[FairfieldLife] Re: reports of levitation (was: Amma's teaching...)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, george_deforest [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Angela Mailander wrote: Unfortunately, I can't remember the names and dates, but there are reports of levitation in the Neo-Platonic tradition, so the mysterious East is not the only source for such stories. Craig Pearson, of MUM faculty, wrote a book about levitation; i dont think it was published yet; but, it includes the spontaneous levitations of St Joseph of Cupertino, a Catholic saint from the Middle Ages. of course there wasnt much Science back then, so there is not scientific proof; however, the suspicious Catholic Church was convinced of what he was doing; they dont make just anyone a saint; in their way, they investigate things quite thoroughly. this passes for me as: as scientific as you can be for that age; this monk did float into the air. FWIW: suutra I 128 of /saaMkhya-suutras/ seems to be about the mutual difference of the /guNa-s/. Goes like this: laghvaadidharmairanyonyaM* saadharmyaM vaidharmyaM guNaanaam. Ballantyne's translation (my additions in parentheses): Through Lightness (laghu) and other (aadi; literally: beginning) habits (dharmaiH) the Qualities (guNaanaam; literally: of the qualities) mutually (anyonyam) agree (saadharmyam; literally: sameness) and differ (vaidharmyam; literally: difference). *)attempt at sandhi-vigraha: laghu+aadi-dharmaiH; anyonyam
[FairfieldLife] Re: reports of levitation (was: Amma's teaching...)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, george_deforest [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Angela Mailander wrote: Unfortunately, I can't remember the names and dates, but there are reports of levitation in the Neo-Platonic tradition, so the mysterious East is not the only source for such stories. Craig Pearson, of MUM faculty, wrote a book about levitation; i dont think it was published yet; but, it includes the spontaneous levitations of St Joseph of Cupertino, a Catholic saint from the Middle Ages. of course there wasnt much Science back then, so there is not scientific proof; however, the suspicious Catholic Church was convinced of what he was doing; they dont make just anyone a saint; in their way, they investigate things quite thoroughly. this passes for me as: as scientific as you can be for that age; this monk did float into the air. Re the Catholic Church's infallibility with regard to making people saints: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/020315.html http://www.christiannewage.com/StIodasaph.html http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/10/20/083045.php http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/article.php3?id_article=1828 Not to mention Saint Dominic, founder of the Inquisition, which brought misery and persecution to millions.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Amma's teaching = why some teachers misbehave
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, t3rinity [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: People make fun of other peoples adherence to beliefs, while their own belief system is rock-solid. Left in from the original post because it seems relevant below. No, not right, I don't believe in it ;-) [flying, levitation] Surprise? I defend somebodies right to believe whatever he wants without believing it myself. A good statement, but not really borne out by your impassioned arguments below. My non-belief is not very strong though. I just don't know, and I don't really care either. You somehow, along with Curtis seem to be under the impression that whenever I cite scriptures I am appealing to their authority. Thats also wrong. I just used them to make a reference to a more general belief in flying in religious scriptures. Noted. I've seen flying, or at least what appeared to be someone not only levitating for long periods of time in one place but moving through the air. You haven't seen flying, rather you saw something you believe was flying. Scroll back up the page to the parts where you 1) berated people for having rock-solid belief systems, 2) claimed that it was Ok with you for people to believe what they wanted, and 3) that your disbelief in flying was not very strong and that you don't really care. Then read the above and what follows it. Sounds pretty strong and rock-solid to me. You're *affronted* that I've seen levitation. You do everything you can to suggest that's not what it was. Personally, I think you're just jealous that I (or anyone else) have had experiences you haven't, so you feel compelled to pooh-pooh the experiences. Maybe it was maybe it was just a stage magic or a sort of hypnosis. Maybe. But it's YOUR job to prove this is so, not my job. I was there, on hundreds of occasions, in settings as diverse as the L.A. Convention Center or small meeting rooms to the desert and once in a corner booth at Denny's at 3 a.m. while the waitress ducked out for a smoke. If you can suggest to me a way that that last one could have been pre-prepared and set up by a magician, I'm all ears. :-) The bottom line is that I saw what I saw and exper- ienced what I experienced. WHAT it was I don't really know and don't really care. The fact is that I saw it and felt it and HAD TO DEAL WITH IT. That's the part you have never experienced, Michael. That was my point in my first post. The day that YOU encounter some experience that just doesn't make sense and violates everything you believe but is *happening*, right in front of your eyes, is the day we can have a meaningful discussion about this. Until that day, you are working with belief and with theory, and I am talking about experience. WHAT the real nature of the experience is probably doesn't matter. What matters is that the seeker has to DEAL with it. It's like, Oh, fuck. I just saw something that cannot happen. Now I have to deal with this if I want to be true to my experience. Some deal with such phenomena by trying to explain them away, by calling them magic tricks or hypnosis or suggestion. Others just believe in them completely. Others, more like myself, don't know what the fuck they were, but to be honest with ourselves have to recognize that we saw and felt and experienced these phenomena many times, and so *something* was happen- ing. And we *know* that to talk about it is to risk ridicule, because we can never convince anyone of the truth of what we saw. But we manage to become comfortable with our own experience *anyway*. Here's what I would do if I could levitate. I'd find the biggest skeptics in the world, people with rock-solid belief systems like yours that tell them that such things can't really happen. I'd listen to them asking me to demonstrate levitation for them in public, and I'd laugh them off. HOWEVER, then I'd find out where they live or follow them out to the parking lot where no one else was around and demonstrate it for them, so completely that that could be no doubt in their minds what they were seeing. But there would be no one else around to verify their experience. I'd consider this a FAVOR to the skeptic. By doing this I would be placing them in the same position I am in with regard to phenomena like levitation or turning invisible, only more so. In my case, there were hundreds of others who experienced the same things I did, so that's some small comfort. But in the end it really comes down to what *I* experienced, and my personal relationship with that experience. THAT is what you're missing on this subject, Michael. And in my opinion that is the *only* valuable thing about the siddhis -- forcing a seeker to evaluate his own personal experience and decide whether he is going to trust it or disbelieve it. Being put in that position is a very valuable exper- ience in itself. It's the test that
[FairfieldLife] First International Sanskrit Computational Linguistics Symposium
Videos and pdf's here: http://sanskrit.inria.fr/Symposium/Program.html
[FairfieldLife] VIDEO: Led Zeppelin reunion concert
Here are a few music clips of last night's Led Zeppelin reunion gig. Watch them while you can before YouTube takes them down. [Must be pirated because the sound isn't the best to say the least. IMO Robert Plant looks better without his new beard.] Click here: http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/earcandy/archives/127544.asp?source=mypi
[FairfieldLife] Re: Amma's teaching = why some teachers misbehave
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, t3rinity no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: People make fun of other peoples adherence to beliefs, while their own belief system is rock-solid. Left in from the original post because it seems relevant below. No, not right, I don't believe in it ;-) [flying, levitation] Surprise? I defend somebodies right to believe whatever he wants without believing it myself. A good statement, but not really borne out by your impassioned arguments below. Well, Barry, the internet is not agood medium of determinating the mood of a person. For me this exchange is very casual. Maybe you are projecting your own mood? I have no big investment in this whole topic. I am sorry you have this impression :-) My non-belief is not very strong though. I just don't know, and I don't really care either. You somehow, along with Curtis seem to be under the impression that whenever I cite scriptures I am appealing to their authority. Thats also wrong. I just used them to make a reference to a more general belief in flying in religious scriptures. Noted. I've seen flying, or at least what appeared to be someone not only levitating for long periods of time in one place but moving through the air. You haven't seen flying, rather you saw something you believe was flying. Scroll back up the page to the parts where you 1) berated people for having rock-solid belief systems, 2) claimed that it was Ok with you for people to believe what they wanted, and 3) that your disbelief in flying was not very strong and that you don't really care. All is true. @1 We all have beliefs, just its good to know that they are beliefs. @2 Its perfectly okay. Just you should know that you have beliefs and be tolerant about others. @3 very true. Even at the time I was practising Siddhis in TM, it wasn't really important for me to fly, I was more interessted in enlightenment, and I did it because it was said it enhances it. I was just 20 when I started it. Then read the above and what follows it. Sounds pretty strong and rock-solid to me. You're *affronted* that I've seen levitation. No not at all, nor am I affronted by the girl I know from the ex-Rama. Its ridiculus. It doesn't matter to me. You do everything you can to suggest that's not what it was. No, its more a thing about logic and science. There is no scientific proof that what you saw was levitation. So, and thats all I'm really saying, you are not in a position to put down Nabby. Personally, I think you're just jealous that I (or anyone else) have had experiences you haven't, so you feel compelled to pooh-pooh the experiences. No, no. As experiences they are okay, that is I cannot even judge them, but as scientific proof they are invalid. Maybe it was maybe it was just a stage magic or a sort of hypnosis. Maybe. But it's YOUR job to prove this is so, not my job. I was there, on hundreds of occasions, in settings as diverse as the L.A. Convention Center or small meeting rooms to the desert and once in a corner booth at Denny's at 3 a.m. while the waitress ducked out for a smoke. If you can suggest to me a way that that last one could have been pre-prepared and set up by a magician, I'm all ears. :-) See, I don't know, I just know that you or rather Rama never provided scientific proof. I am not interested enough to prove or debunk it myself, I just know there is no scientific proof. If you think there is, please tell us all more about it. ;-) snip That's the part you have never experienced, Michael. That was my point in my first post. The day that YOU encounter some experience that just doesn't make sense and violates everything you believe but is *happening*, right in front of your eyes, is the day we can have a meaningful discussion about this. Until that day, you are working with belief and with theory, and I am talking about experience. Okay, maybe, but then this neither provides proof. This on the same level of a reborn Christian, who tells me that since he believes in Jesus he is saved and his whole life changed, and unless I won't let Jesus in my heart I simply don't know. Well I agree, the things I don't know about, are so to say outside of my conscious frame of mind. There can be things I don't know about in the thousands. But it still does not constitute any proof and it still is on the level of belief. WHAT the real nature of the experience is probably doesn't matter. Well for science it would matter. Maybe you are not so terribly interested about science, maybe you are more interested in psychological reactions, which is okay. What matters is that the seeker has to DEAL with it. It's like, Oh, fuck. I just saw something that cannot happen. Now I have to deal with this if I want to be
[FairfieldLife] Re: VIDEO: Led Zeppelin reunion concert
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, do.rflex [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Here are a few music clips of last night's Led Zeppelin reunion gig. Watch them while you can before YouTube takes them down. [Must be pirated because the sound isn't the best to say the least. IMO Robert Plant looks better without his new beard.] Click here: http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/earcandy/archives/127544.asp?source=mypi Yeah great songs. If you find LZ too hard at times, you might want to listen to this for a change: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fu5Cgb6Yy4Y
[FairfieldLife] Re: The truth about flying, CC in 5-8, etc.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, aztjbailey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Is there any way tm-ers could somehow regroup and develop an alternative organization you would be proud of? This may be highly improbable and I was just wondering. I was deeply attached to the TMO as it was circa late 60s to mid 70s with the TM Centers all over the place and practical availability for everybody for teaching, checking, and advanced lectures. It was an outer, secure base for our progress. I've had a helluva time dealing with how it's changed so drastically. The changes Maharishi has made have been outrageous in my view. But I'm beginning to realize something that I heard many a time from Charlie Lutes: [paraphrased] Your progress in Transcendental Meditation isn't a group effort. It's a do it yourself proposition. I, alone have to make the transition from ignorance to awakening. Depending on and being attached to the TMO ain't it. Just a guess, but maybe Maharishi for that reason [and others] keeps pulling the rug out from under the holders on. We have the main tool. It's up to us to focus on using it and working on *ourselves* What Maharishi and the TMO are doing is irrelevant to that. [snip]
[FairfieldLife] Do siddhis have ANYTHING to do with state of consciousness?
It would be silly of me not to have noticed the somewhat...uh...angry reactions that come up on this board from time to time when I talk about the weird things (siddhis) I and others exper- ienced around Rama (Frederick Lenz). Here is a speculation as to where they might be coming from. I think a lot of it has to do with Rama's rep. He was vilified in the press as a cult leader, as someone who slept with his female students, and many other things. I can say without reser- vation that many of these things were true, and could add a great number of other stories from my own experience that indicate that the dude was occasionally a real slimeball, with a drug dependency towards the end of his life and an ego on him the size of Texas. HOWEVER, at other times he could meditate so powerfully that if you were in the same room with him, it was almost *impossible* to have a thought; clear, thoughtless samadhi was your *only* option. ALSO, he was able to perform siddhis like levitating, disappearing, flying through the air, opening dimensions to other planes of reality, etc. so powerfully that up to hundreds of people at a time saw and exper- ienced them. He was able to do this not only with students who wanted to believe in these things, but in public talks where half the audience were skeptics. The skeptics saw these things, too. So go figure, eh? I honestly think that what offends a lot of people about the Rama guy and stories of the siddhis that people saw him perform is that they have this idea in their heads that either 1) the ability to perform siddhis is linked to enlightenment, or 2) the those who can perform siddhis are 'supposed to be' more evolved or beyond stuff like sleeping with their students, or 3) both. What bothers them is that there is a strong like- lihood that Rama was a bit of a charlatan and a bit of a rogue and *none* of the things that they visualize when they think of an enlightened teacher, AND YET HE COULD DO THIS STUFF ANYWAY. Welcome to the conundrum. That, as far as I can tell, is the truth about the dude. I was around him for many years, and there is no question in my mind that he was at times a charlatan, at times a slimeball, and at other times able to manifest some of the coolest siddhis in the spiritual canon. Go figure. What does this mean? Well, to me it means that all the stuff about siddhis being of necessity linked to enlightenment are an enormous pile of steaming crap. That's simply not true. Siddhis are siddhis and enlightenment is enlightenment, and there is no one-to-one link between them. Histor- ically, some teachers regarded as enlightened manifested siddhis, and others did not. Equally historically, many of those who can manifest the siddhis are open and honest about the fact that they are *not* enlightened; they just know how to do these siddhis. I've had some limited exper- ience with manifesting minor siddhis myself, and I'm *certainly* not enlightened on any kind of permanent basis. The other thing that drives some people up the wall when I talk about the Rama dude is that he offends them morally. They have major problems with what he represents, and thus they have major problems with believing that he could *also* do something like manifest real siddhis. They'd prefer to believe in something far more unlikely, that he had the ability to somehow hypnotize hundreds of people at once, some of them members of the press. What I'm trying to suggest is that there seems to have been NO PROBLEM with the guy being a slime- ball AND being able to manifest siddhis. It's NOT as simplistic as the idealistic books about these things say it is. It's not an EITHER/OR rela- tionship; its a BOTH/AND relationship. As far as I can tell, the guy could coerce some sweet young female student into sleeping with him one minute and the next minute levitate like gang- busters. For all I know, he could have been able to boink the young student WHILE levitating, although I never saw or heard evidence of this. :-) The bottom line is that from my perspective, siddhis aren't what you idealize them as. They are just *abilities*, abilities that *anyone* can master, whatever their state of consciousness. They have *nothing to do* with state of conscious- ness, or with the morality or immorality of the person who is able to perform them. I understand that this fucks with many people's idealized notions of what the siddhis are and what they mean about the person performing them, but I'm trying to be honest with you here. I don't think that your idealized notions are correct, based on my experience. Being able to perform siddhis doesn't make a person good, and being bad doesn't prevent a person from being able to do them. Used as some kind of measure of a person's enlightenment, the siddhis are just as big a failure as any other measurement you might imagine.
