Barry, I think everyone here has noticed that this is how you talk about your experiences, including in this very post.
(Nice to see that you're reading Ann's posts these days, though.) Does anyone notice that there seems to be an *inverse* one-upsmanship going down here? More of a one-downsmanship: "If someone talks about experiences that don't match mine, *theirs* are wrong." All that "Bawwy" did, after all, was to report his everyday experience, and point out that in the larger field of meditation sitting with a mind full of thoughts is NOT considered meditating at all. This is one of the reasons (only one, of many) why TM is considered a "beginner's technique" in most of these traditions. But rather than accept that, and be comfortable with their own experience if it's made them happy so far, some TMers seem to feel the need to get all defensive, as if *their* experience (lost in thought most of the time, one has to assume) was the very *definition* of "right meditation," and anyone who describes some other experience must be showing off. Sounds a little insecure and neurotic to me. After all, they could have discerned the possible truth of what I and many others on this forum have said about other forms of meditation simply by trying them. Oh. I forgot. Couldn't do that. Maharishi would spank, and say "Off the program." Even though he's dead. Fascinating how long cult indoctrination can last, isn't it? :-) From: "awoelflebater@..." <awoelflebater@...> To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Thursday, March 6, 2014 3:59 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] RE: Funny article from the Guardian Newspaper about TM ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <s3raphita@...> wrote : Re transcending is a non-event and definitely not interesting.: Not interesting? Freud, Jung, Sartre and assorted behaviourists claimed that an experience of pure consciousness (awareness without an object) was impossible. So if pure awareness *is* a possible experience it blows such theories out of the water and is very suggestive indeed. It implies that we have a "Transcendental Ego" before - and after - we learn our role-play games. I was amused back in the day when a friend of mine, a young woman, in my early days in the movement said to me one time that asking someone if they had ever had a clear experience of transcending was rather like asking someone if they had lost their virginity! There's definitely a hierarchy in place here: an "I'm more spiritual than you" one-upmanship role play going on! Yes and here at FFL when Bawwy gets going on about his "experiences" as if he deserves some sort of special status. Shall we all create some sort of award for him, do you think?