---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <curtisdeltablues@...> wrote :
--In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <awoelflebater@...> wrote : You bet. I rode every day. I walked and trotted and cantered along the soybean and cornfield perimeters. I rode in the blizzardy freezingness of those snowy winter days when the snowdrifts mounded up high enough that my horse had to jump through them in plunging strides just to get to the other side. I rode in a face mask, hat and with three layers of down vests and coats. I rode in the baking heat and on dirt roads that were cracked and red. I escaped to my place where no meditator ventured and it was a mere 4 miles from campus. Just Somerset and I. It was my private place. It was my way of connecting to the FF that existed before meditators flocked to such an unlikely place. It kept me grounded and I felt like I could become a bit more familiar with the farmers, what they did with/to the land and I felt privileged to have access to this. Perhaps it was what kept me from falling completely under the influence of what was going on at MIU or perhaps I was never a candidate for this anyway and that was why I sought daily refuge enduring the extreme elements of Iowa weather in summer and in winter. Remember how summer was all of a sudden there? One minute it was very cold and then you'd wake up one May morning and the birds were hysterical and the heat was mounting and the smell was of wet, rich soil. Overnight transformation - no Spring at all. I loved Iowa in all its bleakness and its strange overnight fecundity. C: Thanks Ann that made checking in totally worthwhile. Ann: "One minute it was very cold and then you'd wake up one May morning and the birds were hysterical and the heat was mounting and the smell was of wet, rich soil." You hear this every year, or at least I do. This idea that we've transitioned directly from winter to summer. I wonder if it is supported by facts? Right now we are having a cold spell, and everyone is talking about how crazy the weather is. I guess spring is perhaps characterized by 70 degree weather for a period of months. Maybe I can take the time to check it out looking at average temperatures over the years for the Midwest and see if they've changed over the decades. But even if I don't it is always curious to hear this same complaint every year around this time. Or at least it seems so. On the other hand, when you have a perfect spring day, it really seems to stand out, and people comment about it. C:That was one of the most beautiful lines I have read anywhere Ann.You have set a new bar here. I was gunna write about the fireflies at night merging with the stars at the horizon line, but I can't bear to see anything I would write next to your post. I hope this comment marks this out so others don't miss it. ---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 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." 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. 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. 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. You bet. I rode every day. I walked and trotted and cantered along the soybean and cornfield perimeters. I rode in the blizzardy freezingness of those snowy winter days when the snowdrifts mounded up high enough that my horse had to jump through them in plunging strides just to get to the other side. I rode in a face mask, hat and with three layers of down vests and coats. I rode in the baking heat and on dirt roads that were cracked and red. I escaped to my place where no meditator ventured and it was a mere 4 miles from campus. Just Somerset and I. It was my private place. It was my way of connecting to the FF that existed before meditators flocked to such an unlikely place. It kept me grounded and I felt like I could become a bit more familiar with the farmers, what they did with/to the land and I felt privileged to have access to this. Perhaps it was what kept me from falling completely under the influence of what was going on at MIU or perhaps I was never a candidate for this anyway and that was why I sought daily refuge enduring the extreme elements of Iowa weather in summer and in winter. Remember how summer was all of a sudden there? One minute it was very cold and then you'd wake up one May morning and the birds were hysterical and the heat was mounting and the smell was of wet, rich soil. Overnight transformation - no Spring at all. I loved Iowa in all its bleakness and its strange overnight fecundity.
