--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >
> > A gal I knew from another spiritual trip had an inter- > esting theory about this stuff. She felt that although > there is a lot of variety among the spiritual seekers > one finds in this world, basically you can pretty > safely "sort" them into two categories. > > The first category is composed of the seekers who are > content with reading about other people's adventures. > They get off on scriptures and tales of other people's > enlightenment, and on intellectual discussions of other > people's experiences, and that's enough for them. > > The second category is composed of mystics, those who > will settle for nothing less than having their *own* > experiences. Reading about them isn't enough; talking > about them isn't enough; coming up with entertaining > (but essentially worthless) models to "explain" the > experiences isn't enough. They want the Real Thing, > and if the spiritual group or teacher they're assoc- > iated with isn't providing it, they move on to some- > thing that does. > > I've always tended to agree with her assessment. In > general, the people in the first group say "Maharishi > says" (or "<Fill-in-name-of-teacher-or-historical-saint > here> says") a lot. Because they're not actually *having* > very many spiritual experiences, they assume that no one > else is either, and therefore they become dependent on > intellectual analysis of Other People's Experiences, > especially those of their teacher, whom they *imagine* > is having all *sorts* of good experiences. Barry, there is no way you/we can know whether "...they're not actually having very many spiritual experiences..." Who knows you "they" even are, how they would define spirituality, what they were really looking for, how their interpretations of their own growth in life have changed, etc. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> See what's inside the new Yahoo! Groups email. http://us.click.yahoo.com/2pRQfA/bOaOAA/yQLSAA/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/
