---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <curtisdeltablues@...> wrote :
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <awoelflebater@...> wrote : ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <curtisdeltablues@...> wrote : ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <sharelong60@...> wrote : Curtis, can you say in a nutshell what about consciousness you think Maharishi got wrong? C: Thanks for asking Share. You will get more than a nutshell because this is a rich topic. The first fundamental problem for me is that he was shaping our view of our experiences from his techniques from a religious perspective created in a pre-scientific society. He made many unwarranted assumptions about the value of his techniques or what he was doing to our brains. Although they are highly addictive and pleasurable states of mind, I see no evidence that they improve anyone's thinking or creative processes. I see evidence of the opposite at least at higher levels of exposure. High exposure leads to an erosion of the ability to distinguish internal and external experiences. This causes a lot of problems that show up in claims here. I challenge his fundamental assumption that "knowledge is structured in consciousness." This is epistemological bogus and psychologically manipulative. It comes from a non modern view of what knowledge is that had its birth in a caste system controlled culture. If you see what Jim is attempting to assume here by virtue of his self reported grandiose claims of experiences you can see where this belief leads socially. It has been rejected by all modern societies for good reason. A: I have been following this discussion with moderate interest. My highlighted statement is what I find relatively unsupported and just kind of thrown out there. It doesn't resonate with anything true for me. If you want, you could elaborate on it. C: That it comes from a caste system controlled culture is an historical fact. That it is manipulative is my opinion. It tacks on another subjectively claimed aspect to knowledge that does not resonate with me now. It sets up a hierarchy of levels of knowledge without any reference to an objective standard. I cannot come up with an example that makes any sense to me now. YMMV A2: Yes, I believe my mileage might vary. First of all, I don't know the history of how philosophies and theories of consciousness have evolved. I am not interested in its evolution in terms of historical development nor am I, as I have stated earlier, a philosopher. I don't talk about things as much as just throw myself in there willy nilly and stumble over them. "Knowledge" is a relative term and can mean more to me than just learned things. Knowledge encompasses aspects of current experiences as well as past memories of learned things. How one subsequently structures this stuff into meaningful and useful cerebral data could be "structured in consciousness", structured in where one's consciousness is now. Consciousness simply being a concrete aspect of intelligence/awareness. I see this statement as an aspect or means of structuring knowledge within the embracing existence of an awareness (consciousness); we inevitably see things through the 'haze' of our awareness/consciousness so the resulting experience has been "structured" by it. A:When I first became familiar with TM and started SCI this "Knowledge is Structured in Consciousness" statement made a lot of sense. And while I don't really think about, let alone practice, TM anymore I still understand what it means and it hardly seems elitist or let alone bogus or psychologically manipulative. Instead I understand it as a very simple and clean statement and I believe it - as far as it goes. C2: I am drawing out the implications that seem important to me. Can you give any examples of this that makes sense to you? In teaching the idea we used to say that when you are tired you don't think clearly. But this is bogus because although that may be true it has nothing to do with my "knowledge." A2: But then the state of being "tired" is not what MMY meant by "consciousness" I don't believe. I think he meant it to mean something far more pervasive and abiding. Therefore, I would agree with you on this small point. My perspective on the world is not changed because of this I have to teach this way all the time for early classes. And by extension he is claiming that "knowledge" is somehow also changed by continuing to meditate and achieve his higher states of consciousness. I see zero evidence for this in my own or anyone else's life. Again YMMV so I am open to any examples that resonate with you. A2: I think he is saying consciousness changes, not so much knowledge. Knowledge is just input whereas consciousness, although subject to evolution and deepening, is the deciding factor, the thing that trumps knowledge because consciousness is always present and it is through the filter of consciousness that all things must pass. Knowledge is relative, consciousness is pervasive and colors what passes through it. Because of Maharishi's religiously motivated agenda, he was unable to combine more modern theories of the mind with his POV to expand it. He was unwilling to be humble about the limits of his knowledge and instead presented himself and his teacher as more than human with the appropriate humility concerning the human condition. He used science as marketing like a charlatan with zero respect for its methods. Over time this killed what could have been a much more interesting endeavor. He was a superstitious man and had the intellectual failing of hubris which clouded his judgement and turned a fascinatingly bright man into a caricature of himself. He became fat Elvis. A: From my experience at MIU and studying what it