So far, so good! Thanks
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <steve.sundur@...> wrote: Jim, thanks for your reply. I understand what you are saying. And I gotta say, it sounds like you've got a damn fine plan! ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <no_re...@yahoogroups.com> wrote: Hey Steve - yeah, I am grateful that I am able to find people, from time to time, with whom I can discuss my experiences. I don't do it simply to hear different perspectives, or flavors, but, rather as a quicker way to learn about something, and make progress. Simply that it is another person, having similar enough experiences that they can be compared, is a fantastic way, for me, to clear up misconceptions or questions that creep up into anything. The duration is far shorter, but I get equally excited when I learn how to clean out a gas burner tube, fix a plumbing leak, rewire a circuit, or install a solar panel. Life is just so mind blowingly cool, and everything about it. I am a constant sponge for knowledge and experience, and learning, and always have been. My latest adventure involves RVing in a Class A 34 ft rig - Fun as fuck!! and you can quote me on that. Now that I know how to operate it, after a shake-out trip, I soon leave for a primitive campsite in the mountains for two weeks, carrying all my water food, fuel and all the comforts of home, except for cell, internet and tv (no problem-o) . I am writing my life story, and it is time to get started, with future sojourns in mind. Anyway, my point is, as a life goal, I really enjoy going after that 200 percent of life thing MMY talked about; 100% inside (Moksha) and 100% outside (Unity). The fun is blending it all together, while continuing to learn, live and grow, without any apparent limits to what can be achieved; just have to watch out for the thorns on the roses sometimes. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <steve.sundur@...> wrote: Good points Jim. And I think that perhaps I need to be a little more open minded because for me, I can't understand why anyone would really even want to talk about those experiences. I feel that I have some nice experiences too, but it's not really anything I'd want to share, ala Judy's point. But maybe because you and David are more established in those higher states of consciousness, you find value in discussing them, and it helps you in your understanding. I will say Jim, that you said something recently that stuck with me, because it has been my experience, and MO for a long time. That is, meditation along with introspection and an effect to ferret out our flaws, is a real key to progress. Now just for fun, I guess you could say, that ego confronting maya, and separating the non self from the transcendental self is the key to attaining Moksha. Oh well. (-: ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <no_re...@yahoogroups.com> wrote: "...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?
