[FairfieldLife] Re: Free Web Event: McCartney/Lynch Benefit Concert to Push TM in Public Schools
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, grate.swan no_re...@... wrote: I appreciate your thought exercise. I don't have much of an opinion about your personal beliefs. I interact with religious people in a similar way outside of the legal and educational systems. Then these distinctions matter to me. YMMV --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, grate.swan no_reply@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: Invoking Narayana is not secular. And although it is not required that you believe in the religious concepts that are taught, they are still not appropriate for school outside of world religion class. TM could be taught there alongside creationism. Just as an exploratory counter point - If a religion doesn't reveal God in its Fullness and Completeness to me -- within a year, month is better -- then its just so many words. A fraud. Not a religion. And as a preface, I am out on a tangent - not debating TM in schools. I am simply pondering a more basic question -- when does interaction with a religion or religious group make me a participant in their religion. And by whose critera? Theirs or mine? Or a bystander? Most religions don't share this criteria. For a guy like me, even the experience of some version of god doesn't make it less of a fraud. It is the certainty of religious knowledge claimed that I object to. I interact with falsely certain people all the time. If I know their claims are false, they are not going to pull the wool over my eyes. If I don't know they are false -- I might get taken but that may be of large, but also perhaps small consequence. If a woman says she is the greatest lover in the world -- and she is certain about it I may not believe her and be with her. Or I might fall for her claim and be with her. Is there much difference to me? Am I really hurt if I realize in the morning her claim was not true? (and this is not a counter to what you aid -- i am just exploring the boundaries of this theme.) If the guy at the fruit stand tries to convince me that he is God -- I still buy fruit from him, unharmed. Whether I believe him or not, the fruit is still good. So who cares if some drunk like characters proclaim themselves a religion. It doesn't make what they do, believe or teach a religion. Its just perpetuation of a scam, calling itself a religion when it can't produce the goods. You are presupposing an experience of God in a yogic way. Most religions are a collections of beliefs that are not necessarily experienced in that way. I am just using my def of religion. if they produce the goods, I go along with it -- Its a religion. If they dont produce the goods, its not a religion. Why do I care if they think they are part of a religion or not? But if that same group has something else to offer of value -- ok -- I'm game -- and I have no qualms or concern that the thing of value that they offer is religious. Its not. How can a non-religion offer something religious? It is the source of their claims that defines a religion, not whether the claims are true. I don't follow. Why should care at all about their source or epistimology? Religions use an authority based epistemology. Modern society has given this up in every single area of life except for religion because it has been found to be wrong to many times whenever evidence is available. (Men don't have one less rib than women cuz God made women out of one of them.) I am still not following. The fruit stand guy believes he has an extra rib. I humor him. Or maybe debate him. Doesn't matter -- the mango is still juicy. A separate point. If I eat at a HK temple, is it a religious meal? I don't think those words naturally go together. Last Supper? Why does religion not go with meal. Catholics offer up tasty snacks every week. But in the Krishna view it is because they have offered the food as prasad to a statue before you eat it. So in the context of their beliefs it is. My fruit guy did woo woo on my mangos. Who cares if the mango is great. But food is different from beliefs which is what TM sells along with its meditation. Is it counter to my religion? Are Christians at risk for eternal damnation by eating at a HK temple? Some Christians believe yes. Some fundamentalist groups would believe that the food conveyed the demonic quality of the Krishna's beliefs and influence. But I think we have mixed up logical levels by trying to include a physical object like food in a discussion of beliefs taught in schools. Which is fine, but I am not part of that discussion. I (rudely perhaps) am off on a tangent of interest. Which in my
[FairfieldLife] Re: Anyone here set up a system using cloud computing?
cloud computing is simply the aggregation of physical resources, like servers and RAM and storage devices, so that applications running on them can be offered as services over the network, regardless of the computer the client is using. has nothing to do with more or less secure access. anyone with a protocol analyzer can plug into a data center or phone company switch, and download anything they want, anyway, and have been able to for at least the last ten years. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Kirk kirk_bernha...@... wrote: Security issues are the big flaw, unless you like all your personal info on someone else's server. And if you think your info is secure then maybe you should consider that the people who created this system are the same ones who make viruses and other bugs for the same systems they create. In case you know little about that, which is quite possible maybe you should take a quick look at www.astalavista.com On the other hand, since that site is made by hackers it may have a few trojans and viruses embedded in its code. At any rate, the fucking PC is still bug ridden and people are wanting 'cloud computing' and ready to trust it. I need another refill on my xanax. Or we need to get more Sleeping Sidhas into the domes. Cause 'cloud computing' is a masquerade just like the internet, for government spying. Nothing more. Fuck all that 'it's quicker' bullshit. It's not quicker because it hasn't been even tested yet. Sure it may work in China and other countries which are more openly socialistic and less about human rights because then a simple command line can be drawn which could effect all the entire range of users, like say, nobody gets to use the word 'fuck' in this cloud. There goes freedom of speech. One command )__and your rights are gone - Original Message - From: I am the eternal l.shad...@... To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, March 24, 2009 4:45 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Anyone here set up a system using cloud computing? I'm interested any feedback I can get. I like Amazon's write up ( http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/ ), as usual much clearer than that offered by my company (which company I'm sure Vaj has search out and will blast it's names across our monitors). This looks like it's going to fun. As I read the documentation offered by the various vendors I keep getting these ritam experiences. It's like I see the design of Creation in the design and the use of these cloud offerings. To subscribe, send a message to: fairfieldlife-subscr...@yahoogroups.com Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!'Yahoo! Groups Links
[FairfieldLife] Re: Free Web Event: McCartney/Lynch Benefit Concert to Push TM in Public Schools
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jst...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: snip It is a very important topic unless you don't care if schools end up with creation science sharing the classroom with evolutionary theory. Allowing TM plus SCI, as in the New Jersey case, could be a dangerous precedent in that regard (even though I don't agree that SCI is really religious in nature). But I don't think it's nearly so likely with just TM, especially with Lynch in charge. I don't know where you get your confidence in David Lynch or how much you think any celeb gets to be in charge of a movement project, but I don't share it. He's funding it. The whole project was his idea. If he pulls out, the TMO is left sitting with its thumb up its nose and another black mark on its record. I have a feeling that all glory is going to go to Guru Dev and Maharishi. I would be astonished if he permitted the TMO to fart around in such a way that threatened the viability of the project, which would surely happen if it didn't keep a tight clamp on anything that might make people nervous. So he's going to drop the puja huh? In any case he has no control over the kid's access to checking or further information a few years down the road with a dying organization. He will be no better equipped to deal with physiological problems. He is a TB and will take the sage advice of the Rajas. I disagree with your assessment of the religious nature of TM, but am not inclined to sum up your POV as the result of some negitive emotional state. We just disagree on the religious nature of TM instruction. This doesn't surprise me because you didn't spend many weeks bowing down to the floor to a picture of Maharishi's dead guru after invoking divine and semi divine Gods in the Hindu religion.(Vyasa is 3/4 Vishnu don't ya know.) It is easier for you to ignore its religious roots. So if I can ignore its religious roots, why can't the kids? That is not the issue. Some may be able to ignore the religious roots of TM. They should all be able to ignore it, since it wouldn't come to their attention in the absence of interference from people like Knapp. So if they don't know it is a religious ceremony that is OK? I think you are missing the point. We aren't using the student's perspective on any aspect of keeping religious doctrines from schools. Don't you think they are also fooled about creation science? Tying to pin this on John Knapp seems fishy to me. Bringing up this concern is a collective interest of more than John. And the whole idea that it might slip through without scrutiny if people just keep their mouth's shut seems very slippery to me. An open debate is appropriate. My opinion may not be your own, but it is not uninformed. I am making valid concerns whether you agree with them or not. There just isn't anything *intrinsically* religious about the basic TM course from the students' perspective. They don't have an informed perspective, how could they? Again fooling kids is not the criteria for what makes anything religious in schools. I could get them to take communion if I wanted to using substitute words. It has to be added on. Don't wrap it up in a religious package, and it isn't religious. You are in serious denial about the puja. I am not wrapping it up in anything. It is the question of teaching religious practices in schools not whether or not you can ignore it. It isn't taught as a religious practice. We're going around in circles. Like creation Science, TM tries a marketing angle that doesn't fool informed people. Curtis, your experiences as a TM teacher are a big fat red herring here. TMers don't have to do any of that unless they decide to become teachers. No it isn't. As a teacher I understand exactly what I am getting an initiate to participate in. That's in *your* mind, not the student's mind. Again, if the kid doesn't know that creation science is from the Bible then it is OK to teach it in schools? You have not addressed my most important point that the only participation in a Hindu puja is what the student does in TM instruction. Boy, I'd hate to think that was really your most important point. It's meaningless (except with regard to Hindu students). And creation science's connection with the Bible is meaningless to any non Christian student? As far as the students are concerned, they're paying for instruction in a secular technique and bringing fruit, flowers, and hankie as a traditional offering of gratitude to the person who is about to teach them. They are told it is an
[FairfieldLife] Re: Free Web Event: McCartney/Lynch Benefit Concert to Push TM in Public Schools
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, John M. Knapp, LMSW jmknap...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sparaig LEnglish5@ wrote: John, one question: well several: 1) who is sponsoring your website about this stuff? 2) who sponsoring your media event about this stuff? 3) who is paying for your google advertising of the above? Inquiring minds, and all that. Lawson Hi, Lawson, The project began completely as my personal project with money coming from my pocket. Later, I did raise $500 to help defray the expenses, which run less than $1000, from two individuals with no organizational ties. (No one is Christian, or has ties to any religion to my knowledge). I'm waiting on a possible donation for another $500. Expenses include renting the room from WebEx and Internet advertising, which will run less than $150. Many other people have stepped forward to contribute video clips. A couple of people have also helped with promotion. There is no organization or other hidden sponsor of the event or any of my various websites. And the total costs are significantly less than the cost of a single TM initiation (in the US). Hope that's the info you were looking for. Feel free to ask for any further clarification I can offer. J. (snip) So, it's just an advertizing expense for your business, which I assume is for profit... R.G.
[FairfieldLife] Republicans Grooming Jindal for Presidential Candidacy?
To All: Jindal is in the news again. He's getting a lot of media exposure. We wonder why? *** La. Gov. Jindal urges GOP to stand up to Obama FOX News By BEN EVANS, Associated Press Writer Ben Evans, Associated Press Writer 2 hrs 55 mins ago WASHINGTON Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal again found himself carrying the Republican mantle opposite a primetime appearance from President Barack Obama on Tuesday, saying Republicans must be ready to defy the president when they disagree with his policies. He also joked about his widely panned response to Obama's address to Congress last month. We are now in the position of being the loyal opposition, Jindal said at a Republican congressional fundraising dinner that only by coincidence fell on the same night as Obama's news conference. The right question to ask is not if we want the president to fail or succeed, but whether we want America to succeed. Saying the time for talking about the past is over, Jindal said Republicans have begun to find their voice after back-to-back elections losses motivated by what he called historic Democratic spending excess. Jindal is widely considered a potential 2012 GOP presidential candidate, but his televised response to Obama's speech at the Capitol last month was widely panned. Some compared his delivery to the late children's television host Mister Rogers and said the address could hurt Jindal's national potential. At Tuesday's $2,500-per-plate dinner which President George W. Bush headlined last year Jindal opened his speech by poking fun of himself. He threatened to deliver a reprise of the earlier performance and then jokingly compared it to torture. They're not allowed to show my speech at Gitmo anymore, he said. They've banned that. The National Republican Congressional Committee, which works to get Republicans elected to Congress, said it raised more than $6 million at the event.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: More despondency
On Mar 24, 2009, at 8:10 PM, Kirk wrote: Sal, not meaning to be smug but our friend probably meant, well, let's see what the Author's Friend has to say since she knows everything. Oh shit, she spent all her posts already. We'll have to wait another week to get an 'expert' 'opinion'. So nevermind. Well, it *is* an interesting question in light of what eternal brought up... Sal
[FairfieldLife] Re: Rajas and domains
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltabl...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Eustace emf202@ wrote: That is on seriously silly movement list! I think you are missing an important country... If you were thinking America, it's there...a one-liner. Personally, I'm looking forward to the various real kings and princes of these countries duking it out with Maharishi's kings to see who really ...uh...rules. I know that the King Of Spain is a bit of a hothead, and almost certainly in better physical shape than any doughboy Raja, so that's a no-brainer. And I'm personally hoping that the Prince Of Andorra can whup Antonio's ass, because that's my retirement spot of choice. Since I wasn't able to find on the web a list of the rajas and their domains, I created one based on information from the Maharishi Family Chats and post it below for the record. Maybe someone who has a suitable webpage would like to reprint it there. -emf 01 Antonio Bartolome 001 Andorra Antonio Bartolome 002 Angola Antonio Bartolome 003 Cape Verde Antonio Bartolome 004 Equatorial Guinea Antonio Bartolome 005 Guinea-Bissau Antonio Bartolome 006 Mozambique Antonio Bartolome 007 Portugal Antonio Bartolome 008 Sao Tome Principe Antonio Bartolome 009 Spain 02 Bjarne Landsfeldt 010 Bosnia Herzegovina Bjarne Landsfeldt 011 Czech Republic Bjarne Landsfeldt 012 Denmark Bjarne Landsfeldt 013 Malta Bjarne Landsfeldt 014 Russia Bjarne Landsfeldt 015 Slovakia Bjarne Landsfeldt 016 Turkmenistan 03 Bob LoPinto 017 Gambia Bob LoPinto 018 Lesotho Bob LoPinto 019 Oman Bob LoPinto 020 Philippines Bob LoPinto 021 Senegal Bob LoPinto 022 South Africa Bob LoPinto 023 Viet Nam 04 Bruce Plaut 024 Ethiopia Bruce Plaut 025 Nigeria Bruce Plaut 026 Samoa Bruce Plaut 027 Seychelles Bruce Plaut 028 Swaziland Bruce Plaut 029 Sweden Bruce Plaut 030 Tanzania 05 Dean Dodrill031 Austria Dean Dodrill032 Azerbaijan Dean Dodrill033 Croatia Dean Dodrill034 Guinea Dean Dodrill035 Macedonia, Former Yugoslav Republic Dean Dodrill036 Moldova Dean Dodrill037 Romania Dean Dodrill038 Sudan 06 Emanuel Schiffgens 039 Bangladesh Emanuel Schiffgens 040 Central African Republic Emanuel Schiffgens 041 Germany Emanuel Schiffgens 042 Iran Emanuel Schiffgens 043 Monaco Emanuel Schiffgens 044 Nauru Emanuel Schiffgens 045 Saudi Arabia Emanuel Schiffgens 046 Ukraine 07 Felix Kaegi 047 Albania Felix Kaegi 048 Djibouti Felix Kaegi 049 Liechtenstein Felix Kaegi 050 Malawi Felix Kaegi 051 Serbia Felix Kaegi 052 Slovenia Felix Kaegi 053 Switzerland 08 Graham de Freitas 054 Benin Graham de Freitas 055 Botswana Graham de Freitas 056 Grenada Graham de Freitas 057 Mali Graham de Freitas 058 Norway Graham de Freitas 059 Togo Graham de Freitas 060 Trinidad Tobago Graham de Freitas 061 Uganda 09 Harris Kaplan 062 India 10 Ior Guglielmi 063 Bahrain Ior Guglielmi 064 Greece Ior Guglielmi 065 Kazakhstan Ior Guglielmi 066 Kuwait Ior Guglielmi 067 Niger Ior Guglielmi 068 Papua New Guinea Ior Guglielmi 069 San Marino Ior Guglielmi 070 Sri Lanka 11 John Hagelin071 USA 12 John Konhaus072 Chad John Konhaus073 Egypt John Konhaus074 Hungary John Konhaus075 Jamaica John Konhaus076 Japan John Konhaus077 Kyrgyzstan John Konhaus078 Somalia John Konhaus079 Uzbekistan 13 Jose Luis 080 Argentina Jose Luis 081 Bolivia Jose Luis 082 Brazil Jose Luis 083 Chile Jose Luis 084 Colombia Jose Luis 085 Costa Rica Jose Luis 086 Cuba Jose Luis 087 Dominican Republic Jose Luis 088 Ecuador Jose Luis 089 El Salvador Jose Luis 090 Guatemala Jose Luis 091 Guyana Jose Luis 092 Honduras Jose Luis 093 Mexico Jose Luis 094 Nicaragua Jose Luis 095 Panama Jose Luis 096 Paraguay Jose Luis 097 Peru Jose Luis 098 Suriname Jose Luis 099
[FairfieldLife] DEATH THREAT! DEATH THREAT! (was Re: Free Web Event)
John Knapp's ugly comment -- I'd sure be more comfortable if researchers would stick to experimenting on monkeys and leave the kids alone. John Knapp is threatening the lives of monkeys! Burn him at the stake! :-) I just love it when Judy *demonstrates* her Bad Intent by demonstrating her ability to read Bad Intent into anything she reads. Even the *promoters* of the teach-kids-to- meditate initiative refer to it as an exper- iment. But when John Knapp does the same thing, that is somehow revealing of his ugly comment and his mask slipping. OF COURSE they are experimenting on school- kids. THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT. But for Judy, that's OK only when one of the chosen says it. If someone else says it, it's nefarious, evil, an ugly comment. Someone should send Judy a mirror, because Mr. Dictionary clearly has not been sufficient to teach her the meaning of ugly. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jst...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Sal Sunshine salsunshine@ wrote: On Mar 24, 2009, at 12:38 PM, curtisdeltablues wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: [cardemaister wrote:] ..it seems to me that many people enjoy their TM -- while a significant minority have problems such as depression, anxiety, dissociation, involuntary tics, etc. Every once in a while John's mask slips, and what's behind his lip service to TM--such as that in your quote--gets inadvertently spat out in all its ugliness. What phrase do you object to? If your job is helping people who do have problems like the late Margret Singer then the reality of such a population is just a fact. I was wondering the same thing--seems to me John's quote is right on, realistic. God only knows what mask Judy is really afraid of. Idiot Sal does it again, with assistance from Curtis's failure to include proper attributions. The quote at the top was from *cardemaister*, not me. He was responding to my earlier post (which, of course, poor delicate Sal couldn't bring herself to read, even though Curtis had quoted it in full at the end of the post). The lip service I was referring to, the mask, rather obviously, is what cardemaister quoted, the mealy-mouthed acknowledgment that many people enjoy their TM (followed by a carefully disguised plug for his services for those who don't). When that mask *slips*, what comes out is what *I* had quoted to start with, John's ugly comment about the plans to do research on the children in Lynch's project: I'd sure be more comfortable if researchers would stick to experimenting on monkeys and leave the kids alone. One would think folks with a few brain cells to rub together would have learned that when a post doesn't seem to make sense, it often helps to backtrack in the thread to find the original context. In this case Sal wouldn't even have had to go back; she could have read the original post included beneath Curtis's question to me.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Free Web Event: McCartney/Lynch Benefit Concert to Push TM in Public Schools
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj vajradh...@... wrote: On Mar 24, 2009, at 9:10 PM, curtisdeltablues wrote: I disagree with your assessment of the religious nature of TM, but am not inclined to sum up your POV as the result of some negitive emotional state. We just disagree on the religious nature of TM instruction. This doesn't surprise me because you didn't spend many weeks bowing down to the floor to a picture of Maharishi's dead guru after invoking divine and semi divine Gods in the Hindu religion. (Vyasa is 3/4 Vishnu don't ya know.) It is easier for you to ignore its religious roots. This selective memory and selective seeing interests me. It's a universally observable phenomenon in cults like the TMO and the TM mindset. What varies is the degree to which the person suspends their disbelief to allow themselves to be blindsided to the absurdly obvious. I think I already unconsciously use it as a kind of yardstick to see how far some people have gone. Exactly. When someone who was clearly intelligent once throws away all semblance of intelligence to play cult apologist, that to me is a valuable yardstick of how far gone they are into being a cultist. That said, there are IMO two stages of being a cult apologist: 1. Parrotspeak. The first stage is to mindlessly repeat the same arguments given to them by the cult, as if they were by definition true and if you just repeat them enough times, the other person will sooner or later realize that they're true. That's a kind of True Believer cult apologist. 2. Outright paranoia. The second stage is more questionable in terms of the cult apologist's sanity. When one makes the leap from merely believing the dogma of the cult to be true and repeating it ad nauseum to *automatically seeing any challenge to that dogma as having Bad Intent, that's a clear psychological threshold IMO. The person doing this has gone over the line from being merely a cult True Believer to being a cult paranoid. THAT is the issue I've been seeing in Judy in this thread. The challenges she sees to her cult believership in the TM Is Not A Religion Religion are not JUST intellectual challenges. They are meanspirited challenges, challenges made with evil intent, as a kind of personal attack. That's not just True Believerism. That's True Believerism gone over the line into outright paranoia. Next she's going to be claiming that people who disagree with her are making Death Threats against her. That would be the logical next step. Oh. Wait. Never mind. She's already been there, done that.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Anyone here set up a system using cloud computing?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, I am the eternal l.shad...@... wrote: I'm interested any feedback I can get. I like Amazon's write up ( http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/ ), as usual much clearer than that offered by my company (which company I'm sure Vaj has search out and will blast it's names across our monitors). This looks like it's going to fun. As I read the documentation offered by the various vendors I keep getting these ritam experiences. It's like I see the design of Creation in the design and the use of these cloud offerings. Amazon's writeup is fiction. Amazon's proven computing environment? ...provides developers the tools to build failure resilient applications and isolate themselves from common failure scenarios. Anyone trying to access Fairfield Life over the last few days and finding it down knows that this is a cloud of shit.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Free Web Event: McCartney/Lynch Benefit Concert to Push TM in Public Schools
It heightens awareness of an aspect of our mind. I don't believe that it heightens awareness itself or our capacity to be aware of anything else more or better. The purpose for me is that it is enjoyable. No higher state needed. That said it is way down on my list of things I want to do with my day so I haven't meditated in a long time. But I enjoy meditation without the belief's attached to it or the idea that I am experiencing a higher state of mind. That was my original point. You can enjoy meditaiton without the context of religious beliefs. Without assuming the traditional belief structure it becomes an experiment without an assumed conclusion. I don't assume any benifits other than the enjoyment of the experience itself. This approach isn't for everyone, but it works for me. What you are promoting here is certain belief system. My point was that there is no secular meditation – it means that there is no meditation WITHOUT certain belief system whether you believe in Mickey Mouse or God or nothing at all.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Anyone here set up a system using cloud computing?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_re...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, I am the eternal L.Shaddai@ wrote: I'm interested any feedback I can get. I like Amazon's write up ( http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/), as usual much clearer than that offered by my company (which company I'm sure Vaj has search out and will blast it's names across our monitors). This looks like it's going to fun. As I read the documentation offered by the various vendors I keep getting these ritam experiences. It's like I see the design of Creation in the design and the use of these cloud offerings. Amazon's writeup is fiction. Amazon's proven computing environment? ...provides developers the tools to build failure resilient applications and isolate themselves from common failure scenarios. Anyone trying to access Fairfield Life over the last few days and finding it down knows that this is a cloud of shit. H. Allow me to rethink this. First, I didn't mean to imply that Yahoo and Amazon were the same entity, merely that their down time figures are, for me, similar. I have a very high failure rate when trying to order from Amazon or use their Look inside this book feature. So trying to sell me better up time just isn't going to work. I have only encountered one true never crash system in my life, and that was Tandem. That said, there is one aspect of this that would be interesting feature -- resizability. That would be an interesting solution for users who start with one set of expectations about the possible number of users or possible number of simultaneous hits on the system and then suddenly discover that their assumption was unfounded. The ability of a Web server to resize and go from a normal number of simultaneous trans- actions of 10-12 to 10,000 or 100,000 would be a big plus. If that happened automatically as a result of actual demand and not just on demand as requested by the service provider, that would be a cool thing. As for the flashes of ritam, well given the history of TM businesses and their ability to see the future, I think you can safely write that off as an indicator. But that's just me... :-)
[FairfieldLife] Re: Sleep Tea (was More despondency)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu noozg...@... wrote: [snip] One more thing I forgot to mention, it IS spring the Kapha season. And believe it or not you may need to try some kapha reducing herbs which are stimulating to improve your sleep. Or eat more spicy foods. A rise in kapha can produce depression. My sister went through a clinical depression about 15 years ago. One day I went over to go with her and a visiting relative to dinner. She was in a funk when I arrived. Having introduced ayurveda to her, I went downstairs, grabbed a bag of kapha tea and made it for her. She came out of the funk and was her old self for the dinner. I sometimes have problems sleeping straight through until morning. Having some kapha tea in the evening allows me to sleep straight through. It's worth a try and pretty harmless. Kapha tea can be made from 1 part ginger, 1 part cinnamon and a dash of clove. You can throw in some black pepper too especially if circulation isn't that good. That's interesting Bhairitu - I'll certainly give it a go. It'll be no hardship as I love ginger. But you know, I find it kinda counter-intuitive that a stimulant (i.e. kapha reducer) should improve sleep? And I would have thought that in kapha season sleep problems might be less likely, and indeed the tendency might be to sleep too much and so aggravate kapha? But then again I know next to nothing about the AV system...
