> sees it, what he means by it.
Well, I do dismiss it right out of hand, as whatever he may say, he cannot know
all the other canditates, so it is a very ignorant statement, neither can he
know christ except his own idea of him.
> <snip>
> > > That's
> > > fine, not everyone did. But by the same token, you aren't
> > > in a position to question the sincerity and depth of
> > > others' feelings about him when you haven't experienced
> > > what they did.
> > >
> > How do you know I did not experience?
>
> I'm going by whatever it was you *said* earlier. And you
> said above that it wasn't "falling in love." My point is
> that others *did* "fall in love" with MMY, and I don't
> know why you think you can question that experience--
> specifically with MMY--when you haven't had it.
People have different ways of expressing love or devotion. Falling in love to a
guru, is something akin to falling in love with a girl or man, it doesn't mean
ultimate devotion. You can just love and have devotion without falling in love.
The difference is encapsuled in the word romantic.
> > You just don't know. But then I am not going from house to
> > house with that. And yes, I did also fall in love with
> > teachers, or saints, even I was about to fall in love with
> > Ammachi one time, but I knew she was not my master. But
> > that does not entitly me to make exaggerated and generalizing
> > statements.
>
> It entitles you to express your opinion and personal
> feelings, whatever they may be, exaggerated and
> generalizing or not. It doesn't entitle me, even if I'd
> had my own experiences along those lines, to say you
> aren't entitled to them. All I'm entitled to say is that
> they seem exaggerated and generalizing *to me*.
No, if I love my wife (or girl friend), it is alright, and it is just me, me,
me. If I make this now the condition of approach for anyone to my wife, I am
not entitled to it, as I put my own personal feelings as the measure stick for
everyone. I am not entitled to do that, period.
> > But I do undertsand it is not easy for anybody. So, in no
> > way, do I attack Robins feelings, but I do attack the
> > mind-state of TB he formed around it.
>
> Robin's mind-state isn't easy to grok, and it's *really*
> difficult to grok in bits and pieces. Even if you have the
> stamina to read every word he's written here, there's so
> *much* of it that it's tough to keep it all in mind. If you
> don't have a photographic memory, to some extent you're
> dealing with bits and pieces willy-nilly simply because you
> can't remember everything on the whole epic canvas he's
> been laying out (and even that isn't complete).
Judy, I think if you really want to understand him, you have to be him. I
personally prefer if you stay who you are.
> That said, if one has been paying more than superficial
> attention to what Robin has posted, it seems to me
> incontrovertible that nobody here has even come close in
> their own lives to what he's been through. Almost
> Shakespearean, on a small scale, at least. Not to make a
> hero of him--more of an antihero, perhaps--it's just that
> his story is unique.
It's drama, drama, drama. Emotional, cosmic dimensions, right?
>
> He seems to welcome challenges as long as they're not
> in-your-face disrespectful. I don't know if he saw your
> earlier post addressing him directly, but I suspect he'd
> be responsive if you could get his attention. Such an
> exchange would be so much more interesting than the
> current personal snipe-fests!
>
What's a snipe-fest? Anyway, I don't share the same interest / fascination as
you do. I mean there is no way for me to even remotely considering RC. My
spiritual samskaras are just not in this direction.
