---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <mjackson74@...> wrote :
Reading your post about the warning signs soon after beginning TM - can you believe that when I first started I was so stupid I really believed that all the local TM teachers were enlightened??? I think many who started TM were optimists and definitely had the characteristic of seeking to optimize their own personhood through a practice (in this case TM) that could somehow transform their mediocre state of physiology and psychology into something deeper and greater and healthier. All of us wanted those things and we believed that it was possible. There is nothing embarrassing about that. I think, for me, I did what I did with regard to TM and it was fine. I was initiated at 14, took SCI at Livingston Manor in the summer of 1975, went to MIU for four years, left FF and moved to the East Coast and worked for a while until I stumbled into Robin Carlsen who was this Movement renegade which I loved the idea of. Revolution! Great idea, lots of fun. I regret nothing. I let those who want to remain believing or who simply need community in FF to do their thing as they see fit. I'm doing mine and I still carry forward aspects of that initial optimism with regard to improving and deepening, maybe even having glimpses of what this is all about in random moments walking in the countryside somewhere in Greater Victoria or maybe strolling down a street in Havana. It's all so incredible - this life - but I say never kick yourself for being an optimist, for being an idealist. These are not negative qualities and, later, when we have all had various hopes dashed or plans gone awry we can find ourselves more balanced in our viewpoints but hopefully not angry and jaded. From: "Xenophaneros Anartaxius anartaxius@... [FairfieldLife]" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> To: "FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> Sent: Wednesday, June 24, 2015 3:12 PM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: WHAT THE HELL? (Great Beyond Dispatch #2) None of us are perfect, and there does seem to be a narrowing of one's focus on certain things as we move into older age. I wasn't on FFL in the early days, but sniping back and forth did seem to be increasing, it's basically a lower brain function. Maharishi seemed to be in much better form when he was younger too. Each conversation has two sides. I cannot see that those that opposed Turq so vociferously here really acted much better or more intelligently. I cannot see that the Peak with its absurd discussions of crop circles etc., is a Peak of intelligence. The goal, if you will, is to have the extremes of existence all functioning within that existence, not as separated things. So FFL is still the best bet to find a decent conversation, but there is a dark cloud of suppression overhead at the moment, and so far it has been what seems to be personally selective. It is the ideas and what you can learn from them, or make out of them, not the people that propose them that I find interesting. What you do not like, skip over or delete (if you interact by email). Perhaps all of us have had an idol that did not live up to the image we pretended to ourselves that they were. In the movement, even shortly after one started to get involved with TM, there were strange warning signs something was amiss, and we would ignore it. The main problem is human beings are never ever really a match for the ideals they create. Still, we can sometimes extract value out of a much-less-than-what-we-would-consider-ideal situation. From: "jason_green2@... [FairfieldLife]" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, June 24, 2015 6:34 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: WHAT THE HELL? (Great Beyond Dispatch #2) You know Xeno, about 14 years ago 'Uncle Tantra' was like a giant to me, battling the TM-mov't and other cults. As all three of us are basically on the same page philosophically, I did learn a lot from him. But, as years of interaction showed he is not as perfect as I thought him to be. I guess we all are human. But, it's a fact that I learnt quite a number of valuable things from him. What I tried to explain is that his reaction when I was bounced, was almost brazen and callous. Some of his critiques about the TM-mov't a decade ago were well written and should be read by the people on the highest level in the mov't. It seemed, he began to slowly deterioriate mentally as years rolled by. Time is time, it eventually catches you, and you are history. By the way, don't you think MJ should start "the_abyss" group. The peak can be the north pole. The FairfieldLife the equator, and 'the abyss' the south pole. --- <anartaxius@...> wrote : Senility just means life is getting mellower. While it is true authfriend would root out various kinds of errors in what people wrote, she often did not see the forest for the trees, and did not expound much on what she actually knew about the subjects she was criticising were discussing. It was all dissection and no integration. If you go over Turq's posts for the last 10 years, you will find he also could provide clarity. Both Turq and authfriend tried made people look like idiots, and possibly some us were and still are. --- <jason_green2@...> wrote : Hey Xeno, it's me, moi, the old jedi_spock. Rick bounced me along with 'Dan firedman'. I never got yahoo to interfere in the freedom of speech here. It was Dan who did it. Rick didn't give me an opportunity to explain my POV. A few days later Rick kindly reinstated me. Thanks to Curtis who put in a good word to Rick. Looks like you too are becoming senile like Barry. It's these kind of errors that irritated authfriend. Tell you what, you and me, along with Salyavin, MJ, Curtis move over to "the abyss". Let 'the abyss' be the mirror of fairfieldlife. Hell, I wish someone like "gullible fool" comes back and takes over the moderatership from Buck. Barry's posts were never designed to give people clarity. Barry's posts were designed to hurt people at the tender feeling level and make them look like idiots. There was a sadistic streak in his posts that befuddled people. --- <anartaxius@...> wrote : No, he doesn't appear to be a psychopath. If anything, I am closer to being one than him. His career path, and the people he lives with probably would not have worked out that way if he were a psychopath. Psychopaths tend to be ingratiating, they have an ability to make you like them. Turq does not seem to have that ability to create a fake, loving façade that will fool most people, if anything, he is the opposite, an acquired taste that many here cannot stomach. You were trying to get Yahoo to interfere with freedom of speech here, and Rick did not care for such a threat. But now of course, freedom of speech is curtailed, just in another direction, a bit more in the direction of insanty, as he gave moderation to the one here most infected with religion. Religious people tend not to enjoy free speech when it comes to their sacred cows. I think all people who believe in a religion are insane, so apparently you would fall into that category. But it is a limited insanity. For example, you might know how to make a good cup of coffee, and know precisely how to proceed to accomplish that and have other skills. But the human mind comes to a strange disconnect when it comes to religious beliefs. It is felt they must be protected and that somehow they are different from other beliefs. But all beliefs have one characteristic, they are a pretence to knowledge which one does not really have, and religious beliefs tend to be programmed into the mind at an early age where the mind is very plastic and vulnerable and gullible. It is a form of conditioning that results in a mechanical response to certain kinds of input later in life. A spiritual life is one in which those conditioned beliefs are unwound and are replaced by something you would never in a million years expect.