[FairfieldLife] Religious aspects of the TM puja; Connecting to the Guru God
Most of the puja is blatantly religious. For example, the puja contains the traditional shodashopachura pujana - the puja of 16 offering. The puja of 16 offering is common in Hindu worship as a way to receive or connect to a particular God. In this case the God is the Guru, the Guru God or Guru Deva; Guru Dev: आवाहनं समर्पयामि श्रीगुरु चरण कमलेभ्यो नमः aavaahanaM samarpayaami shriiguru charaNa kamalebhyo namaH Offering invocation to the lotus feet of the blessed guru, I bow down. आसनं समर्पयामि श्रीगुरु चरण कमलेभ्यो नमः aasanaM samarpayaami shriiguru charaNa kamalebhyo namaH Offering a seat to the lotus feet of the blessed guru, I bow down. स्नानं समर्पयामि श्रीगुरु चरण कमलेभ्यो नमः snaanaM samarpayaami shriiguru charaNa kamalebhyo namaH Offering a bath to the lotus feet of the blessed guru, I bow down. वस्त्रं समर्पयामि श्रीगुरु चरण कमलेभ्यो नमः vastraM samarpayaami shriiguru charaNa kamalebhyo namaH Offering a cloth to the lotus feet of the blessed guru, I bow down. चंदनं समर्पयामि श्रीगुरु चरण कमलेभ्यो नमः cha.ndanaM samarpayaami shriiguru charaNa kamalebhyo namaH Offering sandal paste to the lotus feet of the blessed guru, I bow down. अक्शतान् समर्पयामि श्रीगुरु चरण कमलेभ्यो नमः akshataan samarpayaami shriiguru charaNa kamalebhyo namaH Offering full unbroken rice to the lotus feet of the blessed guru, I bow down. पुष्पं समर्पयामि श्रीगुरु चरण कमलेभ्यो नमः pushhpaM samarpayaami shriiguru charaNa kamalebhyo namaH Offering a flower to the lotus feet of the blessed guru, I bow down. धूपं समर्पयामि श्रीगुरु चचरण कमलेभ्यो नमः dhuupaM samarpayaami shriiguru charaNa kamalebhyo namaH Offering incense to the lotus feet of the blessed guru, I bow down. दीपं समर्पयामि श्रीगुरु चरण कमलेभ्यो नमः diipaM samarpayaami shriiguru charaNa kamalebhyo namaH Offering light to the lotus feet of the blessed guru, I bow down. अच्मनियम् समर्पयामि श्रीगुरु चरण कमलेभ्यो नमः achmaniyam samarpayaami shriiguru charaNa kamalebhyo namaH Offering water to the lotus feet of the blessed guru, I bow down. नैवेद्यं समर्पयामि श्रीगुरु चरण कमलेभ्यो नमः naivedyaM samarpayaami shriiguru charaNa kamalebhyo namaH Offering fruit to the lotus feet of the blessed guru, I bow down. आच्मनीयं समर्पयामि श्रीगुरु चरण कमलेभ्यो नमः aachmaniiyaM samarpayaami shriiguru charaNa kamalebhyo namaH Offering water to the lotus feet of the blessed guru, I bow down. ताम्बूलं समर्पयामि श्रीगुरु चरण कमलेभ्यो नमः taambuulaM samarpayaami shriiguru charaNa kamalebhyo namaH Offering betel leaf to the lotus feet of the blessed guru, I bow down. श्री फलं समर्पयामि श्रीगुरु चरण कमलेभ्यो नमः shrii phalaM samarpayaami shriiguru charaNa kamalebhyo namaH Offering coconut to the lotus feet of the blessed guru, I bow down. उपचारस् - upachaaras
[FairfieldLife] Quantum Jesus
Hi all, I am new in this forum and blogging. http://elang-horus.blogspot.com/ I am neither spiritualist, scientist or researcher -- I simply mix write anything with my own understanding in my new blog. *Please note that I am not a native English. Cheers EH \ -- Quantum Jesus http://elang-horus.blogspot.com/2009/03/quantum-jesus.html [BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5316721248506007490] http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_J7BSoMVgB0o/ScjJzmr4z8I/ACc/grNKOT8u1\ IU/s1600-h/matrix-clock-01.gif Anything is possible... Dr Quantum - Double Slit Experiment http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfPeprQ7oGc Or The Double Slit Experiment: Part 1 of 8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bgnuib0z0vI 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ir7FgYASQck 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i99CbXD8aYc 4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5bZ3JWCh_0 5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OWQildwjKQ 6 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBOaXcG3sJ0; 7 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_qRr8HP4iI 8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RR_Oq7UEUPc How does people should contemplate the correlation between our observation create (Quantum mechanics -Q) --- with history (H)? Assumed that Q (Observation) is the one which consequently manifested as H(fact of History). If so what is the function of H then, as many believe that truth can be revealed by learning/exploring history? Since from Q perspective (Observation) -- history can be assumed as the one which hold/keep the same form of particle realm (illusion of matter) we called reality. (Inevitable consequence from historical/past observation). From my understanding: It seems that spirituality can be associated with the absence of observer in experimental life field -- or perception that we actually living in wave field/as wave (maya, not real -A), while materialism can be associated with the act of observation that we live/trapped in particles field (B). As mankind living as one and in the same field (of probability) -- consequently; our so-called reality build upon combination from transcending/manifesting light (electron) as wave(spirituality) and/or particles (material) via our PERSPECTIVE -- which resulted in space, matter and time. I bet this is why Jesus proclaim himself as I AM the Light - since he is (mimicking) the source code of creation. He is (the resource of) every perspective/observation. His hope was to remind the world that fairness, justice, and freedom are more than words, they are perspectives. - V For Vendetta Consequently;from Q (Quantum) perspective, the reason on why mankind still live/trapped in same dense material (particle) plane is arguably caused by any effort of revealing the mystery of existence/creation/God -- via historical fact or using past observation which stated that past experience (material plane) as real -- in order to manifest/develop knowledge/science/truth. At the same time Q perspective is impossible to be born/exist/manifest without mankind ever learn/build their knowledge or by creating/using/manifesting history.(experiment/experience)**. **I think that's already confusing enough for me : ) Where is the real truth then? What to do? Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children,ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. - Jesus (That words begin to sound more quantum-ly convincing in the way human observation may affect the heavenly/hellish nature of their kingdom/realms - since children doesn't observe/believe in 'reality' as adult did) Perhaps the problem of being adult (fallen from paradise) is simply forget to have fun (this is a game) with their inevitable nature to create/manifest using both available state of observation/non-observation. But the most important point to be considered from Kingdom of Heaven truth-contemplation is this: We're in fact living in transcend-able/mutable field of existence/realms. Since science seemingly begin to merge with spirituality, are we are trapped in some kind of field which begin to emerge (Divine Plan)? Spirituality Illusion Science. For me, it seems the plan was indeed to create/manifest LOVE*. *to be continued Guns N' Roses seemingly understand about this problem: Use your Illusion : ) [BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5316719504243437810] Spirituality Love/Transcended Illusion Science or Kingdom of Heaven (Astral/Wave/Spiritual) begin approaching/merging with material (Dense/Particle) world. The merging of both perspective/observation in order to born Love. Hypothetically,this may also be the simple equation on why Jesus needed his 2ndComing, or Osiris needed to be reborn as Horus (except perhaps they were being manifested in different/parallel matrix (operating system)resulted from different formulation/combination upon both perspectives). Perhaps, it is the eternal codex of transcended Light into Love in the (required) field of darkness (matrix).
Re: [FairfieldLife] Facebook Friends of Raja Eike Hartmann
yifuxero wrote: http://www.ncane.com/mfg2 So does everybody have Facebook account but me? (You have to log in). Who gives a shit about the social networking fad?
Re: [FairfieldLife] Friends of Bramachari Girish
Again, what is the point of doing this? There is a really strong creepy factor going on. --- On Tue, 3/24/09, yifuxero yifux...@yahoo.com wrote: From: yifuxero yifux...@yahoo.com Subject: [FairfieldLife] Friends of Bramachari Girish To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Date: Tuesday, March 24, 2009, 9:52 PM http://www.ncane.com/jay Friends of Raja Willem Meijles http://www.ncane.com/188f To subscribe, send a message to: fairfieldlife-subscr...@yahoogroups.com Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!'Yahoo! Groups Links
[FairfieldLife] Masterpiece by Elton John
Carla etude/Tonight (Part 2) - Elton John with the Symphonic Orchestra at the Royal Opera House http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuGvpPVk0tY Music by elton john - Lyrics by bernie taupin Available on the album blue moves Tonight Do we have to fight again Tonight I just want to go to sleep Turn out the light But you want to carry grudges Nine times out of ten I see the storm approaching Long before the rain starts falling Tonight Does it have to be the old thing Tonight Its late, too late To chase the rainbow that youre after Id like to find a compromise And place it in your hands My eyes are blind, my ears cant hear And I cannot find the time Tonight Just let the curtains close in silence Tonight Why not approach with less defiance The man who'd love to see you smile Who'd love to see you smile Tonight Part I is also not to be missed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfBAf2jH50Mfeature=related
[FairfieldLife] Well......One of life Mysteries!
http://WWW.maniacworld.Com/bird-loves-ray-Charles.HTML http://www.freedomofspeech.netfirms.com/
Re: [FairfieldLife] Masterpiece by Elton John
I love EJ. I just went through his old lps for the last couple weeks and I can't say enough what a superb human being EJ is. Reginald Dwight. - Original Message - From: do.rflex do.rf...@yahoo.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, March 25, 2009 7:54 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Masterpiece by Elton John Carla etude/Tonight (Part 2) - Elton John with the Symphonic Orchestra at the Royal Opera House http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuGvpPVk0tY Music by elton john - Lyrics by bernie taupin Available on the album blue moves Tonight Do we have to fight again Tonight I just want to go to sleep Turn out the light But you want to carry grudges Nine times out of ten I see the storm approaching Long before the rain starts falling Tonight Does it have to be the old thing Tonight Its late, too late To chase the rainbow that youre after Id like to find a compromise And place it in your hands My eyes are blind, my ears cant hear And I cannot find the time Tonight Just let the curtains close in silence Tonight Why not approach with less defiance The man who'd love to see you smile Who'd love to see you smile Tonight Part I is also not to be missed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfBAf2jH50Mfeature=related To subscribe, send a message to: fairfieldlife-subscr...@yahoogroups.com Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!'Yahoo! Groups Links
[FairfieldLife] Re: Friends of Bramachari Girish
I suppose that question premises that there is a point to a lot of the seemingly pointless posts. And that this one stands out somehow. For me, I was curious of what kind of people would be social net work friends of a raja , not the person. And second, independent of the above, if I saw any old acquaintances I am missing the creepy factor. One's man's creep is another man's trivia. I am curious as to the criteria for creepy. What other things do you find creepy? --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Peter drpetersutp...@... wrote: Again, what is the point of doing this? There is a really strong creepy factor going on. --- On Tue, 3/24/09, yifuxero yifux...@... wrote: From: yifuxero yifux...@... Subject: [FairfieldLife] Friends of Bramachari Girish To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Date: Tuesday, March 24, 2009, 9:52 PM http://www.ncane.com/jay Friends of Raja Willem Meijles http://www.ncane.com/188f To subscribe, send a message to: fairfieldlife-subscr...@yahoogroups.com Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!'Yahoo! Groups Links
[FairfieldLife] Re: Anyone here set up a system using cloud computing?
good instructions here: http://www.scripting.com/stories/2009/03/20/ec2ForPoets.html
[FairfieldLife] Re: Religious aspects of the TM puja; Connecting to the Guru God
Does it upset you when you are a guest at a sumptuous meal and the host offers grace before the meal. I may be shallow, but I focus on the meal and not on my hosts particular beliefs or traditions. And I don't somehow feel tainted or duped. Thanksgiving. Is that a religious holiday? Am I being secretly taught a religion if I take the holiday off, and eat a thanksgiving meal? Who were the pilgrims offering thanks to? Oh my God! It was God! Run! Curtis doesn't like me to equate the fruit of meditation with actual fruit. And I am sure I am transgressing his beliefs with my meal analogy. But to me, it fits quite well. I am getting something quite secular -- a meal -- a useful meditation technique -- at the HUGE cost of listening to someone give thanks prior to the meal. I don't get the outrage. I practiced TM for some time. I don't know much about Hinduism. My Indian friends sort of tolerate my delusion that somehow I have something in common with them and their religion. But I can't be a Hindu in traditional Hinduism. White boys not allowed. So why would another white boy or worse white girl -- who can never be a hindu, teaching something to another white boy who can never be a hindu, somehow make teaching TM a religion. And don't even get me started on Christmas or Easter. If schools give these as holidays, aren't they complicit in some great religious conspiracy to dupe our poor cloistered youth? These holidays CLEARLY have religious roots. No more Easter egg hunts on the White House lawn. Clearly a violation of church and state. Not only that, it has roots in pagan religions! Pagan! As do Christmas trees. No more lighting of the Christmas tree on TV at Rokerfella square or the White House. And the damn World Series. Those religious nut players actually give thanks to GOD before the game. The horror! Our poor kids! Getting duped again by the omnipresent religious conspiracy. (I know you did not explicitly bring up some the points I am riffing on. ) --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj vajradh...@... wrote: Most of the puja is blatantly religious. For example, the puja contains the traditional shodashopachura pujana - the puja of 16 offering. The puja of 16 offering is common in Hindu worship as a way to receive or connect to a particular God. In this case the God is the Guru, the Guru God or Guru Deva; Guru Dev: à¤à¤µà¤¾à¤¹à¤¨à¤ समरà¥à¤ªà¤¯à¤¾à¤®à¤¿ शà¥à¤°à¥à¤à¥à¤°à¥ à¤à¤°à¤£ à¤à¤®à¤²à¥à¤à¥à¤¯à¥ नमठaavaahanaM samarpayaami shriiguru charaNa kamalebhyo namaH Offering invocation to the lotus feet of the blessed guru, I bow down. à¤à¤¸à¤¨à¤ समरà¥à¤ªà¤¯à¤¾à¤®à¤¿ शà¥à¤°à¥à¤à¥à¤°à¥ à¤à¤°à¤£ à¤à¤®à¤²à¥à¤à¥à¤¯à¥ नमठaasanaM samarpayaami shriiguru charaNa kamalebhyo namaH Offering a seat to the lotus feet of the blessed guru, I bow down. सà¥à¤¨à¤¾à¤¨à¤ समरà¥à¤ªà¤¯à¤¾à¤®à¤¿ शà¥à¤°à¥à¤à¥à¤°à¥ à¤à¤°à¤£ à¤à¤®à¤²à¥à¤à¥à¤¯à¥ नमठsnaanaM samarpayaami shriiguru charaNa kamalebhyo namaH Offering a bath to the lotus feet of the blessed guru, I bow down. वसà¥à¤¤à¥à¤°à¤ समरà¥à¤ªà¤¯à¤¾à¤®à¤¿ शà¥à¤°à¥à¤à¥à¤°à¥ à¤à¤°à¤£ à¤à¤®à¤²à¥à¤à¥à¤¯à¥ नमठvastraM samarpayaami shriiguru charaNa kamalebhyo namaH Offering a cloth to the lotus feet of the blessed guru, I bow down. à¤à¤à¤¦à¤¨à¤ समरà¥à¤ªà¤¯à¤¾à¤®à¤¿ शà¥à¤°à¥à¤à¥à¤°à¥ à¤à¤°à¤£ à¤à¤®à¤²à¥à¤à¥à¤¯à¥ नमठcha.ndanaM samarpayaami shriiguru charaNa kamalebhyo namaH Offering sandal paste to the lotus feet of the blessed guru, I bow down. ठà¤à¥à¤¶à¤¤à¤¾à¤¨à¥ समरà¥à¤ªà¤¯à¤¾à¤®à¤¿ शà¥à¤°à¥à¤à¥à¤°à¥ à¤à¤°à¤£ à¤à¤®à¤²à¥à¤à¥à¤¯à¥ नमठakshataan samarpayaami shriiguru charaNa kamalebhyo namaH Offering full unbroken rice to the lotus feet of the blessed guru, I bow down. पà¥à¤·à¥à¤ªà¤ समरà¥à¤ªà¤¯à¤¾à¤®à¤¿ शà¥à¤°à¥à¤à¥à¤°à¥ à¤à¤°à¤£ à¤à¤®à¤²à¥à¤à¥à¤¯à¥ नमठpushhpaM samarpayaami shriiguru charaNa kamalebhyo namaH Offering a flower to the lotus feet of the blessed guru, I bow down. धà¥à¤ªà¤ समरà¥à¤ªà¤¯à¤¾à¤®à¤¿ शà¥à¤°à¥à¤à¥à¤°à¥ à¤à¤à¤°à¤£ à¤à¤®à¤²à¥à¤à¥à¤¯à¥ नमठdhuupaM samarpayaami shriiguru charaNa kamalebhyo namaH Offering incense to the lotus feet of the blessed guru, I bow down. दà¥à¤ªà¤ समरà¥à¤ªà¤¯à¤¾à¤®à¤¿ शà¥à¤°à¥à¤à¥à¤°à¥ à¤à¤°à¤£ à¤à¤®à¤²à¥à¤à¥à¤¯à¥ नमठdiipaM samarpayaami shriiguru charaNa kamalebhyo namaH Offering light to the lotus feet of the blessed guru, I bow down. ठà¤à¥à¤®à¤¨à¤¿à¤¯à¤®à¥ समरà¥à¤ªà¤¯à¤¾à¤®à¤¿ शà¥à¤°à¥à¤à¥à¤°à¥ à¤à¤°à¤£ à¤à¤®à¤²à¥à¤à¥à¤¯à¥ नमठachmaniyam samarpayaami shriiguru charaNa kamalebhyo namaH Offering water to the lotus feet of the blessed guru, I bow down. नà¥à¤µà¥à¤¦à¥à¤¯à¤ समरà¥à¤ªà¤¯à¤¾à¤®à¤¿ शà¥à¤°à¥à¤à¥à¤°à¥
[FairfieldLife] Re: Free Web Event: McCartney/Lynch Benefit Concert to Push TM in Public Schools
Hi, Judy, I don't object only on the basis of the puja. I'm not sure how you got that idea. The propensity of the late Maharishi's teaching was religious in nature -- based on the Vedas, as he claimed, which are one of humanity's great religious texts. While they will not be teaching the full TM program in the schools, they do talk on DLF's site about TM program activities, which I imagine would include information on advanced techniques, courses, etc. But even they don't have the kids doing yagyas to Ganesh or Lakshmi, I can't imagine how they would separate the religious content of TM from the secular content. As Curtis has pointed out, all new initiates are exposed to religious concepts within the 3-Days Checking. I wouldn't be comfortable with a Christian cleric, such as Thomas Keating, teaching Centering Prayer in the schools. The teaching is intertwined with religious concepts. I can't see how they could be separated from a secular form of the technique. J. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jst...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, John M. Knapp, LMSW jmknapp53@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, John M. Knapp, LMSW jmknapp53@ wrote: snip On the other hand, I know of a court in New Jersey that ruled TM was religious and had no place in public schools. As you know, it was TM *plus SCI* that was ruled a religious teaching under the definition used to protect the First Amendment (i.e., the government was not allowed to fund it, even by making school facilities available for it). This is accurate, Judy. But I'm not sure that it substantially changes my point. The judge went on at great length about both the puja and SCI separately as being religious in nature. What you go on to quote was from the ruling at the district court level. To understand the entire case it's necessary to read the appeals court's ruling and Judge Adams's concurring opinion. (See the end of this post for links to the ruling and opinion.) The constitutional reasoning is quite complex and subtle. To reduce it to a flat ruled that TM was religious is disingenuous in this context, in which SCI does not appear to be involved. It would be my guess that, if someone were to challenge DLF's program in court, that the puja alone would be sufficient to keep TM out of the schools. Maybe. But in his concurring opinion in the appeals court ruling, Judge Adams wrote: It is not meant to suggest that the Puja has no relationship to the ultimate issue of this case. In my view, however, the chant is only one factor to be considered in determining whether SCI/TM itself is a religion. The Puja, because of its ceremonial aspects, may be supportive of the answer supplied to that question, but *it does not answer it by itself*. Moreover, *even if the Puja alone were found to be religious*, the proper remedy might well be to enjoin that particular ceremony only, and not to interdict the entire SCI/TM course. (emphases added) In other words, Judge Adams thinks the puja *might* be found to be religious but doesn't assert that it is. In the rest of his opinion, he argues that SCI *is* religious in nature, so he does not need to address the question of whether TM with puja but without SCI would be constitutionally permissible. In discussing the various precedents for the ruling, he does not find any of them that are close enough to the way the puja was performed (off school grounds, on Sundays, etc.) or the nature of the puja itself (in Sanskrit, which the student is assumed not to understand, etc.) to be adequate. It isn't clear how the puja will be handled in connection with Lynch's program. It would make sense for it to be done as it was in New Jersey. A couple of quotes from the Malnak vs. Yogi judgment (archived at http://trancenet.net/law/nj1.html): Dead link, John. As noted, what you quote is the district court's decision, not the appeals court ruling, which said little about the puja. Judge Adams, as I read his opinion, calls in question the district court's justification for holding that the puja per se met the standards set by precedent for a religious activity, as I suggested above, leaving that issue open. Here's what the appeals court ruling said about the puja: To acquire his mantra, a meditator must attend a ceremony called a 'puja.' Every student who participated in the SCI/TM course was required to attend a puja as part of the course. A puja was performed by the teacher for each student individually; it was conducted off school premises on a Sunday; and the student was required to bring some fruit, flowers and a white handkerchief. During the puja the student stood or sat in front of a table while the teacher sang a chant and made offerings to a deified 'Guru
Re: [FairfieldLife] Oh that Jesus...
