Well, I am in the midst of one of these random experiences. I woke this morning
about 4:30 am and realized I was in a state of bliss. I felt it all around and
in my body, sort of like an energy "field" that felt and feels palpable, like
an aura all around me. It is just bliss, no other word does justice to it. It
is still going on and feels pretty good. It can fade if I begin to think about
other stiff and I feel it more strongly as I allow myself to be aware of it.
As I lay there at 4:30, I thought that the one decent thing outfits like the TM
Movement do is to get folks thinking about awareness itself, in other words
that we are something other than the body and the vagaries of our constantly
shifting focus and emotional states we get into. It can help make for a happier
life I think if one knows one can be something other than one's latest
emotional state.
The problem obviously occurs when the leader of the movement tells a pack of
lies that serve to serve him or her and lead people down a path that is
ultimately serving only the leader and his/her movement.
That was one of the things I always disliked about the TM Movement. Even when I
was a TM junkie, I noticed that the Movement only wanted you around if you were
giving everything you could to the Movement. Gimmie, gimmie, gimmie - it was
always a gimmie deal and the Movement never really gave back.
I know you current TM junkies will say that it was Marshy's Supreme Knowledge
that he gave and us lowly dogs should be immensely grateful for this precious
gift and abase ourselves and give with BOTH hands
to ensure the continuance of the lofty goals of Marshy's Movement, even though
it has accomplished nothing of substance except to perpetuate itself all these
years.
Isn't it wonderful that Bliss can be experienced even as I slap the Movement?
--------------------------------------------
On Sun, 2/16/14, salyavin808 <no_re...@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] RE: Drinking Vedic Coffee and Discerning 'Cult'
from 'Sect'
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
Date: Sunday, February 16, 2014, 7:52 PM
I'm convinced you can
categorise these different states into the boxes as
described by Marshy, but is that because my experiences were
influenced by his clear descriptions. If I'd never read
the book or seen the lecture, would I have had the
experiences in the same order in the same way? There's
no way to rule it out.
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,
<awoelflebater@...> wrote:
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,
<mjackson74@...> wrote:
I
agree with some of the things I believe Barry has said -
that we are all part of this cosmic soup, and the entire
infinite or nearly infinite range of experiences are
available to us. The kinds of things Sal relates are
available to all of us at anytime, but most of us aren't
aware of it.
The idea that there is some kind of definable
"state" of awareness and a well laid out
progression towards it is in my opinion some made up baloney
on the part of the old rishis who didn't want to work,
just wanted to set around all day looking at their navel and
when they had some of these experiences they said "Ah
ha! This is REAL reality, and all these po' folk
runnin' around doing all this doing are full of crap! WE
have the lock on what is true, real and righ!"
And like everyone else in the world they wanted everyone
else to corroborate their reality so they made a big deal
out of it and created all the sacred books of the Hindoos
that everybody was supposed to embrace if they were smart.
Along comes Marshy, fanatic Hindoo, and he used the playbook
to make a nice living for himself.
So I think we can slip in and out of these different
experiences of our own awareness. Some like maybe Eckhart
Tolle can choose to stay in one spot for a long time, making
it seem permanent. Others go back and forth. Which IMO
accounts for the behavior we see in folks like Marshy,
Muktananda, Kriyananda and all the rest where they appear to
be brilliant enlightened individuals one day and the next
day appear to be venal, petty tyrants and sexual
opportunists and so forth.
Well, just
as in waking state there are almost infinite manifestations
of perception, behaviour, intelligence then why wouldn't
there be the same in so-called "enlightened" or at
least, 'other' states of awareness? I am still not
convinced there are these "enlightened" altered
states of consciousness at all and I certainly don't
think you can categorize these states, if they do exist,
into tight little cubicles of defined characteristics that
are the same for all those having attained those
states.
--------------------------------------------
On Sun, 2/16/14, steve.sundur@...
<steve.sundur@...>
wrote:
Subject: [FairfieldLife] RE: Drinking Vedic Coffee and
Discerning 'Cult' from 'Sect'
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
Date: Sunday, February 16, 2014, 2:28 PM
I'm
thinking of some of the other "flashy"
experiences
that have been related here periodically.
Bob
Price related one, sometime ago. MJ related one
recently. In both cases they were more or less just
"footnotes", and then life moved on. But
they also seemed to have left their mark and a pretty deep
impression, as though saying, "We're not finished
here, just wanting to set a
marker"
But
who knows, maybe it's just "random brain
activity" as I believe Curtis once said.
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,
<no_re...@yahoogroups.com>
wrote:
Yes, I used to
get a lot of things like that. A text book progression of
enlightened states as espoused by Marshy. Really amazingly
nice and it convinced me I was going to get there but it
all
stopped, maybe it will start up again but I doubt it and it
doesn't even interest me any more, it's like the
acid trips I used to do, a great way to spend a day but is
it a good long term proposition?
At work once I became the unwitting centre of
attention when I slipped into "unity" on a busy
friday afternoon when we were normally running around
trying
to wrap everything up. Everyone else just pulled up a chair
and sat round my desk, it was amazing how different yet the
same I was, intensely relaxed but wide awake and flowing
all
things good from some centre that wasn't even me but
was
everything that existed and it was all lush, powerful and
vivid. Happy days, but it wore off a few hours later and
that was that. What it
all means I cannot say, my guess is nothing, just a phase,
maybe all that bending my mind out of shape suddenly
reflexively threw it into a euphoric state. But whatever,
it
doesn't work any more...
--In
FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,
<steve.sundur@...>
wrote:
Wow, I hope you don't me
saying this, but this is the nicest post we've had in
about six months. And it sounds like more than
witnessing.I say that because as I've always understood
it,
the transcendental field is without attributes. It is
when we experience it that it becomes blissful. But
otherwise, it is just a silent
witness.Whatever
you were experiencing was creeping into waking
state.
---In
FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,
<no_re...@yahoogroups.com>
wrote:
Yes,
like being wrapped in infinite cotton wool, all rosy and
warm. During some of those experiences I'd spend days
seeing the world like it's made of christmas tree
lights
with that angel hair round them. Then it got even better
and
I saw where the light came from and I knew everything
without being able to answer any questions and then it
stopped.
What
the point of it was, other than to make me feel my ascetic
life was paying off, is beyond me. But if it had lasted any
longer I probably would have started a cult myself.
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,
<steve.sundur@...> wrote:
(-: Hey, neat about
that witnessing experience. I experienced it once,
and
didn't realize it till after the fact. But was
the
experience "blissful" for you?
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,
<no_re...@yahoogroups.com>
wrote:
Potayto,
potahto.
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com,
<dhamiltony2k5@...> wrote:
No,
most of what you are offering as definition technically is
about sects. Cults form around charismatic persons.
Sects form out
of specialness, exception or differentiation as in
different
denominations of
protestantism or catholicism or denominations or types of
meditation.
Those are sects. Sects are around fragmentation and cults
are
around persons as charismatics. For instance, If
someone really
'charismatic', like earlier defined by Weber, like
a
Robin were to show up in Fairfield, Iowa and
take off a bunch of meditators as his followers by force
and
power of
personality then we're talking cult, as a sect. That
is
different
than the different sects of people out teaching meditations
and some
others out there teaching other things they've
learned.-Buck in the Dome
Salyavin808
writes: You don't need any leader to be a cult. All you
need is a belief system that sets you apart from the
norm.