Re: [FairfieldLife] reports of levitation (was: Amma's teaching...)
Thanks for refreshing my memory. Perhaps Joe floated, perhaps not. But as for the Catholic Church being thorough in their investigations in making folks into saints (absurd on the face of it), recall Padre Pio, recently canonized, and later found to have used acid to create his famous stigmata. So no, such evidence as the Church canonizing someone hardly qualifies as science. george_deforest [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Angela Mailander wrote: Unfortunately, I can't remember the names and dates, but there are reports of levitation in the Neo-Platonic tradition, so the mysterious East is not the only source for such stories. Craig Pearson, of MUM faculty, wrote a book about levitation; i dont think it was published yet; but, it includes the spontaneous levitations of St Joseph of Cupertino, a Catholic saint from the Middle Ages. of course there wasnt much Science back then, so there is not scientific proof; however, the suspicious Catholic Church was convinced of what he was doing; they dont make just anyone a saint; in their way, they investigate things quite thoroughly. this passes for me as: as scientific as you can be for that age; this monk did float into the air. Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
[FairfieldLife] Re: The Anti-Science low-lifes
In God's Name Off is right in a way. This aspect of science is the uniqueness of this FF utopian spiritual experiment. Putting it to science. As it has gone along with MMY and the TMmovement it evidently will take the teaming and co-authoring with real universities to help make the TM research honest and credible, that is just fact. However, too bad CBS did not include Off_W to represent this new age of human spirituality against the old-age religions in their survey of God. -Doug in FF In God's Name The 12 leaders featured in this special, in alphabetical order, are: oAlexei II, Patriarch of Moscow and head of the Russian Orthodox Church oAmma (Mata Amritanandamayi), a Hindu spiritual leader oPope Benedict XVI, head of the Roman Catholic Church oThe Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso), spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists oAyatollah Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, a prominent Shi'ite Muslim leader oBishop Mark Hanson, Presiding Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and President of the Lutheran World Federation oMichihisa Kitashirakawa, Jingu Daiguji (High Priest) of the Shinto Grand Shrine of Ise oYona Metzger, Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel oDr. Frank Page, President of the Southern Baptist Convention oMuhammad Sayyed Tantawi, Sheikh of Al-Azhar and a prominent Sunni Muslim leader oJoginder Singh Vedanti, Jathedar of the Akal Takht, the Sikhs' highest authority oDr. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury and head of the Church of England IN GOD'S NAME IN GOD' S NAME, A MAJOR TELEVISION EVENT ADDRESSING SOME OF THE MOST CHALLENGING AND PROFOUND QUESTIONS OF OUR TIME, WILL BE BROADCAST SUNDAY, DEC. 23 ON THE CBS TELEVISION NETWORK http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/message/157327 --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, off_world_beings [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: What a load of self-important garbage. The only thing that could destroy science is bad science, done with questionable motives and even more questionable intent, Unfortunately for your ego you are not remotely qualified to make that judgment. Only scientists are, and they have overwhelmingly found the science in TM studies to be robust. That is why sceintists at the NIH gave $20 million (and rising) in research money to Maharishi University, and more than 5 major universities in the US are currently engaged in research on TM. Over 200 studies in peer- reviewed scientific journals... and STILL anti-science people like you ( a lot like George Bush and the anti-evolution crowd) want to destroy science and everything it has built. Your type belong in the dark ages. Science is the future, and peer-reveiwed published research is your future but you are afraid of it. Get used to it, it is not going away despite the best efforts of you anti-science people. To me there is no lower people than anti-science people like the fundie Christians and fundie Muslims. OffWorld
[FairfieldLife] Re: Do siddhis have ANYTHING to do with state of consciousness?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It would be silly of me not to have noticed the somewhat...uh...angry reactions that come up on this board from time to time when I talk about the weird things (siddhis) I and others exper- ienced around Rama (Frederick Lenz). I haven't read yet the rest of your post, but if you are referring with ..uh angry reactions to me, you are living in a total illusion. I even spelled it out to you and am happy to do it again: I a m n o t a n g r y. :-) Don't believe me? Keep on suggesting the same again and again? Your problem. For me its just passing time, an intelectual discussion, nothing more.
[FairfieldLife] Re: VIDEO: Led Zeppelin reunion concert
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, t3rinity [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Yeah great songs. If you find LZ too hard at times, you might want to listen to this for a change: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fu5Cgb6Yy4Y Nice, thanks ! Very nice: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5cDUrVCoq8NR=1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3q6tog2xUPcfeature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vg8ai2trwjg
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: The Anti-Science low-lifes on FFL
Vaj [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Also recently we finally have meditators who are duplicating the first research into samadhi first done in the 1950's on yogis. TM has never been able to duplicate samadhi in the lab, but in the last decade we have examples of meditators goings into profoundly coherent forms of consciousness and who also exhibit the loss of startle reflex and insensitivity to pain that are hallmarks of true samadhi. Can you give some references for this? Anything available online? Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
Re: [FairfieldLife] The real test of the Anti-Science freaks on FFL
On Dec 12, 2007, at 1:13 AM, off_world_beings wrote: A million studies would not convince then about TM, yet it only takes about 40-50 to change my mind on TM. This is the absolute truth for me and totally proves their anti-science religious agenda to ignore science for their own pathetic opinions. What would it take for legitimate scientists to take TM/TMSP seriously? - good study design, esp. good controls, a robust null hypothesis and randomization would be a good start. It would also be good to know funding sources so we know there's no bias (ha, ha). - examples of the style of profound, brain-wide, high-amplitude coherence actually seen in yogis and advanced meditators - examples of this coherence lingering in the post meditation periods. - significant drops in metabolic rate, not merely drops the same as napping (TM is statistically and scientifically the same as sleep and what happens in sleep-waking cycles). - reduction in amount and severity of negative emotions. - cortical thickening. etc.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: reports of levitation (was: Amma's teaching...)
On Dec 12, 2007, at 2:46 AM, TurquoiseB wrote: Re the Catholic Church's infallibility with regard to making people saints: Didn't a whole bunch of people get unsainted a while back? Sal
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: The Anti-Science low-lifes on FFL
On Dec 12, 2007, at 9:10 AM, Angela Mailander wrote: Can you give some references for this? Anything available online? Nice, succinct articles on the Alberta study: http://www.rso.ualberta.ca/news.cfm?story=62365 Link http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/bodyandhealth/story.html? id=b8200042-cd51-4782-a7e1-7ff4ca735cf3 Link
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: The Anti-Science low-lifes on FFL
On Dec 12, 2007, at 9:10 AM, Angela Mailander wrote: Vaj [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Also recently we finally have meditators who are duplicating the first research into samadhi first done in the 1950's on yogis. TM has never been able to duplicate samadhi in the lab, but in the last decade we have examples of meditators goings into profoundly coherent forms of consciousness and who also exhibit the loss of startle reflex and insensitivity to pain that are hallmarks of true samadhi. Can you give some references for this? Anything available online? I have them archived here: Meditation Practices for Health: State of the Research and Meditation and the Neuroscience of Consciousness
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: The Anti-Science low-lifes on FFL
On Dec 12, 2007, at 12:56 AM, off_world_beings wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Dec 11, 2007, at 3:10 AM, TurquoiseB wrote: What a load of self-important garbage. The only thing that could destroy science is bad science, done with questionable motives and even more questionable intent, for the purpose of making money or shaping public opinion. Like tobacco research paid for by the tobacco industry. Or TM research paid for by the TMO. Recent research has actually shown that the vast majority of TM research is not scientific or at best bad science. And as I asked you before, in which respected peer-reviewed sceintific journal does this appear? What makes you think all excellent research appears in peer-reviewed scientific journals? In this case the research was published by the University of Alberta as part of a request from the US National Centre for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. TM research failed miserably and from a truly scientific POV, really should not be considered scientific. The review which looked at neuroscientific claims in meditation research was a paper accepted for the prestigious Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness, the textbook for Neuroscientists studying consciousness. Fortunately we're seeing study design improving in other meditational investigations and thus there's a widespread adoption of mindfullness meditation in hospitals and clinics worldwide. Also recently we finally have meditators who are duplicating the first research into samadhi first done in the 1950's on yogis. TM has never been able to duplicate samadhi in the lab, but in the last decade we have examples of meditators goings into profoundly coherent forms of consciousness and who also exhibit the loss of startle reflex and insensitivity to pain that are hallmarks of true samadhi. Your anti-science people are insane. This is like the republican science claims about evolution and naoh's ark. Santa Claus is more credible than unpublished research Vaj. I'm not anti-science, I'm anti-junk science or marketing research pseudoscience hailed as legitimate science. If you were an objective observer of TM research in the first place, none of this would be a surprise. If anything TM research was infamous for the fact that few took it seriously and the cult-like zealousness with which it's adherents attempt to promote it. It's this cultist zealot drive that was the only thing that got TM research into journals in the first place. It's also one the hardest parts of TM indoctrination and brainwashing for TMers to let go of, as it's so strongly imprinted from the get go.
[FairfieldLife] More Sheila Chandra
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5cDUrVCoq8NR=1
[FairfieldLife] Re: More Sheila Chandra
If you want to listen only one of her this is the one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKN1NN0BBr4feature=related
[FairfieldLife] Re: Guitarist's Dream
the end part of the song-- Gonna buy this whole town/put it in my shoe/maybe give a piece to you/that's what I'm gonna do/that's what I'm gonna do etc then the Do you think I'd do that? You sooo nailed that! I wasn't even thinking about the lyrics. How obvious now that you pointed it out, that is. I think you will dig Jack Owens if you like Skip. He is on Alan Lomax's video, The Land Where The Blues Began. He plays with a blind harp player named Bud Spires and seeing it was a life changing moment for me concerning the type of blues I wanted to play. You can see the whole thing online here: http://www.folkstreams.net/film,109 That site has some other great videos including a documentary on Peg Leg Sam that I have posted before. I am deep into recording my second CD this month. I don't know if Hard Time Killing Floor will make the final cut, but I will record it so I can send you an MP3 even if it doesn't make the final 12. I've got a few originals too. Thanks for pointing out that connection with the lyrics in Jimi's song. Amazing how I could have missed it! Well maybe not, I'm not always the sharpest knife in the drawer! --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, hermandan0 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Thanks Curtis! Nothing like the blues ( or Leonard Cohen) to tempt me into not just lurking but posting. Hard Time Time Killing Floor Blues is pretty amazing. I'd love to hear your version of it. I hadn't heard of Jack Owens, but I'll definitely check him out. Have to wait to get on the wife's computer as I won't put Real Player on my laptop and the tracks on the Amazon link require it. And just to show you how mundane my mind is compared to yous and Judy's spiritual analysis of Jimi's words at the end of his great video--I thought he was making a comment to those in the room based on the end part of the song-- Gonna buy this whole town/put it in my shoe/maybe give a piece to you/that's what I'm gonna do/that's what I'm gonna do etc then the Do you think I'd do that? It just illustrates what you have so eloquently pointed out many times: that we can perhaps trust our experiences, but the interpretation of the experience is contextual! --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: Nice to hear from you man. Great song. I have his 1930 recording that I believe this comes from. My favorite Skip James is Hard Time Killing Floor but I couldn't find it. I perform it in my shows. Have you ever heard Jack Owens who plays in this Bentonia style? He doesn't have the falsetto style but uses the minor tuned guitar. I think Judy would like him better than Skip because he has more warmth both in vocals and feeling. http://tinyurl.com/28hfnc Check out his version of Hard Times!
[FairfieldLife] Re: Amma's teaching = why some teachers misbehave
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Scroll back up the page to the parts where you 1) berated people for having rock-solid belief systems, 2) claimed that it was Ok with you for people to believe what they wanted, and 3) that your disbelief in flying was not very strong and that you don't really care. Then read the above and what follows it. Sounds pretty strong and rock-solid to me. You're *affronted* that I've seen levitation. You do everything you can to suggest that's not what it was. Personally, I think you're just jealous that I (or anyone else) have had experiences you haven't, so you feel compelled to pooh-pooh the experiences. Maybe it was maybe it was just a stage magic or a sort of hypnosis. Maybe. But it's YOUR job to prove this is so, not my job. I was there, on hundreds of occasions, in settings as diverse as the L.A. Convention Center or small meeting rooms to the desert and once in a corner booth at Denny's at 3 a.m. while the waitress ducked out for a smoke. If you can suggest to me a way that that last one could have been pre-prepared and set up by a magician, I'm all ears. :-) The bottom line is that I saw what I saw and exper- ienced what I experienced. WHAT it was I don't really know and don't really care. The fact is that I saw it and felt it and HAD TO DEAL WITH IT. That's the part you have never experienced, Michael. That was my point in my first post. The day that YOU encounter some experience that just doesn't make sense and violates everything you believe but is *happening*, right in front of your eyes, is the day we can have a meaningful discussion about this. Until that day, you are working with belief and with theory, and I am talking about experience. WHAT the real nature of the experience is probably doesn't matter. What matters is that the seeker has to DEAL with it. It's like, Oh, fuck. I just saw something that cannot happen. Now I have to deal with this if I want to be true to my experience. Some deal with such phenomena by trying to explain them away, by calling them magic tricks or hypnosis or suggestion. Others just believe in them completely. Others, more like myself, don't know what the fuck they were, but to be honest with ourselves have to recognize that we saw and felt and experienced these phenomena many times, and so *something* was happen- ing. And we *know* that to talk about it is to risk ridicule, because we can never convince anyone of the truth of what we saw. But we manage to become comfortable with our own experience *anyway*. Here's what I would do if I could levitate. I'd find the biggest skeptics in the world, people with rock-solid belief systems like yours that tell them that such things can't really happen. I'd listen to them asking me to demonstrate levitation for them in public, and I'd laugh them off. HOWEVER, then I'd find out where they live or follow them out to the parking lot where no one else was around and demonstrate it for them, so completely that that could be no doubt in their minds what they were seeing. But there would be no one else around to verify their experience. I'd consider this a FAVOR to the skeptic. By doing this I would be placing them in the same position I am in with regard to phenomena like levitation or turning invisible, only more so. In my case, there were hundreds of others who experienced the same things I did, so that's some small comfort. But in the end it really comes down to what *I* experienced, and my personal relationship with that experience. THAT is what you're missing on this subject, Michael. And in my opinion that is the *only* valuable thing about the siddhis -- forcing a seeker to evaluate his own personal experience and decide whether he is going to trust it or disbelieve it. Being put in that position is a very valuable exper- ience in itself. It's the test that differentiates sit-in-their-armchairs-reading-about-someone-else's- experiences seekers from mystics. May you have such an experience someday. When you do, and have DEALT WITH IT, however you choose to deal with it, then we can discuss this further. Until then, you are just one more person with a rock-solid belief system based on what others have told you. Get it? This Turq is speaking in tongues again. One day it might even sound beautiful though I doubdt it considering the culprits age. Listen to this and be inspired: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etHe_98Rwecfeature=related
[FairfieldLife] Re: GB - 1, USA - 0.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, cardemaister [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, uns_tressor uns_tressor@ wrote: We may be a bit battered this side of the pond, probably arising from the paltry TM initiation rates as a result of daft marketing policies, but we still have our Led Zeppelin, and that is one more Led Zeppelin than you folks have. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/10/arts/music/11zeppelin.html Yours smugly, Uns. Well, most of my favourite drummers are British (e.g. Charlie Watts, Mitch Mitchell, Ginger Baker, Keith Moon, Viv Prince [who??]...) For some reason I've never liked John Bonham... He was very odd. But you should check out the drummer on the new Robert Plant/Alison Krauss album, Raisng Sand. A very powerful character, who, for some odd reason, reminded me of D.J. Fontana on Hound dog. Uns.