2009/3/24 curtisdeltablues curtisdeltabl...@yahoo.com: He really can be a bit thick sometimes! http://naurunappula.com/z/285919/ Curtis, for shame! Here I am listening to my Christian music station (heavy on the El Shaddai) on Pandora and you post this. Funny. Very funny.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Religious aspects of the TM puja; Connecting to the Guru God
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj vajradh...@... wrote: Most of the puja is blatantly religious. For example, the puja contains the traditional shodashopachura pujana - the puja of 16 offering. The puja of 16 offering is common in Hindu worship as a way to receive or connect to a particular God. In this case the God is the Guru, the Guru God or Guru Deva; Guru Dev: AVAHANAM SAMARPAYAMI SHRI GURU CHARANA KAMALEBHYO NAMAH Offering invocation to the lotus feet of the blessed Guru, I bow down. ASANAM SAMARPAYAMI SHRI GURU CHARANA KAMALEBHYO NAMAH Offering a seat to the lotus feet of the blessed Guru, I bow down. SNANAM SAMARPAYAMI SHRI GURU CHARANA KAMALEBHYO NAMAH Offering a bath to the lotus feet of the blessed Guru, I bow down. VASTRAM SAMARPAYAMI SHRI GURU CHARANA KAMALEBHYO NAMAH Offering a cloth to the lotus feet of the blessed Guru, I bow down. CHANDANAM SAMARPAYAMI SHRI GURU CHARANA KAMALEBHYO NAMAH Offering sandal paste to the lotus feet of the blessed Guru, I bow down. AKSHATAN SAMARPAYAMI SHRI GURU CHARANA KAMALEBHYO NAMAH Offering full unbroken rice to the lotus feet of the blessed Guru, I bow down. PUSHPAM SAMARPAYAMI SHRI GURU CHARANA KAMALEBHYO NAMAH Offering a flower to the lotus feet of the blessed Guru, I bow down. DHUPAM SAMARPAYAMI SHRI GURU CHARANA KAMALEBHYO NAMAH Offering incense to the lotus feet of the blessed Guru, I bow down. DEEPAM SAMARPAYAMI SHRI GURU CHARANA KAMALEBHYO NAMAH Offering light to the lotus feet of the blessed Guru, I bow down. ACHMANIYAM SAMARPAYAMI SHRI GURU CHARANA KAMALEBHYO NAMAH Offering water to the lotus feet of the blessed Guru, I bow down. NAIVEDYAM SAMARPAYAMI SHRI GURU CHARANA KAMALEBHYO NAMAH Offering fruit to the lotus feet of the blessed Guru, I bow down. ACHMANIYAM SAMARPAYAMI SHRI GURU CHARANA KAMALEBHYO NAMAH Offering water to the lotus feet of the blessed Guru, I bow down. TAMBULAM SAMARPAYAMI SHRI GURU CHARANA KAMALEBHYO NAMAH Offering betel leaf to the lotus feet of the blessed Guru, I bow down. SHRI PHALAM SAMARPAYAMI SHRI GURU CHARANA KAMALEBHYO NAMAH Offering coconut to the lotus feet of the blessed Guru, I bow down. [reposted for clarity - apparently the Sanskrit doesn't post properly] === Many properly trained TM teachers can verify from directly perceived experience [and have many times to me personally] that indeed this complete Puja invokes the presence of Guru Dev [Swami Bramhananda Saraswati]. In my teacher training course, Maharishi explained that in essence, the initiator 'becomes' Guru Dev when the mantra is imparted from that deep level and given to the initiate. It's a very gentle and sublime, but powerful experience. For me personally while teaching, it has varied unpredictably in intensity. Some times while reciting and performing the Puja I have transcended and felt that I was losing track of where I was in the recitation - however at the same time noticing that the Puja continued flowing like a river as if all by itself. --Apparently some TM teachers don't seem to have experienced that. I have no definitive explanation for that. As a TM teacher trained by MMY, I have always had serious reservations about introducing TM wholesale into public schools claiming it's strictly a non-religious relaxation technique. To me personally, it's blatantly dishonest.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Anyone met their Raja?
On Tue, Mar 24, 2009 at 10:12 PM, grate.swan no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: Outside of US. What exactly did they do in you country? Other than domain? I've met Raja Stanley. He promises to meet with all of sidhas of Ireland next chance he gets (heck, the country's the size of West Virginia). It never happens.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Free Web Event: McCartney/Lynch Benefit Concert to Push TM in Public Schools
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Zoran Krneta krneta.zo...@... wrote: What you are promoting here is certain belief system. My point was that there is no secular meditation it means that there is no meditation WITHOUT certain belief system whether you believe in Mickey Mouse or God or nothing at all. You are confused about the meaning of the word secular: 1 a: of or relating to the worldly or temporal secular concerns b: not overtly or specifically religious secular music c: not ecclesiastical or clerical secular courts secular landowners No human exists without any beliefs about the world. We do not all share beliefs in religious concepts like God or life after death, or a scripture based meaning of life. I was not promoting a belief system. I was sharing my own personal conclusions about my meditation experiences. My conclusions about them are secular and not religious in nature. It heightens awareness of an aspect of our mind. I don't believe that it heightens awareness itself or our capacity to be aware of anything else more or better. The purpose for me is that it is enjoyable. No higher state needed. That said it is way down on my list of things I want to do with my day so I haven't meditated in a long time. But I enjoy meditation without the belief's attached to it or the idea that I am experiencing a higher state of mind. That was my original point. You can enjoy meditaiton without the context of religious beliefs. Without assuming the traditional belief structure it becomes an experiment without an assumed conclusion. I don't assume any benifits other than the enjoyment of the experience itself. This approach isn't for everyone, but it works for me. What you are promoting here is certain belief system. My point was that there is no secular meditation it means that there is no meditation WITHOUT certain belief system whether you believe in Mickey Mouse or God or nothing at all.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Free Web Event: McCartney/Lynch Benefit Concert to Push TM in Public Schools
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Zoran Krneta krneta.zo...@... wrote: What you are promoting here is certain belief system. My point was that there is no secular meditation it means that there is no meditation WITHOUT certain belief system whether you believe in Mickey Mouse or God or nothing at all. I believe you are confused about the meaning of the word secular: 1 a: of or relating to the worldly or temporal secular concerns b: not overtly or specifically religious secular music c: not ecclesiastical or clerical secular courts secular landowners No human exists without any beliefs about the world. We do not all share beliefs in religious concepts like God or life after death, or a scripture based meaning of life. I was not promoting a belief system. I was sharing my own personal conclusions about my meditation experiences. My conclusions about them are secular and not religious in nature. It heightens awareness of an aspect of our mind. I don't believe that it heightens awareness itself or our capacity to be aware of anything else more or better. The purpose for me is that it is enjoyable. No higher state needed. That said it is way down on my list of things I want to do with my day so I haven't meditated in a long time. But I enjoy meditation without the belief's attached to it or the idea that I am experiencing a higher state of mind. That was my original point. You can enjoy meditaiton without the context of religious beliefs. Without assuming the traditional belief structure it becomes an experiment without an assumed conclusion. I don't assume any benifits other than the enjoyment of the experience itself. This approach isn't for everyone, but it works for me. What you are promoting here is certain belief system. My point was that there is no secular meditation it means that there is no meditation WITHOUT certain belief system whether you believe in Mickey Mouse or God or nothing at all.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Religious aspects of the TM puja; Connecting to the Guru God
On Mar 25, 2009, at 10:37 AM, grate.swan wrote: Does it upset you when you are a guest at a sumptuous meal and the host offers grace before the meal. I may be shallow, but I focus on the meal and not on my hosts particular beliefs or traditions. And I don't somehow feel tainted or duped. Only if it is in a public school, in the context we're talking of here. Thanksgiving. Is that a religious holiday? Am I being secretly taught a religion if I take the holiday off, and eat a thanksgiving meal? Who were the pilgrims offering thanks to? Oh my God! It was God! Run! I don't celebrate Thanksgiving as a religious holiday, I celebrate in as an exercise in food materialism. Curtis doesn't like me to equate the fruit of meditation with actual fruit. And I am sure I am transgressing his beliefs with my meal analogy. But to me, it fits quite well. I am getting something quite secular -- a meal -- a useful meditation technique -- at the HUGE cost of listening to someone give thanks prior to the meal. I don't get the outrage. It's a religious technique that invokes gods and goddesses and worships a guru as a god--it therefore violates the separation of church and state--there are a host of other issues such as with charging the taxpayers exorbitant fees for meditation, which can easily be taught for free and the destructive nature of aspects of the TM org, side effects, phony and biased research, etc.. Body modification freaks also feel that insertion of needles can induce pleasurable trance states. Let's not forget to invite them. And voudoun trance rites often involve the sacrificing of small animals to the Loa: VM, Voudoun Meditation. Yes, you too can enjoy an effortless technique that takes you 'down to the crossroads' without ever having to leave your chair. Perhaps you should look into what the actual goal of Hindu mental ishta-devata meditation is, since you don't seem clear on what it actually is. Can you name one common place you would find the Hindu 16-fold offering? I practiced TM for some time. I don't know much about Hinduism. My Indian friends sort of tolerate my delusion that somehow I have something in common with them and their religion. But I can't be a Hindu in traditional Hinduism. White boys not allowed. So why would another white boy or worse white girl -- who can never be a hindu, teaching something to another white boy who can never be a hindu, somehow make teaching TM a religion. I know of numerous people who became Hindus--some have even received the sacred thread. And don't even get me started on Christmas or Easter. If schools give these as holidays, aren't they complicit in some great religious conspiracy to dupe our poor cloistered youth? These holidays CLEARLY have religious roots. They're just appealing to the majority of their students I guess, but that is an interesting objection. Of course none of their religious rites would appear on campus if they are absent. No more Easter egg hunts on the White House lawn. Clearly a violation of church and state. Not only that, it has roots in pagan religions! Pagan! As do Christmas trees. No more lighting of the Christmas tree on TV at Rokerfella square or the White House. Easter eggs to not appear in the Christian bible--unless you happen to have a very different bible than I do! And the damn World Series. Those religious nut players actually give thanks to GOD before the game. The horror! Our poor kids! Getting duped again by the omnipresent religious conspiracy. (I know you did not explicitly bring up some the points I am riffing on. )
[FairfieldLife] Re: Religious aspects of the TM puja; Connecting to the Guru God
Another thought on this. We live in a pluralistic society and laudably multi-culturalism and the appreciation of diversity in other culture is increasingly celebrated. Where I work, a large company, the daily e-mail newsletter celebrates and explains every major religions and cultural holiday. Hindu, islamic, jewish, ... Thats a cool thing IMO. it does not make my company a religious advocate nor does it have some hidden agenda. Its educating us all, and making us sensitive to, other cultures. In that light, teaching TM in the traditional way, is giving a nod to, and adding to the texture of a multicultural society. Its preserving a heritage enabling all to see a type of ceremony that they would not normally see. In that light, the TMO should be given thanks for not coping out and sanitizing the way they teach TM. They teach it in the traditional way. They provide a micro museum tour of an ancient culture. I rather like that. That doesn't make me Hindu or religious. It reflects that I am multi-cultural and live in a diverse society of tolerance and appreciation of all traditions. You don't have a true multi-cultural society if you sanitize all traditions and strip out references to God or whatever. That would be a sham and a shame. You have a multi-cultural society when things with religious roots can be shared and appreciated as part of diverse cultures -- not phobiacized. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, grate.swan no_re...@... wrote: Does it upset you when you are a guest at a sumptuous meal and the host offers grace before the meal. I may be shallow, but I focus on the meal and not on my hosts particular beliefs or traditions. And I don't somehow feel tainted or duped. Thanksgiving. Is that a religious holiday? Am I being secretly taught a religion if I take the holiday off, and eat a thanksgiving meal? Who were the pilgrims offering thanks to? Oh my God! It was God! Run! Curtis doesn't like me to equate the fruit of meditation with actual fruit. And I am sure I am transgressing his beliefs with my meal analogy. But to me, it fits quite well. I am getting something quite secular -- a meal -- a useful meditation technique -- at the HUGE cost of listening to someone give thanks prior to the meal. I don't get the outrage. I practiced TM for some time. I don't know much about Hinduism. My Indian friends sort of tolerate my delusion that somehow I have something in common with them and their religion. But I can't be a Hindu in traditional Hinduism. White boys not allowed. So why would another white boy or worse white girl -- who can never be a hindu, teaching something to another white boy who can never be a hindu, somehow make teaching TM a religion. And don't even get me started on Christmas or Easter. If schools give these as holidays, aren't they complicit in some great religious conspiracy to dupe our poor cloistered youth? These holidays CLEARLY have religious roots. No more Easter egg hunts on the White House lawn. Clearly a violation of church and state. Not only that, it has roots in pagan religions! Pagan! As do Christmas trees. No more lighting of the Christmas tree on TV at Rokerfella square or the White House. And the damn World Series. Those religious nut players actually give thanks to GOD before the game. The horror! Our poor kids! Getting duped again by the omnipresent religious conspiracy. (I know you did not explicitly bring up some the points I am riffing on. ) --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj vajradhatu@ wrote: Most of the puja is blatantly religious. For example, the puja contains the traditional shodashopachura pujana - the puja of 16 offering. The puja of 16 offering is common in Hindu worship as a way to receive or connect to a particular God. In this case the God is the Guru, the Guru God or Guru Deva; Guru Dev: à¤à¤µà¤¾à¤¹à¤¨à¤ समरà¥à¤ªà¤¯à¤¾à¤®à¤¿ शà¥à¤°à¥à¤à¥à¤°à¥ à¤à¤°à¤£ à¤à¤®à¤²à¥à¤à¥à¤¯à¥ नमठaavaahanaM samarpayaami shriiguru charaNa kamalebhyo namaH Offering invocation to the lotus feet of the blessed guru, I bow down. à¤à¤¸à¤¨à¤ समरà¥à¤ªà¤¯à¤¾à¤®à¤¿ शà¥à¤°à¥à¤à¥à¤°à¥ à¤à¤°à¤£ à¤à¤®à¤²à¥à¤à¥à¤¯à¥ नमठaasanaM samarpayaami shriiguru charaNa kamalebhyo namaH Offering a seat to the lotus feet of the blessed guru, I bow down. सà¥à¤¨à¤¾à¤¨à¤ समरà¥à¤ªà¤¯à¤¾à¤®à¤¿ शà¥à¤°à¥à¤à¥à¤°à¥ à¤à¤°à¤£ à¤à¤®à¤²à¥à¤à¥à¤¯à¥ नमठsnaanaM samarpayaami shriiguru charaNa kamalebhyo namaH Offering a bath to the lotus feet of the blessed guru, I bow down. वसà¥à¤¤à¥à¤°à¤ समरà¥à¤ªà¤¯à¤¾à¤®à¤¿ शà¥à¤°à¥à¤à¥à¤°à¥ à¤à¤°à¤£ à¤à¤®à¤²à¥à¤à¥à¤¯à¥ नमठvastraM samarpayaami shriiguru charaNa kamalebhyo namaH Offering a cloth to the lotus feet of the blessed guru, I bow down. à¤à¤à¤¦à¤¨à¤
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Anyone here set up a system using cloud computing?
