From: Duveyoung <no_re...@yahoogroups.com>
I'm thinking over here that having had an "experience" does not validate "as
necessarily true" the thoughts that arise afterwards. We see most folks here
thinking otherwise -- that is: they think that their thoughts MUST be resonant
with the ultimate reality of their recent experience.
Exactly. One's personal, subjective experience -- no matter how profound or
extraordinary -- does NOT constitute "reality."
To have seen someone levitate doesn't make one's subsequent thoughts about
levitation necessarily true. Even the person who levitates can be expected to
have but a mere abstraction for an explanation that is open to every sort of
nay-saying.
Relativity being such a dynamic, if one knows this, hypocrisy of a deeper
degree is needed to validate one's thoughts and yet invalidate the subsequent
thoughts of others -- others that had differing experiences.
Nabby is a very very sincere poster, for instance, yet we found him being
bonked by those who claim to not personally have such blinkeredness when it is
obvious to all that everyone is blinkered in some IMPORTANT and PROFOUND manner.
Stone, glass house and all that. No one gets to toss the first stone. Or the
second.
Do you honestly NOT remember how Nabby treated those who disagreed with him
here? Do you NOT remember the many times he described Rick and myself and
others as "bound for hell" or working for the CIA? Do you NOT remember the many
times he made shit up, just to diss someone who didn't feel the same way about
Maharishi he did?
I would expect that someone who found fault in others for being a true believer
and "running with it," would be especially careful to underline ones obvious
conflict of interests.
As for me being inside my head and not having had experiences. Harrumph.
While this assertion is not couched in the normal cruel-troll manner of
FFL-past, it does seem to accuse me of being spiritually bereft of the basic
information needed to be clear about spirituality. Only I could know if that's
true -- to assert it as true is to do a one-upman-ship deal. I claim that
this kind of insinuation is AGAINST THE GUIDELINES.
First, show this "guideline" to me in writing. I'll wait.
I am merely reporting how your *writing about* your supposed experiences
strikes me. That is, always in your head, never in the experience. Anartaxius'
writing never strikes me that way, and neither do the writings of other people
who, when they describe experiences that were for them transcendent epiphanies,
I don't doubt for a moment that they really had them. As for you, I don't
know...all I'm reporting is that *in your writing* you've never for a moment
convinced me that you actually have or have had the kinds of experiences you
write about intellectually. It's as if you write about them from such an
intellectual "distance" that I can't imagine you actually being close to the
experiences themselves. If that's not how it feels to you *as* you're writing,
I'm sorry to burst your bubble. That's how it feels to me reading them.
And let's face it, if I came on like gangbusters here and touted my spiritual
experiences, the mob would tear my descriptions asunder.....as has been done to
every single person who has come here to report suchlike.
NOT every single person. Show me who has taken Salyavin or Curtis to task for
mentioning their Unity experiences, or Anartaxius for writing about some of his
experiences. I don't remember that happening. Why? Well, IMO because when they
did so it was pretty matter-of-fact (this happened) and devoid of pretense
(this thing that happened "meant" what I say it did and nothing else). Now
think back to how many people -- not just myself -- have reacted to those whose
ego was flashing like a neon sign and who seemed unable to describe any
experience without declaring what it "means" and how superior that makes them.
I'm probably not doing a good job of writing this up, but it's early in the
morning and I just got in from Amsterdam after being up all night at a concert.
But at least I'm trying. Given some of the ways you've treated ME, I think
that's fairly big of me. Or don't you remember going a little bat-shit crazy
and calling me a sexual predator over something that was only inside your own
head?
This is the place where prophets come to not be honored....heh heh.
And in my opinion it's good that such a place exists. Imagine how *horrible*
and *boring* it would be for so-called "prophets" to only encounter people who
believe everything they say just because they say it.
And, by the way, I have had and continue to have some very profound moments
when all my abstractions align -- with a wonderful congruence -- with my heart
and thought stream. Moment by moment, if I wish to do so, I can suss out from
my flow of consciousness perfect examples of the concepts I hold dear.
Doesn't make me correct, but I sure do have experiences. I'll walk this back:
everyone has great experiences -- even if they've never personally noted such.
Given the human karma of the ego daily dying-into-sleep, being reborn in
dreams, and then coming back to life in the morning, what isn't magical? To
diss others for not describing it "well" or "logically" or "intuitively
acceptably," is at least juvenile and probably an act of aggression.....and
AGAINST THE GUIDELINES.
Unless you can show me the Yahoo Guidelines section that prohibits what you are
describing...uh...it isn't. It's just you wanting people to react a certain way
to things that you say or write and feeling unhappy when they don't.
