--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "abutilon108" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues" > <curtisdeltablues@> wrote: > > > Thanks for your impressions. The language form she uses is > > clearly meant to shift states of awareness. It would work > > better in a room where you didn't have other entertainment > > options pulling at you, I suspect. It is deadly on TV with > > a remote in my hand. But is does seem to utilize some good > > hypnotic therapy techniques, so it doesn't surprise me that > > people find it has value. Some of her sessions seem > > like watching someone in therapy going through a process. > > Thank you so much for this observation, Curtis. I was very > involved with Gangaji for several years, and still find myself > processing the experience from time to time, just as I do my > many years of involvement with the TMO. This is very insightful. > > I had been quite captivated by her for some time, but finally > came to feel that she had a way of producing experiences in > people which they took for "awakening". Of course, everyone has > a different idea of what awakening is, and I do also wonder what > Rick meant when he said people had awakened with her (and also > what evidence there is for that awakening.) In any case, it > seemed what Gangaji had experienced was transitory - like any > experience that comes and goes. It seems to me that awakening, > to be a truly meaningful shift, would entail a transition that > is permanent. > > Gangaji always emphasized the need for "vigilance" -- that a > person would have an "awakening" that they would then need to > sustain through a process of vigilance. In other words, this > awakening could occur and then be lost without effort to maintain > it. > > The description of Gangaji's interactions as being hypnotic > really seems to zero in on something. She speaks in a rather > hynotic way and can be very charming (to some) and poetic. I > think a lot of people become infatuated with her image. > > Well -- there's lots more percolating thanks to your remarks. > Thanks!
Thanks for your remarks as well. I was in Paris working last week, and thus unable to comment on this thread as I might have liked to. I had only one short interaction with Gangaji, in two day-long satsangs, but I spent a number of years with someone who was equally able to enable his students to *radically* shift their states of attention when in his presence. So I might propose an alternative view of the situation to Curtis' "hypnosis" theory. My suggestion is that you ponder whether the subjective experiences you felt in her presence could have been created entirely from *your* side, as the result of *recognition*. Here's my theory, which is mine. :-) Someone who is realized or close to it is in a very real way "firing on more cylinders" than the normal seeker who runs into them. The teacher has access to and lives in a greater number of the ten thousand states of mind than the seeker does. This is reflected in the teacher's aura. When you come into contact with the teacher's aura, the part of you that *already* has access to these different states of mind *recognizes* them in the teacher's aura. Seeing these states of mind in another "wakes up" the same states of mind in the seeker. It's as if the seeker had forgotten that such levels of being awake were available to him, but now that he's run into them, living and breathing and laughing in front of him in the form of the teacher, he realizes that the *same* states of mind are within him, and available if he just chooses to access them. This is how I honestly think it works. I no longer believe in the "darshan" theory of empowerment. I think that that view, that the teacher "does" something to "cause" the awakening in the student, is completely understandable. That's how it *feels*, after all. You see the teacher and you get high. Therefore they must have "done something" to you. Why I prefer my "recognition theory" is because it puts the responsibility and the impetus for self realization where it belongs, in the lap of the *seeker*, not the teacher. It *allows* for there being a benefit in seeing saints and realized masters, but not in the sense that one goes to them hoping that they'll zap you somehow with woo-woo rays and provide a "hit" of enlightenment. If one operates under the assumption that the "recog- nition theory" adequately describes the mechanics of what happens when you sit satsang with or otherwise interact with a powerful teacher, you are less likely to fall into the cult ruts, projecting onto the teacher magical abilities to zap you into enlightenment. Or their negative counterpart, projecting onto them some ability to hypnotize large groups of people at will. Just my opinion. Good luck in figuring out your time with Gangaji. I spent only a couple of days around her, and this is the best I've been able to come up with. 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/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> 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/