On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 9:35 AM, Devanath Saraswati devna...@yahoo.com wrote: good instructions here: http://www.scripting.com/stories/2009/03/20/ec2ForPoets.html Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner. Somone who can offer a first hand account. What I was looking for. Now as far as Amazon and Yahoo. Their being not fully functioning is not always the result of their cloud being down. A lot of Yahoo is down right now. This happened a couple of weeks before during an upgrade. I've had the architecture of Amazon and Yahoo laid out to me in great detail. I'm amazed that these companies work at all they are so very complicated with their round the world replication, automatic expansion and contraction into and out of nodes, using software (like Oracle's RDBMS) which isn't designed for such things.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Religious aspects of the TM puja; Connecting to the Guru God
On Mar 25, 2009, at 10:53 AM, do.rflex wrote: In my teacher training course, Maharishi explained that in essence, the initiator 'becomes' Guru Dev when the mantra is imparted from that deep level and given to the initiate. It's a very gentle and sublime, but powerful experience. For me personally while teaching, it has varied unpredictably in intensity. Some times while reciting and performing the Puja I have transcended and felt that I was losing track of where I was in the recitation - however at the same time noticing that the Puja continued flowing like a river as if all by itself. --Apparently some TM teachers don't seem to have experienced that. I have no definitive explanation for that. As a TM teacher trained by MMY, I have always had serious reservations about introducing TM wholesale into public schools claiming it's strictly a non-religious relaxation technique. To me personally, it's blatantly dishonest. And MMY's explanation is, in fact, a good one. The idea of the 16- fold worship is for the worshipper to unite his consciousness with the object of the worship--in this case the Guru-God as embodied in the discarnate human, Swami Brahmananda Saraswati. The level of unification can occur at different levels, but the goal is always to unite with the god or goddess being invoked. It sounds to me like you simply had a very clear and innocent experience of this state. If I am going to empower some one or some thing with a certain enlightenment-energy practice, I always unite, mentally with visualization and with mental mantra, with that force. It's this assumption of the acquired force that makes the empowerment work and flow. The proper identification with the force you're merging with is unmistakable once you're used to that presence.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Religious aspects of the TM puja; Connecting to the Guru God
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, grate.swan no_re...@... wrote: Another thought on this. We live in a pluralistic society and laudably multi-culturalism and the appreciation of diversity in other culture is increasingly celebrated. Where I work, a large company, the daily e-mail newsletter celebrates and explains every major religions and cultural holiday. Hindu, islamic, jewish, ... Thats a cool thing IMO. it does not make my company a religious advocate nor does it have some hidden agenda. Its educating us all, and making us sensitive to, other cultures. In that light, teaching TM in the traditional way, is giving a nod to, and adding to the texture of a multicultural society. Its preserving a heritage enabling all to see a type of ceremony that they would not normally see. In that light, the TMO should be given thanks for not coping out and sanitizing the way they teach TM. They teach it in the traditional way. They provide a micro museum tour of an ancient culture. I rather like that. That doesn't make me Hindu or religious. It reflects that I am multi-cultural and live in a diverse society of tolerance and appreciation of all traditions. You don't have a true multi-cultural society if you sanitize all traditions and strip out references to God or whatever. That's what the TMO has apparently attempted to do in order to get TM accepted wholesale into public schools. That would be a sham and a shame. You have a multi-cultural society when things with religious roots can be shared and appreciated as part of diverse cultures -- not phobiacized. That appears to be a pitch to teach TM with its full religious implications and let it join others in the diverse variety of what's available. But at the same time you can't promote a specific traditional religious teaching in a public school. [snip to end]
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Religious aspects of the TM puja; Connecting to the Guru God
On Mar 25, 2009, at 11:07 AM, grate.swan wrote: Another thought on this. We live in a pluralistic society and laudably multi-culturalism and the appreciation of diversity in other culture is increasingly celebrated. Where I work, a large company, the daily e-mail newsletter celebrates and explains every major religions and cultural holiday. Hindu, islamic, jewish, ... Thats a cool thing IMO. it does not make my company a religious advocate nor does it have some hidden agenda. Its educating us all, and making us sensitive to, other cultures. Not an appropriate comparison. IF your place of employ was using company money to pay for people to be initiated into and to practice TM on work property, then it might be an appropriate comparison. In that light, teaching TM in the traditional way, is giving a nod to, and adding to the texture of a multicultural society. Its preserving a heritage enabling all to see a type of ceremony that they would not normally see. In that light, the TMO should be given thanks for not coping out and sanitizing the way they teach TM. They teach it in the traditional way. They provide a micro museum tour of an ancient culture. I rather like that. That doesn't make me Hindu or religious. It reflects that I am multi-cultural and live in a diverse society of tolerance and appreciation of all traditions. Nonetheless, if you are mentally reciting the inner name of a Hindu devata, Hindu scriptures do consider this a form of worship, a manasika or mental form of worship. Nice try. You don't have a true multi-cultural society if you sanitize all traditions and strip out references to God or whatever. That would be a sham and a shame. You have a multi-cultural society when things with religious roots can be shared and appreciated as part of diverse cultures -- not phobiacized. Of course no one's asking society to sanitize all traditions and strip out references to God or whatever. That's not the point at all. It might behoove you to look into the origins of the USA and look at why the founding fathers, based on previous experience, decided to keep church and state emphatically separate but allowed religions freedom without threat of persecution.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Religious aspects of the TM puja; Connecting to the Guru God
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj vajradh...@... wrote: On Mar 25, 2009, at 10:37 AM, grate.swan wrote: Does it upset you when you are a guest at a sumptuous meal and the host offers grace before the meal. I may be shallow, but I focus on the meal and not on my hosts particular beliefs or traditions. And I don't somehow feel tainted or duped. Only if it is in a public school, in the context we're talking of here. Thanksgiving. Is that a religious holiday? Am I being secretly taught a religion if I take the holiday off, and eat a thanksgiving meal? Who were the pilgrims offering thanks to? Oh my God! It was God! Run! I don't celebrate Thanksgiving as a religious holiday, I celebrate in as an exercise in food materialism. And they why do you deny the same freedom to others to take what they want from religious traditions and use it in a secular way? Somehow you can use a holiday based on Thanksgiving to God an not get tainted by anything religious. In fact you use it for the antithesis of religion -- gluttony. Yet you don't want to ban thanksgiving from schools. So why not provide the same freedom to students who may want to use meditation techniques that stem from a religious tradition but they use it in totally non religious ways? I don't see the distinction. Except that one option suits you. Curtis doesn't like me to equate the fruit of meditation with actual fruit. And I am sure I am transgressing his beliefs with my meal analogy. But to me, it fits quite well. I am getting something quite secular -- a meal -- a useful meditation technique -- at the HUGE cost of listening to someone give thanks prior to the meal. I don't get the outrage. It's a religious technique that invokes gods and goddesses and worships a guru as a god--it therefore violates the separation of church and state--there are a host of other issues such as with charging the taxpayers exorbitant fees for meditation, which can easily be taught for free and the destructive nature of aspects of the TM org, side effects, phony and biased research, etc.. Body modification freaks also feel that insertion of needles can induce pleasurable trance states. Let's not forget to invite them. And voudoun trance rites often involve the sacrificing of small animals to the Loa: VM, Voudoun Meditation. Yes, you too can enjoy an effortless technique that takes you 'down to the crossroads' without ever having to leave your chair. Perhaps you should look into what the actual goal of Hindu mental ishta-devata meditation is, since you don't seem clear on what it actually is. Can you name one common place you would find the Hindu 16-fold offering? I practiced TM for some time. I don't know much about Hinduism. My Indian friends sort of tolerate my delusion that somehow I have something in common with them and their religion. But I can't be a Hindu in traditional Hinduism. White boys not allowed. So why would another white boy or worse white girl -- who can never be a hindu, teaching something to another white boy who can never be a hindu, somehow make teaching TM a religion. I know of numerous people who became Hindus--some have even received the sacred thread. And don't even get me started on Christmas or Easter. If schools give these as holidays, aren't they complicit in some great religious conspiracy to dupe our poor cloistered youth? These holidays CLEARLY have religious roots. They're just appealing to the majority of their students I guess, but that is an interesting objection. Of course none of their religious rites would appear on campus if they are absent. No more Easter egg hunts on the White House lawn. Clearly a violation of church and state. Not only that, it has roots in pagan religions! Pagan! As do Christmas trees. No more lighting of the Christmas tree on TV at Rokerfella square or the White House. Easter eggs to not appear in the Christian bible--unless you happen to have a very different bible than I do! And the damn World Series. Those religious nut players actually give thanks to GOD before the game. The horror! Our poor kids! Getting duped again by the omnipresent religious conspiracy. (I know you did not explicitly bring up some the points I am riffing on. )
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Religious aspects of the TM puja; Connecting to the Guru God
On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 9:37 AM, grate.swan no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: Does it upset you when you are a guest at a sumptuous meal and the host offers grace before the meal. I may be shallow, but I focus on the meal and not on my hosts particular beliefs or traditions. And I don't somehow feel tainted or duped. For the past several years I've offered in FF respite from Annapura in a lavish Christmas feast with all the fixings: organic, non-organic, vegan, turkey, ham, you name it. I aim for cultural and religious diversity. There is not only no resentment when it comes time for grace, but everyone is very eager to offer his particular prayer to the group. This Christmas the prayer token went around twice and the love was so thick you could cut it with a machete. But then I hone in one the religion of others. OTOH in the late 80's I was forced to listen to the very Christian music I'm listening to right now and I was resentful. But the music was being pushed on me and others as embrace this or burn in Hell. This was in Colorado Springs where there are a lot of TBs who traded their addiction to drugs with an addiction to Jesus.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Religious aspects of the TM puja; Connecting to the Guru God
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, grate.swan no_re...@... wrote: Does it upset you when you are a guest at a sumptuous meal and the host offers grace before the meal. I may be shallow, but I focus on the meal and not on my hosts particular beliefs or traditions. And I don't somehow feel tainted or duped. This has nothing to do with the schools question. My answer is no I don't feel badly unless my host is a shitty cook. I close my eyes and think of my hostesses rack or if that is not an option, I find something of interest from my well stocked mental masturbatory Rolodex. Thanksgiving. Is that a religious holiday? Am I being secretly taught a religion if I take the holiday off, and eat a thanksgiving meal? Who were the pilgrims offering thanks to? Oh my God! It was God! Run! No it is not a religious holiday. I think of it as giving thanks to the relatives who have gathered for another year. The Indians at the first one were being thankful that their new guests would never betray their trust...and the Pilgrims were thankful that the Indian's wouldn't catch on till the next shipment of gunpowder comes. Curtis doesn't like me to equate the fruit of meditation with actual fruit. And I am sure I am transgressing his beliefs with my meal analogy. But to me, it fits quite well. I am getting something quite secular -- a meal -- a useful meditation technique -- at the HUGE cost of listening to someone give thanks prior to the meal. I don't get the outrage. So how would you feel if your child in public school was forbidden from eating all day during the month of Ramadan? Would that be okaydokey? I practiced TM for some time. I don't know much about Hinduism. My Indian friends sort of tolerate my delusion that somehow I have something in common with them and their religion. But I can't be a Hindu in traditional Hinduism. White boys not allowed. So why would another white boy or worse white girl -- who can never be a hindu, teaching something to another white boy who can never be a hindu, somehow make teaching TM a religion. You not being born in the caste system has nothing to do with the beliefs being religious or not. Think of the difference in knowledge between how we know how to build a computer and how a person knows that Jesus is their savior. And don't even get me started on Christmas or Easter. If schools give these as holidays, aren't they complicit in some great religious conspiracy to dupe our poor cloistered youth? These holidays CLEARLY have religious roots. I am against too much Christian religion display in schools because I live in a multicultural area. You can't give a display to everyone so I say keep it secular and enjoy Christmas at home. With most of the symbols being pagan and my background growing up with them, I love Christmas but I don't want to see a nativity scene at schools. No more Easter egg hunts on the White House lawn. I would just as happy to see that go. Not going to happen till we get our first non Christian president. Clearly a violation of church and state. Not only that, it has roots in pagan religions! Pagan! As do Christmas trees. No more lighting of the Christmas tree on TV at Rokerfella square or the White House. I would just as happy to see that go. Not going to happen till we get our first non Christian president. The US used to be such a Christian nation that it didn't matter so much. That is changing. And the damn World Series. Those religious nut players actually give thanks to GOD before the game. The horror! Our poor kids! Getting duped again by the omnipresent religious conspiracy. I hate prayers from players during games because it reveals the most idiotic theology I can imagine, a God who cares about sports outcomes! (I know you did not explicitly bring up some the points I am riffing on. ) Actually your riffs are typical of Bill O'reilly and the Christian right with a anyone who dares speak out about Christianity not being shoved down the throats of non Christians. You would enjoy his rap around Easter and Christmas when he plays this routine the most. Check out the cultural shift of our country's increasingly diverse religions from recent census numbers. This issue is not going away, it will get more intense. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj vajradhatu@ wrote: Most of the puja is blatantly religious. For example, the puja contains the traditional shodashopachura pujana - the puja of 16 offering. The puja of 16 offering is common in Hindu worship as a way to receive or connect to a particular God. In this case the God is the Guru, the Guru God or Guru Deva; Guru Dev: à¤à¤µà¤¾à¤¹à¤¨à¤ समरà¥à¤ªà¤¯à¤¾à¤®à¤¿ शà¥à¤°à¥à¤à¥à¤°à¥ à¤à¤°à¤£ à¤à¤®à¤²à¥à¤à¥à¤¯à¥ नमठaavaahanaM samarpayaami shriiguru charaNa kamalebhyo namaH Offering invocation to the lotus feet of the blessed
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Religious aspects of the TM puja; Connecting to the Guru God
On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 9:56 AM, Vaj vajradh...@earthlink.net wrote: It's a religious technique that invokes gods and goddesses and worships a guru as a god--it therefore violates the separation of church and state--there are a host of other issues such as with charging the taxpayers exorbitant fees for meditation, which can easily be taught for free and the destructive nature of aspects of the TM org, side effects, phony and biased research, etc.. Just because I succumbed to voting for Messiah Obama and think that last night's press conference was Obama's finest hour so far doesn't mean that I've completely sold out. I continue to believe as I have before. I agree that TM is a religion and I have no problem with it being designated as such. My real problem lies with Judy and others who so much want to prove that TM is non-sectarian. This I just don't get. But then I put my buns and $$ where my mouth is, unlike other TM proponents on FFL.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Anyone here set up a system using cloud computing?
I am the eternal wrote: On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 9:35 AM, Devanath Saraswati devna...@yahoo.com wrote: good instructions here: http://www.scripting.com/stories/2009/03/20/ec2ForPoets.html Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner. Somone who can offer a first hand account. What I was looking for. Now as far as Amazon and Yahoo. Their being not fully functioning is not always the result of their cloud being down. A lot of Yahoo is down right now. This happened a couple of weeks before during an upgrade. I've had the architecture of Amazon and Yahoo laid out to me in great detail. I'm amazed that these companies work at all they are so very complicated with their round the world replication, automatic expansion and contraction into and out of nodes, using software (like Oracle's RDBMS) which isn't designed for such things. If anyone else bothered to look at the Yahoo Groups Blog they would have read that they are moving the groups to a new data center which they hope to have completed by the 30th. That's why there are posting delays for those of us using email and maybe the web site which I don't use. Since I have Yahoo mail they also sent out an email earlier in the month to customers about the update of servers for Yahoo Mail.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Religious aspects of the TM puja; Connecting to the Guru God
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltabl...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, grate.swan no_reply@ wrote: Does it upset you when you are a guest at a sumptuous meal and the host offers grace before the meal. I may be shallow, but I focus on the meal and not on my hosts particular beliefs or traditions. And I don't somehow feel tainted or duped. This has nothing to do with the schools question. My answer is no I don't feel badly unless my host is a shitty cook. I close my eyes and think of my hostesses rack or if that is not an option, I find something of interest from my well stocked mental masturbatory Rolodex. Thanksgiving. Is that a religious holiday? Am I being secretly taught a religion if I take the holiday off, and eat a thanksgiving meal? Who were the pilgrims offering thanks to? Oh my God! It was God! Run! No it is not a religious holiday. I think of it as giving thanks to the relatives who have gathered for another year. The Indians at the first one were being thankful that their new guests would never betray their trust...and the Pilgrims were thankful that the Indian's wouldn't catch on till the next shipment of gunpowder comes. Curtis doesn't like me to equate the fruit of meditation with actual fruit. And I am sure I am transgressing his beliefs with my meal analogy. But to me, it fits quite well. I am getting something quite secular -- a meal -- a useful meditation technique -- at the HUGE cost of listening to someone give thanks prior to the meal. I don't get the outrage. So how would you feel if your child in public school was forbidden from eating all day during the month of Ramadan? Would that be okaydokey? I practiced TM for some time. I don't know much about Hinduism. My Indian friends sort of tolerate my delusion that somehow I have something in common with them and their religion. But I can't be a Hindu in traditional Hinduism. White boys not allowed. So why would another white boy or worse white girl -- who can never be a hindu, teaching something to another white boy who can never be a hindu, somehow make teaching TM a religion. You not being born in the caste system has nothing to do with the beliefs being religious or not. Think of the difference in knowledge between how we know how to build a computer and how a person knows that Jesus is their savior. And don't even get me started on Christmas or Easter. If schools give these as holidays, aren't they complicit in some great religious conspiracy to dupe our poor cloistered youth? These holidays CLEARLY have religious roots. I am against too much Christian religion display in schools because I live in a multicultural area. You can't give a display to everyone so I say keep it secular and enjoy Christmas at home. With most of the symbols being pagan and my background growing up with them, I love Christmas but I don't want to see a nativity scene at schools. No more Easter egg hunts on the White House lawn. I would just as happy to see that go. Not going to happen till we get our first non Christian president. Clearly a violation of church and state. Not only that, it has roots in pagan religions! Pagan! As do Christmas trees. No more lighting of the Christmas tree on TV at Rokerfella square or the White House. I would just as happy to see that go. Not going to happen till we get our first non Christian president. The US used to be such a Christian nation that it didn't matter so much. That is changing. And the damn World Series. Those religious nut players actually give thanks to GOD before the game. The horror! Our poor kids! Getting duped again by the omnipresent religious conspiracy. I hate prayers from players during games because it reveals the most idiotic theology I can imagine, a God who cares about sports outcomes! (I know you did not explicitly bring up some the points I am riffing on. ) Actually your riffs are typical of Bill O'reilly and the Christian right with a anyone who dares speak out about Christianity not being shoved down the throats of non Christians. Boy thats a leap! You think I am trying to shove christianity down non christians throats. I give a rats ass about christianity. I don't like it in fact. it appalls me. You appear to be seeing things in my words that are not there. (must be the devil has gotten to you) You would enjoy his rap around Easter and Christmas when he plays this routine the most. Bill o'reily makes me puke. Check out the cultural shift of our country's increasingly diverse religions from recent census numbers. This issue is not going away, it will get more intense. My point exactly . Embrace diversity. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj vajradhatu@ wrote: Most of the puja is blatantly religious. For
Re: [FairfieldLife] Anyone here set up a system using cloud computing?
I am the eternal wrote: I'm interested any feedback I can get. I like Amazon's write up ( http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/ ), as usual much clearer than that offered by my company (which company I'm sure Vaj has search out and will blast it's names across our monitors). This looks like it's going to fun. As I read the documentation offered by the various vendors I keep getting these ritam experiences. It's like I see the design of Creation in the design and the use of these cloud offerings. You mean as in making personal computers dumb terminals to an online central computer? Thats how computer systems worked eons ago. Why are we going backwards? Just because Windows is too lame to be secure and grandma is always getting trojans and viruses on her computer? I'd never use it because I don't want my personal data stored at some other computer where it can be perused without me knowing about it. The tech industries are always inventing things to make money for themselves. Most are a waste of time. The real solution would be to get rid of the need to keep inventing shit just to survive. It's a very screwed up dog eat dog world we live in. Bring in the asteroid. ;-)
[FairfieldLife] Re: Religious aspects of the TM puja; Connecting to the Guru God
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, do.rflex do.rf...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, grate.swan no_reply@ wrote: Another thought on this. We live in a pluralistic society and laudably multi-culturalism and the appreciation of diversity in other culture is increasingly celebrated. Where I work, a large company, the daily e-mail newsletter celebrates and explains every major religions and cultural holiday. Hindu, islamic, jewish, ... Thats a cool thing IMO. it does not make my company a religious advocate nor does it have some hidden agenda. Its educating us all, and making us sensitive to, other cultures. In that light, teaching TM in the traditional way, is giving a nod to, and adding to the texture of a multicultural society. Its preserving a heritage enabling all to see a type of ceremony that they would not normally see. In that light, the TMO should be given thanks for not coping out and sanitizing the way they teach TM. They teach it in the traditional way. They provide a micro museum tour of an ancient culture. I rather like that. That doesn't make me Hindu or religious. It reflects that I am multi-cultural and live in a diverse society of tolerance and appreciation of all traditions. You don't have a true multi-cultural society if you sanitize all traditions and strip out references to God or whatever. That's what the TMO has apparently attempted to do in order to get TM accepted wholesale into public schools. That would be a sham and a shame. You have a multi-cultural society when things with religious roots can be shared and appreciated as part of diverse cultures -- not phobiacized. That appears to be a pitch to teach TM with its full religious implications I am not pitching TM. I could give a rats ass if its TM, buddhist-rooted meditation, Catholic-rooted mediation, hindu based yoga asanas, catholic-rooted philosophical tools, religions-roooted must or art. My point is that so many things of value in society have religious roots. Why the secular fruit of such cannot be taught in schools is mind boggling as if that is teaching religion. and let it join others in the diverse variety of what's available. But at the same time you can't promote a specific traditional religious teaching in a public school. Sure. Don't teach religion in public schools. How is teaching a secular meditation technique teaching religion. Give a test on hinduism to any 1000 TM practicioners. They will fail miserably. They know nothing about hinduism. If TM is teaching religion, its doing a piss poor job.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Religious aspects of the TM puja; Connecting to the Guru God
On Mar 25, 2009, at 11:20 AM, grate.swan wrote: Thanksgiving. Is that a religious holiday? Am I being secretly taught a religion if I take the holiday off, and eat a thanksgiving meal? Who were the pilgrims offering thanks to? Oh my God! It was God! Run! I don't celebrate Thanksgiving as a religious holiday, I celebrate in as an exercise in food materialism. And they why do you deny the same freedom to others to take what they want from religious traditions and use it in a secular way? It's not a valid comparison, unless of course you're deliberately trying to establish a straw man. And of course, TM is not secular, it's only secular through either 1. deceit or 2. ignorance that it is ever allowed in schools. And of course Thanksgiving is celebrated at home.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Free Web Event: McCartney/Lynch Benefit Concert to Push TM in Public Schools
*I believe* you are confused about the meaning of the word secular: Hallelujah brother... you are believer :) I know what word secular in strict sense means, but if you want to explain to mass of others about your type of meditation you will end up in some sort of belief system because you will not have scientific arguments about it. Like... you say: The purpose for me is that it is enjoyable. Then you will need to explain what kind of joy is that, what is purpose of it... etc.etc. and soon you will have belief system no matter how that fits in your understanding of word secular.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Religious aspects of the TM puja; Connecting to the Guru God
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, grate.swan no_re...@... wrote: This shifting of the topic from teaching TM IN the schools to a general discussion of religious diversity and appreciation of multiculturalism is missing my positive appreciation of the religious nature of Maharishi's teaching even as an atheist. I am pro separation of church and state and believe that religions try to blur the line to advance their agenda in schools, TM and creationism as examples of religion under secular veneers. But outside the classroom and government agencies I have always enjoyed the historical context of Maharishi's version of his religious beliefs. Both when I believed that Vyasa was 3/4 Vishnu and was blue skinned, and now when I see him as a character from an elaborate mythology. The TM puja is one of the most beautiful songs I have learned. I now use it to blow Indian taxi driver's minds rather than in the serious context of teaching TM, but I still love the song. I am fascinated by religious beliefs and will always be. I seek them out to understand human's better. So I don't want my opposition to TM being peddled as a non religious practice in schools to be some kind of statement that I hate all things TM. Obviously the belief system still intrigues me. I may have a much snarkier take on the whole thing now but my delight in hearing about the Rajas is no less joy to me now then when I took it all seriously. I'm a see the pearly white teeth on the dog kind of guy. But keep holy communions and TM meditations at home where they belong. If you want to teach kids to meditate in schools to see if it settles down the little monsters,(it might) then don't start the process by invoking the name of a Hindu god in a Hindu Puja before filling their heads full of religious beliefs during their meditation class. Find a meditation style that doesn't need this religious belief system support. Is that really too much to ask? --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj vajradhatu@ wrote: On Mar 25, 2009, at 10:37 AM, grate.swan wrote: Does it upset you when you are a guest at a sumptuous meal and the host offers grace before the meal. I may be shallow, but I focus on the meal and not on my hosts particular beliefs or traditions. And I don't somehow feel tainted or duped. Only if it is in a public school, in the context we're talking of here. Thanksgiving. Is that a religious holiday? Am I being secretly taught a religion if I take the holiday off, and eat a thanksgiving meal? Who were the pilgrims offering thanks to? Oh my God! It was God! Run! I don't celebrate Thanksgiving as a religious holiday, I celebrate in as an exercise in food materialism. And they why do you deny the same freedom to others to take what they want from religious traditions and use it in a secular way? Somehow you can use a holiday based on Thanksgiving to God an not get tainted by anything religious. In fact you use it for the antithesis of religion -- gluttony. Yet you don't want to ban thanksgiving from schools. So why not provide the same freedom to students who may want to use meditation techniques that stem from a religious tradition but they use it in totally non religious ways? I don't see the distinction. Except that one option suits you. Curtis doesn't like me to equate the fruit of meditation with actual fruit. And I am sure I am transgressing his beliefs with my meal analogy. But to me, it fits quite well. I am getting something quite secular -- a meal -- a useful meditation technique -- at the HUGE cost of listening to someone give thanks prior to the meal. I don't get the outrage. It's a religious technique that invokes gods and goddesses and worships a guru as a god--it therefore violates the separation of church and state--there are a host of other issues such as with charging the taxpayers exorbitant fees for meditation, which can easily be taught for free and the destructive nature of aspects of the TM org, side effects, phony and biased research, etc.. Body modification freaks also feel that insertion of needles can induce pleasurable trance states. Let's not forget to invite them. And voudoun trance rites often involve the sacrificing of small animals to the Loa: VM, Voudoun Meditation. Yes, you too can enjoy an effortless technique that takes you 'down to the crossroads' without ever having to leave your chair. Perhaps you should look into what the actual goal of Hindu mental ishta-devata meditation is, since you don't seem clear on what it actually is. Can you name one common place you would find the Hindu 16-fold offering? I practiced TM for some time. I don't know much about Hinduism. My Indian friends sort of tolerate my delusion that somehow I have something in
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Religious aspects of the TM puja; Connecting to the Guru God
On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 10:34 AM, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltabl...@yahoo.com wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, grate.swan no_re...@... wrote: Thanksgiving. Is that a religious holiday? Am I being secretly taught a religion if I take the holiday off, and eat a thanksgiving meal? Who were the pilgrims offering thanks to? Oh my God! It was God! Run! No it is not a religious holiday. I think of it as giving thanks to the relatives who have gathered for another year. The Indians at the first one were being thankful that their new guests would never betray their trust...and the Pilgrims were thankful that the Indian's wouldn't catch on till the next shipment of gunpowder comes. I was on my way from Colorado Springs to Juarez on a Thanksgiving. I was listening to the Native American Network broadcast over National Public Radio in Albiquarky. God, I wish I had a hard copy of the broadcast. They said they came for religious freedom. We could understand that, so we helped them learn to farm, to raise and prepare maize, etc. It went on to describe all of the atrocities wrought upon the Native American by these people seeking religious freedom.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Anyone here set up a system using cloud computing?
