--In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <punditster@...> wrote : On 5/2/2014 6:24 AM, Share Long wrote:
And Richard, how can we possibly separate belief and practice completely? I don't think we can simply because we don't live our lives with our heads cut off from our bodies! > We cannot possibly separate our beliefs completely, but what we can do is challenge anyone who tries to control our mind and body through coercion with false dichotomies. Everyone meditates and everyone is transcending, even without a technique. So, after fifteen years of dialog disparaging meditators on this and one other discussion group, it now comes out that Curtis and Barry are the True Believers - they meditate. So, what exactly was their argument against meditating? C: Even in my most enthusiastic presentations on cults when I first left TM I allowed that the practice itself my be beneficial for certain people. I do not believe that TM or any one meditation practice is good for ALL people. My disagreements with Maharishi revolve around his conclusions about what the experiences we have in meditation mean. As far as the practice itself I don't accept the traditional belief structure as authoritative. I am advocating admitting that we don't know all about TM or other forms of meditation but that the field holds some interest for me after having taken an 18 year break from being interested in any meditation practice at all. R: It's was all about Judy. C: Speak for yourself! R: MMY has NOTHING to do with their transcending. It's that simple. C: Not that simple since his framework for understanding my subjective meditation experiences was one that I embraced and then rejected. It continues to shape my perspective today and always will. But your assumptiveness in using the term "transcending" reveals a lot about your own beliefs around the practice. I would not use that term to describe how I think of my experiences in TM or with mindfulness meditation. the word is too loaded with assumptions to be useful in describing my own experience with them now. This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus http://www.avast.com/ protection is active.
