--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "jim_flanegin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, a_non_moose_ff <no_reply@> > wrote: > > > > You seem to be beyond MMY's teachings. Do you feel you have > > transcended his insights and have (re)cognized a newer or higher > > reality? Do you feel your insights are deeper and superior to his? > > > Question for you: Why should you, or anyone else, use MMY and what > he says or writes as the 'gold standard' for their spiritual > development? I'm serious, not just being rhetorical...
Well, I think "tradition" is valuable in clarifying insights and interpretation about ones map, path(sadhana) and experiences. Over the years, I have found many people getting quite "confused" and misled by simplistic understandings they have concocted themselves or absorbed from pseudo-teachers out side of any tradition. Not to say the holy tradition that MMY says he represents is the single ultimate gold standard. But it is one "internally consistent" standard that is based on a substantial amount of tradition, practices, milestones, research, traditional records of experience, and realized beings. Other traditons may be more substantial in all areas, however that doesn't diminsh the value of the guideposts MMY has cemented into the spiritual geography. Traditions are like guideposts. They provide useful maps and markers. Maybe not always "interoperable" between traditions, but consistent and useful within a tradition. Its sort of like scientific theories and paradigms. One experiment (one person's experience) does not create or substantiate scientific knowledge or theory. It takes many experiments, repeated by independent researchers, under diverse conditions, and examining many various ranges of observations, to create a sustained and accepted scientific model of how the world works. Spiritual traditions are similar. One persons experience, no matter how grand, does not map out the entire territory of spiritual growth. Nor the liklihood of this or that method on this or that aspirant. A spiritual tradition synthesizes the experiences of many diffferent types of people, under different conditions, over long periods of time, and creates a coherent model and standard accepted practices suitable for "many" -- not just one person. Such spiritual tradition are not created in one generation. It is not ad hoc. It is not made up as one or a group of yogis progress. It links individual experience with the experinces, sadhanas and roadmaps/views of many aspirants over many generations and centuries. To disgard all traditions, to make it up as one goes along, is in my observations over the years, usually quite foolish and unproductive. I have seen a fair amount of people delude themselves over the years. In the latter 70s, a prominent Golden Boy SIMS lecturer, Walter Belin (sp) and his wife, Margurite (long time int'l staffer) wrote a letter to MMY about a new guru they had met and were following, a South African businessman. MMY said, "So the choice is clear, you can follow the ageless vedic tradition, our ancient holy tradition, or you can follow the Johanesberg (sp) tradition." He laughed as did everyone for about five minutes. Not to say a person of great purity and insight doesn't come along occasionally and total knowledge just unfolds within them with no help from tradition. But this is a "soul" beyond most, beyond the path and "needs" of a young SB Saraswati, Yogananda, etc. Usually its an avatar, like Shankara who wrote all or most of his commentaries by 16. People outside of a tradition often borrow terms from other traditions, and use them -- but without the substance, the meaningfulness from the tradition. The grand terms are used to describe the more trivial and mundane. It becomes a semantic hodgpodge and furthers the delusion of proponents and those sucked up in the nonsense. Not to say that many can't and don't have good spiritual experiences outside of formal traditions. But without a tradition that has stood some test of time, of long-range view, the "neo-traditions" -- first-generation ad-hoc, make it up as you go patchworks of "knowledge", tend to create interpretations of experiences that are more fantasy and "belief" based than substance based. To follow the TMO tradition, and then "go beyond it" outside of any other tradition, may work for some. But it explicitly means that one is rejecting the "insights" of MMY's "vedic/holy" tradition, and that they are holding out their own insights as superior (for themselves, at a minumum, and for some, they claim universal application of their insights.) For example, you differ from MMY, in i) the role of belief in the effectivness of TM and TM siddhis (as well as most all sadhanas presumably) ii) the attributes of Brahman Consciousness (you appear to hold the absence of suffering to be the sole criteria.) iii) that CC, GC, UC are not milestones to BC; BC is gained without passing trhough these milestones (even a non-linear set of such milesones) iv) that extensive long rounding is not necessary for cc for all but a few (he says this in smaller groups) Probably you disagree with him in many other areas. Not to say you are wrong and he is right. But I assume that your "insights" are not coming from some other spiritual tradition that has a meaningful "reasearch" history and reputation for success (many aspirants, many sadhanas, many generations). And while your personal observations may be interesting, on one hand we have the Santa Claran tradition of several years stemming from one persons experience and his (shakey, IMO) interpreation of them vs. on the other hand, MMY's "vedic" / "holy tradition" which maps the experiences and unfoldment ofconsciousness back through antiquity. Which (MMY's traditon) may not itself be perfect, but does represent MMY's traditonal service/study with a saint universally recognized as grandly illuminated, MMY's own several years of silence/sadhana, and his 50 + years of working extensively with a vast array of western and eastern scientists (Indian pundits and "practicioners") in honing his teachings, and the testing of his teachings on tens of thousands of students. Again, his view and teachings may not be perfect, the best, or a gold standard. But without further info I would bet on it over the one-man,one-generation Santa Claran tradition. Thats my experience and ovservations over 40 years. Others may have different observations. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