On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 11:33 AM, Bhairitu noozg...@sbcglobal.net wrote: The tech industries are always inventing things to make money for themselves. Most are a waste of time. The real solution would be to get rid of the need to keep inventing shit just to survive. It's a very screwed up dog eat dog world we live in. Bring in the asteroid. ;-) Sorry but I see the utility for cloud computing. It's cheap, it's on demand, it's flexible as heck (a dozen different operating systems and machines, dozens of database and application software supported). Yes, in principle this is MVS revisited. But MVS wasn't at all as ad hoc as cloud computing. Now I do agree that there is ever a new implementation language being developed. We all remember that the DOD spent billions of USD when billions were real money, for a language which would be the end of all programming in a few years. The DOD envisioned thousands of Ada classes which could be strung together to create any and all new software. Well, it was a good idea in principle.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Sleep Tea (was More despondency)
Richard M wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu noozg...@... wrote: [snip] One more thing I forgot to mention, it IS spring the Kapha season. And believe it or not you may need to try some kapha reducing herbs which are stimulating to improve your sleep. Or eat more spicy foods. A rise in kapha can produce depression. My sister went through a clinical depression about 15 years ago. One day I went over to go with her and a visiting relative to dinner. She was in a funk when I arrived. Having introduced ayurveda to her, I went downstairs, grabbed a bag of kapha tea and made it for her. She came out of the funk and was her old self for the dinner. I sometimes have problems sleeping straight through until morning. Having some kapha tea in the evening allows me to sleep straight through. It's worth a try and pretty harmless. Kapha tea can be made from 1 part ginger, 1 part cinnamon and a dash of clove. You can throw in some black pepper too especially if circulation isn't that good. That's interesting Bhairitu - I'll certainly give it a go. It'll be no hardship as I love ginger. But you know, I find it kinda counter-intuitive that a stimulant (i.e. kapha reducer) should improve sleep? And I would have thought that in kapha season sleep problems might be less likely, and indeed the tendency might be to sleep too much and so aggravate kapha? But then again I know next to nothing about the AV system... Yes, I know it seems counter-intuitive and I would suggest doing the stimulant teas earlier in the day as to not interfere with sleep (actually the advice given by some AV experts). But it has been my experience that it works and I have some theories as to why.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Religious aspects of the TM puja; Connecting to the Guru God
In India the students used to perform a puja to their teacher, sometimes at the beginning of long vacation breaks and sometimes at the beginning and ending of the school year. I don't know how it is done now but I doubt that this traditions has continued much, except in village life. It always included a dandavat pranam along with simple gifts to the teacher. Children did the same for their parents only more often. Parents are the first guru. School teachers are the second. Guru-deva depends upon the sampradaya but can be either the second or third guru in a person's traditional life. Parents and school teachers are gurus but not more. Even the local pandit is only an acharya not a guru-deva. The Mahabhata clearly shows that martial arts teachers are gurus. Guru signifies gravitas both of the teacher and of the nature of the teaching. Therefore from a Indian viewpoint there is nothing that makes a puja a relgious practice as such. Puja is not yajna. It is an offering not a sacrifice. Puja retains the form of the traditional offerings because it is based upon a standard Indian cutural paradigm. Whether or not it is performed for a deva depends upon the declaration of intent at the beginning of the offering ritual. Which brings up the question of The Force. Vaj: If I am going to empower some one or some thing with a certain enlightenment-energy practice, I always unite, mentally with visualization and with mental mantra, with that force. It's this assumption of the acquired force that makes the empowerment work and flow. The proper identification with the force you're merging with is unmistakable once you're used to that presence. Are you talking about Power (shakti) or The Force? Which of these do you mean by enlightenment-energy? You say you are an exponent of the Nath sampradaya. Does this mean you are an Natha diksha guru? Shouldn't you be calling yourself Vajranath again instead of -dhatu? Maybe VajraGuru or NathaGuru would be better. However, if you are initiating people into The Force then maybe Obevaj would be more accurate. It is my deeply inquiring mind that brings up such grand questions. No offence meant, as Kirk would say. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj vajradh...@... wrote: On Mar 25, 2009, at 10:53 AM, do.rflex wrote: In my teacher training course, Maharishi explained that in essence, the initiator 'becomes' Guru Dev when the mantra is imparted from that deep level and given to the initiate. It's a very gentle and sublime, but powerful experience. For me personally while teaching, it has varied unpredictably in intensity. Some times while reciting and performing the Puja I have transcended and felt that I was losing track of where I was in the recitation - however at the same time noticing that the Puja continued flowing like a river as if all by itself. --Apparently some TM teachers don't seem to have experienced that. I have no definitive explanation for that. As a TM teacher trained by MMY, I have always had serious reservations about introducing TM wholesale into public schools claiming it's strictly a non-religious relaxation technique. To me personally, it's blatantly dishonest. And MMY's explanation is, in fact, a good one. The idea of the 16- fold worship is for the worshipper to unite his consciousness with the object of the worship--in this case the Guru-God as embodied in the discarnate human, Swami Brahmananda Saraswati. The level of unification can occur at different levels, but the goal is always to unite with the god or goddess being invoked. It sounds to me like you simply had a very clear and innocent experience of this state. If I am going to empower some one or some thing with a certain enlightenment-energy practice, I always unite, mentally with visualization and with mental mantra, with that force. It's this assumption of the acquired force that makes the empowerment work and flow. The proper identification with the force you're merging with is unmistakable once you're used to that presence.
[FairfieldLife] Dear President Obama
i know you are a constitutional scholar so this may come as a surprise to you. It did to me. But people who apparently know far more about the constitutional law than you ever will, despite your teaching it for 10 years at a leading university, have revealed to me that separation of church and state means far more than the traditional view that the state shall not establish a state religion. It has been revealed to me by these wise and learned scholars that separation of church and state inf FACT means that nothing with religious roots can be associated with anything used or funded by the state. So it is with a heavy heart, that i must tell you that it is your solomn duty to to the country and the founding fathers to do cleanly cleave the following from the state -- ban them. You must. The future of democracy and the country depend upon it. 1) Burn all currency (in God we trust 2) Revoke christmas, easter and thanksgiving as federal holidays 3) destroy or sell off 3/4 of the art in the national museums -- and federally funded museums across the nation. 4) redo the inaguration. No prayers. You are a false unsworn in president until you do. 5) ban football and baseball from being played in stadiums that have received any federal funds - (or else those zealot prayer monger players will subvert our youth. 6) Ban all wine form state dinners and official functions. My god man, wind is used as a holy sacrament in a highly religions rite. Mr Obama sir, I can go on and on. You get my drift. You are a smart guy. Severe this toxic link between church and state, Its Imperative!
[FairfieldLife] Re: Free Web Event: McCartney/Lynch Benefit Concert to Push TM in Public Schools
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltabl...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: snip I would be astonished if he permitted the TMO to fart around in such a way that threatened the viability of the project, which would surely happen if it didn't keep a tight clamp on anything that might make people nervous. So he's going to drop the puja huh? Doubt it. But given the standard explanation of what it is, historically most people don't seem to have been bothered by it. In any case he has no control over the kid's access to checking Oooh, yes, checking is so religious! or further information a few years down the road with a dying organization. How long are we trying to protect these kids from obtaining information about TM? He will be no better equipped to deal with physiological problems. Is that a religious issue? He is a TB and will take the sage advice of the Rajas. Or not. He didn't seem to have had any problem taking over from Raja Kornhaus (I think it was) at that German event and trying to fix the damage after the Raja stupidly talked about invincible Germany. As far as I can tell, all Lynch is interested in is to get kids meditating. I find it difficult to believe that he'd allow the TMO to do anything that would make it less likely for schools to adopt and maintain the program. I simply can't imagine he has any truck with the rajas other than as vehicles to implement the program he wants implemented. He isn't going to let them get in its way as long as he's supplying the funding. snip So if I can ignore its religious roots, why can't the kids? That is not the issue. Some may be able to ignore the religious roots of TM. They should all be able to ignore it, since it wouldn't come to their attention in the absence of interference from people like Knapp. So if they don't know it is a religious ceremony that is OK? It's OK with me. Shouldn't be done on school grounds, though. I think you are missing the point. We aren't using the student's perspective on any aspect of keeping religious doctrines from schools. Don't you think they are also fooled about creation science? Creation science as part of the school science curriculum is a different animal entirely. I wouldn't want SCI to be taught as part of the school science curriculum. Tying to pin this on John Knapp seems fishy to me. Bringing up this concern is a collective interest of more than John. How does from people like John Knapp suggest it's only Knapp who would bring it up? And the whole idea that it might slip through without scrutiny if people just keep their mouth's shut seems very slippery to me. Only if you're worried that the kids will be exposed to religious indoctrination. My argument is that there isn't enough of it in the basic TM course to be concerned about. An open debate is appropriate. Here we go back to what I said earlier about how difficult it is for folks to get the whole picture. Even with open debate, the issues are never going to be fully aired. My opinion may not be your own, but it is not uninformed. I am making valid concerns whether you agree with them or not. They're valid to you, certainly. There just isn't anything *intrinsically* religious about the basic TM course from the students' perspective. They don't have an informed perspective, how could they? Again fooling kids is not the criteria for what makes anything religious in schools. You mean, they're being fooled into not realizing they've been magically transformed by the puja and are invoking Hindu deities when they meditate? I could get them to take communion if I wanted to using substitute words. If you did sufficient substitution to disguise what communion is, it would no longer be a religious ceremony. It has to be added on. Don't wrap it up in a religious package, and it isn't religious. You are in serious denial about the puja. I am not wrapping it up in anything. I know what's in the puja, Curtis. I've read the translation many times. But the kids will hear it in Sanskrit. The religious aspect doesn't get transferred to the kids via telepathy. It is the question of teaching religious practices in schools not whether or not you can ignore it. It isn't taught as a religious practice. We're going around in circles. Like creation Science, TM tries a marketing angle that doesn't fool informed people. You really can't compare the two. The kids aren't studying the puja in science class. Curtis, your experiences as a TM teacher are a big fat red herring here. TMers don't have to do any of that unless they decide to become teachers. No it isn't. As a teacher I understand exactly what I am getting an initiate to participate in. That's in *your* mind, not the student's mind. Again, if the kid doesn't know that
[FairfieldLife] The TM Is Not A Religion Religion
I am SO bored with this topic I can't chime in with much more than a rant. I don't see how anyone with an ounce of integrity can *possibly* be arguing that the TMO does not teach religiously-based ideas. But I do understand WHY people don't have that ounce of integrity. They've been taught that when it comes to fundamental points of TM dogma that the ONLY thing that matters is not only following them but defending them. And one of the strongest and MOST drummed- into-people's-heads pieces of dogma during their TM instruction is TM Is Not A Religion. It's said in every Introductory Lecture, *whether the subject comes up on its own or not*, it's said during each night of the three nights of checking, *whether the subject comes up on its own or not*, and it's said pretty much every time after that that the subject of religion comes up. For years. Ad absurdum. This is arguably **THE** most fundamental piece of TM dogma, probably repeated more often than Thou shalt not strain on the mantra. And after all that much repetition, people just lose all sense of perspective about it. The sub- ject comes up, and they become mindless evangel- ists for the TM Is Not A Religion Religion. They'll say ANYTHING rather than admit what MOST of them know to be the truth, that OF COURSE all of the TM dogma is based on Hindu dogma. They'll lie, they'll deny, they'll come with up excuses, they'll obfuscate, they'll attempt to distract, they'll do ANYTHING rather than violate this First Commandment. And personally I'm getting a little tired of it. There seems to me to be NO QUESTION that teaching TM *as it is taught now* in American school systems violates the Constitution. TM Teachers are just not CAPABLE of teaching the basic technique 1) without a religious puja, and 2) without all of the directly-derived-from- Hinduism explanations of what is really happening when you meditate during the three nights of checking, and afterwards. The ONLY way to keep this essentially religious dogma from being taught in schools is to not allow it to be taught there in the first place. We simply cannot TRUST TM Teachers to leave out the parts of the dogma that are directly derived from Hindu thought when they present the three nights of checking, let alone afterwards, as they try to suck these students into Advanced Tech- niques and the Siddhis. And *everyone* here knows that that's exactly what they will do. It is EXACTLY the same situation that caused Thomas Jefferson to write one of his most remem- bered quotes, the one that graces the Jefferson Memorial in Washington. This quote was written in a letter to a friend discussing an attempt by Christians to teach *their* dogma in a school system. In that particular case, *they* promised not to teach anything explicitly religious either, and NO ONE BELIEVED THEM. NO ONE SHOULD BELIEVE THE TMO EITHER. Instead, believe Thomas Jefferson. He had the right idea: I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every from of tyranny over the mind of man. Jefferson was talking about *preventing* the teach- ing of religion in schools in America. The principle still stands. It stands in the case of Christianity, and it stands in the case of the TM Is Not A Religion Religion. IMO, of course...
[FairfieldLife] Re: Anyone here set up a system using cloud computing?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, I am the eternal l.shad...@... wrote: On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 11:33 AM, Bhairitu noozg...@... wrote: The tech industries are always inventing things to make money for themselves. Most are a waste of time. The real solution would be to get rid of the need to keep inventing shit just to survive. It's a very screwed up dog eat dog world we live in. Bring in the asteroid. ;-) Sorry but I see the utility for cloud computing. It's cheap, it's on demand, it's flexible as heck (a dozen different operating systems and machines, dozens of database and application software supported). So they're trying to reinvent the wheel with a Java for the Web. :-) Probably because IBM is trying to buy Sun, and will soon own Java. The resizability is a plus, and I mentioned that earlier. The biggest problem I see with this idea is privacy. It forces you to trust the provider, and that provider (Amazon) is reportedly one of the biggest culprits in the business in terms of scouring discussion groups and other sources for lists of email addresses to feed its own seemingly never-ending Amazon spam machines and rule-based tailored to the user marketing. I cannot for a moment believe that they would not scan your application and add its users to their spam list as well. But here's how to find out. Call them and ask them about setting up a cloud application, but demand a clause in the contract that says that if any of your customers find themselves on an Amazon-related spam list that they were not on already, 1) Amazon has defaulted on the contract, and 2) they owe you a predetermined penalty for violating privacy. See how they react.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Free Web Event: McCartney/Lynch Benefit Concert to Push TM in Public Schools
Since this is my last post for the week, I'm going to kill three of Barry's sad little birds with one stone: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_re...@... wrote: snip When someone who was clearly intelligent once throws away all semblance of intelligence to play cult apologist, that to me is a valuable yardstick of how far gone they are into being a cultist. Notice a couple of things here. First, neither Barry nor Vaj have managed to address any of the points I've been making to Curtis. Instead, they content themselves with ad hominem (which is, of course, exactly what they always accuse the apologists of doing). Second, as far as they're concerned, no alternative view to theirs is permissible, no matter how thoughtfully reasoned, and regardless of their inability to address that reasoning. No thinking for oneself is allowed in their world. If one dares to hold a different view from the one they have dictated, that automatically makes one a cult apologist. That's creative thinking for ya. THAT is the issue I've been seeing in Judy in this thread. The challenges she sees to her cult believership in the TM Is Not A Religion Religion are not JUST intellectual challenges. They are meanspirited challenges, challenges made with evil intent, as a kind of personal attack. Barry does a little more creative thinking so as to miss my point. As I said earlier, it seems to me that the arguments against teaching TM (minus SCI) in schools are so exaggerated and artificial, so fundamentally unreasonable, that there has to be something else behind them, conscious or otherwise. It's not the disagreement per se but the quality of the arguments, their mountain-out-of-a-molehill character. I never said or suggested that Curtis's challenges were mean-spirited. Barry made that up (more creative thinking). I don't believe that. I do think they may be colored by residual resentment of which he's most likely not even aware. Knapp's challenges, in contrast, *are* mean- spirited, fueled by a conscious desire to see the TMO defeated (and in the process to enhance his counseling practice). Finally, notice that while (falsely) suggesting that I can't see that challenges to my take on TM are intellectually based, Barry refuses to see my views as intellectually based; as far as he's concerned, they're just cult believership. Creative thinking, big-time. And here's some more: snip Next she's going to be claiming that people who disagree with her are making Death Threats against her. That would be the logical next step. Yeah, that was all about TM, wasn't it, Barry? Are there no limits to Barry's creativity? From another post: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_re...@... wrote: John Knapp's ugly comment -- I'd sure be more comfortable if researchers would stick to experimenting on monkeys and leave the kids alone. John Knapp is threatening the lives of monkeys! Burn him at the stake! :-) I just love it when Judy *demonstrates* her Bad Intent by demonstrating her ability to read Bad Intent into anything she reads. Even the *promoters* of the teach-kids-to- meditate initiative refer to it as an exper- iment. But when John Knapp does the same thing, that is somehow revealing of his ugly comment and his mask slipping. Do we all really think Barry is *this* stupid? Or do we think he's doing some of his famous creative writing because he believes *you* are all stupid? Who are the monkeys John was referring to that TM researchers should experiment on rather than kids? And from yet another post: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_re...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: snip I have a very high failure rate when trying to order from Amazon or use their Look inside this book feature. So trying to sell me better up time just isn't going to work. Funny, I order from Amazon and use its Look inside feature all the time, and I've never had any problems. It appears that Barry is technically incompetent and just can't figure out how to use either the ordering system or the Look inside feature. So he blames it on Amazon's software. snigger Over and out... Oh, wait, one more thing, this one nonsnarky: I don't know why it hasn't occurred to me before, but I'd genuinely like to hear from Barry as to how he viewed the purportedly religious nature of TM when he was with the TMO. He's made it clear how allergic he is to any kind of religious thinking these days, and as his comments to Vaj indicate, he's completely convinced TM is a religion. So was he inclined to religious belief when he was a TM teacher but has since lost that inclination? Or did he feel about religion then the way he feels now, and simply found a way not to let the religious component bother him? Or was he not even *aware* of the religious component at the time?
