"...something I notice on the Batgap chat site....I have to say it always 
sounds good, but I ask myself,  could it not be said more simply?  There is 
basically no state of consciousness or experience they haven't had...."

Hey Steve - Maharishi was speaking from his own experience when he described 
his 7 states (which he amended to include life in Brahman as a further 
expression of enlightenment). The discussions I have with one other person on 
BatGap are in the context of how well, or not, our experience matches the 
descriptions of various states, as Brahman is inclusive of all of them. 

In that context, I find that the language used can sometimes sound like jargon, 
simply because everyone [having the discussion] already understands the 
experience of CC, or GC or UC. Nonetheless, I have discovered a lot by 
comparing notes. For example, through these discussions, it has become evident 
to me, that GC does not necessarily evolve from CC, as UC does, but is rather 
an expression more of subtle emotional development, vs. expansion of 
consciousness.

I am really not sure what your beef is, except that you were possibly hoping 
for descriptions, put a different way, so that they would be more useful to 
your future achievement of them. However, if you simply follow the discussion 
for what it is - two people clarifying and discussing experiences, you won't 
get bored so quickly.

Last, the only way you are going to get clarification of something, on the 
BatGap site, is to put on your big-boy pants and actually ask a question, or 
make a statement. 

Hope this helps. 

 


 ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <steve.sundur@...> wrote:

 

 Nice little rap.  It is something I notice on the Batgap chat site.  There are 
some "correspondents" (as Richard would say), who really nail that jargon.  I 
have to say it always sounds good, but I ask myself, "could it not be said more 
simply?"  There is basically no state of consciousness or experience they 
haven't had.  If suddenly a hidden lecture of Maharishi's surfaced about, say, 
"Brahman-in Loka 7", they would have been there, and could speak 
authoritatively about it.  For all I know, maybe they are living those 
realities! But I find after only a few sentences, I get pretty bored.  
 

 You get that same thing with David Spero, (sorry no link, kind of rushing this 
morning).  I know he has a Batgap interview, (which I haven't seen), but every 
so often I check into his website to see a few minutes of his talks.
 

 On the other hand, there's much I don't know about the upper echelons of 
spirituality, that maybe they all have "arrived" as they seem to indicate.
 

 The most spiritual thing I've seen in the last couple years was the video Ann 
posted about Ann _______ who can dial into the thinking and feeling of animals. 
 If I have any spiritual tingling in my life, it would be along those lines.  I 
do feel an affinity with the animal world, including insects, but nothing like 
she has.  I'd be like comparing a kindergartner to a college grad.

 ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <turquoiseb@...> wrote:

 Michael's story about a Death Watch, Southern-Style really inspired me this 
morning. It "reached me." It got me interested in the characters and the 
scenario and how things were gonna turn out...even though that was a little 
telegraphed by the title. :-) 

Being me, I started thinking about this in terms of some recent posts that have 
discussed the writing of stories about spiritual experience. Some of the tales 
of power I've read from seekers on many paths "reached me," and some didn't. In 
some cases there was too much "Look at me" in the tales I didn't like, too much 
attention-seeking on the part of the storyteller, and that -- for me -- is a 
bit of a turnoff. But more often in the tales I didn't like, the issue was 
language, and in particular the overuse of spiritual jargon.

Jargon has its uses. If you're dealing with a concept that really doesn't much 
exist for most of the people in your audience, it's fine IMO to give it a name. 
The first time a spiritual teacher does this, he or she also gives a talk about 
what that name or term *means*. If it's a term that comes up in his or her 
teaching often, over time the students no longer need the explanations or 
definitions every time they hear the term. They hear "karma" and *don't* hear 
in their heads "Huh?" They begin to hear "karma" and immediately associate the 
term with everything they've been told about it by their teacher. Nothing wrong 
with this so far, IMO.

It's when the students go out and try to talk to non-students that the issue of 
Jargon As A Second Language comes up. If these same students try to give a 
lecture or write a story that is peppered with the jargon they've come to be so 
familiar with that they don't even *notice* when they're using it, then they 
often "lose their audience." If every other word is "karma" this, or "dosa" 
that, or "purusha somethingorother," all interjected with no definitions of the 
terms, IMO the storyteller is *limiting* his audience. And in most cases, 
"losing them." They've been *excluded*, because they don't know the jargon the 
writer is using. 

Michael's tale wasn't exclusionary; it was inclusive. He used ordinary 
language, the way he heard it spoken around him at the time, and he used it 
well to weave a story that said "Ya'll come on in, now. Sit yerselves down 
while I make us some icetea." 

One of the things I'm most grateful to the Fred Lenz - Rama guy for is for his 
command of the English language and how to use it. He taught that skill 
explicitly in his talks to his students, and he demonstrated it in his own 
public talks. Some of Rama's students liked the talks he'd give where he got 
into really esoteric or occult shit, subjects that really did require some 
jargon and were obviously "only for my students." I liked his "intro lectures." 

The esoteric talks, given to students who all knew Jargon As A Second Language, 
were great because he could skip the definitions and use just the jargon as 
"shorthand," and as a time-saver. He could get into some really, really 
interesting subjects in these "just for students" talks. But it was the "intro 
lectures" that were High Art. 

There, he'd get into the *same* interesting subjects, only this time using 
metaphors like going to the movies and going to work and stuff like that, 
things that people knew and identified with. His "intros" were in almost all 
cases jargon-free, and that's what's so interesting in retrospect. He didn't 
*need* the jargon to discuss these same interesting subjects -- he found a way 
to do it *without jargon*, and in language that actually "reached" the people 
he was talking to. 

There are legitimate uses for spiritual jargon. But if you use them in your 
writing, you're limiting your audience. I guess that's all I'm saying. By 
relying on jargon that they don't explain, some writers are IMO being more than 
a little elitist in their approach. They are expecting their audience to know 
all these jargon words and buzzphrases, and respecting them so little that they 
don't even bother to translate them back into English as they go. 

I think that's rude. When I encounter seekers and teachers from spiritual 
traditions I haven't encountered before and they start talking in non-stop 
jargon, I have a little trick that I sometimes do. After a particularly long 
jargonfest, I stop them and ask them politely, "Could you repeat that in 
English, without using any jargon or buzzwords this time?" 

You'd be amazed at how many actually CAN'T. Some actually get angry, and accuse 
me of asking them to (a literal quote I've heard several times) "Speak down to 
the level of my audience." What made them think they were "above" them in the 
first place?

If you're talkin' neuroscience to a bunch of neuroscientists, you can get away 
with using a lot of neuroscience jargon. No one in the audience feels "left 
out," because they understand it all. But if you talk to the same audience and 
start peppering your talk with, say, Jyotish jargon buzzwords that they don't 
understand, they're going to start fidgeting in their seats and looking at you 
like you're crazy. That's what being in the listening or reading audience of a 
person using too much jargon *feels* like. The speaker or writer has *excluded* 
them. 

If you're a neuroscientist purposefully trying to communicate to *only* 
neuroscientists, that exclusion is cool. But if you're a writer or speaker 
trying to convey some spiritual experience to your audience, theoretically to 
inspire them, is excluding a certain percentage of them really what you want to 
do? 





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