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <turquoiseb@...> wrote :
Edg, because you're so...uh...edgy and all, I suspect you'll take my quickie
response below as if it was intended as some kind of affront, and it really
wasn't. I was just taking advantage of these "revalidated FFL guidelines" vibes
to just be honest.
To expand on this a bit, to be honest I've always gotten the impression from
your writing that your approach to most spiritual topics is intellectual, as
opposed to experiential. When you get into how much you know about Advaita, for
example, my impression is that this is stuff that you "know" -- intellectually
-- about Advaita, but without ever having experienced the states of
consciousness that are being written about. Correct me if I'm wrong about this.
I say this not to take a dig at you but to point out a possible distinction
between the two of us. I haven't just read about and thought about the basic
principle of Tantra -- the peaceful co-existence of complete opposites -- I've
*lived* it. I've spent fourteen years with Rama -- and all the time since --
living it.
Please try to remember who you're talking to here.
I write science articles for a living. I have a strong feel for what science
considers "real" in this world and what it does not.
At the same time, *I cannot deny my own experience*.
While knowing all of this about science, I have personally witnessed many of
the siddhis you have only read about. I have sat in the desert -- or in a
Dennys along a California highway -- and watched someone just gently lift up
off the ground (or the naugahyde Dennys benches) and float in the air for a
while.
The morning after experiencing something like that, if you are a bit of a
cynical scientist like myself, you tend to wake up thinking, "OK, what the fuck
was that?"
I still don't know.
All I know is that I experienced it, in states of mind that were as high and
clear as I have ever experienced in this incarnation, and that were completely
free from the effects of any kinds of drugs, and that for me it all really
fuckin' happened.
I am NOT saying that I know exactly *what* happened. What I'm saying is that
*something* fairly extraordinary happened, and that until someone proves to me
exactly what it was, I'm going to go easy on myself for not getting all anal
about what is "real" and what isn't.
That "real" enough for you, dude? :-)
From: "TurquoiseBee turquoiseb@... [FairfieldLife]"
<FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com>
To: "FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, June 9, 2015 8:53 PM
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Fancy that!
I have *absolutely no problem* with such seeming contradictions.
If you do, I would suggest that they just might be *your* problems. :-)
From: Duveyoung <no_re...@yahoogroups.com>
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, June 9, 2015 8:49 PM
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Fancy that!
Barry -- you are on record here being quite against most "magical thinking,"
but here we find you being quite the believer. "That explained quite a few of
my dreams during the period I lived there. :-)" Would this be hypocrisy or
you just playing loose with "what's real?" I ask this in the fullest sincerity
to honor the recently re-validated FFL guidelines.
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <turquoiseb@...> wrote :
Excellent.
A few years ago, before we actually moved from Spain to the Netherlands, my odd
extended family and I spent a month living in Amsterdam in a house we'd rented
there. It was a really cool house, with multiple floors and a grand piano and a
great kitchen, but at the same time there was always something "off" about it.
So I asked around the neighborhood and found that it had in previous centuries
been an asylum for crazy women. That explained quite a few of my dreams during
the period I lived there. :-)
From: salyavin808 <no_re...@yahoogroups.com>
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, June 9, 2015 8:02 PM
Subject: [FairfieldLife] Fancy that!
In the late '90's the TMO acquired a mansion in a highly sought after part of
London. Namely Kensington palace gardens. It was a fabulous house, right
opposite Kensington palace. Huge place with double iron gates and a massive
ballroom.
It faced east too. The heads of the movement all lived there and all said how
amazing the perfect vastu felt. I lived there too for a while, just helping out
the media department. Great place to stay as the big knobs sure knew how to
live, bespoke silk carpets and the best food eaten off mahogany tables.
The idea was that they'd use it to wine and dine the rich and famous thus
spreading TM to the top of society, as was Marshy's wish at the time. "The rich
won't eat in a poor house" he said, they sure didn't here! Not that all that
many came. Hardly any in fact, but the intention was a good one if you approve
of that sort of elitism. I didn't but staying there made a nice change from our
draughty, cold and empty mansion in the Bedfordshire countryside.
But as I was finishing my book on The Great Escape I was reminded that the
house had a rather more chequered history than expected. It was owned and used
by MI6 to interrogate captured Nazi officers during and after WW2. Including
the masterminds of the massacre that wiped out 50 allied airmen in 1944.
Fancy that, I might have slept in a room that was once occupied by a terrified
Gestapo murderer who sat awake all night dreading his fate at the hands of a
war crimes tribunal. I wonder if they appreciated the vastu at all?
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