[FairfieldLife] Re: The TM Is Not A Religion Religion
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_re...@... wrote: The ONLY way to keep this essentially religious dogma from being taught in schools is to not allow it to be taught there in the first place. We simply cannot TRUST TM Teachers to leave out the parts of the dogma that are directly derived from Hindu thought when they present the three nights of checking, let alone afterwards, as they try to suck these students into Advanced Tech- niques and the Siddhis. And *everyone* here knows that that's exactly what they will do. So, you might ask, what WOULD I support as a suitable use of David Lynch's money, to achieve his laudable goal of making meditation more available to students? 1. Open the program to *all* popular forms of meditation, not just TM. If a school agrees to the program, they cannot be agreeing to fund only the TM movement. 2. The quiet time periods are open to anyone practicing any form of meditation or contemplation. The only requirement is that you sit quietly and do not bother the other students for the allotted period of time. 3. No on-campus instruction. Lynch's fund can pay for TM instruction, but somewhere else, not on campus. If his fund doesn't want to pay for instruction in some other form of meditation, that is understandable. Perhaps those other forms of meditation will develop similar programs to subsidize teaching their form of meditation, or teach it for free. Hell, many of them *already* teach for free. 4. No on-campus checking. Students can ask for checking or followup, and the school can help to arrange it with the meditation provider (not necessarily the TMO if the student is practicing some other form), but it should not be done on campus. By ANY of the providers. The temptation to evan- gelize is just too great, and cannot be resisted; history has shown us that. 5. No on-campus solicitation of students to take the next course or get an Advanced Technique or learn the siddhis or go on a retreat or residence course. Again, by ANY of the providers. If they want to evan- gelize and recruit into their cult or religion, they have to do it OFF CAMPUS. Those are my positive thoughts on the matter. You guys can now pick them apart as you want. I really WOULD like to see more people med- itating. It's just that I see this initiative as a desperate ploy by the TMO to *sell more mantras to schoolkids*, because they are incapable of selling them to anyone else. The bottom line for me is that I think that this program, as it stands today, 1) violates the Constitution, and 2) forces school systems and parents to TRUST THE PROVIDERS. In my hastily-written program above, I don't think that either of those things are a problem. The other bottom line is that if there is any- thing that history should have taught us, YOU CANNOT TRUST THE TM MOVEMENT. If there is a way to evangelize, they will do it. Hell, they feel that it's their sacred DUTY to evangelize. If there is a way to fuck it up, they will find it. And if there is a way to use this system to funnel more money into the TMO, they will find that. I think my system is more fair -- to the kids, to the school systems, to the parents, to the providers of meditation instruction, and to the U.S. Constitution. If you don't agree, do better. Let's hear YOUR proposal.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Religious aspects of the TM puja; Connecting to the Guru God
On Mar 25, 2009, at 10:34 AM, curtisdeltablues wrote: Actually your riffs are typical of Bill O'reilly and the Christian right with a anyone who dares speak out about Christianity not being shoved down the throats of non Christians. You would enjoy his rap around Easter and Christmas when he plays this routine the most. Check out the cultural shift of our country's increasingly diverse religions from recent census numbers. This issue is not going away, it will get more intense. Don't you secretly miss the War On Christmas, Curtis? Come on, admit it...it was so idiotic it was almost endearing. Sal
[FairfieldLife] Is Nationalism a true religion? (Re: Religious aspects of the TM puja)
Curtis, I get it that you're wary about teaching religion in schools, but are you equally wary of other beliefs that are commonly taught in the classroom? Isn't a belief a belief a belief? Isn't believing an unproven fact and expecting to inculcate that belief into the minds of children highly suspect even if the belief is not arising from a religion? Like: Democracy is the only way to run a nation. George Washington could not tell a lie. Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves. The boot camps of our military turn out heroes who'd never be racist or wantonly cruel -- all stellar personalities. America is for the rights of the little guy. If Obama can make it, all African Americans can do it too. Etc. Not the best examples, above, but you see what I mean I'm sure. Most of what is taught in schools is, first and foremost, beliefs of the teachers being taught as absolutes in a relative world. Only when we get to college do we discover that one plus one equals two merely sometimes, depending on the axioms of the arithmetical system. Only by learning outside the box [schoolroom] can students find out about the jingoism of today's education, the lauding of the medical arts as opposed to other healing regimens, the flag wrapped ideals that cannot be found in real life actions of our elected representatives, the sheer hypocrisy of government money given to tobacco and alcohol industries while incarcerating and torturing millions of others for pot, the revolving door of the governmental agencies being run by the foxes in the hen house, etc. Don't the music teachers choose safe music to teach? Don't the art teachers forbid elementary school kids the right to draw sex organs? Don't the history teachers bite their tongues when they teach seventh graders about the three branches of government when they know about BigBiz's lobbying power? Don't science teachers sell the theory of evolution as a done deal when many transitional fossils are yet to be found? Don't the teachers tell the kids that they can be anything they put their hearts into achieving when they know that only the best minds have a reasonable chance to do so? Is not our school system in fact a religion of nationalism that has all the faults of any religion? Edg --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltabl...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, grate.swan no_reply@ wrote: This shifting of the topic from teaching TM IN the schools to a general discussion of religious diversity and appreciation of multiculturalism is missing my positive appreciation of the religious nature of Maharishi's teaching even as an atheist. I am pro separation of church and state and believe that religions try to blur the line to advance their agenda in schools, TM and creationism as examples of religion under secular veneers. But outside the classroom and government agencies I have always enjoyed the historical context of Maharishi's version of his religious beliefs. Both when I believed that Vyasa was 3/4 Vishnu and was blue skinned, and now when I see him as a character from an elaborate mythology. The TM puja is one of the most beautiful songs I have learned. I now use it to blow Indian taxi driver's minds rather than in the serious context of teaching TM, but I still love the song. I am fascinated by religious beliefs and will always be. I seek them out to understand human's better. So I don't want my opposition to TM being peddled as a non religious practice in schools to be some kind of statement that I hate all things TM. Obviously the belief system still intrigues me. I may have a much snarkier take on the whole thing now but my delight in hearing about the Rajas is no less joy to me now then when I took it all seriously. I'm a see the pearly white teeth on the dog kind of guy. But keep holy communions and TM meditations at home where they belong. If you want to teach kids to meditate in schools to see if it settles down the little monsters,(it might) then don't start the process by invoking the name of a Hindu god in a Hindu Puja before filling their heads full of religious beliefs during their meditation class. Find a meditation style that doesn't need this religious belief system support. Is that really too much to ask? --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj vajradhatu@ wrote: On Mar 25, 2009, at 10:37 AM, grate.swan wrote: Does it upset you when you are a guest at a sumptuous meal and the host offers grace before the meal. I may be shallow, but I focus on the meal and not on my hosts particular beliefs or traditions. And I don't somehow feel tainted or duped. Only if it is in a public school, in the context we're talking of here. Thanksgiving. Is that a religious holiday? Am I being secretly taught a religion if I take the holiday off, and eat a
Re: [FairfieldLife] The TM Is Not A Religion Religion
A group professing consciousness and preset ways to use certain techniques, be they prayer, acceptance of any doctrine, rules beyond common sense, meditation, etc. that creates a sense of 'unwelcomeness' to reasonable strangers who come for participation, are 'religions'. Denial of being this by participants of a group is characteristic of religions. This of course is predicated on the premise that 'religions' are 'undesirable' to be part of. Religiousness is very different than things like: belief in God, worship of a Messiah figure be they called any number of other names. Loving any head of a group exclusive of others of 'the same status' is not religiousness but again leans to cultism. True consciousness sees things very different than members or followers of any doctrine or group and does not claim to be part of anything. I am SO bored with this topic I can't chime in with much more than a rant. I don't see how anyone with an ounce of integrity can *possibly* be arguing that the TMO does not teach religiously- based ideas. But I do understand WHY people don't have that ounce of integrity. They've been taught that when it comes to fundamental points of TM dogma that the ONLY thing that matters is not only following them but defending them. And one of the strongest and MOST drummed- into-people' s-heads pieces of dogma during their TM instruction is TM Is Not A Religion. It's said in every Introductory Lecture, *whether the subject comes up on its own or not*, it's said during each night of the three nights of checking, *whether the subject comes up on its own or not*, and it's said pretty much every time after that that the subject of religion comes up. For years. Ad absurdum. This is arguably **THE** most fundamental piece of TM dogma, probably repeated more often than Thou shalt not strain on the mantra. And after all that much repetition, people just lose all sense of perspective about it. The sub- ject comes up, and they become mindless evangel- ists for the TM Is Not A Religion Religion. They'll say ANYTHING rather than admit what MOST of them know to be the truth, that OF COURSE all of the TM dogma is based on Hindu dogma. They'll lie, they'll deny, they'll come with up excuses, they'll obfuscate, they'll attempt to distract, they'll do ANYTHING rather than violate this First Commandment. And personally I'm getting a little tired of it. There seems to me to be NO QUESTION that teaching TM *as it is taught now* in American school systems violates the Constitution. TM Teachers are just not CAPABLE of teaching the basic technique 1) without a religious puja, and 2) without all of the directly-derived- from- Hinduism explanations of what is really happening when you meditate during the three nights of checking, and afterwards. The ONLY way to keep this essentially religious dogma from being taught in schools is to not allow it to be taught there in the first place. We simply cannot TRUST TM Teachers to leave out the parts of the dogma that are directly derived from Hindu thought when they present the three nights of checking, let alone afterwards, as they try to suck these students into Advanced Tech- niques and the Siddhis. And *everyone* here knows that that's exactly what they will do. It is EXACTLY the same situation that caused Thomas Jefferson to write one of his most remem- bered quotes, the one that graces the Jefferson Memorial in Washington. This quote was written in a letter to a friend discussing an attempt by Christians to teach *their* dogma in a school system. In that particular case, *they* promised not to teach anything explicitly religious either, and NO ONE BELIEVED THEM. NO ONE SHOULD BELIEVE THE TMO EITHER. Instead, believe Thomas Jefferson. He had the right idea: I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every from of tyranny over the mind of man. Jefferson was talking about *preventing* the teach- ing of religion in schools in America. The principle still stands. It stands in the case of Christianity, and it stands in the case of the TM Is Not A Religion Religion. IMO, of course...
[FairfieldLife] Brasscheck TV: Elliot Spitzer was right -Escort not the Problem!
Why judge a politician for using an 'Escort'? Listen to this and you'll see that 'Elliot Spitzer' was more of a hero! Here's a video we produced and issued a year ago. Most people didn't get it at the time. Some accused us of spinning a wild conspiracy theory. While it's true that former NY governor Elliot Spitzer cavorted with prostitutes, if every politician who does the same were busted, there'd be no one left in Washington. So why was Elliot Spitzer really taken out by the Republican organized crime machine a year ago? Hint: AIG, Goldman Sachs, and sub-prime fraud. We reported this a full year ago. Brasscheck TV subscribers knew this back then. Now CNN and others are getting a clue. Details: http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/291.html Ken - Brasscheck P.S. Please share Brasscheck TV e-mails and videos with friends and colleagues. That's how we grow. Thanks. == Brasscheck TV 2380 California St. San Francisco, CA 94115 To unsubscribe or change subscriber options visit: http://www.aweber.com/z/r/?zAxs7OwctMwcLBycrBwstEa0LKws7CwcrA==
[FairfieldLife] Re: Free Web Event: McCartney/Lynch Benefit Concert to Push TM in Public Schools
Just for fun... --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jst...@... wrote: I don't know why it hasn't occurred to me before, but I'd genuinely like to hear from Barry as to how he viewed the purportedly religious nature of TM when he was with the TMO. He's made it clear how allergic he is to any kind of religious thinking these days, and as his comments to Vaj indicate, he's completely convinced TM is a religion. So was he inclined to religious belief when he was a TM teacher but has since lost that inclination? Or did he feel about religion then the way he feels now, and simply found a way not to let the religious component bother him? Or was he not even *aware* of the religious component at the time? I will answer as honestly as I can, as if Judy really deserved an answer. And I think you all know that I don't believe she does, so this should be viewed as an exercise in compassion for me. :-) It's actually a little hard for me to think back to those days. It's 3-4 decades in the past now, after all. *At the time*, I almost certainly never thought of what I was doing or what I was involved with as a religion. I think I can say that with complete honesty. WHY? Well, partly it was because of the TM Is Not A Religion Religion thing. We were *told* so often and so forcefully that TM was not a religion that I just bought it. Partly it was because I had no *interest* in religion per se, so I wasn't looking for it or a substitute for it in TM, or in the TMO. What I was looking for was a method of self discovery, which I did not and still DO not associate with religion. And most importantly, it was probably because as a TM Teacher I had been taught that the highest goal was to parrot what I had been told EXACTLY, without deviation. And I had been told over and over and over not only that TM is not a religion, I had been told what to say to people who were worried that it WAS a religion. So I did exactly that. I never got off on the puja or on devotion to Maharishi or Guru Dev. For me, that was just mood-making muck I had to wade through to be part of something that *at the time* I believed in enough to teach, full-time. But yes, towards the end of my involvement with the TM movement, I *had* begun to think past these enormous Bullshit Baffles, and had started to have qualms about the stuff I was saying. I remember having been asked by Jerry Jarvis to go to a Christian church in Pacific Palisades to attend an anti-TM rally there. (This was during the TM court case days.) At that meeting I actually stood up and spouted the lines I had been told to spout. And because I was a pretty good speaker at that time, I probably convinced a few people in the audience. But driving home, I realized that *I* was no longer convinced myself. I was just spouting stuff I'd been told to spout. I was being a parrot, without ever thinking seriously about the parrot-talk. This was shortly before my last TM course (Siddhis), and I finally did some thinking there, and began to realize how MUCH of the stuff I'd been spout- ing was bullshit, and that that made me a bull- shitter, not a teacher of self discovery. Shortly after returning from that course I bailed out of the TM movement. I have NEVER been drawn to religion. Still am not. What I was drawn to in TM was the same thing I was drawn to in psychedelics -- an inner journey, an opportunity to *explore* the mind and its mysteries, and to experience different states of consciousness. I did not and still DO not equate that with religion. In fact, I find that the vast majority of religions -- modern and ancient -- strove to *prevent* that kind of inner exploration rather than facilitate it. That is, most religions are anti-mystic. Almost all of them were FOUNDED by mystics, but within a few years or decades of the original mystic's death, dogma creeps into place that says that it was OK for the founder to be a mystic and have these mystical experiences himself, but everyday seekers like you and me can't do it. In fact, if we try, we are often expelled from the religion. Just look at the Catholic Church -- many if not most of the people it now considers saints were persecuted *by the Church* during their lifetimes, because they were having mystical experiences that *they shouldn't have been having*. It was only after they were safely dead that the Church recognized them as saints. They tried to burn St. John of the Cross at the stake, ferchrissakes...and then they name him a *saint*? So no, Judy, I've never been religious. And yes, I have always viewed most religion as the *anti- thesis* of self discovery. Still do.
[FairfieldLife] In all my internet travels
The FFLife Yahoo group is by far the most profound of groups I have encountered. I wish we could all get together. Even all the people I have wronged with words or who have wronged me from previous Usenet AMT games. I thank you all. You are all my friends. In the sometimes senseless rattling on and verbal warring I sense a commonality amongst us. It would be the sense of the seeker after truth that I feel most strongly here. I mean it. This group makes me aware of weird shit I have never even dreamed of. Each person here suffers from a type of personal integrity that one rarely encounters outside of a Whole Foods, and probably not even there. No, I'm not fucked up right now. Believe it or not. I was just thinking how seriously crazy alot of us are, but here together we are all sane. This group is dope.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Anyone here set up a system using cloud computing?
I am the eternal wrote: On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 11:33 AM, Bhairitu noozg...@sbcglobal.net wrote: The tech industries are always inventing things to make money for themselves. Most are a waste of time. The real solution would be to get rid of the need to keep inventing shit just to survive. It's a very screwed up dog eat dog world we live in. Bring in the asteroid. ;-) Sorry but I see the utility for cloud computing. It's cheap, it's on demand, it's flexible as heck (a dozen different operating systems and machines, dozens of database and application software supported). Yes, in principle this is MVS revisited. But MVS wasn't at all as ad hoc as cloud computing. Now I do agree that there is ever a new implementation language being developed. We all remember that the DOD spent billions of USD when billions were real money, for a language which would be the end of all programming in a few years. The DOD envisioned thousands of Ada classes which could be strung together to create any and all new software. Well, it was a good idea in principle. And what happens when the network goes down? I think that was the issue others raised here. Are you saying it is a good idea for businesses who find their employees playing around too much on their desktops and some more like a dumb terminal will get work done. That might be a little short sighted because sometimes employees need to access the Internet. When I go to Hollywood Video the store has an ancient database system which looks like its running Turbo Pascal. They can't access their own company website to answer a question for a customer. I get customers that want software on the iPhone. Lame Apple made the language on the iPhone Objective C instead of C++ or Java. Who the hell wants to learn a dead end language like that? Apple is all about Steve Jobs (Objective C being one of this legacies). We have all these companies like Apple, Microsoft, Sony, etc behaving like fascists trying to set up their own fiefdoms and trying to rule to the world. They all need to be broken up into 1000 smaller companies.
Re: [FairfieldLife] The TM Is Not A Religion Religion
On Mar 25, 2009, at 11:42 AM, TurquoiseB wrote: They'll say ANYTHING rather than admit what MOST of them know to be the truth, that OF COURSE all of the TM dogma is based on Hindu dogma. They'll lie, they'll deny, they'll come with up excuses, they'll obfuscate, they'll attempt to distract, they'll do ANYTHING rather than violate this First Commandment. My personal fave, (paraphrased): We don't have to tell the kids what the underpinnings are, if people like John Knapp would just keep their mouths shut. Now there's a raving endorsement for the integrity of the teaching. And personally I'm getting a little tired of it. Not me, I still find it endlessly entertaining. Sal
[FairfieldLife] Re: Religious aspects of the TM puja; Connecting to the Guru God
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, grate.swan no_re...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, do.rflex do.rflex@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, grate.swan no_reply@ wrote: Another thought on this. We live in a pluralistic society and laudably multi-culturalism and the appreciation of diversity in other culture is increasingly celebrated. Where I work, a large company, the daily e-mail newsletter celebrates and explains every major religions and cultural holiday. Hindu, islamic, jewish, ... Thats a cool thing IMO. it does not make my company a religious advocate nor does it have some hidden agenda. Its educating us all, and making us sensitive to, other cultures. In that light, teaching TM in the traditional way, is giving a nod to, and adding to the texture of a multicultural society. Its preserving a heritage enabling all to see a type of ceremony that they would not normally see. In that light, the TMO should be given thanks for not coping out and sanitizing the way they teach TM. They teach it in the traditional way. They provide a micro museum tour of an ancient culture. I rather like that. That doesn't make me Hindu or religious. It reflects that I am multi-cultural and live in a diverse society of tolerance and appreciation of all traditions. You don't have a true multi-cultural society if you sanitize all traditions and strip out references to God or whatever. That's what the TMO has apparently attempted to do in order to get TM accepted wholesale into public schools. That would be a sham and a shame. You have a multi-cultural society when things with religious roots can be shared and appreciated as part of diverse cultures -- not phobiacized. That appears to be a pitch to teach TM with its full religious implications I am not pitching TM. I could give a rats ass if its TM, buddhist-rooted meditation, Catholic-rooted mediation, hindu based yoga asanas, catholic-rooted philosophical tools, religions-roooted must or art. My point is that so many things of value in society have religious roots. Why the secular fruit of such cannot be taught in schools is mind boggling as if that is teaching religion. and let it join others in the diverse variety of what's available. But at the same time you can't promote a specific traditional religious teaching in a public school. Sure. Don't teach religion in public schools. How is teaching a secular meditation technique teaching religion. I'm a TM teacher trained by Maharishi. Whether you say it is or not, TM is not a secular meditation technique. To pretend that it is is blatantly dishonest. Give a test on hinduism to any 1000 TM practicioners. They will fail miserably. Probably most people in the general population claiming to be of Hindu background would likely fail the same test just as miserably. Very much like, for example, Catholics I know haven't a clue about the details of Catholicism. Most TM teachers on the other hand, having been trained by Maharishi, are necessarily quite familiar with the primary Hindu concepts. Since Sanatana Dharma and its religious 'Holy Tradition' is the central life basis of the whole thing, you simply cannot honestly pass TM off as a strictly secular meditation technique. IT. IS. NOT. To intentionally leave out the whole basis of TM and to try to pawn it off as a strictly secular meditation technique AND to try to wholesale introduce it into the public school system - is glaringly unethical, dishonest and deceptive. Any religious body who saw that attempt would rightly be justified in screaming bloody murder to see TM included as part of the curriculum of a public school. A separate, off-campus non-taxpayer funded club might be acceptable. But not as part and parcel of the public education system. In that regard, the TMO comes off here like the crackpot fundamentalist creationist movement who try to pass off their bullshit 'intelligent design' as legitimate science into the public school system. They know nothing about hinduism. If TM is teaching religion, its doing a piss poor job. The TMO *is* doing a piss poor job pretending that TM is secular. It is NOT a secular meditation technique.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Anyone here set up a system using cloud computing?
TurquoiseB wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, I am the eternal l.shad...@... wrote: On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 11:33 AM, Bhairitu noozg...@... wrote: The tech industries are always inventing things to make money for themselves. Most are a waste of time. The real solution would be to get rid of the need to keep inventing shit just to survive. It's a very screwed up dog eat dog world we live in. Bring in the asteroid. ;-) Sorry but I see the utility for cloud computing. It's cheap, it's on demand, it's flexible as heck (a dozen different operating systems and machines, dozens of database and application software supported). So they're trying to reinvent the wheel with a Java for the Web. :-) Probably because IBM is trying to buy Sun, and will soon own Java. Maybe they will fix it. Java is very weak and hard to use for GUIs. I don't think JavaFX helped that much. Along those lines I recently joined a developer email group that makes FFL pale in comparison by volume of posts. You try to figure out why so many posts? Well it is developer egos trying to say look at me! I'm developing for this platform! Hire me. IOW, a lot of noise to filter out.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Dear President Obama
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, grate.swan no_re...@... wrote: i know you are a constitutional scholar so this may come as a surprise to you. It did to me. But people who apparently know far more about the constitutional law than you ever will, despite your teaching it for 10 years at a leading university, have revealed to me that separation of church and state means far more than the traditional view that the state shall not establish a state religion. It has been revealed to me by these wise and learned scholars that separation of church and state inf FACT means that nothing with religious roots can be associated with anything used or funded by the state. So it is with a heavy heart, that i must tell you that it is your solomn duty to to the country and the founding fathers to do cleanly cleave the following from the state -- ban them. You must. The future of democracy and the country depend upon it. 1) Burn all currency (in God we trust 2) Revoke christmas, easter and thanksgiving as federal holidays 3) destroy or sell off 3/4 of the art in the national museums -- and federally funded museums across the nation. 4) redo the inaguration. No prayers. You are a false unsworn in president until you do. 5) ban football and baseball from being played in stadiums that have received any federal funds - (or else those zealot prayer monger players will subvert our youth. 6) Ban all wine form state dinners and official functions. My god man, wind is used as a holy sacrament in a highly religions rite. Mr Obama sir, I can go on and on. You get my drift. You are a smart guy. Severe this toxic link between church and state, Its Imperative! The separation of church and state, as per the original intentions of the framers of the constitution, wasn't that the individual states couldn't have a state religion or engage in religious activities. This restriction was only for the FEDERAL government. Indeed, none of the individual colonies would have signed on to creating the United States if they would have been prevented from doing so because they were all pretty much engaged in religious activities. The following excerpt is from Kevin Gutzman, the author of The politically incorrect guide to the constitution, from a recent appearance on CSPAN: People recognized at the time (of the writing of the first amendment) that the first amendment was intended to be a limitation only on the powers of the federal government. After all, it begins by saying 'Congress shall make no law' respecting an establishment of religion. The reason it says 'Congress shall make no law' is that people thought that this proposed new federal constitution was going to make the federal government too powerful. We have this principle, we've just come through the revolution wanting to have all our authority through the local legislatures, so we're going to add this bill of rights to ensure that the federal government cannot be in the business of telling us what we can say and think about God. We're not going to require as they do in Denmark, that everybody be a Lutheran, we're not going to require as they do in England that everybody be an Anglican. But, if Connecticut wanted to continue what it had at the time the first amendment was adopted, -- to tax you to support Puritanism, Congregationalism -- it could! It could and did! For decades after that! Why? Well, because it always had and that's what Connecticut had been about and there was nothing in the federal constitution to prevent that. The federal courts at first recognized this principle. In fact in 1833 in a case called Barron v. Baltimore, Chief Justice Marshall for a unanimous court -- and this is the only time Marshall ever handed down a constitutional decision that was against federal authority, the only time -- Marshall said: Everybody knows the Bill of Rights is a limitation only on the federal government. Everybody knew that till 1947. Everybody knew that. So, there is no principle of separation of church and state in the constitution although there is the principle of separation of church and state in constitutional law, that is, these opinions from federal judges.