[FairfieldLife] The best TM research what am (The real test of the Anti-Science freaks on FFL)
Off, There HAS been a study that you should take as authoritative, methinks, cuz, well, it's the kind of study that everyone on the planet learns how to conduct from BIRTH onwards. Millions of folks started TM; millions quit. Science was done by all of these folks: they followed the rules of the experiment, took the mantra effortlessly, and then quit after a few days, months, years -- depending -- but they all quit and never looked back. Sure, some were bad scientists and didn't do the experiment correctly, but most did. Most made it past their ten-day checking, but after that, by my ten-year-teaching-in-the-field reasoning, most didn't make up to having a whole year under their belt, before they, unlike me, realized that they were not being paid back for their investment of 40 minutes per day in the chair. There's abandoned mines in The Old West everywhere -- each abandoned mine was finally quit by a non-scientific person who wasn't much more educated than a cowboy of the era, yet in almost every instance the mine was indeed played out. Doesn't take much to be correct about such things even if a scientist has not affirmed it. The heft of millions tried it and quit is considerable -- even if only as a longitudinal study, say, The Impact of Belief Systems on Mass Audiences. As pumped up as all of us teachers were at the time, our inspirational modeling had only so much oomph with which to imbue the newbies as they left the centers. And we had some good schtick to fling. Yes, fling is a good word, eh? Maharishi always ALWAYS ALWAYS smugly and arrogantly challenged disbelief by saying, Try it. If the results are there you will continue, if not, then you will quit. He was always talking about how businessmen would be naturally expected to see meditation's value, because they were sure to be so bottom-line and practical, AND, they would see TM's impact on their profits. Nope. So they quit. Maharishi TRUSTED their intuitions and logic, and they quit. Ain't no bigbiz programs nowadays, right? Witherspoon took off his tie and went back to heaping dirt up in the desert, right? The masses are asses, but they're not out there eating rocks -- even small children are scientific enough to stop tasting things-on-the-ground-found-when-mom-isn't-there by about the age of four. They did the experiments, and their behaviors changed. TM's marketing campaigns also reflect that the masses had invalidated the meditation -- we see that the history of the TMO's marketing became more and more focused on fleecing the well heeled. And now today, where is TM being taught? Answer: nowhere -- for the most part. Ask all the folks living around any of the abandoned mines why they aren't going into the mines to look for nuggets. Answer: others that we trust have done that, and it is 99% certain that there's no gold in them thar hills. No one is starting TM cuz everyone's heard about the results from their trusted friends -- just like no one does Amway anymore after they've been suckered into having a living room presentation instead of being forthrightly presented with a business proposition instead of, you know, dare to be rich. Oh, don't bother arguing with me about this -- I know you'll flame or go into some sort of TB illogic about the masses not being scientific. I've had my little say, and that's enough. Those here who resonate will perhaps be just a titch more likely to read one of my posts and a titch less likely to read your next post. No one posting here was a more dedicated teacher than I was -- as far as I can tell. I did the experiment, the lifestyle, the sacrificing, and I paid tens of thousands of dollars (no new cars, no savings, cult raised children wearing second-hand school uniforms, working off tuition) to conduct that experiment. Conclusion: TM may do something, might be good for one, could be the real deal and might even be in line with Vedic traditions, could be training the brain to do marvelous but extremely subtle things, but one thing is certain -- the price is far too high for the little profits that can be verified or pretended to exist. For TBs to ignore these results of the people is to besmirch the general ability of humanity to be logical, practical and faithful to what-works. Think of all the things that the masses HAVE NOT abandoned -- things that worked. Necessity may be the mother of invention, but it works is the go-juice of culture. TM never delivered the expected mojo. It is a pig in a poke, and I still believe that some pokes have pigs in them, but I have yet to hear my first oink from the TMO's poke. But I did get porked. Edg --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, off_world_beings [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Yes, my pet peeve in life are anti-science nuts like George Bush, Ted Haggard, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, and the other Fundie religious nutjobs. So the to Anti-science freaks here on FFL such as Turq, Vaj, Steven, NewMorning, and other
[FairfieldLife] Re:The Anti-Science low-lifes on FFL
Off world, You are way Off he mark on this one. ihave no intention of having a long running feud wit hyou ar anyone else. You dont know me or my points of view. I am not against science at all.That is a stupid, imbecilic, ill intended extrapolation. I am against suckering people into believeing a fairy tale when their is self serving claims that cannot be supported by scientific evidence like 5-8 years t oCC or paying thousnads of dollars to learn to hop and NOT fly. i continue t o meditate several hours each day because i love it and because i do believe much of the original research about breathe rate and heart rate and cortisol levels. My health has been fabulous and I attribute it greatly to TM. As far as some of the scams (like $50 for a $5 bottle of amrit or the $million course and this Raja nonsense and the World Govt, etc etc) i think itis a tragedy and very unfortunate that so many people feel taken, and rightly so. i spent 2 hours with Dr. Trigunas son. I am indebted to his dad forever for what the y have done for me and my family, and to MMY for bringing him t o America. They just wanted t opractic eayurved, not be a money machine for the movement. That is what he told me. They told MMY to stay out of politics. It turned out to be another in a long list of misadventures wasting peoples time and resources. i think you could see how people have become disgusted with the whole thing. you can go back to the same well just so often and then finally the well runs dry. we all loved MMY so much in the old days but you cant keep doing that stuff to people forever and expect them to continue to follow. Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ
[FairfieldLife] Re: For Richard
Angela Mailander wrote: According to sources that at least seem credible, Which sources would that be? my information is that there were exercises going on that day Over New York City? in which simulated high-jacked planes were in the air, so that people were confused about real world events and simulated events. According to what I've read, any jet fighters would have had only a few minutes to fly into New York City airspace, locate the hijacked airliners, whose transponders had been turned off, and shoot them down. But apparently ATC didn't even make a phone call until 8:37 am EST to inform NEADS that Flight 11 was hijacked. The first plane hit the WTC at 9:03 am. The nearest airbase is Otis Air Force Base in Falmouth, Mass., and Langley Air National Guard Base in Hampton, Va. How long does it take for a F-15 to fly from Mass. or Va. to New York? What do you think? I also read that we normally have surveillance planes in the air 24/7, but on that day of days, they were down, which would be an extraordinary co-incidence. According to Popular Mechanics, there were fourteen jet fighters aloft in the U.S. at the time of the attack. Now, listen, William, I am willing to have a real conversation about this, but I am not willing to engage in the kind of oneupmanship pissing contest that Judy, for example, likes to have, in which somebody has to be wrong. I am not interested in that kind of conversation. And it seems your questions have that tone. You brought up the subject, Angela, and it seemed like you were trying to suggest that the 9/11 attacks were an inside job. I find that offensive that 3000 people died at the hands of elements within our own government. And I've seen no evidence to support such a claim. Am I wrong? You can't prove a negative: do you have any evidence that the 9/11 attacks were an inside job? Your main source said that NORAD could have scrambled jet fighters to what, shoot down the hijacked airliners over New York City? Richard J. Williams wrote: So, how many U.S. jet fighters were airborne at the time of the attack and where were they located?
RE: [FairfieldLife] Re: Amma's teaching = why some teachers misbehave
From: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of nablusoss1008 Sent: Wednesday, December 12, 2007 1:27 AM To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Amma's teaching = why some teachers misbehave BTW: What do you call the first flight of the Wright Brothers, hopping ? Flying. Orville was airborne for 12 seconds, flying 120 feet: HYPERLINK http://www.aero-web.org/history/wright/flight.htmhttp://www.aero-web.org/h istory/wright/flight.htm Right. 12 seconds compared to the 24 hour flights of today. Right. But the Wright brothers plane didn’t violate any known laws of physics or aerodynamics. And neither do TM Yogic Flyers. I’ve never seen anything that couldn’t be explained in terms of muscular effort. The champion yogic flyers (Blaine Watson, Eddie Gob, and Matt Boutrand) were previously gymnasts and accomplished athletes. If superior consciousness were responsible for the hopping, then Tony Nader, folks on Purusha and Mother Divine, etc., should be the best flyers. No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.503 / Virus Database: 269.17.1/1181 - Release Date: 12/11/2007 5:05 PM
[FairfieldLife] Re: Amma's teaching = why some teachers misbehave
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Rick Archer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: From: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of nablusoss1008 Sent: Wednesday, December 12, 2007 1:27 AM To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Amma's teaching = why some teachers misbehave BTW: What do you call the first flight of the Wright Brothers, hopping ? Flying. Orville was airborne for 12 seconds, flying 120 feet: HYPERLINK http://www.aero-web.org/history/wright/flight.htmhttp://www.aero- web.org/h istory/wright/flight.htm Right. 12 seconds compared to the 24 hour flights of today. Right. But the Wright brothers plane didn't violate any known laws of physics or aerodynamics. And neither do TM Yogic Flyers. I've never seen anything that couldn't be explained in terms of muscular effort. The champion yogic flyers (Blaine Watson, Eddie Gob, and Matt Boutrand) were previously gymnasts and accomplished athletes. If superior consciousness were responsible for the hopping, then Tony Nader, folks on Purusha and Mother Divine, etc., should be the best flyers. How do you know they are not ? You know nothing about what is going on and live for rumours only. You called 12 seconds in the air by the Wright Brothers correctly flying, but the ordinary people at the time certainly did not believe those first few seconds would mean anything for themselves or their children. History repeats itself. Enough time vasted on this nonsense of believing or not believing siddhis. Who cares. The only thing that is certain is that discussions on this is a vaste of prescious time and life.
[FairfieldLife] Do siddhis have ANYTHING to do with state of co
Barry writes snipped: Being able to perform siddhis doesn't make a person good, and being bad doesn't prevent a person from being able to do them. Used as some kind of measure of a person's enlightenment, the siddhis are just as big a failure as any other measurement you might imagine. TomT: As I have mentioned here a few times before I feel strongly they were just another misdirection to keep you on the path. Like the magicians waving of the one hand while the other hand is doing all the work. Who's ego wouldn't be fascinated by being able to fly and all that other stuff. The real work was being accomplished in the process of the technique. He told you what you wanted to hear while he was f*cking with your mind to get you to do what he wanted. Very clever and cagey old buzzard. Tom
Re: [FairfieldLife] Do siddhis have ANYTHING to do with state of co
Well Put Tom T **See AOL's top rated recipes (http://food.aol.com/top-rated-recipes?NCID=aoltop000304)
[FairfieldLife] Re: Amma's teaching = why some teachers misbehave
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Rick Archer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: From: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of nablusoss1008 Sent: Wednesday, December 12, 2007 1:27 AM To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Amma's teaching = why some teachers misbehave BTW: What do you call the first flight of the Wright Brothers, hopping ? Flying. Orville was airborne for 12 seconds, flying 120 feet: HYPERLINK http://www.aero-web.org/history/wright/flight.htmhttp://www.aero-web.org/h istory/wright/flight.htm Right. 12 seconds compared to the 24 hour flights of today. Right. But the Wright brothers plane didn't violate any known laws of physics or aerodynamics. And neither do TM Yogic Flyers. I've never seen anything that couldn't be explained in terms of muscular effort. The champion yogic flyers (Blaine Watson, Eddie Gob, and Matt Boutrand) were previously gymnasts and accomplished athletes. If superior consciousness were responsible for the hopping, then Tony Nader, folks on Purusha and Mother Divine, etc., should be the best flyers. Here's a another way of looking at it. The Wright Bros first flight was in 1903. 24 years later Lindbergh flew across the Atlantic. By the 1940s, airplanes had become a major facet of warfare and would soon become a common aspect of modern life. And in 1969, man landed on the moon. There was continual progress in the history of flight and only 66 years from the Wright bros to landing on the moon. With yogic flying there has been no progress in 33 years, if anything there has been regression. If it were a real technology of levitation or flying, you would be seeing some progress in 30 yrs time. The sidhis served to divert meditators' attention from that fact that enlightenment in 5-7 yrs wasn't happening as promised, and now all this abstract talk about invincibility is a diversion from the fact that actual sidhis haven't happened in a few yrs as promised. (Not that I think those things should happen quickly or at all, but just commenting on how the TMO constantly goes from 1 thing to the next without fulfilling the prior and never talking why).
