---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <turquoiseb@...> wrote :
From: "steve.sundur@... [FairfieldLife]" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Friday, May 23, 2014 2:04 AM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] The Manchurian Spiritual Seeker It is interesting Barry that your interest in the TMO and it's founder is so undiminished after all these years. I actually have zero interest in Maharishi. I never read anything by him or watch even the shortest video posted here. And my interest in the TMO is literally academic because what I *am* interested in are cults and the cult mentality. That's fascinating to me, whereas the teachers around whom the cults develop are completely uninteresting to me. Then, obviously, your own participation in such groups has been a source of your own analysis and interest. I have thought about my own involvement in the Robin group, not so much TM because I was a very fringe participant there, and it is not so easy to generalize what causes people to seek out and stick around a 'teacher' and become a part of a group of people - adopting lifestyle and habits and ideas that are somewhat dictated by the nature of the group one is involved in. Certainly the nature and the personalities and the background were not that similar in the case of the Robin group. Some were young, some older, some were downright old, some rich, some not so rich, equally female to male ratio, singles, married couples, Canadians and Americans. All had practiced TM at one time or were TM teachers. Unlike you, I am fascinated by those who can hold sway over others. I am interested in what it is that draws and holds people and I would love to hang around a number of different 'teachers' or charismatic people to see if I feel any draw and if I did what the nature of that draw might be. I like to test myself and I like to see how things effect me, especially having a far greater self awareness now after my experience in my own cult with RC. Certain individuals have great power to attract one to them and what that is is really, really interesting. But I also know that the attraction ultimately has to do with the person being attracted, not so much who is doing the attracting but the dynamic is fascinating as is the nature of magnetism. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <turquoiseb@...> wrote : From: "TurquoiseBee turquoiseb@... [FairfieldLife]" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> To: "FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> Sent: Thursday, May 22, 2014 2:29 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] The Manchurian Spiritual Seeker 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. Not to give short shrift to the talking head on the tapes who has now programmed people to desire enlightenment more than anything else in life, he IS willing to help out. In fact, he has an entire product line of extra-cost courses, techniques, quack medicines, and even properly-oriented-to-the-Laws-Of-Nature houses to help them get there faster. The more of them you buy, the faster you get "there." Heck, he's so concerned about their prospects for enlightenment that he's even willing to allow them to become teachers, and help him sell these products. Now that's compassion.