[FairfieldLife] Battle for Seattle
This is a fairly decent film about the WTO riots in December 1999 in Seattle. It features quite a cast including Charlize Theron, Woody Harrelson, Jennifer Carpenter, Ray Liotta, Connie Neilson, etc. It released on DVD and Blu-Ray on March 10th. Try to find it anywhere. I finally did rent it at BlockBuster on Blu-Ray. The distributor is Universal which should have gotten it into most stores and in fact a number of stores list it online. Many say out of stock. I can't imagine a huge demand for the film to have it sell out fast. But if you watch it you might get the idea that someone doesn't want the public to see this film. It is about how unfair the WTO is and why people were rioting in Seattle. Of course big corporations who benefit by their criminal global actions (the WTO and GATT was created to break down borders and let them gain access to markets). The film also shows how police departments will put undercover cops into the crowd acting as anarchists to turn peaceful demonstrations into violent ones. They did that at last years political conventions. Well worth a watch if you can find it. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0850253/ http://www.battleinseattlemovie.com/
[FairfieldLife] Re: The TM Is Not A Religion Religion
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_re...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: The ONLY way to keep this essentially religious dogma from being taught in schools is to not allow it to be taught there in the first place. We simply cannot TRUST TM Teachers to leave out the parts of the dogma that are directly derived from Hindu thought when they present the three nights of checking, let alone afterwards, as they try to suck these students into Advanced Tech- niques and the Siddhis. And *everyone* here knows that that's exactly what they will do. So, you might ask, what WOULD I support as a suitable use of David Lynch's money, to achieve his laudable goal of making meditation more available to students? 1. Open the program to *all* popular forms of meditation, not just TM. If a school agrees to the program, they cannot be agreeing to fund only the TM movement. That would be what I would do if I had Davids funds. But alas, momentarily I don't. 2. The quiet time periods are open to anyone practicing any form of meditation or contemplation. The only requirement is that you sit quietly and do not bother the other students for the allotted period of time. I am all for that. 3. No on-campus instruction. Lynch's fund can pay for TM instruction, but somewhere else, not on campus. Nah. As long as they don't keep other classes from using the room, If the room is empty, its ok. Otherwise, what you imply is that no public libraries, civic auditoriums, university rooms, etc cold be use. Way too anal for me. YMMV If his fund doesn't want to pay for instruction in some other form of meditation, that is understandable. Perhaps those other forms of meditation will develop similar programs to subsidize teaching their form of meditation, or teach it for free. Hell, many of them *already* teach for free. Great. The more the merrier. Competition of methods. See which work better. 4. No on-campus checking. Students can ask for checking or followup, and the school can help to arrange it with the meditation provider (not necessarily the TMO if the student is practicing some other form), but it should not be done on campus. By ANY of the providers. The temptation to evan- gelize is just too great, and cannot be resisted; history has shown us that. nah, same as 3. I would only be worried that students would be hit upon by their checkers -- a common practice. But that can happen in any room. 5. No on-campus solicitation of students to take the next course or get an Advanced Technique or learn the siddhis or go on a retreat or residence course. Again, by ANY of the providers. If they want to evan- gelize and recruit into their cult or religion, they have to do it OFF CAMPUS. -- it depends. Proselytizing and evangelism is not called for. Discusssing Buddhist med II -- maybe ok.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Religious aspects of the TM puja; Connecting to the Guru God
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltabl...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, grate.swan no_reply@ wrote: This shifting of the topic from teaching TM IN the schools to a general discussion of religious diversity and appreciation of multiculturalism is missing my positive appreciation of the religious nature of Maharishi's teaching even as an atheist. I am pro separation of church and state and believe that religions try to blur the line to advance their agenda in schools, TM and creationism as examples of religion under secular veneers. But outside the classroom and government agencies I have always enjoyed the historical context of Maharishi's version of his religious beliefs. Both when I believed that Vyasa was 3/4 Vishnu and was blue skinned, and now when I see him as a character from an elaborate mythology. The TM puja is one of the most beautiful songs I have learned. I now use it to blow Indian taxi driver's minds rather than in the serious context of teaching TM, but I still love the song. I am fascinated by religious beliefs and will always be. I seek them out to understand human's better. So I don't want my opposition to TM being peddled as a non religious practice in schools to be some kind of statement that I hate all things TM. Obviously the belief system still intrigues me. I may have a much snarkier take on the whole thing now but my delight in hearing about the Rajas is no less joy to me now then when I took it all seriously. I'm a see the pearly white teeth on the dog kind of guy. But keep holy communions and TM meditations at home where they belong. If you want to teach kids to meditate in schools to see if it settles down the little monsters,(it might) then don't start the process by invoking the name of a Hindu god in a Hindu Puja before filling their heads full of religious beliefs during their meditation class. Find a meditation style that doesn't need this religious belief system support. Is that really too much to ask? I am all for offering that. But I don't see any violation of the constitution Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; if TM is also taught. Or Buddhist medtitation or christian cnetering prayer or jewish kabala or sufi swirling. As options. If its mandatory -- I may have issue with it, depending on the context. Is the DLF a mandatory thing ALL kids must take to graduate? If not, what is the issue? If TM rubs some sensitive religious type the wrong way, they should not take the course. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj vajradhatu@ wrote: On Mar 25, 2009, at 10:37 AM, grate.swan wrote: Does it upset you when you are a guest at a sumptuous meal and the host offers grace before the meal. I may be shallow, but I focus on the meal and not on my hosts particular beliefs or traditions. And I don't somehow feel tainted or duped. Only if it is in a public school, in the context we're talking of here. Thanksgiving. Is that a religious holiday? Am I being secretly taught a religion if I take the holiday off, and eat a thanksgiving meal? Who were the pilgrims offering thanks to? Oh my God! It was God! Run! I don't celebrate Thanksgiving as a religious holiday, I celebrate in as an exercise in food materialism. And they why do you deny the same freedom to others to take what they want from religious traditions and use it in a secular way? Somehow you can use a holiday based on Thanksgiving to God an not get tainted by anything religious. In fact you use it for the antithesis of religion -- gluttony. Yet you don't want to ban thanksgiving from schools. So why not provide the same freedom to students who may want to use meditation techniques that stem from a religious tradition but they use it in totally non religious ways? I don't see the distinction. Except that one option suits you. Curtis doesn't like me to equate the fruit of meditation with actual fruit. And I am sure I am transgressing his beliefs with my meal analogy. But to me, it fits quite well. I am getting something quite secular -- a meal -- a useful meditation technique -- at the HUGE cost of listening to someone give thanks prior to the meal. I don't get the outrage. It's a religious technique that invokes gods and goddesses and worships a guru as a god--it therefore violates the separation of church and state--there are a host of other issues such as with charging the taxpayers exorbitant fees for meditation, which can easily be taught for free and the destructive nature of aspects of the TM org, side effects, phony and biased research, etc.. Body modification freaks also feel
[FairfieldLife] Re: Anyone here set up a system using cloud computing?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu noozg...@... wrote: TurquoiseB wrote: So they're trying to reinvent the wheel with a Java for the Web. :-) Probably because IBM is trying to buy Sun, and will soon own Java. Maybe they will fix it. Java is very weak and hard to use for GUIs. I don't think JavaFX helped that much. Maybe they will. I am still on the periphery of IBM because I'm a consultant and not an employee, but in terms of business ethics and trying to do a good job I have to admit that I have been impressed so far. All of our products have to be Blue Washed before they can be sold through IBM channels. So what does that entail? Well, for one thing, it involves scouring through every line of code for every application, and all of the icons in its GUIs, ferchrissakes, to determine if they were really invented here. Borrowed code, even if legitimately borrowed from Open Source software, does not get a pass. And if you borrowed from something like the Sun Java libraries (as one of our products did, completely legitimately), that also does not get a pass. IBM is going to force those developers to sit in a room with the spec and reverse engineer the routines they previously borrowed to make sure that there is no *possible* ques- tion of ownership. I find this impressive, having seen its opposite at Microsoft and Computer Associates. I also find the *quality* of the IBM employees I've been meeting and interacting with online rather impressive. And I am Not Easily Impressed. A lot of these people came out of Watson Labs, which is one of the great thinktank organi- zations on the planet. Have you ever been on a conference call in which you had occasion to suspect *most* of the people on the call of being geniuses? Neither had I, until recently. IBM's bureaucracy is sometimes infuriating. I can tell you that fersure. But SO FAR, their integrity about doing business and the level of people I have been meeting who are doing that business have been very impressive indeed. So if there is any company that can fix Java, they might just be it. This is definitely not your father's IBM.
RE: [FairfieldLife] In all my internet travels
From: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com [mailto:fairfieldl...@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Kirk Sent: Wednesday, March 25, 2009 2:15 PM To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Subject: [FairfieldLife] In all my internet travels The FFLife Yahoo group is by far the most profound of groups I have encountered. I wish we could all get together. Even all the people I have wronged with words or who have wronged me from previous Usenet AMT games. I thank you all. You are all my friends. In the sometimes senseless rattling on and verbal warring I sense a commonality amongst us. It would be the sense of the seeker after truth that I feel most strongly here. I mean it. This group makes me aware of weird shit I have never even dreamed of. Each person here suffers from a type of personal integrity that one rarely encounters outside of a Whole Foods, and probably not even there. No, I'm not fucked up right now. Believe it or not. I was just thinking how seriously crazy alot of us are, but here together we are all sane. This group is dope. Cool comments, Kirk, as usual. I agree with the crazy bit. The whole world is nuts, and few if any are excepted. Regarding a get-together, I hope we can do that some time. Just a matter of agreeing on a date (warm weather, including the 1st Friday of the month so you'll catch the Art Walk, where the whole town turns out to schmooze), and all who can flying in. Those of us who live here could put people up.
[FairfieldLife] Re: The TM Is Not A Religion Religion
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_re...@... wrote: I am SO bored with this topic I can't chime in with much more than a rant. I don't see how anyone with an ounce of integrity can *possibly* be arguing that the TMO does not teach religiously-based ideas. I don't argue that TM has religious roots. I do argue that my practice of TM, or yoga, or Ayurvedic diet, or massage all of which have religious roots, makes me a part of or practicing the root religion. 80% of what is taught ins schools also have religious roots. Our civilization is to a good extent Greco-Roman which where highly god-based cultures -- with a strong overlay of theologically based-European traditions. I am not clear where to draw the line, but drawing it for TM and not the pledge of allegiance, discussions of religious background and traditions in history class, use of religious based art and music in those classes, teaching the theories of that religious occultist nut Newton in physics class, etc seems both arbitrary and biased. And personally I'm getting a little tired of it. There seems to me to be NO QUESTION that teaching TM *as it is taught now* in American school systems violates the Constitution. How is that? Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; I am missing the connection of teaching a secular technique with religious roots as creating a state sponsored religion.
[FairfieldLife] Correct website address for Patricia M Greco to visit her site..................
Regarding Lou Valentino's wife, who died recently of breast cancer: 3/25/2009 Dear friends of Astrological Varieties and Soul-Stories, I gave out the wrong website address for Patricia M Greco. Soul-Stories http://soul-stories.net/ Home . I talked with her website master today and told him I would love to see the site stay up until April 1st so her friends could view some of her beautiful photos and wonderful soul writings. Many of the photos were taken in Lunenburg, Massachusetts where Patti and I lived for 10 years. So many wonderful memories have crossed my mind since her passing on March 17th. The walks we took at the Woodlands in Lunenburg and the tall evergreen trees surrounding a beautiful large man-made lake. Her ability to capture nature mixed with shadows of light came out in her over the last three years. I always will remember when I read her astrology chart in 1989 when I first met her. I told her she had a lot of creative energy. I asked her if she painted or enjoyed photography. She said she tried to paint in school when she was growing up but a nun laughed at her drawing. She felt crushed and never pursued it any further. As you view the photos she took and some of the people drawings she would do while she talked on the phone you can see the tremendous amount of talent she had stored away in her. When it finally came out of her I reminded her of our conversation in 1989 and was so proud of her for exploring her talents as an artist. She had so many talents. View the site as soon as you can. If her family requests it be taken down sooner than April 1st I cannot stop that from happening. Just like I couldn’t stop her from treading down the path of her own chosen destiny. It has been and will continue to be very difficult to give her totally up to the heavens. After all we all still have to deal with hell here on earth. OK, there are little bits of heaven here too. Her soul-stories, photos, drawings and her spiritual work continue's on. She is my teacher now and always. Love and Light, Lou Valentino Life long friend and husband of Patricia M Greco. Supporter of Robert Barefoot products and knowledge for the prevention and cure of all types of Cancer.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Religious aspects of the TM puja; Connecting to the Guru God
It is my deeply inquiring mind that brings up such grand questions. No offence meant, as Kirk would say. ---Woohoo, a shout out from Ireland. You go Boy!
[FairfieldLife] The Sun won't sent on IBM
It was mentioned here that Sun (JAVA) is being bought out by IBM. First off, I hope that doesn't happen because I have a fondness of Stanford University Networks. Second, Sun has been interesting if nothing else for the past few years. Flounder, flounder, flounder. Third, if IBM buys Sun it'll be to take what it wants then flush the rest, adding more to the IBM ueber company. It's looking like the rumors were just rumors. I hope so. I like using Sun servers and I hate the font IBM uses for its online documentation.
Re: [FairfieldLife] In all my internet travels
On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 3:17 PM, Rick Archer r...@searchsummit.com wrote: From: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com [mailto:fairfieldl...@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Kirk Sent: Wednesday, March 25, 2009 2:15 PM To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Subject: [FairfieldLife] In all my internet travels The FFLife Yahoo group is by far the most profound of groups I have encountered. I wish we could all get together. Even all the people I have wronged with words or who have wronged me from previous Usenet AMT games. I thank you all. You are all my friends. In the sometimes senseless rattling on and verbal warring I sense a commonality amongst us. It would be the sense of the seeker after truth that I feel most strongly here. I mean it. This group makes me aware of weird shit I have never even dreamed of. Each person here suffers from a type of personal integrity that one rarely encounters outside of a Whole Foods, and probably not even there. No, I'm not fucked up right now. Believe it or not. I was just thinking how seriously crazy alot of us are, but here together we are all sane. This group is dope. Kirk, now you've got me worried. Worried enough to get in the car and drive to NO to check on you. The scary, dangerous time is when the normally troubled person suddenly exhibits peace and equanimity.It means they've made their decision and they're going to go through with it. Just in case I don't get there in time, can I have your rudraksha beads?
Re: [FairfieldLife] Anyone here set up a system using cloud computing?
On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 2:24 PM, Bhairitu noozg...@sbcglobal.net wrote: And what happens when the network goes down? I think that was the issue others raised here. Are you saying it is a good idea for businesses who find their employees playing around too much on their desktops and some more like a dumb terminal will get work done. That might be a little short sighted because sometimes employees need to access the Internet. When I go to Hollywood Video the store has an ancient database system which looks like its running Turbo Pascal. They can't access their own company website to answer a question for a customer. I guess we're having a failure to communicate here. You are thinking about replacing PCs and perhaps enterprise servers with the cloud and dumb terminals. Plug in dumb terminals and go. I am looking to architect a massive ecommerce solution which will scale with the seasons and other factors. We're looking at a totally self-contained solution with a big pipe in and a big pipe out. It differs from using a typical hosting service in that a hosting services doesn't offer quick growth/shrinking of servers and a hosting service doesn't typically host every part of the solution. What happens if the network goes down? That's what virtual IPs and co-location/replication are for. Have kind of bumpless, kind of automatic failover from Japan to Scotland. That's assuming failover is needed. Redundant NICs and interconnects are pretty common these days. And what goes on within the cloud? Well, that's FM where the M stands for magic.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Free Web Event: McCartney/Lynch Benefit Concert to Push TM in Public Schools
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jst...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: snip I would be astonished if he permitted the TMO to fart around in such a way that threatened the viability of the project, which would surely happen if it didn't keep a tight clamp on anything that might make people nervous. So he's going to drop the puja huh? Doubt it. But given the standard explanation of what it is, historically most people don't seem to have been bothered by it. Outside of schools is completely different. People dabble in all sorts of religious activities as entertainment outside of schools. In any case he has no control over the kid's access to checking Oooh, yes, checking is so religious! You are missing the point. I was talking about responsible follow up for the kids. I don't believe the movement will commit to this just as they have withdrawn support for meditators in closing the centers. or further information a few years down the road with a dying organization. How long are we trying to protect these kids from obtaining information about TM? Non sequitur. I was talking about responsible follow up. He will be no better equipped to deal with physiological problems. Is that a religious issue? I am making more than one point per post. He is a TB and will take the sage advice of the Rajas. Or not. He didn't seem to have had any problem taking over from Raja Kornhaus (I think it was) at that German event and trying to fix the damage after the Raja stupidly talked about invincible Germany. Trying to salvage a PR visit is a long way from not taking their instructions about the TM practice. As a non teacher he will be doubly unable to challenge the TM priests. As far as I can tell, all Lynch is interested in is to get kids meditating. I find it difficult to believe that he'd allow the TMO to do anything that would make it less likely for schools to adopt and maintain the program. I simply can't imagine he has any truck with the rajas other than as vehicles to implement the program he wants implemented. He isn't going to let them get in its way as long as he's supplying the funding. I don't know David personally. From what I have seen he seems like every other rich TB I encountered. snip So if I can ignore its religious roots, why can't the kids? That is not the issue. Some may be able to ignore the religious roots of TM. They should all be able to ignore it, since it wouldn't come to their attention in the absence of interference from people like Knapp. So if they don't know it is a religious ceremony that is OK? It's OK with me. Shouldn't be done on school grounds, though. I don't understand what distinction you are drawing here. I might agree. The line between extra curricular participation might be enough for me if that is what you mean. Parents can sign kids up for all sorts of things outside of schools. I think you are missing the point. We aren't using the student's perspective on any aspect of keeping religious doctrines from schools. Don't you think they are also fooled about creation science? Creation science as part of the school science curriculum is a different animal entirely. I wouldn't want SCI to be taught as part of the school science curriculum. Agreed. Tying to pin this on John Knapp seems fishy to me. Bringing up this concern is a collective interest of more than John. How does from people like John Knapp suggest it's only Knapp who would bring it up? OK And the whole idea that it might slip through without scrutiny if people just keep their mouth's shut seems very slippery to me. Only if you're worried that the kids will be exposed to religious indoctrination. My argument is that there isn't enough of it in the basic TM course to be concerned about. OK so we have a different bar for how much is too much. An open debate is appropriate. Here we go back to what I said earlier about how difficult it is for folks to get the whole picture. Even with open debate, the issues are never going to be fully aired. I have more faith in their ability to spot religious teachings in semi-secular garb. My opinion may not be your own, but it is not uninformed. I am making valid concerns whether you agree with them or not. They're valid to you, certainly. There just isn't anything *intrinsically* religious about the basic TM course from the students' perspective. They don't have an informed perspective, how could they? Again fooling kids is not the criteria for what makes anything religious in schools. You mean, they're being fooled into not realizing they've been magically transformed by the puja and
Re: [FairfieldLife] In all my internet travels
Kirk, now you've got me worried. Worried enough to get in the car and drive to NO to check on you. The scary, dangerous time is when the normally troubled person suddenly exhibits peace and equanimity.It means they've made their decision and they're going to go through with it. Just in case I don't get there in time, can I have your rudraksha beads? Sorry I gave them to the local lama. The only strand I have left is my ten faced mala which was a gift from my wife. I don't really understand what you're saying regarding peace and equanimity as those words don't really describe me. I think it's hard to judge anyone's contents though their web posting. So much of this is just pretense. Pastime. I can emote any way I wish to be perceived. However, I choose to be me whatever that means. Fact is today we had a plumber out to the house for what seemed to be a disaster in the making and the situation turned out much better than I had hoped, so I was feeling a bit optimistic. I'm sorry for that. Now if Billy Smith, who used to be my friend would just get over himself and say, Hi, we could all move on. It's difficult, I believe, to be frank with others. So much of our lives is just spent in putting on our mask or makeup. I have always believed that the truth was stranger than fiction so a good truth was in effect better than a good lie at covering up for itself. In other words, while I was discussing my personal plight with another member of my own family, then that member took what I said and emailed my own wife, and then she called me worried that I was worse off than I am. Frankness and candor. Cause confusion. I am sorry for writing things that sounded self defeating and perhaps slightly suicidal. I am not like that though, and I would appreciate people to hear this, that I am doing alright, and I thank you all from the depths of my heart for your concerns. Especially you L Shaddai. Considering our past. I don't consider someone my friend until we have fought and overcome. Otherwise who really knows whom? We share the same weather pretty much do we not? It was a pretty bleak and gloomy start of the week, but the sun is starting to come out. Tomorrow, I am going fishing. Fact is, I stopped smoking pot a week ago and it was really hard at first, but I came out of the detox finally. I feel better. Pot was eroding a basic sense of personality that I have always had. Weed now is way stronger than it used to be. The detox is harder than it used to be. Celexa is a pretty good antidepressant. the self deprecating and negative mind habits just magically dissappeared. Without any sort of sense of loss of personal control, emotional cover-up, and whatnot. I am happy I decided to use whatever was available proactively, and not be overcompensating by acting more in control and wonderful than I really am. You know Shaddai, I listened to your advice to relax for a couple weeks and not be too down on myself. That was good advice. I recommend it to others. I also recommend seeking whatever treatment one needs. And not relying on anyone as a guru but oneself. Apparently SSRI drugs allow the brain to maintain a slightly higher level of seratonin, if I'm not mistaken. This performs the function of allowing one to feel more 'rewarded' just on a basic level. It's a decent theory and deserves a shot. I submit my own personal history as candidly as possible in the hope that it may inspire, or motivate others who may think that being spiritual and seeing a shrink are contraindicated. In my way of thinking, if one is aiming at UNITY, then all available options are there for perusal. I think my rudraksha will be buried or cremated with me. I have given out close to 200 strands of 5 faced as gifts. And whole strands of one faced, eleven faced, gauris and more. My belief is that in passing through ones hands the traces remain even if they are no longer present materially. Moreover after Katrina I had had enough of Shiva for the moment. No offense Shiva as emptybill would have me say.