[FairfieldLife] Brainwashing is predation
YMMV, but I see a lot of the TMO in the below. Edg http://tinyurl.com/2yelvx 3 Tools To Brainwash and Influence People Through Media `'till at last the child's mind is these suggestions, and the sum of the suggestions is the child's mind. And not the child's mind only. The adult's mind too all his life long. The mind that judges and desires and decides made up of these suggestions. But all these suggestions are our suggestions! - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World The opinions and behaviors of people and societies are easily swayed. Every decade, every year, every week, those who control mass media change the climates of human thought. New pop stars, fashions, and fads are paraded center stage and then exit stage left followed by floods of expendable cash, leaving the path of sordid garbage known as popular culture in its wake. Now the power to rule the world and wag the cultural dog is at your fingertips. What follows are simple instructions, a manual, a playbook of sorts, some simple behavioral tools to influence and take advantage of the nervous systems of all your peers. The 23 Tools: 1. The key to truly effective brainwashing is to work at people's most fundamental awareness. Shape them at the neurological level so they develop the faculties to take your input and call it thinking for myself. Enable them to stop thinking. 2. Limit any and all faculties for self-awareness and self-sensing. Destroy instinct and intuition. Actively and endlessly encourage external awareness. Make people dependent on your external input for as many decisions as possible. 3. Speed up messages so that the pace and rhythm of information is disorienting and visually biased. 4. Condition people to being bombarded with hundreds of thousands of signals a day. Teach them to attend to this stream of information and to call it Reality. Never let them ask what reality is. 5. Framing is everything. Decide what you want people to believe and make sure that any choices you give them are within a framework which assures you of your result. This is called the Illusion of Choice. Do you want to sweep the floor before or after dinner? Repeat this formula for economic systems, politicians, news stories, competing product brands and entertainment. 6. Appeal to the lowest common denominator. Make sure that all shows model conflict resolution of people with an emotional and intellectual maturity no greater than that of a six year old. Make it funny so no one notices. 7. Keep people passive. Encourage the Couch Potato Alpha Wave Escape Plan as the healing elixir for all that ails. 8. Don't make people think. Their days are hard enough as is. Bypass the need for opinion making by giving people ready-made opinions. Do it as though you don't have a conscience they are probably too stupid to make their own decisions anyway. 9. Ensure that there are no ongoing storylines with meaning or purpose beyond immediate sensory stimulation. Avoid universal themes as much as possible. Make absolutely certain there is no cultural, societal or global story or mythology present that conflicts with the myths of comfort and consumption. 10. Never encourage responsibility, or so much as suggest that humans could be involved in co-creating their future and the realities in which they reside. 11. Encourage group-sanctioned individuality only. By making `individuality the new conformity you are generating a powerful illusion of free choice. 12. Sensationalize the superficial. 13. Keep information bytes infinitesimally small. Promote Attention Deficit Disorder. Several decades of television have already set this in motion. 14. Repetition is key. Repeat important messages as often as possible. 15. Repetition is key. 16. Repetition is key. 17. Bypass rationality by any means possible. People don't need logic to accept information. Belief is emotional. Always remember: WAR=PEACE. 18. Remember - two half-truths make up a whole truth. 19. Demonize self-knowledge technology of all kinds. Throw around words like cult and brainwashing. Marginalize anyone involved in such pursuits. 20. Keep old models of consciousness alive and well. If you can get away with referring to people's states as being phlegmatic or sanguine instead of programmable and intentional, do it. 21. Keep people's attention on what really matters. Emphasize what's wrong as much as possible. 22. Always give the impression that Everything Is Under Control but just barely so hammer into the populace the idea that their greatest fear could strike at any moment. 23. Teach people that they are their thoughts and emotions. Reinforce this by teaching them to feel bad about their ideas, and to feel bad about feeling bad. Remember: Identify, identify, identify - this will widen the empty void inside of them that only shopping can cure. By sticking to these simple premises you should be able to produce entire societies capable of ending world hunger, but too selfish to care. You
[FairfieldLife] Do good works without hesitation - Guru Dev
Do good works without hesitation. The jiva has been experiencing samsara for many, many births. It is only natural, therefore, that its tendencies have become worldly. To turn its tendency toward Paramatma [God] and away from samsara [worldly life] requires effort. In reality, the aim of life is to stop the mind from involvement with this world. If one engages in the spiritual practice of Bhagavan and in thinking and speaking about Him, the mind will start dwelling on Him, and after some time, it will withdraw from samsara on its own. In our daily affairs we should adopt a strategy of quickly attending to good works and things related to the divine. Should any wrong thought arise, on the other hand, we should try to postpone it to another time by saying, I'll do it tomorrow, or the day after next. In this way, wrong action can be continuously postponed. To be born a human is more fortunate than to be born a deva. Taking birth as a deva is considered comparable to taking birth as any other life form. Birth as a god is attained by those who perform certain sacrifices and karma, etc. associated with divinity, with the intention to enjoy divine pleasures. The minds of the devatas wander incessantly because of the abundance of enjoyable things in the heavenly realms, and hence they cannot perform purushartha [actions consistent with the goals of human life and evolution]. For this reason, the human birth is considered superior, because here, by doing as much purushartha as possible, one can eventually become one with God. A human being is like a lump of pure gold, whereas gods are like pieces of fine jewelry. Having been perfected as jewelry, their progression is complete, and they cannot be further improved. On the other hand, gold which has not yet been crafted by the jeweler is completely unrestricted in its potential. Hence the birth of a human being is said to be the very best birth for action. Having attained this birth, one should not act carelessly, but should conscientiously perform the best purushartha. Fulfilling one's own dharma while keeping faith in Paramatma is the greatest purushartha. Strive to become one with God in this lifetime. Have firm faith in the Vedas and shastras and keep the company of those wise people who also have faith in them. Only then will the purpose of your life be fulfilled. The Everyday Teachings of Swami Brahmananda Saraswati [Jagadguru Shankaracharya, Jyotir Math, Himalayas, 1941-53] Compiled by Rameswar Tiwari Edited and Introduction by L. B. Shriver Translation Edited and Annotation by Cynthia A. Humes Clear River Press, 2001 [thanks to DB]
[FairfieldLife] Re: For Richard
Angela Mailander wrote: I do respect the feelings for your country that you have expressed. When four of the world's premier jet fighters crash, the military pays attention. When every F-15 in the world is ordered to stay on the ground, the rumor mill gets in gear. Read more: 'The Real Story Behind the F-15 Stand-Down: News Analysis' By Joe Pappalardo Popular Mechanics, November 16, 2007 http://tinyurl.com/39hxqm And what are the chances that an operation of such size-- it would surely have involved hundreds of military and civilian personnel--could be carried out without a single leak? 'Why the 9/11 Conspiracy Theories Won't Go Away' By Lev Grossman Time, Sunday, Sep. 03, 2006 http://tinyurl.com/prx43 Recently, Rosie O'Donnell, a co-host of ABC talk show The View, made comments on the show that renewed controversy over the collapse of World Trade Center 7. I do believe that it's the first time in history that fire has ever melted steel. - Rosie O'Donnell Read more: 'Rosie O'Donnell 9/11 Conspiracy Comments' Popular Mechanics, March 30, 2007 http://www.popularmechanics.com/blogs/911myths/4213805.html America was NOT under attack when those first alerts were received; certainly ATC and FAA had NO WAY of knowing so early in the proceedings that the jets which had broken communications and gone off-course were part of any attack. Source: 'Air Defenses Stood Down On 911' By R. Anderson Rense, 12-23-1 http://tinyurl.com/3y73jc The article also makes no mention whatsoever of the numerous war games scheduled for the morning of 9/11 which confused air defense personnel as to the true nature of the attack as it unfolded, as is documented by the recent release of the NORAD tapes. Source: 'Debunking Popular Mechanics' 9/11 Lies' By Paul Joseph Watson PrisonPlanet, August 10 2006 http://tinyurl.com/rmnwl This absurd idea that NORAD had no radar coverage over much of the continental US is distilled from the 9/11 Commission Report. Predictably, the article makes no mention of evidence that war games were planned for the day of 9/11/01. 'Popular Mechanics Attacks Its 9/11 LIES Straw Man' by Jim Hoffman 9-11 Research, February 9, 2005 http://911research.wtc7.net/essays/pm/ These theories are generally not accepted as credible by political leaders, mainstream journalists, and independent researchers who have concluded that responsibility for the attacks and the resulting destruction rests solely with Al Qaeda. Source: 'September 11, 2001 attacks' Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11,_2001_attacks Scientific American, Popular Mechanics, and The Skeptic's Dictionary have published articles that debunk various 9/11 conspiracy theories. 'Claims that US defenses were deliberately disabled' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9/11_conspiracy_theories Claim: FEMA workers were dispatched to New York City on the evening of 10 September 2001, which proves the federal government had advance knowledge of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. Status: False. Source: Snopes, October 1, 2002 http://www.snopes.com/rumors/fema.htm 'Internet hoaxes' http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/blxterror.htm News of the devastating terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon swept across the Internet at light speed on the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001. So did rumor, gossip and hearsay. 'Rumor Watch: 9/11 Terrorist Attack on U.S.' http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/weekly/aa091101a.htm 'Complete 9/11 Commission Report' http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/index.htm
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: For Richard
Richard, thanks for your courteous reply. Because of it, you deserve a well-considered answer, and you shall have it. Give me a little time, though, because I've got duties today that must be attended to. I do respect the feelings for your country that you have expressed. Angela Richard J. Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Angela Mailander wrote: According to sources that at least seem credible, Which sources would that be? my information is that there were exercises going on that day Over New York City? in which simulated high-jacked planes were in the air, so that people were confused about real world events and simulated events. According to what I've read, any jet fighters would have had only a few minutes to fly into New York City airspace, locate the hijacked airliners, whose transponders had been turned off, and shoot them down. But apparently ATC didn't even make a phone call until 8:37 am EST to inform NEADS that Flight 11 was hijacked. The first plane hit the WTC at 9:03 am. The nearest airbase is Otis Air Force Base in Falmouth, Mass., and Langley Air National Guard Base in Hampton, Va. How long does it take for a F-15 to fly from Mass. or Va. to New York? What do you think? I also read that we normally have surveillance planes in the air 24/7, but on that day of days, they were down, which would be an extraordinary co-incidence. According to Popular Mechanics, there were fourteen jet fighters aloft in the U.S. at the time of the attack. Now, listen, William, I am willing to have a real conversation about this, but I am not willing to engage in the kind of oneupmanship pissing contest that Judy, for example, likes to have, in which somebody has to be wrong. I am not interested in that kind of conversation. And it seems your questions have that tone. You brought up the subject, Angela, and it seemed like you were trying to suggest that the 9/11 attacks were an inside job. I find that offensive that 3000 people died at the hands of elements within our own government. And I've seen no evidence to support such a claim. Am I wrong? You can't prove a negative: do you have any evidence that the 9/11 attacks were an inside job? Your main source said that NORAD could have scrambled jet fighters to what, shoot down the hijacked airliners over New York City? Richard J. Williams wrote: So, how many U.S. jet fighters were airborne at the time of the attack and where were they located? Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
[FairfieldLife] Re: Do siddhis have ANYTHING to do with state of co
He told you what you wanted to hear while he was f*cking with your mind to get you to do what he wanted. Very clever and cagey old buzzard. Tom This point relates to something Chopra said on the History Channel show. He said that MMY told him that if he didn't exaggerate, people wouldn't move at all in the directions he wanted. It was a justification for lying based on how effectively it can manipulate behavior. Your point (if I understand it) is similar. It assumes that MMY knows something so valuable that he doesn't have to respect any rules of honesty. The end justifies the means. I know why we gave MMY so much power over us when we were all young. We hadn't seen enough of life to even know that is what we were doing. But now as an adult, I don't get why anyone would allow another person to be manipulatively deceptive unchallenged. Why would anyone believe one thing a person said so strongly that they would base many important life choices on it (the value of higher states of consciousness), knowing full well that the person (MMY) places no value on honesty at all? It goes back to my question about how people are convinced that guys like MMY are in a special state with unique insights about how life works. Using MMY's own logic, if TM just gives you a little inner peace and calms you down a bit, he would be justified to claim that it brings you to the goal of all human life and the highest state of human consciousness. If he believed that people had to be tricked into being a little more peaceful, it would be fine to claim that enlightenment is the goal of human evolution and the deepest state of knowledge. I understand why a woman might stay in an abusive relationship. Are the dynamic similar? Is it a self esteem lowering assumption that somehow we don't deserve to be dealt with in an honest way by a guru? Reminds me of St. Paul talking about feeding children milk before they were ready for meat in presenting Christianity. Worked better on me when I was a LOT younger. Now I expect to be dealt with honestly and fairly, and if a person decides to violate that basic rule, they lose their interaction privileges. Is respect and fairness too much to ask in the relationship with a Guru? Is it an inherently abusive relationship because of the built-in disparity of respect? How does anyone know which parts of MMY's teaching he has given himself permission to lie about? For our own good of course! --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, tomandcindytraynoratfairfieldlis [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Barry writes snipped: Being able to perform siddhis doesn't make a person good, and being bad doesn't prevent a person from being able to do them. Used as some kind of measure of a person's enlightenment, the siddhis are just as big a failure as any other measurement you might imagine. TomT: As I have mentioned here a few times before I feel strongly they were just another misdirection to keep you on the path. Like the magicians waving of the one hand while the other hand is doing all the work. Who's ego wouldn't be fascinated by being able to fly and all that other stuff. The real work was being accomplished in the process of the technique. He told you what you wanted to hear while he was f*cking with your mind to get you to do what he wanted. Very clever and cagey old buzzard. Tom
[FairfieldLife] After 500 days, positive US trends fulfill predictions for group meditation study in Iowa