had to teach me for 4 years I certainly didn't find that. But then you stayed on board the ship of the traveling TM salesman and enthusiastic endorser far longer than I did. I basically got a degree and moved on. C: Maharishi did not respect the methods of science. He was an authority guy. He talked about it at length on many tapes whenever he was off marketing to the public mode. He was not open to the idea that any studies on TM would show anything but a positive result. A2: Again, you were around a lot longer than I was doing all sorts of teaching, learning more techniques, being subjected to lots more tapes and lectures than I was so I can not comment on MMY's authoritarian nature or his openness or lack thereof. While at MIU the scientific aspect of the effects of the techniques were emphasized and backed up by numerous "scientists" and studies. MMY appeared enamored with the ability/opportunity to use these handy methods to validate what he was teaching. I didn't once feel that he was anything but eager to explore what science could do to validate his teaching. Yes our experiences after MIU were different but even at MIU I suspect I was drawn to a different focus. I was in the library digging up transcripts of India lectures and you were probably in the open air on a horse somewhere! In retrospect I which I had been on one too. Did you ride there? I did cross country sky which was fantastic in that flat big sky land. Skiing. I remember a few people skiing to the cafeteria or Student Union on the snowy roads in winter. Maybe one of them was you. It is so funny that we attended MIU at the same time, knew many of the same people and yet I don't remember you at all. I also challenge his assumption about the silent state of meditation as either being our "true Self" or having any trans-personal implications about how the world works. The sidhis were supposed to be the proof of his trans-personal claims about the "absolute" but that test failed by his own created standards and criteria. So we are now left with people feeling different subjective things in the sidhis that cannot be tested and studied as well as grandiose claims about its affects on the world. I respect that Maharishi set up a legitimate test of his theories, but I do not respect that neither he nor his organization acknowledged the falsification of his theory by the lack of siddhi performance. He failed with his own clearly stated and self created test. That is just off the top of my head. But that is ten minutes worth and I hope you enjoy it. Please feel free to share your perspective. On Friday, May 16, 2014 2:58 PM, "curtisdeltablues@... [FairfieldLife]" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> wrote: ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <punditster@...> wrote : On 5/16/2014 11:54 AM, curtisdeltablues@... mailto:curtisdeltablues@... [FairfieldLife] wrote: > The problem was that I don't think he is right about human > consciousness. And that leads me to post on a site like this one as I > figure out where I stand on various issues of interest to others on > this board. > This is not about you, Curtis, it's mostly about Barry. C: Apparently your "mostly" left room for you to include me expliscitely. R: But, I would have thought you would have come to question MMY's human consciousness model about midway in your first Philosophy 101 course. So, why did it take you so many years to put it all together? C: You would think. But I had PHDs carefully shaping our conclusions. We were questioning lots, but the conclusion always came back to the empirical experience of Unity Consciousness. We figured that with that experience we were fulfilling the strictest epistemological criteria. The students who were able to maintain more intellectual integrity and challenged the system further got a big reaction from the admin. But they were teachers who didn't have TTC recommendations hanging over their heads. I was trained to be a company man early. I was also very young so it was not likely that I would have the confidence to challenge my professors. I am glad in some ways I didn't catch on then, my college life would have been hell instead of wonderful. The key piece for me to put it together was from outside sources that I had not found or did not exist then. It was a bit of an intellectual rabbit warren to untangle and it all took time. Plus I had been worked over pretty good with the devotion to the master routine. I had a lot of phobias against thinking too far outside the box. When it came crashing down it was quite a shock. R: It's just odd that you'd want to discuss anything here with the likes of Barry, seeing as how you feel now. Go figure. C: And I'm sure he thinks it is odd for me to want to discuss anything with you. I post here to interact with people who think differently than I do. It is how I can locate my intellectual edges. R: And, what in the world would MMY have to do with you practicing basic TM anyway? C: He had a lot, I was quickly indoctrinated into the master disciple relationship model. But I didn't stop TM because I thought Maharishi was a bad guy, I stopped because I thought he was wrong in his theories of human consciousness. I still do. That doesn't mean that TM won't turn out to be a useful mental trick to have in our tool box. It is for me. But his beliefs about it were too embroiled in his fundamentalist Hinduism for them to make sense to my perspective now. I believe he was a victim of his own success, kind of a tragic figure. Still amazing, but not what I would call a "saint." I work with some of those and it is a completely different type of person who fits my criteria. No Donald Trumps in a dhoti! --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com http://www.avast.com/
