I agree, Ann. As I mentioned earlier, there is nothing helpful, educational, or socially acceptable in the way Barry acts, and that should be plainly obvious. Pointing it out is a normal response, much as I would comment to my wife and others, were Barry ranting and abusing others, in the supermarket.
What Taxius doesn't see, if that this character isn't Barry at all, but a brainwashed analog of the spiritual criminal, Freddie Lenz. Poor Barry hasn't had an original thought in his head, post-Lenz. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <awoelflebater@...> wrote : ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <anartaxius@...> wrote : You wish to offload the feelings you have in response to what someone says to you, about you, about others, to that someone for blame or revenge? In my experience, whether or not a person is nice or abusive, that person always distorts another person's values and ideas because no two minds are exactly alike. There can be superficial agreement, but if you dig deep enough, understandings, feelings etc., do not line up between two people. You are letting Barry get to you, he tried it with me too, and I took a step back and tried to analyse my response. As Barry does not seem to go about shooting others with firearms or stabbing them with knives, or attempting to ruin others nefariously by financial manipulation it seems possible to come to some accommodation. I found it was possible. I was never able to come to an accommodation with Judy Stein for example, although when I first came on here, she was friendly and Barry was hostile. There are certain affinities but they may be entirely superficial. He likes certain kinds of music. So do I, but we have different tastes. I pursued spirituality from basically an atheist point of view because I knew it was possible, and Barry seems to be in a non-religious space as well. Barry appears to like Curtis, and so do I. This thread, started by Barry, is wonderful for the kind of discussion that it can dredge up because it relates to ultimate questions about what we can know and tends to illuminate responses that give us an inkling of how other view the world. There is a terrible lack of humour in the religious world. The main affinity here is that all ideas are open to discussion here, and no ideas are sacrosanct. Barry would not give me a free ride were he to disagree with me about something. I have never met Barry (and logically therefore he has never met me); we live thousands of miles apart. I have seen a single rather grungy photo of him, apparently shot in Paris, one version in colour and the other in black and white on his linkedin page (you really should get a better shot Barry if you read this). If you really want to see repetitive button pushing behaviour and response you should watch the Jerry Springer show on TV. Marvellous primate studies of human mating behaviour. You cannot get much lower than this. At least here people think from time to time. Now if you think Barry is abusive, bitter, negative, and we suppose this were true, how much space would you allow him to vent his frustrations and give him the opportunity to grow? My first spiritual experiences came at the hands of one John Rosenberg (AKA Werner Erhard). I had no inkling that I was going to have a spiritual experience. He began his course by calling everyone in the room a bunch of god damn ass holes. The purpose was to elicit conditioned responses, and some took the bait. But the idea behind the method was to eventually within the course structure to get people to realise in their own experience how these conditioned responses situate themselves within and how they arise, and how to begin to deal with them. So what Barry does does not bother me, I have been dealing with my own conditioned responses going on half a century so I just do not care that you are seemingly upset. Being enlightened, you should know enough by now to deal with that yourself. From my side, if I want an abusive relationship with either a spouse or a spiritual teacher I'd go and find one on my own. I don't need bawee to provide this button pushing service for me. You're giving this asshat a free ride to spew his anger and frustration and just plain rotten manners all over without holding him responsible like any normal/decent human being. Cut with the dissertations, Xeno, sometimes you just have to realize some very simple facts. You're quite the apologist for him. It makes me think you played this enabling role in your family at some point. Did you have an alcoholic parent because that is a classic situation where this develops.