After 500 days, positive US trends fulfill predictions for group meditation study in Iowa International Center for Invincible Defense In affiliation with the Global Financial Capital of New York 11 December 2007 Media Alert GOOD NEWS FROM THE INVINCIBLE AMERICA ASSEMBLY After 500 Days, Positive U.S. Trends Fulfill Predictions for Group Meditation Study in Iowa Violent Crime Drops Suddenly in Major U.S. Cities; U.S. and North Korea End 50-Year Nuclear Standoff; Wall Street on Pace for Second Most Profitable Year Ever; Hurricane Season Ends with a Whimper for Second Straight Year The results are in from the first 500 days of the Invincible America Assembly in Iowathe first-ever scientific demonstration project to document the long-term positive effects of large group meditations on national trends. According to Dr. John Hagelin, world-renowned quantum physicist, Executive Director of the International Center for Invincible Defense (www.InvincibleDefense.org), and the project's scientific director: After a two-year surge, violent crime is down suddenly in many large U.S. cities(1), led by New York City, which is on track to have the fewest murders in 2007 in more than 40 years(2). After decades of unremitting escalation, nuclear tensions between the U.S. and North Korea are ending swiftly and peacefully(3); violence is down 60% in Iraq over the past six months(4); peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians were held with the participation of many key Arab nations for the first time(5); and the heated rhetoric between the U.S. and Iran, which threatened only months ago to erupt into regional, if not global, conflict, has calmed dramatically(6). (These unexpected developments build upon previous good news from the Middle East during the Assembly, including the U.S.-brokered peace deal last year, which brought an immediate and lasting end to the bloody violence between Israel and Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon that also threatened to engulf the region(7).) Wall Street is on pace for its second most profitable year ever, despite disturbances caused by much-needed restructuring in financial debt markets(8). Just as impressive, the Dow is up more than 9 percent for the year and a remarkable 25 percent since the beginning of the Assembly, while the SP has risen by 21 percent during the same period. Despite dire predictions of a highly active and destructive hurricane season, 2007 ended with a whimper; the U.S. was not hit by any major storm for the second straight year(9) (see below). 'It is possible that any one or two of these positive trends, unforeseen by experts even six months ago, could have occurred on their own. But the fact that all this good news is coming nowexactly as we predicted 500 days agois well beyond chance. It is the direct result of the coherence created by the Invincible America Assembly,' Dr. Hagelin said. Positive influence of the Invincible America Assembly is immediate and profound The Invincible America Assembly was launched by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, founder of the Transcendental Meditation program, to create coherent national consciousnessthe basis of a healthy, prosperous, harmonious, invincible nation. Extensive published research shows that coherence and positivity is created in collective consciousness when a small number of people practice the Transcendental Meditation and more advanced Yogic Flying techniques together in a group. (A few hundred to a few thousand depending up on the population of the country.) This rise of positivity in collective consciousness reduces negative trends, including crime and violence, and improves economic, social, and even environmental trends. Since the start of the Assembly, as many as 1700 experts have gathered in Iowa at Maharishi University of Management (www.mum.edu) and Maharishi Vedic City to create coherent national consciousness. 'Rigorous statistical analysis shows that the upsurge of positive trends started on the day the Assembly beganJuly 23, 2006when an initial group of 1200 experts assembled from across the U.S. and around the world to practice these technologies in a group,' Dr. Hagelin said. Dr. Hagelin said that based on the prior research, the present group of 1700 experts is sufficient to produce a powerful influence of coherence and positivity in the nation. However, to ensure that remaining problems in the country are quickly resolved and to permanently establish the nation on a high level of invincibility, Dr. Hagelin said that a group of 2500 experts is neededand will soon be established in Iowa. A comprehensive study is now under way, including a 26-point 'Invincibility Index,' to document the ongoing improvements in economic, social, health, environmental, and governmental trends generated by the Invincible America Assembly. Invincible Universities being established worldwide Dr. Hagelin also
[FairfieldLife] Re: Do siddhis have ANYTHING to do with state of consciousness?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What bothers them is that there is a strong like- lihood that Rama was a bit of a charlatan and a bit of a rogue and *none* of the things that they visualize when they think of an enlightened teacher, AND YET HE COULD DO THIS STUFF ANYWAY. Interesting POV. I think I capitulate
[FairfieldLife] Re: For Richard
Excellent post Richard. I look forward to Angela's response. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Richard J. Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Angela Mailander wrote: I do respect the feelings for your country that you have expressed. When four of the world's premier jet fighters crash, the military pays attention. When every F-15 in the world is ordered to stay on the ground, the rumor mill gets in gear. Read more: 'The Real Story Behind the F-15 Stand-Down: News Analysis' By Joe Pappalardo Popular Mechanics, November 16, 2007 http://tinyurl.com/39hxqm And what are the chances that an operation of such size-- it would surely have involved hundreds of military and civilian personnel--could be carried out without a single leak? 'Why the 9/11 Conspiracy Theories Won't Go Away' By Lev Grossman Time, Sunday, Sep. 03, 2006 http://tinyurl.com/prx43 Recently, Rosie O'Donnell, a co-host of ABC talk show The View, made comments on the show that renewed controversy over the collapse of World Trade Center 7. I do believe that it's the first time in history that fire has ever melted steel. - Rosie O'Donnell Read more: 'Rosie O'Donnell 9/11 Conspiracy Comments' Popular Mechanics, March 30, 2007 http://www.popularmechanics.com/blogs/911myths/4213805.html America was NOT under attack when those first alerts were received; certainly ATC and FAA had NO WAY of knowing so early in the proceedings that the jets which had broken communications and gone off-course were part of any attack. Source: 'Air Defenses Stood Down On 911' By R. Anderson Rense, 12-23-1 http://tinyurl.com/3y73jc The article also makes no mention whatsoever of the numerous war games scheduled for the morning of 9/11 which confused air defense personnel as to the true nature of the attack as it unfolded, as is documented by the recent release of the NORAD tapes. Source: 'Debunking Popular Mechanics' 9/11 Lies' By Paul Joseph Watson PrisonPlanet, August 10 2006 http://tinyurl.com/rmnwl This absurd idea that NORAD had no radar coverage over much of the continental US is distilled from the 9/11 Commission Report. Predictably, the article makes no mention of evidence that war games were planned for the day of 9/11/01. 'Popular Mechanics Attacks Its 9/11 LIES Straw Man' by Jim Hoffman 9-11 Research, February 9, 2005 http://911research.wtc7.net/essays/pm/ These theories are generally not accepted as credible by political leaders, mainstream journalists, and independent researchers who have concluded that responsibility for the attacks and the resulting destruction rests solely with Al Qaeda. Source: 'September 11, 2001 attacks' Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11,_2001_attacks Scientific American, Popular Mechanics, and The Skeptic's Dictionary have published articles that debunk various 9/11 conspiracy theories. 'Claims that US defenses were deliberately disabled' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9/11_conspiracy_theories Claim: FEMA workers were dispatched to New York City on the evening of 10 September 2001, which proves the federal government had advance knowledge of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. Status: False. Source: Snopes, October 1, 2002 http://www.snopes.com/rumors/fema.htm 'Internet hoaxes' http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/blxterror.htm News of the devastating terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon swept across the Internet at light speed on the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001. So did rumor, gossip and hearsay. 'Rumor Watch: 9/11 Terrorist Attack on U.S.' http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/weekly/aa091101a.htm 'Complete 9/11 Commission Report' http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/index.htm
Re: [FairfieldLife] The real test of the Anti-Science freaks on FFL
Vaj wrote: On Dec 12, 2007, at 1:13 AM, off_world_beings wrote: A million studies would not convince then about TM, yet it only takes about 40-50 to change my mind on TM. This is the absolute truth for me and totally proves their anti-science religious agenda to ignore science for their own pathetic opinions. What would it take for legitimate scientists to take TM/TMSP seriously? - good study design, esp. good controls, a robust null hypothesis and randomization would be a good start. It would also be good to know funding sources so we know there's no bias (ha, ha). - examples of the style of profound, brain-wide, high-amplitude coherence actually seen in yogis and advanced meditators - examples of this coherence lingering in the post meditation periods. - significant drops in metabolic rate, not merely drops the same as napping (TM is statistically and scientifically the same as sleep and what happens in sleep-waking cycles). - reduction in amount and severity of negative emotions. - cortical thickening. etc. And remember the TMO was looking for alpha waves during meditation when at the same time researchers were finding that watching TV would put people into alpha state. :)
[FairfieldLife] Re: Brainwashing is predation
With any given object, or person or concept - we 'seduce ourselves' to construct a narrative and formula useful to complete thoughts . . such as French Silk Pie = whatever or TMO = whatever you want to plug in Whether these narratives and formulas come from the outside world, such as the media or gurus - - or whether these formulas come from our own inner thought processes - they are brainwashing. Don't think for a moment that if we come up with a formula, or adopt a formula that lines up with our inclinations and passes all our tests - don't think for a moment that formula is not brainwashing. It is still a formula and it taints our world. If a formula gets you where you want to go, great, if not, dump it. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: YMMV, but I see a lot of the TMO in the below. Edg http://tinyurl.com/2yelvx 3 Tools To Brainwash and Influence People Through Media `'till at last the child's mind is these suggestions, and the sum of the suggestions is the child's mind. And not the child's mind only. The adult's mind too all his life long. The mind that judges and desires and decides made up of these suggestions. But all these suggestions are our suggestions! - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World The opinions and behaviors of people and societies are easily swayed. Every decade, every year, every week, those who control mass media change the climates of human thought. New pop stars, fashions, and fads are paraded center stage and then exit stage left followed by floods of expendable cash, leaving the path of sordid garbage known as popular culture in its wake. Now the power to rule the world and wag the cultural dog is at your fingertips. What follows are simple instructions, a manual, a playbook of sorts, some simple behavioral tools to influence and take advantage of the nervous systems of all your peers. The 23 Tools: 1. The key to truly effective brainwashing is to work at people's most fundamental awareness. Shape them at the neurological level so they develop the faculties to take your input and call it thinking for myself. Enable them to stop thinking. 2. Limit any and all faculties for self-awareness and self-sensing. Destroy instinct and intuition. Actively and endlessly encourage external awareness. Make people dependent on your external input for as many decisions as possible. 3. Speed up messages so that the pace and rhythm of information is disorienting and visually biased. 4. Condition people to being bombarded with hundreds of thousands of signals a day. Teach them to attend to this stream of information and to call it Reality. Never let them ask what reality is. 5. Framing is everything. Decide what you want people to believe and make sure that any choices you give them are within a framework which assures you of your result. This is called the Illusion of Choice. Do you want to sweep the floor before or after dinner? Repeat this formula for economic systems, politicians, news stories, competing product brands and entertainment. 6. Appeal to the lowest common denominator. Make sure that all shows model conflict resolution of people with an emotional and intellectual maturity no greater than that of a six year old. Make it funny so no one notices. 7. Keep people passive. Encourage the Couch Potato Alpha Wave Escape Plan as the healing elixir for all that ails. 8. Don't make people think. Their days are hard enough as is. Bypass the need for opinion making by giving people ready-made opinions. Do it as though you don't have a conscience they are probably too stupid to make their own decisions anyway. 9. Ensure that there are no ongoing storylines with meaning or purpose beyond immediate sensory stimulation. Avoid universal themes as much as possible. Make absolutely certain there is no cultural, societal or global story or mythology present that conflicts with the myths of comfort and consumption. 10. Never encourage responsibility, or so much as suggest that humans could be involved in co-creating their future and the realities in which they reside. 11. Encourage group-sanctioned individuality only. By making `individuality the new conformity you are generating a powerful illusion of free choice. 12. Sensationalize the superficial. 13. Keep information bytes infinitesimally small. Promote Attention Deficit Disorder. Several decades of television have already set this in motion. 14. Repetition is key. Repeat important messages as often as possible. 15. Repetition is key. 16. Repetition is key. 17. Bypass rationality by any means possible. People don't need logic to accept information. Belief is emotional. Always remember: WAR=PEACE. 18. Remember - two half-truths make up a whole truth. 19. Demonize self-knowledge technology of all kinds. Throw around words like cult and brainwashing. Marginalize anyone involved in
[FairfieldLife] *It's a Man's World* - by James Brown Pavarotti
WOW! If you haven't seen this yet, tie yourself to your seat or you'll get blown out of it. The late James Brown and the late Luciano Pavarotti singing It's A Man's World. I'm told this was a benefit concert in Italy in 2004. ~~ Hoffmania http://tinyurl.com/aw758 Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCIyzNISw1Q
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Do siddhis have ANYTHING to do with state of co
Why a woman would stay in an abusive relationship is something I'm something of an expert in, and I'm sure that this time Judy won't but in with her rude oneupmanship games. I never got into the TMO because I saw it as a cult. I saw that it was doing some good things, but I saw too many people in cult-like mode for my liking. I thought that this wasn't entirely MMY's fault because these people were all too ready to turn that thing into a cult for themselves. And I think that this happens with followers of any religion, bar none--which is not to say, of course, that all followers of religion are cult-like clones. But guess what? I did time in a cult anyway. Twice. Two bad marriages, and I came to see that the dynamics were indeed the same. curtisdeltablues [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: He told you what you wanted to hear while he was f*cking with your mind to get you to do what he wanted. Very clever and cagey old buzzard. Tom This point relates to something Chopra said on the History Channel show. He said that MMY told him that if he didn't exaggerate, people wouldn't move at all in the directions he wanted. It was a justification for lying based on how effectively it can manipulate behavior. Your point (if I understand it) is similar. It assumes that MMY knows something so valuable that he doesn't have to respect any rules of honesty. The end justifies the means. I know why we gave MMY so much power over us when we were all young. We hadn't seen enough of life to even know that is what we were doing. But now as an adult, I don't get why anyone would allow another person to be manipulatively deceptive unchallenged. Why would anyone believe one thing a person said so strongly that they would base many important life choices on it (the value of higher states of consciousness), knowing full well that the person (MMY) places no value on honesty at all? It goes back to my question about how people are convinced that guys like MMY are in a special state with unique insights about how life works. Using MMY's own logic, if TM just gives you a little inner peace and calms you down a bit, he would be justified to claim that it brings you to the goal of all human life and the highest state of human consciousness. If he believed that people had to be tricked into being a little more peaceful, it would be fine to claim that enlightenment is the goal of human evolution and the deepest state of knowledge. I understand why a woman might stay in an abusive relationship. Are the dynamic similar? Is it a self esteem lowering assumption that somehow we don't deserve to be dealt with in an honest way by a guru? Reminds me of St. Paul talking about feeding children milk before they were ready for meat in presenting Christianity. Worked better on me when I was a LOT younger. Now I expect to be dealt with honestly and fairly, and if a person decides to violate that basic rule, they lose their interaction privileges. Is respect and fairness too much to ask in the relationship with a Guru? Is it an inherently abusive relationship because of the built-in disparity of respect? How does anyone know which parts of MMY's teaching he has given himself permission to lie about? For our own good of course! --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, tomandcindytraynoratfairfieldlis [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Barry writes snipped: Being able to perform siddhis doesn't make a person good, and being bad doesn't prevent a person from being able to do them. Used as some kind of measure of a person's enlightenment, the siddhis are just as big a failure as any other measurement you might imagine. TomT: As I have mentioned here a few times before I feel strongly they were just another misdirection to keep you on the path. Like the magicians waving of the one hand while the other hand is doing all the work. Who's ego wouldn't be fascinated by being able to fly and all that other stuff. The real work was being accomplished in the process of the technique. He told you what you wanted to hear while he was f*cking with your mind to get you to do what he wanted. Very clever and cagey old buzzard. Tom Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
[FairfieldLife] Re: *It's a Man's World* - by James Brown Pavarotti
Dude what a find! Like a wouldn't it be crazy if... discussion at closing time. This comes off as a more natural pairing than some of his pop duets. I think Luciano was down with every word of this song. I read that he tried to kiss every woman in the room, wherever he was. This lead me down the rabbit hole of duets on youtube, and although I didn't like his match up with Barry White as much, I did surface with this little gem with Lisa Stansfield and Barry that drips with charm and sex appeal: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GR_kO6gbIMofeature=related --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, do.rflex [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: WOW! If you haven't seen this yet, tie yourself to your seat or you'll get blown out of it. The late James Brown and the late Luciano Pavarotti singing It's A Man's World. I'm told this was a benefit concert in Italy in 2004. ~~ Hoffmania http://tinyurl.com/aw758 Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCIyzNISw1Q
[FairfieldLife] GO RON PAUL ! ! !