[FairfieldLife] Is Nationalism a true religion? (Re: Religious aspects of the TM puja)
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung no_re...@... wrote: Curtis, I get it that you're wary about teaching religion in schools, but are you equally wary of other beliefs that are commonly taught in the classroom? Isn't a belief a belief a belief? You can put me down for being generally wary in every way! But the religious beliefs in schools issue is different from other beliefs. I would actually like to see more academic religious teaching taught in schools so people can get off their my own religion is so special bias. It is presenting religious beliefs undercover of science that I object to most. That does double mischief to their minds. Isn't believing an unproven fact and expecting to inculcate that belief into the minds of children highly suspect even if the belief is not arising from a religion? Sure but we weren't discussing those. Like: Democracy is the only way to run a nation. George Washington could not tell a lie. Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves. The boot camps of our military turn out heroes who'd never be racist or wantonly cruel -- all stellar personalities. America is for the rights of the little guy. If Obama can make it, all African Americans can do it too. Etc. I think all these beliefs should be discussed in schools. They shouldn't be presented as scientific facts because they are not. Most of them are just opinions and wouldn't have a big place in any curriculum I have heard of. Not the best examples, above, but you see what I mean I'm sure. Most of what is taught in schools is, first and foremost, beliefs of the teachers being taught as absolutes in a relative world. Only when we get to college do we discover that one plus one equals two merely sometimes, depending on the axioms of the arithmetical system. Only by learning outside the box [schoolroom] can students find out about the jingoism of today's education, the lauding of the medical arts as opposed to other healing regimens, the flag wrapped ideals that cannot be found in real life actions of our elected representatives, the sheer hypocrisy of government money given to tobacco and alcohol industries while incarcerating and torturing millions of others for pot, the revolving door of the governmental agencies being run by the foxes in the hen house, etc. Don't the music teachers choose safe music to teach? They steer away from songs that mention fucking if that is what you mean. But they let me get away with a lot of innuendo in my show. Don't the art teachers forbid elementary school kids the right to draw sex organs? I don't know but I can understand if they do. Don't the history teachers bite their tongues when they teach seventh graders about the three branches of government when they know about BigBiz's lobbying power? Don't science teachers sell the theory of evolution as a done deal when many transitional fossils are yet to be found? This is a misrepresentation of the scientific evidence for evolution. It is based on the erroneous notion that evolution is gradual. Evolutionary theorists have known for years that genetic mutation happens in quick shifts, one creature has an advantage and that one takes off. So there are not usually transitional fossils to find. The concept of done deal had little value for science but supported by overwhelming evidence does. Don't the teachers tell the kids that they can be anything they put their hearts into achieving when they know that only the best minds have a reasonable chance to do so? Is not our school system in fact a religion of nationalism that has all the faults of any religion? No, none of them appeal to a scriptural authority for the ideas and don't claim them to be absolutely right because the creator of the universe told them so. That is a big epistemological difference isn't it? Edg --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, grate.swan no_reply@ wrote: This shifting of the topic from teaching TM IN the schools to a general discussion of religious diversity and appreciation of multiculturalism is missing my positive appreciation of the religious nature of Maharishi's teaching even as an atheist. I am pro separation of church and state and believe that religions try to blur the line to advance their agenda in schools, TM and creationism as examples of religion under secular veneers. But outside the classroom and government agencies I have always enjoyed the historical context of Maharishi's version of his religious beliefs. Both when I believed that Vyasa was 3/4 Vishnu and was blue skinned, and now when I see him as a character from an elaborate mythology. The TM puja is one of the most beautiful songs I have learned. I now use it to blow Indian taxi driver's minds rather than in the serious context of
[FairfieldLife] Re: Free Web Event: McCartney/Lynch Benefit Concert to Push TM in Public Schools
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jst...@... wrote: I never said or suggested that Curtis's challenges were mean-spirited. Barry made that up (more creative thinking). I don't believe that. I do think they may be colored by residual resentment of which he's most likely not even aware. Judy, I find this not only insulting, but unworthy of an otherwise excellent conversation about our different POVs on this subject. It is a version of ad hominem and has no place in our discussion. First of all colored by residual resentment is not an intellectual point. It is a psychological putdown in the form of, you are being irrational because you harbor a negitive emotional state. This has no reference to the specific points I am making which are intellectual in nature. It is what you do when you have run out of specific ammo in a discussion, and this has been a trend as long as I have had these discussions with you. Eventually you have to make a personal comment about me being flawed psychologically because I continue to disagree with you about a topic. Your residual resentment theory ignores everything I told you about my TM experiences and substitutes a projection on your own imagination. I don't have to resent Maharishi in my concluding that he is wrong. I don't have to resent his higher states model because I have concluded that he is making a big deal out of nothing. And it doesn't take resentment to see that singing a Hindu puja is religious and doesn't belong in schools. I am disappointed in you Judy for being unable to continue a discussion of ideas without trying to resort to this cheap shot in the end. I deserve better because I don't take these personal shots at you, I stay on topic and discuss where our ideas differ. I am no more flawed by hidden negitive emotions than you are. In the context of the interesting intellectual discussion we were having, I have a very conscious resentment for your pulling that bullshit on me. So far your argument about why TM could be taught in schools without any concern for its being a religion can be summarized in these points: Kids wont understand the religious meaning of the puja so it isn't religious. Even though the kids will be participating in a Hindu puja in the only way anyone in that religion ever does, by witnessing the priest give the offerings they brought, it is not religious because kids wont understand it. There isn't TOO much religious content in the teaching of meditation and it is less than the now defunct 33 lesson SCI course so it shouldn't matter. Judy doesn't think of Maharishi's ideas in a religious way so they wont be religious for the students learning. (They will all become idealist philosophers no doubt.) Do I have that about right? The good news is that outside our discussion our opinions don't mean anything. We are not deciding this. I hope whatever school system that considers this program does their homework. And unlike you, I believe they can come to an informed decision pretty quickly once they have the facts. I think a translation of the puja should be enough. Since this is my last post for the week, I'm going to kill three of Barry's sad little birds with one stone: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_reply@ wrote: snip When someone who was clearly intelligent once throws away all semblance of intelligence to play cult apologist, that to me is a valuable yardstick of how far gone they are into being a cultist. Notice a couple of things here. First, neither Barry nor Vaj have managed to address any of the points I've been making to Curtis. Instead, they content themselves with ad hominem (which is, of course, exactly what they always accuse the apologists of doing). Second, as far as they're concerned, no alternative view to theirs is permissible, no matter how thoughtfully reasoned, and regardless of their inability to address that reasoning. No thinking for oneself is allowed in their world. If one dares to hold a different view from the one they have dictated, that automatically makes one a cult apologist. That's creative thinking for ya. THAT is the issue I've been seeing in Judy in this thread. The challenges she sees to her cult believership in the TM Is Not A Religion Religion are not JUST intellectual challenges. They are meanspirited challenges, challenges made with evil intent, as a kind of personal attack. Barry does a little more creative thinking so as to miss my point. As I said earlier, it seems to me that the arguments against teaching TM (minus SCI) in schools are so exaggerated and artificial, so fundamentally unreasonable, that there has to be something else behind them, conscious or otherwise. It's not the disagreement per se but the quality of the arguments, their mountain-out-of-a-molehill character. I never said or suggested that Curtis's
Re: [FairfieldLife] In all my internet travels
On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 6:45 PM, Kirk kirk_bernha...@cox.net wrote: Kirk, I was joshing you about your malas. Actually I hundreds of malas of rudraksha beads, many of the beads are monstrous and rare. We're looking at enough money to buy a small Lexus with my beads. Glad you took the time off. You needed to get back together. And yes, Celexa is an SSRI. It prevents the amount of seratonin (relaxation, sleep, gaining weight) in your brain from being degraded. So yes, it does allow you to feel better about yourself. But it's not a crutch. It's just bringing back into balance what is your birthright. There are all sorts of (drug) ways to attack depression. I would have loved to hear that you got a testosterone patch and an anti-depressent which dealt with more than one neurotransmitter, but when dealing with depression, all roads lead to Rome. Expect to be on an anti-depressant for at least a year. Two years would be good. It takes a long time to get everything fine tuned and remember that you'll have to be titrated down not just discontinue the drug. I don't quite remember the name of the guy in the Boston area who lost his high tech job and was on increasing amounts of Prozac on a.t.m. Remember him? He told me he met Judy for lunch and it was pretty obvious why she never married. Expect to find yourself doing things you haven't done in a long time or never did before. This will happen as your emotions free up and flow more. Also expect yourself deciding to quit taking various drugs. As you're more self-satisfied or at least able to be happy with just who you are you'll find yourself actually desiring fewer drugs. Don't worry, they won't go to waste. Package them up and send them out to FFLers who ask for them. Make your first shipment to Turq and faithfully list the contents of the package on the customs declaration. Don't think it strange if ideas of making money in new ways come to you. Getting your emotions/physiology unfrozen does that to you.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Free Web Event: McCartney/Lynch Benefit Concert to Push TM in Public Schools
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, John M. Knapp, LMSW jmknap...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Zoran Krneta krneta.zoran@ wrote: Meditation is for Self realization and God realization. Secular meditation simply does not exist. If Sufi meditation HELPS me to realize my Self and finally God I would accept it. You wouldn't? In my personal life, sure. In state-sponsored public schools? No. Meditation has many different purposes in many person's lives. Buddhism honors no god. Is it your feeling that Buddhists don't meditate? J. If Buddhism honors no god, then where did the Buddha come from? Mom and Dad Buddha? R.G.
[FairfieldLife] Baruch Spinoza: Heretic Extraordinaire
[StruggleWithJudaism] Marci Baruch Spinoza: Heretic Extraordinaire One of the most significant figures in the history of philosophy, Spinoza was excommunicated by the Jewish community. Spinoza is an important figure in early modern Jewish history because he used modern critical methods to question Jewish tradition and authority. His rebellion earned him excommunication from the Jewish community; he lived the remainder of his life apart from the Jewish community, but never renounced his Judaism. In this way, he was a sort of proto-secularist. Reprinted with permission from The Jewish Religion: A Companion, published by Oxford University Press. Spinoza Excommunicated Spinoza's approach and his general independent attitude to religion awakened the suspicions of both the Calvinists and the Jewish community in Amsterdam. On 27 July 1656, Spinoza was placed under the ban (herem) by the Amsterdam community. The ban, written in Portuguese, is still preserved in the archives of the Amsterdam community. The pronouncement preceding the ban reads: The chiefs of the council make known to you that having long known of evil opinions and acts of Baruch de Spinoza, they have endeavored by various means and promises to turn him from evil ways. Not being able to find any remedy, but on the contrary receiving every day more information about the abominable heresies practiced and taught by him, and about the monstrous acts committed by him, having this from many trustworthy witnesses who have deposed and borne witness on all this in the presence of said Spinoza, who has been convicted; all this having been examined in the presence of the Rabbis, the council decided, with the advice of the Rabbi, that the said Spinoza should be excommunicated and cut off from the Nation of Israel. It has often been noted that, in view of Christian opposition to Spinoza's opinions, the Jewish community had little option in dissociating itself from Spinoza's heresies. After he had been placed under the ban, Spinoza settled in various other Dutch cities, ending his days in The Hague where he lived an independent life earning his living by polishing lenses. Spinoza on the Bible Spinoza, in his Tractatus Theologico‑politicus, published in Hamburg in 1670, relies on Abraham IbnEzra's cryptic remarks regarding passages in the Pentateuch that must have been added after Moses, to put forward his view that Pentateuch was not compiled by Moses but [the prophet] Ezra…The belief that Moses wrote the Pentateuch at the dictation of God was shared by Christians as well as Jews in the seventeenth century. Small wonder, then, that Spinoza's views were seen at that time as rank heresy of the greatest danger to faith. Biblical criticism in the nineteenth century relied on Spinoza to develop the whole subject further. Many Jews today accept general principles of biblical criticism and reinterpret their faith accordingly, so that for them, Spinoza's view that Ezra is the true author of the Pentateuch is unacceptable on scholarly grounds, but the question of heresy does not enter into the picture. Spinoza on God It is quite otherwise with Spinoza's ideas about God as developed in his Ethics, published posthumously. Here Spinoza's views, which, it must be admitted, are difficult fully to comprehend, seem to suggest that there is no God as the Supreme Being, only as a philosophical idea, God corresponding to the universe in totality. Spinoza's tight and carefully worked‑out scheme is deterministic with no apparent room for the doctrine of free will and, for him, there is no longer any need for Jews to remain a separate people who worship God in a special way. For Spinoza, God did not create nature but is nature, and neither intellect nor will can be ascribed to God. This, at least, is the usual understanding of Spinoza's pantheism, although a few scholars have interpreted his thought as rather more in accordance with traditional theism. In his lifetime Spinoza was accused of being an atheist. In a letter to Jacob Ostens (1625‑78), Lambert Van Velthuysen (1622‑85) openly states that in his view Spinoza's opinions are nothing more than a disguised form of atheism: He [Spinoza] acknowledges God and confesses Him to be the maker and founder of the universe. But he declares, that the form, appearance, and order of the world are evidently as necessary as the Nature of God, and the eternal truths, which he holds are established apart from the decision of God. Therefore he also expressly declares that all things come to pass by invincible necessity and inevitable fate ... He does this in accordance with his principles. For what room can there be for a last judgement? Or what expectation of reward or of punishment, when all things are declared to emanate from God with inevitable necessity, or rather, when he declares that this whole universe is God? For I fear that our author is not very
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Free Web Event: McCartney/Lynch Benefit Concert to Push TM in Public Schools
If Buddhism honors no god, then where did the Buddha come from? Mom and Dad Buddha? R.G. ---That's the right question to be asking, but rather, where did you come from, also, when and which god solved suffering, disease, pain, conflict and fear and death. Which Deva dissolves these issues? These are the right questions to be pondering. That is how Buddha came to be, not by worshipping gods. But by questioning their aims, motives, actuality in reality rather than just thinking God this God that. Nobody can surely know any of that, and if they do, nobody can really know that either. The real question is how can one worship a Deva and be enlightened ...and not be a Buddha?! Not where or who God is. If one is enlightened then they have become a Buddha. If Maharishi was enlightened then Maharishi was a Buddha. Not the other way around. the human intellect and cognition can only fathom so much and then the mind stops. This is called state of Buddhahood, when cognition and knowledge have reached their end. Nirvana. Yoga Citta Vritti Nirodaha. Buddha said pondering God questions is like being shot by an arrow and worrying who shot you and why. What is not needed is an answer, but a cure for the arrow wound. Pondering who and why and what is not going to cure the arrow wound. What Buddha said was there is a cure. Then he outlined it in his 4 Noble Truths. They are hard to beat as far as meaning goes, also Buddha's answers are more humanitarian than otherworldly systems. Since his system is grounded in the solid state of direct perception and questioning, and worrying little about issues of faith, hope and so on. For most people they cannot simply just live with themselves. Instead they must make up all kinds of high falutin secret societies with hierarchies and unobtainable goals to keep the mind ever engaged in ever more discursive ratiocination. As if by broadening the net of the mind one can someday hold the sky. No. Mind cannot hold anything. Let the mind go and become a Buddha. Otherwise you are just rebirthing the continuum of mind over and over, thus reifying samskara. But because different people have different tendencies and aims there are many Buddhisms. Not just one. Thus I am a Buddhist who practices secret mantra yoga. I am a Buddhist who lives in the world amongst everyone else hiding in plain sight. Since Buddhism deals with finalizing ones solution to lifes problems it is said to be the end all of religions. Some Buddhists know the various devas and energies, others don't. This isn't really the point. The point is does the mind feel satisfied and does it then open to direct vision. That is a Buddha then. Not anything else.
[FairfieldLife] How to survive during an earthquake
Never stand under a doorway!~ Please read this and pass the info along to your family members; it could save their lives someday! EXTRACT FROM DOUG COPP'S ARTICLE ON THE: 'TRIANGLE OF LIFE' My name is Doug Copp. I am the Rescue Chief and Disaster Manager of the American Rescue Team International (ARTI), the world's most experienced rescue team. The information in this article will save lives in anearthquake. I have crawled inside 875 collapsed buildings, worked with rescue teams from 60 countries, founded rescue teams in several countries, and I am a member of many rescue teams from many countries. I was the United Nations expert in Disaster Mitigation for two years. I have worked at every major disaster in the world since 1985, except for simultaneous disasters. The first building I ever crawled inside of was a school in Mexico City during the 1985 earthquake. Every child was under its desk. Every child was crushed to the thickness of their bones. They could have survived by lying down next to their desks in the aisles. It was obscene, unnecessary and I wondered why the children were not in the aisles. I didn't at the time know that the children were told to hide under something. Simply stated, when buildings collapse, the weight of the ceilings falling upon the objects or furniture inside crushes these objects, leaving a space or void next to them. This space is what I call the 'triangle of life'. The larger the object, the stronger, the less it will compact. The less the object compacts, the larger the void, the greater the probability that the person who is using this void for safety will not be injured. The next time you watch collapsed buildings, on television, count the 'triangles' you see formed. They are everywhere. It is the most common shape, you will see, in a collapsed building. TIPS FOR EARTHQUAKE SAFETY 1) Most everyone who simply 'ducks and covers' WHEN BUILDINGS COLLAPSEare crushed to death. People who get under objects, like desks or cars, are crushed. 2) Cats, dogs and babies often naturally curl up in the fetal position. You should too in an earthquake. It is a natural safety/survivalinst inct. You can survive in a smaller void. Get next to an object, next to a sofa, next to a large bulky object that will compress slightly but leave a void next to it. 3) Wooden buildings are the safest type of construction to be in during an earthquake. Wood is flexible and moves with the force of the earthquake. If the wooden building does collapse, large survival voids are created. Also, the wooden building has less concentrated, crushing weight. Brick buildings will break into individual bricks. Bricks will cause many injuries but less squashed bodies than concrete slabs. 4) If you are in bed during the night and an earthquake occurs, simply roll off the bed. A safe void will exist around the bed. Hotels can a chieve a much greater survival rate in earthquakes, simply by posting a sign on The back of the door of every room telling occupants to lie down on the floor, next to the bottom of the bed during an earthquake. 5) If an earthquake happens and you cannot easily escape by getting out the door or window, then lie down and curl up in the fetal position next to a sofa, or large chair. 6) Most everyone who gets under a doorway when buildings collapse is killed. How? If you stand under a doorway and the door jamb falls forward or backward you will be crushed by the ceiling above. If the door jam falls sideways you will be cut in half by the doorway. In either case, you will be killed! 7) Never go to the stairs. The stairs have a different 'moment of frequency' (they swing separately from the main part of the building). The stairs and remainder of the building continuously bump into each other until structural failure of the stairs takes place. The people who get on stairs before they fail are chopped up by the stair treads - horribly mutilated. Even if the building doesn't collapse, stay away from the stairs. The stairs are a likely part of the building to be damaged. Even if the stairs are not collapsed by the earthquake, they may collapse later when overloaded by fleeing people. They should always be checked for safety, even when the rest of the building is not damaged. 8) Get Near the Outer Walls Of Buildings Or Outside Of Them If Possible - It is much better to be near the outside of the building rather than the interior. The farther inside you are from the outside perimeter of the building the greater the probability that your escape route will be blocked. 9) People inside of their vehicles are crushed when the road above falls in an earthquake and crushes their vehicles; which is exactly what happened with the slabs between the decks of the Nimitz Freeway. The victims of the San Francisco earthquake all stayed inside of their vehicles. They were all killed. They could have easily survived by
[FairfieldLife] Re: Anyone here set up a system using cloud computing?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB no_re...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu noozguru@ wrote: TurquoiseB wrote: So they're trying to reinvent the wheel with a Java for the Web. :-) Probably because IBM is trying to buy Sun, and will soon own Java. Maybe they will fix it. Java is very weak and hard to use for GUIs. I don't think JavaFX helped that much. Maybe they will. I am still on the periphery of IBM because I'm a consultant and not an employee, but in terms of business ethics and trying to do a good job I have to admit that I have been impressed so far. All of our products have to be Blue Washed before they can be sold through IBM channels. So what does that entail? Well, for one thing, it involves scouring through every line of code for every application, and all of the icons in its GUIs, ferchrissakes, to determine if they were really invented here. Borrowed code, even if legitimately borrowed from Open Source software, does not get a pass. And if you borrowed from something like the Sun Java libraries (as one of our products did, completely legitimately), that also does not get a pass. IBM is going to force those developers to sit in a room with the spec and reverse engineer the routines they previously borrowed to make sure that there is no *possible* ques- tion of ownership. I find this impressive, having seen its opposite at Microsoft and Computer Associates. I also find the *quality* of the IBM employees I've been meeting and interacting with online rather impressive. And I am Not Easily Impressed. A lot of these people came out of Watson Labs, which is one of the great thinktank organi- zations on the planet. Have you ever been on a conference call in which you had occasion to suspect *most* of the people on the call of being geniuses? Neither had I, until recently. IBM's bureaucracy is sometimes infuriating. I can tell you that fersure. But SO FAR, their integrity about doing business and the level of people I have been meeting who are doing that business have been very impressive indeed. So if there is any company that can fix Java, they might just be it. This is definitely not your father's IBM. * Definitely not your father's IBM, but maybe Deepak's father: IBM: The I stands for India: http://snipurl.com/ekuc5 http://snipurl.com/ekuc5 [digitaldaily_allthingsd_com]
[FairfieldLife] Iowa GOP: thumbs down on Vedic City's request for public funding of Tower
http://snipurl.com/ekuuu [iowaindependent_com]
[FairfieldLife] Re: Republicans Grooming Jindal for Presidential Candidacy?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, John jr_...@... wrote: To All: Jindal is in the news again. He's getting a lot of media exposure. We wonder why? *** Why is the GOP fronting a dark-skinned man? Same reason they put in a black man as party chairman, to try to steal of Obama's thunder.
[FairfieldLife] FDA Approves Depressant Drug For The Annoyingly Cheerful
Who would have ever thought that these kind would FINALLY get recognized! http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=jd4tugPM83c -- __._,_._.
[FairfieldLife] Fairfield prosperity through the use of the Raam currency
Prosperity will be Fairfield's destiny when the Raam is plentiful in everyone's pocket, says Richard Walbaum, whose intention is to put the Raam into circulation by educating the community about what is possible with the Raam and how to use it. The Raam can create work for those who want it, promoting cottage industry in the arts, crafts, and service businesses resulting in full employment. Everyone will do more business, and more business means more prosperity; that is its purpose. http://snipurl.com/el2ew [www_fairfieldtoday_com]
