Foer me, TM IS a clean slate. L
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <fleetwood_macncheese@...> wrote : Sure - clean slate and then see what comes back naturally. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <LEnglish5@...> wrote : For me, that line has more than one valid perspective. Most people see it as eschewing authority. I also see it as eschewing technique. L ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <fleetwood_macncheese@...> wrote : "Followed by a similar experience to your current one." Its called, if you see the Buddha on the road, kill him. An absolute must, for anyone serious about all of this. And sometimes, he comes down the road more than once. :-) PS Due to the easily confused on here, I should add this has nothing to do with Buddhism, either pro or con. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <fleetwood_macncheese@...> wrote : I had an inkling of this transcendent thing, back in high-school. My friends were trying visualization meditation, drugs, Buddhist, Taoist, Christian religious stuff, guided meditation, tai-chi, nutritional therapies, and everyone was reading Alan Watts' Be Here Now, and Stuart Brand's The Whole Earth Catalog. I tried it all, and wasn't catching a buzz. So, my girlfriend's mom, who I liked, and we were visiting (at an Air Force Base outside Sacramento), mentioned TM. Sometime later, I don't recall how long afterwards, November 1975, I went to an intro lecture, liked the vibe of the building and the teachers, and for 65 bucks, what the heck? Had a great first meditation, that satisfied whatever I had been trying to feel, through all my previous efforts. So I stuck with it, and by the way, went through a pretty intense evangelical phase, years ago. Followed by a similar experience to your current one. We all do the same stupid shit - the key is in unflinchingly (what an ugly word...) recognizing it, accepting it, and moving on. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <mjackson74@...> wrote : how did you come to do TM and what kinds of questions did you ask if any before starting? From: "fleetwood_macncheese@... [FairfieldLife]" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Thursday, May 22, 2014 8:39 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: The Manchurian Spiritual Seeker Part of the reason the seeker gets sucked in, in this fantasy scenario of yours, is lack of prior experience. Most of those who go hook, line and sinker into such a situation, as you have, at least twice, do so, out of naivete, an uncritical acceptance of what is being offered, without the skills, or experience to evaluate what they are getting themselves into. As enthusiastic as I was about TM, I did not join the organization blindly, as my life had already shown me that things are not always as they appear. Please don't make your common mistake of thinking that your shortcomings, apply to all of us. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <turquoiseb@...> wrote : As a followup to the question of why so many TMers believe so thoroughly that enlightenment is not only "special," it's the "most special" thing one can possibly aspire to in life, consider this scenario: You've just arrived -- tired and jetlagged after a long flight to Europe -- and have landed in a quaint hotel overlooking spectacular sights that tourists pay big bucks to wander among. Instead of visiting them, however, you are ushered to a tiny hotel room, where you are told to practice certain mental and physical activities 6-8 hours a day. Your handlers tell you that these activities are considered so disorienting and so liable to impair your ability to handle yourself on the streets that you're not allowed to leave the hotel to go into town or see any of the sights. Pretty much the only time you are *allowed* to leave the hotel, in fact, are on the scheduled short "walk and talks" you have to take, and then only in the company of your "buddy." In the time between your practice of these mind-bending practices, pretty much the only things you get to do are eat and sit in rooms full of people as spaced out as you are, watching hour after hour after hour of videotapes. On the tapes, the talking head (usually the same one) goes on and on and on and on about enlightenment, and how it's the most wonderful thing since sliced Wonderbread. He talks about all the spectacular and powerful things that the enlightened can do that lesser mortals cannot. He presents a series of role models from Indian tradition, *all* of whose stories seem to revolve around making enlightenment The Most Important Thing In Their Lives. Occasionally he'll tell cautionary tales of the Bad Things that happen to people who start on this awesome quest for enlightenment and fall Off The Path, and the horrible karmic things that happen to them as a result. After several weeks or months of this, you go home. And somehow the things you felt were important before as worthy goals to pursue in your life don't seem so important. The ONLY thing that inspires you and gets your yang up is attaining enlightenment. Go figure.