Check out Ron Paul's 11.3 million raised this quarter, and he never picked up a phone or attended a fundraiser to do it -- all done by grassroots people on the side. In Alaska, a poll just showed him first for Republicans, and about 7% above the next candidate. He is at least 3rd in polls in NH, and possibly 1st or 2nd in Iowa. On December 16th, there is another 1 day push by grassroots to raise money - last time he raised 4.2 million in one day. He could be the Republican who raises by far the most this quarter http://www.ronpaul2008.com/ I love Ron Paulthere I said it ! And there is the Ron Paul Blimp sailing up the East coast -- coming tomorrow possibly ! ! ! (paid for by other independent fundraising, entirely seperate (over and above) from the 11.3 million ! ) GO RON PAUL ! ! ! OffWorld
Re: [FairfieldLife] After 500 days, positive US trends fulfill predictions for group meditation study in Iowa
This is a great example of the vodoo-science of the TMO. To simply claim, post hoc, that you predicted things would get better and then look at the historical record and find things that got better is absurd. Tell me now, what things will get better in the future, be specific, and at least attempt to tell me why these specific things will get better beyond the butterfly effect which simply says everything effects everything else which means nothing. --- michael [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: After 500 days, positive US trends fulfill predictions for group meditation study in Iowa International Center for Invincible Defense In affiliation with the Global Financial Capital of New York 11 December 2007 Media Alert GOOD NEWS FROM THE INVINCIBLE AMERICA ASSEMBLY After 500 Days, Positive U.S. Trends Fulfill Predictions for Group Meditation Study in Iowa Violent Crime Drops Suddenly in Major U.S. Cities; U.S. and North Korea End 50-Year Nuclear Standoff; Wall Street on Pace for Second Most Profitable Year Ever; Hurricane Season Ends with a Whimper for Second Straight Year The results are in from the first 500 days of the Invincible America Assembly in Iowathe first-ever scientific demonstration project to document the long-term positive effects of large group meditations on national trends. According to Dr. John Hagelin, world-renowned quantum physicist, Executive Director of the International Center for Invincible Defense (www.InvincibleDefense.org), and the project's scientific director: After a two-year surge, violent crime is down suddenly in many large U.S. cities(1), led by New York City, which is on track to have the fewest murders in 2007 in more than 40 years(2). After decades of unremitting escalation, nuclear tensions between the U.S. and North Korea are ending swiftly and peacefully(3); violence is down 60% in Iraq over the past six months(4); peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians were held with the participation of many key Arab nations for the first time(5); and the heated rhetoric between the U.S. and Iran, which threatened only months ago to erupt into regional, if not global, conflict, has calmed dramatically(6). (These unexpected developments build upon previous good news from the Middle East during the Assembly, including the U.S.-brokered peace deal last year, which brought an immediate and lasting end to the bloody violence between Israel and Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon that also threatened to engulf the region(7).) Wall Street is on pace for its second most profitable year ever, despite disturbances caused by much-needed restructuring in financial debt markets(8). Just as impressive, the Dow is up more than 9 percent for the year and a remarkable 25 percent since the beginning of the Assembly, while the SP has risen by 21 percent during the same period. Despite dire predictions of a highly active and destructive hurricane season, 2007 ended with a whimper; the U.S. was not hit by any major storm for the second straight year(9) (see below). 'It is possible that any one or two of these positive trends, unforeseen by experts even six months ago, could have occurred on their own. But the fact that all this good news is coming nowexactly as we predicted 500 days agois well beyond chance. It is the direct result of the coherence created by the Invincible America Assembly,' Dr. Hagelin said. Positive influence of the Invincible America Assembly is immediate and profound The Invincible America Assembly was launched by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, founder of the Transcendental Meditation program, to create coherent national consciousnessthe basis of a healthy, prosperous, harmonious, invincible nation. Extensive published research shows that coherence and positivity is created in collective consciousness when a small number of people practice the Transcendental Meditation and more advanced Yogic Flying techniques together in a group. (A few hundred to a few thousand depending up on the population of the country.) This rise of positivity in collective consciousness reduces negative trends, including crime and violence, and improves economic, social, and even environmental trends. Since the start of the Assembly, as many as 1700 experts have gathered in Iowa at Maharishi University of Management (www.mum.edu) and Maharishi Vedic City to create coherent national consciousness. 'Rigorous statistical analysis shows that the upsurge of positive trends started on the day the Assembly beganJuly 23, 2006when an initial group of 1200 experts assembled from across the U.S. and around the world to practice these technologies in a group,' Dr. Hagelin said. Dr. Hagelin said that based on the prior research, the present group of 1700 experts is sufficient to produce a powerful influence of coherence and positivity in the
[FairfieldLife] Re: After 500 days, positive US trends fulfill predictions for group meditation
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Peter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This is a great example of the vodoo-science of the TMO. To simply claim, post hoc, that you predicted things would get better and then look at the historical record and find things that got better is absurd. Tell me now, what things will get better in the future, be specific, and at least attempt to tell me why these specific things will get better beyond the butterfly effect which simply says everything effects everything else which means nothing. They could have also considered: 1. Wall Street is having a horrible year - Goldman shares are the only ones to show a gain this year among the biggest U.S. securities firms, rising 8 percent. Morgan Stanley is down 26 percent in 2007, Merrill lost 39 percent, and Lehman dropped 24 percent. Bear Stearns has declined 42 percent this year. 2. The economy is slowing dramatically with about a 50-50 chance of a recession in the near term. 3. There has been no tangible progress towards peace in either the Iraq or Afganistan wars or in the Israel-Palistinian conflict. 4. Health care and energy costs have risen dramatically for the consumer. Consumer sentiment fell to its lowest level in two years in November, according to the Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumer. 5. 2007 is on track to be the hottest year on record, showing no progress against the global warming trend. 6. The population in Iowa, the home of the MUM, is growing far below the national pace, due to a stagnation in job growth. On the other hand, I don't think Britney Spears or Paris Hilton is currently in jail or pregnant - I'm surprised Hagelin missed that one. --- michael [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: After 500 days, positive US trends fulfill predictions for group meditation study in Iowa International Center for Invincible Defense In affiliation with the Global Financial Capital of New York 11 December 2007 Media Alert GOOD NEWS FROM THE INVINCIBLE AMERICA ASSEMBLY After 500 Days, Positive U.S. Trends Fulfill Predictions for Group Meditation Study in Iowa Violent Crime Drops Suddenly in Major U.S. Cities; U.S. and North Korea End 50-Year Nuclear Standoff; Wall Street on Pace for Second Most Profitable Year Ever; Hurricane Season Ends with a Whimper for Second Straight Year The results are in from the first 500 days of the Invincible America Assembly in Iowathe first-ever scientific demonstration project to document the long-term positive effects of large group meditations on national trends. According to Dr. John Hagelin, world-renowned quantum physicist, Executive Director of the International Center for Invincible Defense (www.InvincibleDefense.org), and the project's scientific director: After a two-year surge, violent crime is down suddenly in many large U.S. cities(1), led by New York City, which is on track to have the fewest murders in 2007 in more than 40 years(2). After decades of unremitting escalation, nuclear tensions between the U.S. and North Korea are ending swiftly and peacefully(3); violence is down 60% in Iraq over the past six months(4); peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians were held with the participation of many key Arab nations for the first time(5); and the heated rhetoric between the U.S. and Iran, which threatened only months ago to erupt into regional, if not global, conflict, has calmed dramatically(6). (These unexpected developments build upon previous good news from the Middle East during the Assembly, including the U.S.-brokered peace deal last year, which brought an immediate and lasting end to the bloody violence between Israel and Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon that also threatened to engulf the region(7).) Wall Street is on pace for its second most profitable year ever, despite disturbances caused by much-needed restructuring in financial debt markets(8). Just as impressive, the Dow is up more than 9 percent for the year and a remarkable 25 percent since the beginning of the Assembly, while the SP has risen by 21 percent during the same period. Despite dire predictions of a highly active and destructive hurricane season, 2007 ended with a whimper; the U.S. was not hit by any major storm for the second straight year(9) (see below). 'It is possible that any one or two of these positive trends, unforeseen by experts even six months ago, could have occurred on their own. But the fact that all this good news is coming nowexactly as we predicted 500 days agois well beyond chance. It is the direct result of the coherence created by the Invincible America Assembly,' Dr. Hagelin said. Positive influence of the Invincible America Assembly is immediate and profound The Invincible America Assembly was launched by Maharishi
[FairfieldLife] Re: *It's a Man's World* - by James Brown Pavarotti
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Dude what a find! Like a wouldn't it be crazy if... discussion at closing time. This comes off as a more natural pairing than some of his pop duets. I think Luciano was down with every word of this song. I read that he tried to kiss every woman in the room, wherever he was. This lead me down the rabbit hole of duets on youtube, and although I didn't like his match up with Barry White as much, I did surface with this little gem with Lisa Stansfield and Barry that drips with charm and sex appeal: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GR_kO6gbIMofeature=related It must be great music day here at FFL. That was nice. Thanks. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, do.rflex do.rflex@ wrote: WOW! If you haven't seen this yet, tie yourself to your seat or you'll get blown out of it. The late James Brown and the late Luciano Pavarotti singing It's A Man's World. I'm told this was a benefit concert in Italy in 2004. ~~ Hoffmania http://tinyurl.com/aw758 Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCIyzNISw1Q
[FairfieldLife] Re: GO RON PAUL ! ! !
I think it would be very cool if Ron got the nom, but on the 15th Kucinich is doing his send me money on the 15th thingy. I doubt he'll beat any of Ron's money totals, but I'm giving Kucinich $100 just so I can look in the mirror and say I did one small thing for my political beliefs besides voting and mentioning Kucinich now and then in posts etc. If either wins, I can only expect that our present spy-on-everyone-and-breed-fear-of-everyone BushCo paranoia will dramatically subside. Still, I don't hear these guys saying often enough how they would reverse what BushCo has done to all the laws with signing statements, outright disobediance, and cramming every federal bureaucracy with cronies done to the second or third levels -- it'll be tough to change so much back to normal without those who have benefited from that rape shouting that they're being abused. I sure hope Ron doesn't do a victory scream when he wins Iowa's vote. Edg --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, off_world_beings [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Check out Ron Paul's 11.3 million raised this quarter, and he never picked up a phone or attended a fundraiser to do it -- all done by grassroots people on the side. In Alaska, a poll just showed him first for Republicans, and about 7% above the next candidate. He is at least 3rd in polls in NH, and possibly 1st or 2nd in Iowa. On December 16th, there is another 1 day push by grassroots to raise money - last time he raised 4.2 million in one day. He could be the Republican who raises by far the most this quarter http://www.ronpaul2008.com/ I love Ron Paulthere I said it ! And there is the Ron Paul Blimp sailing up the East coast -- coming tomorrow possibly ! ! ! (paid for by other independent fundraising, entirely seperate (over and above) from the 11.3 million ! ) GO RON PAUL ! ! ! OffWorld
[FairfieldLife] Inside Scoop: Osama bin Laden May Have Been Found!
Popular documentary journalist, Morgan Spurlock, has shot more than 800 hours of digital video revealing his pursuit of the most wanted person on the planet: Osama bin Laden. http://Has-Osama-Bin-Laden-Been-Found.has.it/http://has-osama-bin-laden-been-found.has.it/ *Osama*: Is he a saint to his people or menace to humanity? *Can a viable ideology sustain humanity without creating a new * *structure perpetuating the same old exploitation in a new guise?* http://PROUT.shows.it/ http://prout.shows.it/ *Find out here!*
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Amma's teaching = why some teachers misbehave
My only argument was that just because there is no evidence that there ever lived a man named Jesus who died on the cross does not mean that no such man ever lived. I did not go another step further and claim that therefore Jesus did exist. There is no evidence that he did. That he did not exist, however, cannot be proven since you cannot prove a negative. My argument was that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. That is a solid law of logic and applies to this case as it does to case of there being no way to conclude your wife isn't stepping out on you just because there is no evidence that she is. No resident philosopher can find anything wrong with that. There is nothing wrong. Check it out with a logician. I have. Richard J. Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think, Angela, you may have this just backwards: because there is no evidence that Jesus existed, there is no proof that he did exist. Angela Mailander wrote: This is elementary logic: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Argumentum ad ignorantium: a fallacious argument. From the absence of proof of one position you cannot prove the opposite position. I'm surprised our resident philosophers didn't notice this. Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
[FairfieldLife] Re: Amma's teaching = why some teachers misbehave
I think, Angela, you may have this just backwards: because there is no evidence that Jesus existed, there is no proof that he did exist. Angela Mailander wrote: This is elementary logic: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Argumentum ad ignorantium: a fallacious argument. From the absence of proof of one position you cannot prove the opposite position. I'm surprised our resident philosophers didn't notice this.
[FairfieldLife] Kucinich banned from Iowa debate and other democratic functions -- OUTRAGEOUS
Kucinich booted from Iowa debate By Klaus Marre | Posted 12/12/07 9:15 AM [ET] December 12, 2007 Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D) is being excluded from this week's Iowa presidential debate because he has not rented office space in the Hawkeye State, his campaign said Wednesday. The Des Moines Register informed the campaign that Kucinich is not invited because the newspaper determined that a person working out of his home did not meet our criteria for a campaign office and full-time paid staff in Iowa, the campaign said. Kucinich, who is running his second consecutive presidential campaign but is doing poorly in national polls, has received strong support in online surveys from liberal groups such as Democracy for America. The Ohio lawmaker's anti-war campaign resonates with parts of the Democratic base even though that support has not boosted Kucinich from the lower tier of candidates. The campaign blasted the decision to exclude the lawmaker from the debate. The Iowa caucuses have been portrayed as having national implications, and if the Register has decided to use hair-splitting technicalities to exclude the leading voice of the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party, then the entire process is suspect, the campaign said in a statement about the arbitrary and unreasonable exclusion. The campaign claims that Kucinich has also been barred from public appearances by the Iowa Democratic Party, Iowa Public Television, and well-funded political interests With nearly twenty candidates running for the nominations of the two major parties, the format of the debates have been an issue all year long. Some of the lower-tier candidates have repeatedly complained that they are not being asked as many questions as the frontrunners. Meantime, some of the White House hopefuls have sought to limit the crowd. In July, former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) was overheard discussing the issue with Democratic frontrunner Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.).
[FairfieldLife] Re: GO RON PAUL ! ! !
Duveyoung wrote: Still, I don't hear these guys saying often enough how they would reverse what BushCo has done to all the laws with signing statements, outright disobediance, and cramming every federal bureaucracy with cronies done to the second or third levels -- it'll be tough to change so much back to normal without those who have benefited from that rape shouting that they're being abused. Really, if Clinton is going to suggest that Americans want the person most ready to be President on Day 1, which includes immediately taking charge of the war effort and dealing with our most pressing national security threats, she's just making the case for McCain. No other candidate even comes close to passing that test. And to say that we should vote for that candidate over someone who started running for President from his first day in the Senate is to again make the case for McCain over herself in a general election. Read more: 'Hillary questions her own candidacy, promotes McCain' By Drew Cline http://blogs.unionleader.com/andrew-cline/?p=1005
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: For Richard
