Very cogently expressed!
I'll buy you a pint next time I'm in Merrye Olde Englande, but it won't be
Stella Artois cuz I don't want you to glass me.
--------------------------------------------
On Sat, 3/15/14, salyavin808 <no_re...@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Students inquire about pandits during forum FF
Ledger 3/14/14
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
Date: Saturday, March 15, 2014, 11:06 PM
I don't have confirmation bias about this. I
would be more than happy to have seen any results from
yagyas.
I also know someone who made a miraculous
recovery from a head injury without any help from the gods
(no one paid for any at least). Some people do spontaneously
and unexpectedly recover from health crises, it's how
miracles work - we only see the good results and filter out
the rest. Think Lourdes, how many hundreds of thousands of
people go there every year? And how many get cured? Probably
the same miniscule amount as get anything from
yagyas.
It's a coincidence if anything happens at
all, or the gods are a particularly unpleasant bunch who
relish in our suffering. That's as good an argument as
you'll get against the concept of a god capable of
intervening in our affairs. He's a git. But the eastern
religions have a great many get-out clauses for him which we
are all familiar with; My karma is too bad or there's
too much stress in collective consciousness. I wish I'd
thought of it but I just don't have a criminal
mind.
Things like this evolve out of old superstitious
ways of working things out. If something happens when the
moon is overhead then the moon is responsible. If it
doesn't happen next time the moon is overhead then there
must be something - or someone - spoiling it and the hunt
for the scapegoat starts. Scale it up and you've
explained most of human history. The trouble is these things
hang on because they offer so many more benefits than having
to take responsibility for what happens to you and accept
the ugly hand of chance in your affairs.
Looking back, it's a real motif of my time in
the TMO that whenever anyone had business or personal
problems they'd always say they were getting a yagya
done. Even if they were close to bankruptcy they'd spend
the last few thousand on a prayer. And they'd always say
it like it was the most obvious next step to take like
getting the spare tyre out when you got a puncture, simple
cause and effect. But there was never any effect. And no one
ever wondered why, it would all get rationalised
somehow.
The best ones are when someone has a yagya done
because a jyotishee foretells from planetary positions that
they have bad karma coming back that should be avoided. A
yagya recommendation is made and palms are crossed with
serious silver. And nothing happens. The yagya worked! You
can spot the logical error here can't you.
The whole thing gave me the creeps because I
never believed a word of it, and it annoyed me having to
keep my mouth shut when good friends handed over the cash
for this "service", I knew they'd never get
anything and never see the money again because I seriously
doubt we live in a universe that operates in that
way.
This whole conversation on FFL reminds me of the
Catholic church and what happened to them when people got
fed up having to take the priests word for everything and
pay them for god's favour. Asking questions is the first
step back to sanity
IMO.
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <sharelong60@...>
wrote :
Salyavin, it sounds like the meeting
was for students and faculty and I am neither. But on a more
practical level, I didn't even know about the meeting
until I read Rick's post!
As for health yagyas, I personally know of one young man who
had a miraculous recovery, doctors' words, from a head
injury received during a car accident.
There are probably an equal number of examples on either
side of the question. Which leads me to think that these
types of discussions really come down to what a person WANTS
to think, wants to believe. That confirmation bias that
Richard mentioned.
On Saturday, March 15, 2014 12:35 PM,
salyavin808 <no_re...@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
You
mean you weren't allowed in?
Ask them why yagya's don't
work. If I was to seriously count all the money I know has gone into the
TMO on the basis of Marshy's say-so that that this is
the greatest power we know of, I'd be here all day.
I'm talking hundreds of thousands of pounds, for
nothing. The most recent I can't even tell you about
because I respect the sincerity of the people involved and
it was for a very sick person - who obviously gained no
benefit from the many thousands donated. But how about the
two recent yagya's for Skelmersdale to get some land
they were after for their new village? around £10,000 each!
Did they work? No, of course not. And the list is
endless.
Here's
your second question, why are they so expensive? $5000 at
least for a health yagya! I know people who have had loads.
Serves them right for
being so gullible you might say, but look at the belief
system supporting it, it even has ready made excuses for why
they don't work and reasons why you're better off
not asking for your money back!!!!! It's a masterstroke
really, almost Blofeldian in it's
ingenuity.
I could
think of more but you get the gist. Basically it's a
cranky old belief system that Marshy typically made so very
seductive; being able to buy prayers to get out of trouble.
Surely the last refuge of the desperate. And even though it
didn't even work it's still an article of faith.
I never admire unswerving devotion because it means you
never grow. Can't grow in fact. That is what the TMO
became to me, not an evolving organisation but a staid and
dogmatic cult of personality. But great fun to
watch.
---In
FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <sharelong60@...> wrote
:
salyavin, yes, my suspicions got
aroused at that bit about it being private. I'm hoping
the next meeting will be open to people like me and I'll
attend and ask some questions. If not, then I'm hoping
that Rick will pass on what's been said here.
Just as I told turq that I
don't expect 100% certainty, nor do I expect 100%
transparency. But imo, there is progress in that
direction.
On Saturday, March 15, 2014 11:05 AM,
salyavin808 <no_re...@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
My response to what? I think Yagya's are a
load of crap and I really think everyone involved should
take a long hard look at what they are paying for:
“But
no, they can’t just walk to Walmart. They can walk around
inside their campus; it’s about a square mile. If they
were allowed to go everywhere, the
distractions would no doubt interfere with their study and
reading.”
“We’re
at
the smallest group size now since 2007,” he said.
“We’re under 300 pandits. When the group is larger,
there is more bliss, more wholeness.”
Even Fred Travis agrees with me
that the TMO shouldn't be selling something they
haven't scientifically proved. I don't know what
everyone is finding unreasonable about me pointing out that
fact. If it works, prove it, if it doesn't let the poor
guys go home so they can do something useful with their
lives.
In any case:
“Well, it was
a minority,” said Goldstein. “We have been meeting with
individual groups to find out what happened. We’re not
talking about why.
We want to take action. We did not arbitrarily make the
decision to remove this one leader. It was a decision not
made lightly. But it is private.”
It looks
like a giant step to not telling you anything to
me....
But at least somebody there
asked why they should support it if it doesn't work.
That's what you should be yowzering about. I don't
care what people believe, I'm happy for them to believe
anything at all but when it involves people from other
countries being roped in and caged up, lest they get
"distracted", that's when I start to worry.
Especially when the people doing the hiring are supposedly
devoted to science and finding out what's going on in
the world. I hope people ask more questions about it, not
just about this incident but about why they are there at all
and if it is actually doing them or yourselves any good at
all.
