--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, t3rinity <no_reply@> wrote: > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <jstein@> wrote:
> What's so ironic in this case is that your story > about MMY *wasn't even a challenge*, it was just > an alternate possibility. > > And Barry could have continued to maintain his > opinion *even if he accepted that your story was > true*, by suggesting that MMY may not really have > had a vision he thought was of Guru Dev, but had > made it up as an excuse. Of course. Both ways, 1) the vison didn't take place, or 2) the vison wasn't authentic (that is not from a real disembodied GD) > (Of course, you also made it clear that you weren't > claiming the vision MMY said he'd had was actually > a visitation from a disembodied Guru Dev, so > whether such visitations are even possible is > completely irrelevant.) > > What Barry found so threatening about your story > was the mere idea that there *was* an alternate > possibility to his take. Barry had already started to discuss No 2, by citing the many examples out of the Rama community, who channeled him after his death. I had pointed out the difference, for example that MMY didn't boast about his experience (even to the extend that people in the movement don't know about it), and he didn't really channel, that is give messages out (which was Barrys argument for creating self-importance). When I had pointed this out, he jumped lines and started saying, that the whole vision didn't take place (because he never had heard of it), and accused me of being a paranoid cultist. IOW he lost patience. I think I am sort of a red rag to him. To me the import of the story is this: If No.2 is the case, that is, if the vision had taken place, but isn't authenitic, MMY couldn't be accused of betraying his master, because he himself *believed* that he did his masters bidding. In fact, as there is no way to prove, if a vision is true or not, it would have been impossible to demonize MMY. As you say, everything is possible, but to me the story MMY retells about the beginning of the movement, his experiences at Kanyakumari and Guruvayur, where MMY 'received the inspiration to give the blessing of the Himalayas' (quote History Book) shows that visionary, or to avoid the word, inner mystical experiences, were at the start of the movement, and that is btw. the way most religious movements started. In the Beacon Light he says at one point, (just rephrasing) that the blessing of GD is now available, and he doesn't know how long it will last. When you hear the tapes about how he left Uttar Kashi, he tells, how he felt a lack, an emptiness after GD's death. He also speaks clearly of the witnessing, how thought just emerge, and he witnesses them, like the thought to go to Rameshvaram. Then this other yogi tells him to get rid of the thought by going there. So, this vision, if it happened, came to MMY just about two years after the death of his master, with whom he had been close for 13 years, and which had left some kind of emptiness in him. That would be very different situation from let's say me having a vision of GD now, whom I had never seen, and wouldn't miss physically. His remarks in the Beacon Light and the historybook show, that he felt GD's presence with him - very different from the emptiness he described in the tapes after GD's death, when he went to Uttar Kashi. > As I've been saying for some time--and LB Shriver > also commented recently--some of the True NON-Believers > here, Barry in particular, are utterly blind to the > fact that their thought processes are indistinguishable > from the those of the very truest of True Believers. I think you have a point here Judy: As the WP atricle on Eric Hoffer says: 'As he describes in The True Believer, a passionate obsession with the outside world or with the private lives of other people is merely a craven attempt to compensate for a lack of meaning in one's own life.' Substitute 'private lives of other people' with Judy Stein and when and how often she posts. Furthermore: 'A core principle in the book is Hoffer's insight that mass movements are interchangeable; he notes fanatical Nazis later becoming fanatical Communists, fanatical Communists later becoming fanatical anti-Communists, and Saul, persecutor of Christians, becoming Paul, a fanatical Christian himself. For the true believer the substance of the mass movement isn't so important as that he or she is part of that movement.' So a True TM Believer can just as easily become a True Anti-TM Believer. Saul could become Paul, and Paul can become Saul. And its not the obsession with a particular person, like Judy Stein that is important, but the meaning he the TB or TB-Anti derives from being obsessed. And the trademark of this obsession is his need to demonize his opponent. So for the TB-Anti the 'TB' is OTOH a victim and pitiable, but when he doesn't listen to him, he is demonized as scary, dangerous, paranoid fanatic. People, individuals who discuss here, are disowned of their individaul expressions and believes and portrayed as representatives of a larger anonymus monster. 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/