Dear Richard, Id like to begin with your statement: I find that offensive that 3000 people died at the hands of elements within our own government. And I've seen no evidence to support such a claim. I would find it offensive also. But if the woman you love might have cancer, you wouldnt hesitate to have the best doctors test for it, even though the fact that she might be eaten up by an ugly growth is indeed offensive. You would do all you can to find the evidence so that you could then do all you can to correct the situation before it is too late. Precisely because it would be offensive that our government killed 3000 of our own people, we must consider the possibility that 9/11 was an inside job seriously. As patriots and as people who value democracy, we absolutely must investigate this as thoroughly as possible because this is part of the eternal vigilance that is the price of democracy. This would be our job even if the official government investigation had been done well. But, as it happens, the official investigation did not do a good job. In fact, they did a ludicrous job (more on that if you need more). The reason we must do all we can to learn the truth is that if it is an inside job, then our government is in the hands of people we might not want to trust. Could our government have been high-jacked by unscrupulous people with their own agenda? Eisenhower warned us that this might in fact happen, and he warned us for excellent reasons: he had good and abundant evidence that it was in the works already. That threat didnt go away just because he warned the American people. If youre with me so far, we can go another step. If we are going to do this investigation, then we must proceed with detachment and vigor. We go for it in the same way that a good detective goes after a possible criminal even if the alleged perp is someone he loves. And we build the very best case we can. We do not want to risk making a weak case just because we wish it isnt true. Also, those of us who are not directly engaged in making a case against the alleged perp (elements within our government) are not doing ourselves and the investigators any good by hating them, by vilifying them every step of the way, by calling them names. It is in all our interest that they do as good a job as possible, and so we treat them with respect. If youre with me so far, then we can go on. It is a lot of work, and I have been doing it for my own sake since the day it happened. In China, I had all my classes that needed to learn how to do research papers do them on this topic. But I did not do any of this work with a view toward publication, so I did not keep the best records. Ill give you what I can though, if you can agree with me thus far. Angela Richard J. Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Angela Mailander wrote: I do respect the feelings for your country that you have expressed. When four of the world's premier jet fighters crash, the military pays attention. When every F-15 in the world is ordered to stay on the ground, the rumor mill gets in gear. Read more: 'The Real Story Behind the F-15 Stand-Down: News Analysis' By Joe Pappalardo Popular Mechanics, November 16, 2007 http://tinyurl.com/39hxqm And what are the chances that an operation of such size-- it would surely have involved hundreds of military and civilian personnel--could be carried out without a single leak? 'Why the 9/11 Conspiracy Theories Won't Go Away' By Lev Grossman Time, Sunday, Sep. 03, 2006 http://tinyurl.com/prx43 Recently, Rosie O'Donnell, a co-host of ABC talk show The View, made comments on the show that renewed controversy over the collapse of World Trade Center 7. I do believe that it's the first time in history that fire has ever melted steel. - Rosie O'Donnell Read more: 'Rosie O'Donnell 9/11 Conspiracy Comments' Popular Mechanics, March 30, 2007 http://www.popularmechanics.com/blogs/911myths/4213805.html America was NOT under attack when those first alerts were received; certainly ATC and FAA had NO WAY of knowing so early in the proceedings that the jets which had broken communications and gone off-course were part of any attack. Source: 'Air Defenses Stood Down On 911' By R. Anderson Rense, 12-23-1 http://tinyurl.com/3y73jc The article also makes no mention whatsoever of the numerous war games scheduled for the morning of 9/11 which confused air defense personnel as to the true nature of the attack as it unfolded, as is documented by the recent release of the NORAD tapes. Source: 'Debunking Popular Mechanics' 9/11 Lies' By Paul Joseph Watson PrisonPlanet, August 10 2006 http://tinyurl.com/rmnwl This absurd idea that NORAD had no radar coverage over much of the continental US is distilled from the 9/11 Commission
[FairfieldLife] Re: Vedic architecture - the power of life-giving principles
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Dick Mays [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: http://www.bleepingherald.com/dec2007/vedic-architecture Vedic architecture - the power of life-giving principles by Cate Montana On October 25, 2003, a fire began near the mountain town of Ramona in San Diego County, California. Fueled by acres of dry brush and fanned by strong Santa Ana winds, the Cedar Fire spread rapidly, burning 273,246 acres, destroying 2,232 homes, and killing 14 people. According to Jeff Harter, battalion chief of the California Fire Plan, California Department of Forestry, the speed and ferocity of the blaze were heart stopping. Jeanette Worland watched the fire approach across the hills, while her husband, Paul, hosed down the new home he had designed and built according to the principles of Maharishi Vedic Architecture. Pushed by 40 to 60 mph winds, the fire roared up to their home around midnight, then made a sudden 90 degree shift and passed directly outside of the house's Vastu fence. This sudden shift allowed the Worlands to evacuate - and it saved the house and everything in or near it. After shifting the blaze away from the house, minutes later the wind shifted back to its original direction and consumed the acreage directly behind the home. The astonishing jog of the fire around the house was confirmed the next day by two fire fighters who noted with amazement that the fire seemed to lack the desire to destroy this house. Five other Maharishi Sthapatya Ved houses located within the fire's path were similarly spared with only smoke damage. One of the five was the only house among several in a cul-de-sac not to burn. Fast forward to this year's recent devastation. The Worland's and several other people's Sthapatya Ved houses were spared again against all odds. What happened? That's nice that some of the Vastu homes survived this year's fire, but evidently not all, or the article would or should have said that. Since only a small (10%?) percentage of homes in the Ramona area were destroyed, I presume that the percentage of vastu homes (there are only a handful built around the Peace Palace there) that were destroyed (if there was at least one burned, which is not clear) was about the same as non-vastu homes: http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=d8sf5l9g1show_article=1 A fire that struck Ramona, a city outside San Diego, had destroyed 650 structures [structures includes barns and other outbuildings]. Ramona is a city with about 5K housing units ( http://ramona.areaconnect.com/statistics.htm ), so although the area was hard hit, the number of destroyed houses was not overwhelming. It would be nice to get from the Ramona MSV dwellers an unambiguous account of whether all the MSV homes escaped fire damage or not.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Vedic architecture - the power of life-giving principles
What a big pile of ridiculous shit! What about all the vedic houses that burned? What about all the failed businesses in vedic houses. Just a huge stinking pile of cult crap. Interesting story, but pure shit nonethe less. --- Dick Mays [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: http://www.bleepingherald.com/dec2007/vedic-architecture Vedic architecture - the power of life-giving principles by Cate Montana On October 25, 2003, a fire began near the mountain town of Ramona in San Diego County, California. Fueled by acres of dry brush and fanned by strong Santa Ana winds, the Cedar Fire spread rapidly, burning 273,246 acres, destroying 2,232 homes, and killing 14 people. According to Jeff Harter, battalion chief of the California Fire Plan, California Department of Forestry, the speed and ferocity of the blaze were heart stopping. Jeanette Worland watched the fire approach across the hills, while her husband, Paul, hosed down the new home he had designed and built according to the principles of Maharishi Vedic Architecture. Pushed by 40 to 60 mph winds, the fire roared up to their home around midnight, then made a sudden 90 degree shift and passed directly outside of the house's Vastu fence. This sudden shift allowed the Worlands to evacuate - and it saved the house and everything in or near it. After shifting the blaze away from the house, minutes later the wind shifted back to its original direction and consumed the acreage directly behind the home. The astonishing jog of the fire around the house was confirmed the next day by two fire fighters who noted with amazement that the fire seemed to lack the desire to destroy this house. Five other Maharishi Sthapatya Ved houses located within the fire's path were similarly spared with only smoke damage. One of the five was the only house among several in a cul-de-sac not to burn. Fast forward to this year's recent devastation. The Worland's and several other people's Sthapatya Ved houses were spared again against all odds. What happened? Miracles are considered the result of divine intervention. But miracles have also been defined as occurrences which seem inexplicable because the laws governing them are so subtle they have not yet been discovered. In the case of these six homes, the miracle of their preservation depended upon principles that had been discovered, only many thousands of years ago in India. Vedic architecture, or Vastu architecture, also known as Sthapatya Veda, is a system of architecture and city planning based in cosmic principles that was learned by the great Indian rishis and then recorded thousands of years ago in the texts of the Vedas. The Sanskrit word Sthapan means to establish. The Sanskrit word Veda means knowledge of Natural Law. As such, the system of Vedic architecture, which is still practiced and taught in India today, applies eternal cosmic principles to the built environment in which we work and dwell. In the West, His Holiness Maharishi Mahesh Yogi studied the Sthapatya Vedas for many years, compiling and organizing much information that had apparently been lost and disorganized over the centuries. His system, called Maharishi Vedic architecture, Maharishi Vastu, or Maharishi Sthapatya Ved design, is taught today. It was the system by which all six homes that survived the Cedar Fire were designed and built. Is it possible that the architectural design, based in life-giving principles of the cosmos, imbued the homes with a grace that sustained them even in the face of certain destruction? Maharishi Sthapatya Ved According to Jonathan Lipman AIA, owner of Jonathan Lipman AIA and Associates in Fairfield, Iowa, and director of the Institute of Maharishi Vedic architecture, Maharishi Vedic architecture is defined as the most complete and ancient system of architecture and planning on Earth in accord with the solar, lunar and planetary influences on Earth with respect to the South Pole, North Pole and equator, connecting individual intelligence with cosmic intelligence, individual life with cosmic life. This may sound far out, but anyone with a high school diploma knows there are laws of nature that govern all the structures of nature - the galaxies, solar systems, stars, planets, animal life, plant life, cells, atoms, and subatomic particles. From the micro to the macro there are laws of nature that maintain perfect harmony and order in relationships throughout all creation. Once you start looking, it's obvious that these principles exist, and it's not only the Indian rishis who have recognized them. Artists, philosophers, and scientists such as Leonardo de Vinci, Plato and Copernicus have developed entire astronomical, philosophic and artistic schools around the perfection of mathematical proportion, perspective and the cosmos. But it
[FairfieldLife] Re: reports of levitation (was: Amma's teaching...)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, george_deforest [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Angela Mailander wrote: Unfortunately, I can't remember the names and dates, but there are reports of levitation in the Neo-Platonic tradition, so the mysterious East is not the only source for such stories. Craig Pearson, of MUM faculty, wrote a book about levitation; i dont think it was published yet; but, it includes the spontaneous levitations of St Joseph of Cupertino, a Catholic saint from the Middle Ages. of course there wasnt much Science back then, so there is not scientific proof; however, the suspicious Catholic Church was convinced of what he was doing; they dont make just anyone a saint; in their way, they investigate things quite thoroughly. this passes for me as: as scientific as you can be for that age; this monk did float into the air. *** Craig Pearson's book was published in 2000, but does not seem to be available anywhere, even from its publisher, MUM Press: http://tinyurl.com/ytur6g * I can't recall source of this, possibly an excerpt from Pearson's book: Some of the best records of levitations are among Christian documents which indicate that over 200 Catholic Saints have been credited with levitating. One of the more remarkable and documented accounts of levitation is of St. Joseph of Cupertino born in 1603 in Apulia, Italy. He was born in a stable, was not well educated, but yet was considered to be very wise. He fasted for 40 days 7 times a year and was able to communicate with animals. He is said to have achieved his ability to levitate after over two decades of intense spiritual practice. He levitated before hundreds of witnesses including one incident when he levitated several feet above the ground in front of Pope Urban VIII. He also levitated before two cardinals. At another time, during Mass, he floated through the air over the altar. He is also reported to have levitated to the topmost spires of St. Peter's Cathedral. His over one hundred recorded levitations earned him the nickname, the Flying Friar. His longest period of levitation was two hours. He died September 18, 1663 from a severe fever. He was canonized July 16,1767 by Pope Clement XIII. The Church considered his ability to levitate to have been the work of God. A biography of this great saint (titled St. Joseph of Cupertino) was written in 1753, at the time of his beatification. It is based on the Acta Sanctorum and the official documentation from the process that obtained his beatification on Februray 24, 1753 by Pope Benedict XIV. Other saints who have been reported to levitate were St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the cross; they levitated together up to the ceiling of St. Peter's Cathedral. St. Teresa stated that she levitated involuntarily during moments of rapture. Sister Anne was an eyewitness to one of St. Teresa's levitations. In response to an inquiry thirty years later she made a sworn deposition to verify her witness of St. Teresa's levitation. Other documented Christian levitating saints include: St. Edmund, then Archbishop of Canterbury circa 1242; Sister Mary, an Arabian Carmelite nun in Bethlehem circa 1700; St. Adolphus Liguori in Foggia during 1777; and Father Suarez at Santa Cruz in Southern Argentina in 1911.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Vedic architecture - the power of life-giving principles
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Peter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What a big pile of ridiculous shit! What about all the vedic houses that burned? What about all the failed businesses in vedic houses. Just a huge stinking pile of cult crap. Interesting story, but pure shit nonethe less. The MSV people who live in Ramona are unlikely to have brick and mortar businesses in Ramona -- most of them are apparently wealthy or retired, altho some might do biz online (and of course there is a Peace Palace/TM Center, so most of the people might be working for the movement). And the newspaper article does not say unequivocally that any MSV houses burned, so you're jumping the gun here. The Ramona MSV people need to say publicly whether any vastu homes (or businesses, if there were any) were burned or damaged.
[FairfieldLife] Walk Hard clip: the Beatles with Maharishi spoofed
youtube preview of the upcoming rediculous comedy: Walk Hard: the Dewey Cox Story. featured in this clip: the Beatles visit to Maharishi http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooX8nHa5rrc
[FairfieldLife] Kundalini-The path of transcending.
As MMY describes it there are distinct 'markers' on the path of transcending and MMY calls them milestones on the path of kundalini. These milestones are the chakras which have distinct sounds and experiences associated with them recorded by individuals who have experienced them and apparently are remarkably the same from individual to individual. The forth chakra (dorsal) which has been called the 'threshold of ascendency' has associated with it, according to Swami Yogananda, the sound of Aum as a long drawn out astral bell. Ultimately all mantras merge into the Mother Sound or Mantra of AUM, the veritable building block of vibratory creation, as MMY puts it, From that eternal Silence a hum starts and this hum is OM. MMY The Vedas. Though the bubble diagram seems to suggest that one transcends to PC every time you meditate this is a misnomer, most meditators are lucky if they tip toe thru the sleeping elephants and get a glimpse, but eventually one will actually transcend after many years of dedicated practice and then the bubble diagram truly has significance for that individual.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Kundalini-The path of transcending.
--Right...it's about time somebody stated that. BillyG:...you are sss...on target! - In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, BillyG. [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: As MMY describes it there are distinct 'markers' on the path of transcending and MMY calls them milestones on the path of kundalini. These milestones are the chakras which have distinct sounds and experiences associated with them recorded by individuals who have experienced them and apparently are remarkably the same from individual to individual. The forth chakra (dorsal) which has been called the 'threshold of ascendency' has associated with it, according to Swami Yogananda, the sound of Aum as a long drawn out astral bell. Ultimately all mantras merge into the Mother Sound or Mantra of AUM, the veritable building block of vibratory creation, as MMY puts it, From that eternal Silence a hum starts and this hum is OM. MMY The Vedas. Though the bubble diagram seems to suggest that one transcends to PC every time you meditate this is a misnomer, most meditators are lucky if they tip toe thru the sleeping elephants and get a glimpse, but eventually one will actually transcend after many years of dedicated practice and then the bubble diagram truly has significance for that individual.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Kundalini-The path of transcending.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, matrixmonitor [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --Right...it's about time somebody stated that. BillyG:...you are sss...on target! - In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, BillyG. wgm4u@ wrote: As MMY describes it there are distinct 'markers' on the path of transcending and MMY calls them milestones on the path of kundalini. These milestones are the chakras which have distinct sounds and experiences associated with them recorded by individuals who have experienced them and apparently are remarkably the same from individual to individual. The forth chakra (dorsal) which has been called the 'threshold of ascendency' has associated with it, according to Swami Yogananda, the sound of Aum as a long drawn out astral bell. Ultimately all mantras merge into the Mother Sound or Mantra of AUM, the veritable building block of vibratory creation, as MMY puts it, From that eternal Silence a hum starts and this hum is OM. MMY The Vedas. Though the bubble diagram seems to suggest that one transcends to PC every time you meditate this is a misnomer, most meditators are lucky if they tip toe thru the sleeping elephants and get a glimpse, but eventually one will actually transcend after many years of dedicated practice and then the bubble diagram truly has significance for that individual. I'm glad somebody here isn't in denial. I've been meditating for almost 40 years and I've learned a few things, and for the sake of us dumb Westerers he's dumbed down the teaching considerably but that is another subject! Every now and then if you listen closely he speaks volumes, but he still isn't completely up front. He's put all of his money on Science but I don't think that horse is coming in, but I could be wrong.
