I guess Xeno didn't see my posts about "shooting the messenger." Barry isn't criticized for bringing unwelcome news regarding TM, because he doesn't bring any. He's criticized for his extreme and usually dishonest negative spin on news we already know about, which is not what the phrase refers to.
And I would add a fourth principle to Xeno's list of the requirements of spirituality: telling the truth to the very best of one's abiliity. 'Shooting the messenger' is a metaphoric phrase used to describe the act of lashing out at the presumably blameless bearer of bad or unwelcome news. In earlier times, messages were usually delivered in person by a human envoy. Sometimes, as in war, for example, the messenger was sent from the enemy camp. An easily provoked combatant receiving such an overture could more easily vent anger (or otherwise retaliate) on the deliverer of the unpopular message than on its author. 'Attacking the messenger' is a form of the logical fallacy ad hominem (argument against the man rather than the proposition the man brings). In general spirituality is about something unseen and without form. This does not give one much to argue about or prove. Spiritual forums seem to develop a rather bitter style of debate. If someone disagrees with you or you them, there is not much, really, you can say about nothing. So the arguments devolve into name calling, and name calling is a form of ad hominem since it is designed to demean the man and distract from the points made. Let's say, I do not like Barry. I can call him a jerk. That is an opinion I can hold. As long as I am not using that opinion to try to refute what he says, it is not ad hominem. Some people do not like each other, and name calling on that basis is a time honoured human activity, but it is not one whit an argument against what a person says. How simple can spirituality be, since it consists of basically nothing? Having done a vast amount of cursory, shallow reading, I think it can be boiled down to just two or three principles. 1. Quietness, stillness (presumably taken care of by meditation) 2. Curiosity - scepticism, the willingness to question everything. 3. A consistent, persistent, and genuine desire to want to know what life is all about. The balance of these with their opposite qualities and how they are implemented determines success or failure. If you are not quiet, your mind will not be discriminative because it will never settle down and realise there is more to experience than thought. If you are not curious, you are likely to be a dupe, gullible and easily persuaded. If you do not have the motivation, you are going to just give up eventually. When you look at all the world's religions, all the spiritual groups and cults, you see these principles generally highly complexified and out of whack, out of balance, often with an overwhelming addition of irrelevant material and practices. If someone criticises your spiritual practice, and it bothers you, forgive them because either you or they (or both) know not what one is doing, but at this point you do not know which, so first you have to find out. If your spiritual practice has been successful (or also, totally failed), then you do not care much about all this shit. Unless you have some genuine compassion for your fellow man, you are also not going to be very interested in relating the benefits of knowing about nothing to your fellow man. It is not a requirement that you have this compassion.
