Well said. Comments interspersed. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, zarzari_786 <no_reply@...> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "whynotnow7" <whynotnow7@> wrote: > > > > I don't get off on eastern spiritual superlatives, sorry. > > In any case, you have the same propensity for fence sitting > > an issue and abstractly equivocating everything with everything > > that nm did. He also used to stick up for Vajihad. > > I just come back to the 'fence-sitting', because I had to look > it up. (I hate it if I have to look up too many words in articles, > not being born in america, because people speak overly slang - > in the above sentence three words). So, I think that I have made > my POV very clear on several occasions, for example regarding > MZ/RC, Vaj, Judy and many others. Of course, making a spoof, or > being satyrical, some people will not get my point, and I leave > it somewhat open. Also, of course, I will try to be friendly to > people, and respect them, even if I strongly disagree with their > POV.
Some will *never* get your point. If it presents them in any different light than the one they want to be presented in, that is. One thing you might not be aware of, but that may provoke some humor, is that the person who is trying to give you a hard time for being (in his view) the cyber- reincarnation of a former FFL poster has himself posed as *several* different personalities here, only a couple of which he has ever admitted to. Can you say "projection?" I think you can. :-) > Being ironic and satyrical is sometimes a lighthearted manner > of pointing something out without being confrontational. Not > being confrontational, I do not force a person to answer or > respond. I will never write a 5 part answer to somebody and try > to force it down their throat, as a condition to continue to be > friendly to them. How enlightened, or de-enlightened is that? About in the same ballpark of "enlightened" as your corres- pondent's flippant "I will share my shroud [sic...meaning holy relics, after he dies) only with those who read my posts." Yup, that's sure the image of enlightenment and its essential compassion we've been presented through the ages. :-) > Also, I am very much differentiating, that is to say, I agree > with people on certain points, but not on everything, and of > course, that is normal for most here I think. I can now choose, > what I emphazise, the points I agree with or the ones I disagree > with, and believe me or not, over the time, I have chosen both > approaches with the same people, and that includes you. You are > not even aware of that. > > Another aspect that plays a role here for me is, that I think > it is useless to confront a person with 'my opinion about things' > if I think that, for whatever reason, which is also part of my > opinion about the person, he/she is unlikely to accept a different > POV in the matter - it is just useless. As Barry rightly points > out, it is not a matter of 'winning' an argument. So in some > cases, I simply have chosen to poke fun once in a while, hoping > to hilight a certain aspect of a behaviour I find disagreeable > or manipulative or whatever. As some wit has said, it's like having an argument with a pig. It never accomplishes anything, and it only pisses off the pig. What I find fascinating is that -- IMO, and from my some- what biased POV -- several of the posters on this forum who are the most fundamentalist (in the sense of having rigid, fixed beliefs), the most reactive (in that their emotional buttons are the most easily pushed, causing them to lash out angrily), and the most confrontational (in that they seem to feel the need to turn discussions into "battles" and "win" them) are THE VERY ONES WHO EITHER CLAIM TO BE ENLIGHTENED OR CLAIM TO HAVE BEEN IN THE PAST. Does this compute? Are they DERANGED? They are speaking to an audience that has been told for years the qualities one should expect of an enlightened being. Non-attachment. Non-reactivity. "Line on water." Being able to see Unity in diversity. etc. But on a daily basis they present the opposite. And then they get uptight and even more fundamentalist, reactive, and confrontational because people don't believe in their supposed "enlightenment." In my view, *every* claim of enlightenment ever made in human history was just that -- a claim. NOT ONE OF THEM can ever be proved. But it's fairly easy to *disprove* the claims, if the claimants walk a completely different walk than the one described by the talk of the tradition they claim to come from.