[FairfieldLife] Ron Paul highlights from Iowa debate
Ron Paul highlights from Iowa debate: http://youtube.com/watch?v=gh6z3zO3bXM OffWorld
[FairfieldLife] Re: The real test of the Anti-Science freaks on FFL
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Dec 12, 2007, at 1:13 AM, off_world_beings wrote: A million studies would not convince then about TM, yet it only takes about 40-50 to change my mind on TM. This is the absolute truth for me and totally proves their anti-science religious agenda to ignore science for their own pathetic opinions. What would it take for legitimate scientists to take TM/TMSP seriously? They are already. Five major universities conducting studies on TM as we speak, and $20 million (and rising) from NIH given to MUM for research based on robust studies. This fact alone makes you cringe so crooked Vaj it is hard to watch. You have nothing remotely of comparable strength to back up your weak anti-science stance. The poor anti-science folks like Turq, Steven, boo-lives, newmorning, Angela, Sal, Peter etc. ... are grasping at straws as they sink below the waves of the progress of science. OffWorld
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: The real test of the Anti-Science freaks on FFL
Off, you amaze me! What makes you think I'm anti-science? off_world_beings [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Dec 12, 2007, at 1:13 AM, off_world_beings wrote: A million studies would not convince then about TM, yet it only takes about 40-50 to change my mind on TM. This is the absolute truth for me and totally proves their anti-science religious agenda to ignore science for their own pathetic opinions. What would it take for legitimate scientists to take TM/TMSP seriously? They are already. Five major universities conducting studies on TM as we speak, and $20 million (and rising) from NIH given to MUM for research based on robust studies. This fact alone makes you cringe so crooked Vaj it is hard to watch. You have nothing remotely of comparable strength to back up your weak anti-science stance. The poor anti-science folks like Turq, Steven, boo-lives, newmorning, Angela, Sal, Peter etc. ... are grasping at straws as they sink below the waves of the progress of science. OffWorld Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
[FairfieldLife] How Dubya paid for a month in Iraq
http://blogs.wsj.com/numbersguy/when-quarters-add-up-to-billions-237/
[FairfieldLife] Pope v Gore
http://tinyurl.com/2t4nzy
[FairfieldLife] Re: Do siddhis have ANYTHING to do with state of consciousness?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It would be silly of me not to have noticed the somewhat...uh...angry reactions that come up on this board from time to time when I talk about the weird things (siddhis) I and others exper- ienced around Rama (Frederick Lenz). Here is a speculation as to where they might be coming from. I think a lot of it has to do with Rama's rep. He was vilified in the press as a cult leader, as someone who slept with his female students, and many other things. I can say without reser- vation that many of these things were true, and could add a great number of other stories from my own experience that indicate that the dude was occasionally a real slimeball, with a drug dependency towards the end of his life and an ego on him the size of Texas. HOWEVER, at other times he could meditate so powerfully that if you were in the same room with him, it was almost *impossible* to have a thought; clear, thoughtless samadhi was your *only* option. ALSO, he was able to perform siddhis like levitating, disappearing, flying through the air, opening dimensions to other planes of reality, etc. so powerfully that up to hundreds of people at a time saw and exper- ienced them. He was able to do this not only with students who wanted to believe in these things, but in public talks where half the audience were skeptics. The skeptics saw these things, too. So go figure, eh? I honestly think that what offends a lot of people about the Rama guy and stories of the siddhis that people saw him perform is that they have this idea in their heads that either 1) the ability to perform siddhis is linked to enlightenment, or 2) the those who can perform siddhis are 'supposed to be' more evolved or beyond stuff like sleeping with their students, or 3) both. What bothers them is that there is a strong like- lihood that Rama was a bit of a charlatan and a bit of a rogue and *none* of the things that they visualize when they think of an enlightened teacher, AND YET HE COULD DO THIS STUFF ANYWAY. Welcome to the conundrum. That, as far as I can tell, is the truth about the dude. I was around him for many years, and there is no question in my mind that he was at times a charlatan, at times a slimeball, and at other times able to manifest some of the coolest siddhis in the spiritual canon. Go figure. What does this mean? Well, to me it means that all the stuff about siddhis being of necessity linked to enlightenment are an enormous pile of steaming crap. That's simply not true. Siddhis are siddhis and enlightenment is enlightenment, and there is no one-to-one link between them. Histor- ically, some teachers regarded as enlightened manifested siddhis, and others did not. Equally historically, many of those who can manifest the siddhis are open and honest about the fact that they are *not* enlightened; they just know how to do these siddhis. I've had some limited exper- ience with manifesting minor siddhis myself, and I'm *certainly* not enlightened on any kind of permanent basis. The other thing that drives some people up the wall when I talk about the Rama dude is that he offends them morally. They have major problems with what he represents, and thus they have major problems with believing that he could *also* do something like manifest real siddhis. They'd prefer to believe in something far more unlikely, that he had the ability to somehow hypnotize hundreds of people at once, some of them members of the press. What I'm trying to suggest is that there seems to have been NO PROBLEM with the guy being a slime- ball AND being able to manifest siddhis. It's NOT as simplistic as the idealistic books about these things say it is. It's not an EITHER/OR rela- tionship; its a BOTH/AND relationship. As far as I can tell, the guy could coerce some sweet young female student into sleeping with him one minute and the next minute levitate like gang- busters. For all I know, he could have been able to boink the young student WHILE levitating, although I never saw or heard evidence of this. :-) The bottom line is that from my perspective, siddhis aren't what you idealize them as. They are just *abilities*, abilities that *anyone* can master, whatever their state of consciousness. They have *nothing to do* with state of conscious- ness, or with the morality or immorality of the person who is able to perform them. I understand that this fucks with many people's idealized notions of what the siddhis are and what they mean about the person performing them, but I'm trying to be honest with you here. I don't think that your idealized notions are correct, based on my experience. Being able to perform siddhis doesn't make a person good, and being bad doesn't prevent a person from being able to do them. Used as some kind of measure of a person's enlightenment,
[FairfieldLife] Re: Do siddhis have ANYTHING to do with state of consciousness?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It would be silly of me not to have noticed the somewhat...uh...angry reactions that come up on this board from time to time when I talk about the weird things (siddhis) I and others exper- ienced around Rama (Frederick Lenz). Here is a speculation as to where they might be coming from. I think a lot of it has to do with Rama's rep. He was vilified in the press as a cult leader, as someone who slept with his female students, and many other things. I can say without reser- vation that many of these things were true, and could add a great number of other stories from my own experience that indicate that the dude was occasionally a real slimeball, with a drug dependency towards the end of his life and an ego on him the size of Texas. HOWEVER, at other times he could meditate so powerfully that if you were in the same room with him, it was almost *impossible* to have a thought; clear, thoughtless samadhi was your *only* option. ALSO, he was able to perform siddhis like levitating, disappearing, flying through the air, opening dimensions to other planes of reality, etc. so powerfully that up to hundreds of people at a time saw and exper- ienced them. He was able to do this not only with students who wanted to believe in these things, but in public talks where half the audience were skeptics. The skeptics saw these things, too. So go figure, eh? I honestly think that what offends a lot of people about the Rama guy and stories of the siddhis that people saw him perform is that they have this idea in their heads that either 1) the ability to perform siddhis is linked to enlightenment, or 2) the those who can perform siddhis are 'supposed to be' more evolved or beyond stuff like sleeping with their students, or 3) both. What bothers them is that there is a strong like- lihood that Rama was a bit of a charlatan and a bit of a rogue and *none* of the things that they visualize when they think of an enlightened teacher, AND YET HE COULD DO THIS STUFF ANYWAY. Welcome to the conundrum. That, as far as I can tell, is the truth about the dude. I was around him for many years, and there is no question in my mind that he was at times a charlatan, at times a slimeball, and at other times able to manifest some of the coolest siddhis in the spiritual canon. Go figure. What does this mean? Well, to me it means that all the stuff about siddhis being of necessity linked to enlightenment are an enormous pile of steaming crap. That's simply not true. Siddhis are siddhis and enlightenment is enlightenment, and there is no one-to-one link between them. Histor- ically, some teachers regarded as enlightened manifested siddhis, and others did not. Equally historically, many of those who can manifest the siddhis are open and honest about the fact that they are *not* enlightened; they just know how to do these siddhis. I've had some limited exper- ience with manifesting minor siddhis myself, and I'm *certainly* not enlightened on any kind of permanent basis. The other thing that drives some people up the wall when I talk about the Rama dude is that he offends them morally. They have major problems with what he represents, and thus they have major problems with believing that he could *also* do something like manifest real siddhis. They'd prefer to believe in something far more unlikely, that he had the ability to somehow hypnotize hundreds of people at once, some of them members of the press. What I'm trying to suggest is that there seems to have been NO PROBLEM with the guy being a slime- ball AND being able to manifest siddhis. It's NOT as simplistic as the idealistic books about these things say it is. It's not an EITHER/OR rela- tionship; its a BOTH/AND relationship. As far as I can tell, the guy could coerce some sweet young female student into sleeping with him one minute and the next minute levitate like gang- busters. For all I know, he could have been able to boink the young student WHILE levitating, although I never saw or heard evidence of this. :-) The bottom line is that from my perspective, siddhis aren't what you idealize them as. They are just *abilities*, abilities that *anyone* can master, whatever their state of consciousness. They have *nothing to do* with state of conscious- ness, or with the morality or immorality of the person who is able to perform them. I understand that this fucks with many people's idealized notions of what the siddhis are and what they mean about the person performing them, but I'm trying to be honest with you here. I don't think that your idealized notions are correct, based on my experience. Being able to perform siddhis doesn't make a person good, and being bad doesn't prevent a person from being able to do them. Used as some kind of measure of a person's enlightenment,
[FairfieldLife] Re: The real test of the Anti-Science freaks on FFL
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Angela Mailander [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Off, you amaze me! What makes you think I'm anti-science? Angela, If I were you I wouldn't take Off's comments as having anything to do with you. I think he is a smart. somtimes entertaining guy, but he is posting pretty much feedback-free. So don't think that you are having a dialog with a person who gives a shit or is really reading what you are writing. This is not to diminish how insightful or entertaining he can be, but to preserve your more sensitive nature. I think you are one of the posters who is really reacting to what is being written. I'm pretty sure at this point that this is not a universal standard here. I'm also pretty sure I am preaching to the choir on this point, right? off_world_beings [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj vajranatha@ wrote: On Dec 12, 2007, at 1:13 AM, off_world_beings wrote: A million studies would not convince then about TM, yet it only takes about 40-50 to change my mind on TM. This is the absolute truth for me and totally proves their anti-science religious agenda to ignore science for their own pathetic opinions. What would it take for legitimate scientists to take TM/TMSP seriously? They are already. Five major universities conducting studies on TM as we speak, and $20 million (and rising) from NIH given to MUM for research based on robust studies. This fact alone makes you cringe so crooked Vaj it is hard to watch. You have nothing remotely of comparable strength to back up your weak anti-science stance. The poor anti-science folks like Turq, Steven, boo-lives, newmorning, Angela, Sal, Peter etc. ... are grasping at straws as they sink below the waves of the progress of science. OffWorld Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
Re: [FairfieldLife] Do siddhis have ANYTHING to do with state of consciousness?
2007-12-12
Thread
Samadhi Is Much Closer Than You Think -- Really! -- It's A No-Brainer. Who'd've Thunk It?
Well, of course, proximity to enlightenment will facilitate siddhis, sought or not. For some people, the burgeoning presence of siddhis is a confirmation that god exists, or leads them in that direction, that the love they've been searching for has finally come to reside in their heart, and the siddhis that have come with that are simply instruments of performing even better service for others, many of whom may not even know the yogi involved. Any more exactitude to the answer, especially down to a yes/no is too much ensconced in a materialistic worldview. The rarity of siddhis makes them more mysterious, it's the loving intimacy that matters most, devotion. People in love with each other also develop siddhis, some times confined only with each other, some times benevolent towards the whole world. Many enterprising people have siddhis, often through most of their life, though do not have the good company of others to share these matters with more openly. *When Shakyamuni Buddha was at Mount Grdhrakuta, he held up a flower to his listeners. Everyone was silent. Only Mahakashyapa broke into a broad smile. The Buddha said, **I have the True Dharma Eye, the Marvelous Mind of Nirvana, the True Form of the Formless, and the Subtle Dharma Gate, independent of words and transmitted beyond doctrine. This I have entrusted to Mahakashyapa .* On 12/12/07, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It would be silly of me not to have noticed the somewhat...uh...angry reactions that come up on this board from time to time when I talk about the weird things (siddhis) I and others exper- ienced around Rama (Frederick Lenz). Here is a speculation as to where they might be coming from. I think a lot of it has to do with Rama's rep. He was vilified in the press as a cult leader, as someone who slept with his female students, and many other things. I can say without reser- vation that many of these things were true, and could add a great number of other stories from my own experience that indicate that the dude was occasionally a real slimeball, with a drug dependency towards the end of his life and an ego on him the size of Texas. HOWEVER, at other times he could meditate so powerfully that if you were in the same room with him, it was almost *impossible* to have a thought; clear, thoughtless samadhi was your *only* option. ALSO, he was able to perform siddhis like levitating, disappearing, flying through the air, opening dimensions to other planes of reality, etc. so powerfully that up to hundreds of people at a time saw and exper- ienced them. He was able to do this not only with students who wanted to believe in these things, but in public talks where half the audience were skeptics. The skeptics saw these things, too. So go figure, eh? I honestly think that what offends a lot of people about the Rama guy and stories of the siddhis that people saw him perform is that they have this idea in their heads that either 1) the ability to perform siddhis is linked to enlightenment, or 2) the those who can perform siddhis are 'supposed to be' more evolved or beyond stuff like sleeping with their students, or 3) both. What bothers them is that there is a strong like- lihood that Rama was a bit of a charlatan and a bit of a rogue and *none* of the things that they visualize when they think of an enlightened teacher, AND YET HE COULD DO THIS STUFF ANYWAY. Welcome to the conundrum. That, as far as I can tell, is the truth about the dude. I was around him for many years, and there is no question in my mind that he was at times a charlatan, at times a slimeball, and at other times able to manifest some of the coolest siddhis in the spiritual canon. Go figure. What does this mean? Well, to me it means that all the stuff about siddhis being of necessity linked to enlightenment are an enormous pile of steaming crap. That's simply not true. Siddhis are siddhis and enlightenment is enlightenment, and there is no one-to-one link between them. Histor- ically, some teachers regarded as enlightened manifested siddhis, and others did not. Equally historically, many of those who can manifest the siddhis are open and honest about the fact that they are *not* enlightened; they just know how to do these siddhis. I've had some limited exper- ience with manifesting minor siddhis myself, and I'm *certainly* not enlightened on any kind of permanent basis. The other thing that drives some people up the wall when I talk about the Rama dude is that he offends them morally. They have major problems with what he represents, and thus they have major problems with believing that he could *also* do something like manifest real siddhis. They'd prefer to believe in something far more unlikely, that he had the ability to somehow hypnotize hundreds of people at once, some of them members of the press. What I'm trying to suggest is that there seems to have been NO PROBLEM
[FairfieldLife] Re: Do siddhis have ANYTHING to do with state of consciousness?
Any more exactitude to the answer, especially down to a yes/no is too much ensconced in a materialistic worldview. The rarity of siddhis makes them more mysterious, it's the loving intimacy that matters most, devotion. When it comes to demonstrating sidhis, yes/no is the ONLY criteria that matter. And it matters even more if a professional magician is in the room cuz they can smell the bullshit that Buddha only dreamed of. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Samadhi Is Much Closer Than You Think -- Really! -- It's A No-Brainer. Who'd've Thunk It? [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Well, of course, proximity to enlightenment will facilitate siddhis, sought or not. For some people, the burgeoning presence of siddhis is a confirmation that god exists, or leads them in that direction, that the love they've been searching for has finally come to reside in their heart, and the siddhis that have come with that are simply instruments of performing even better service for others, many of whom may not even know the yogi involved. Any more exactitude to the answer, especially down to a yes/no is too much ensconced in a materialistic worldview. The rarity of siddhis makes them more mysterious, it's the loving intimacy that matters most, devotion. People in love with each other also develop siddhis, some times confined only with each other, some times benevolent towards the whole world. Many enterprising people have siddhis, often through most of their life, though do not have the good company of others to share these matters with more openly. *When Shakyamuni Buddha was at Mount Grdhrakuta, he held up a flower to his listeners. Everyone was silent. Only Mahakashyapa broke into a broad smile. The Buddha said, **I have the True Dharma Eye, the Marvelous Mind of Nirvana, the True Form of the Formless, and the Subtle Dharma Gate, independent of words and transmitted beyond doctrine. This I have entrusted to Mahakashyapa .* On 12/12/07, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It would be silly of me not to have noticed the somewhat...uh...angry reactions that come up on this board from time to time when I talk about the weird things (siddhis) I and others exper- ienced around Rama (Frederick Lenz). Here is a speculation as to where they might be coming from. I think a lot of it has to do with Rama's rep. He was vilified in the press as a cult leader, as someone who slept with his female students, and many other things. I can say without reser- vation that many of these things were true, and could add a great number of other stories from my own experience that indicate that the dude was occasionally a real slimeball, with a drug dependency towards the end of his life and an ego on him the size of Texas. HOWEVER, at other times he could meditate so powerfully that if you were in the same room with him, it was almost *impossible* to have a thought; clear, thoughtless samadhi was your *only* option. ALSO, he was able to perform siddhis like levitating, disappearing, flying through the air, opening dimensions to other planes of reality, etc. so powerfully that up to hundreds of people at a time saw and exper- ienced them. He was able to do this not only with students who wanted to believe in these things, but in public talks where half the audience were skeptics. The skeptics saw these things, too. So go figure, eh? I honestly think that what offends a lot of people about the Rama guy and stories of the siddhis that people saw him perform is that they have this idea in their heads that either 1) the ability to perform siddhis is linked to enlightenment, or 2) the those who can perform siddhis are 'supposed to be' more evolved or beyond stuff like sleeping with their students, or 3) both. What bothers them is that there is a strong like- lihood that Rama was a bit of a charlatan and a bit of a rogue and *none* of the things that they visualize when they think of an enlightened teacher, AND YET HE COULD DO THIS STUFF ANYWAY. Welcome to the conundrum. That, as far as I can tell, is the truth about the dude. I was around him for many years, and there is no question in my mind that he was at times a charlatan, at times a slimeball, and at other times able to manifest some of the coolest siddhis in the spiritual canon. Go figure. What does this mean? Well, to me it means that all the stuff about siddhis being of necessity linked to enlightenment are an enormous pile of steaming crap. That's simply not true. Siddhis are siddhis and enlightenment is enlightenment, and there is no one-to-one link between them. Histor- ically, some teachers regarded as enlightened manifested siddhis, and others did not. Equally historically, many of those who can manifest the siddhis are open and honest about the fact that they are *not* enlightened; they just know how to
