--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > This discussion is fascinating to me. Both Rick's and Turq's > experiences. What makes it more riveting for me is that both > of you have maintained a spiritual perspective, but not one > that conforms to a specific version or dogma.
I think that's a fair statement, at least for myself. I am still drawn to Things Spiritual, but reserve the right to "pick and choose" amongst the dogma and the information given out by any tradition I investigate, and to value only the parts of it that seem to strike a resonance with me. > I can easily see that a Purusha guy would dismiss my position > that the transcendent or the so-called higher states of MMY > are not "all that". But seeing Purusha's reaction to Rick > is even more interesting. I agree. There is a great deal to be learned from this interaction. In it, Rick's position, as I see it, epitomizes the spirit of the spiritual seeker -- always willing to question, always willing to learn more, and always open to reevaluating things, even if the reevaluation reveals that he might have made some shaky decisions in the past. The Purusha guy is committed to *justifying* his past decisions and putting down any chal- lenges to them. He's "settled." He is NO LONGER SEEKING; he believes that he's "found." > I think they are missing the point as I understand Rick's > position. They are focusing on the details of MMY's personal > weirdness or failings and missing what I think is your larger > point, that MMY does not have a corner on the spiritual market > and that people are well advised to have some broader experiences > with other teachers if they want to pursue this path through life. And, coincidentally, that is *exactly* what Maharishi has *taught* them to believe. :-) He has always presented TM and his teachings as the "highest path." He has consistently belittled the teachings of any other teacher or any other technique as "lesser" than his. He (Maharishi) has always "plumped up" the egos of his followers by telling them how special they are, and how lucky they are to have found the true path, the one that *he* teaches. They're so "special" that at this point in TM movement history, ONLY THEY can save the world, by bouncing on their butts and giving him as much money as they can possibly afford. To some extent I disagree with your thesis that the Purusha guy (and people who think like him) are reacting as they do out of a sense of protecting Maharishi, Curtis. They are reacting as they do because they're stuck in protecting the exalted ideas of *themselves* that they have been fed by Maharishi. It's more like, "Maharishi is the BEST teacher, and the ONLY rishi to have ever cognized the Vedas in our era, and all that...BECAUSE I HANG WITH HIM. *I* would never be caught hanging with a teacher who was ordinary. I hang with Maharishi because he is SPECIAL. And because *he* is special, *I* am special." That's what I really think is going on. People who think like this guy cannot accept, even for a minute, that Maharishi is an ordinary guy, with good sides and less good sides to him, because that would suggest that, as his followers, THEY are ordinary, too. Can't have that. Gotta be special. :-) > The sense of protectiveness (I could be wrong about what > Rick believes) Interestingly, Curtis, what spurred me to write more on this subject this morning was your use of of four "magic words" above. You said, "I could be wrong." THAT is the phrase that my former friend could not bring herself to utter in our recent discussion in Paris. She could not get those words out of her mouth. To her, even to mouth the words politely would have opened the *possibility* that she could be wrong, and she could not deal with that possibility. You have no problem dealing with that possibility. Rick has no problem dealing with that possibility. Many folks here -- some of them still in the TM camp, some of them not -- have no problem with that pos- sibility. And then there are the others, the ones whom none of us on this forum have EVER heard utter the phrase "I could be wrong," except possibly about some minor point of fact, like, "Oh, you're right, I mistyped those figures, and it's 18, not 108." When it comes to matters of belief and dogma, they seem to be *incapable* of saying, "This is what I believe, but I could be wrong." I think that such people are MISSING OUT on a very liberating concept. WHO IS IT that would be "right" if they are right? The small s self, that's who. By refusing to even admit the possibility that the small s self could be wrong, they are stuck in the rut of *reinforcing* it. Whereas those who are willing to admit that it (the small s self) has fucked up and gotten things wrong in the past and is likely to do so in the present and in the future are *less attached* to the self. It seems to me that those who cling to what the small s self believes is true -- right here, right now -- are locking themselves into a state of stasis and refusing to change. And change is the only way that they can get *beyond* small s self, to Self. Their very conviction that they've got everything figured out, and have stumbled upon "the truth" is the very thing that (in my opinion) has taken them out of the game, spiritually. They are no longer seekers. They've convinced themselves that they've "found." And thus, again in my opinion, they are no longer making any spiritual progress. In my book, such "progress" often involves realizing how silly one's ideas of How Things Work were in the past, laughing at those silly ideas, dropping them, and moving on to the *next* set of silly ideas about How Things Work. Clinging to the current set of silly ideas as "right" and refusing to admit even the *possibility* that they could be wrong or incomplete seems to me to be a potent recipe for STAYING IN THE SAME PLACE, SPIRITUALLY. If that's their notion of the spiritual path, so be it. It's not mine. And, even though you profess no particular spiritual path yourself, and even eschew spirituality itself, I don't think it's yours. The sense I get from you on this forum and in email is that you are very MUCH a seeker, always moving forward, always willing to learn something new, even if that "something new" reveals that something you believed in the past wasn't quite true. THAT, to me, is what being a seeker is all about. In contrast, those who cling so strongly to what they believe now, to the point of being incapable of stating even the *possibility* that these beliefs might be less than perfect, have made a commitment to STAYING THE SAME. They are actively *resisting* change, and thus resisting the very enlightenment they profess to seek.
