[FairfieldLife] RE: Is TM a Cult?
As far as I'm concerned it never had a charismatic leader. Marshy's woolly, illogical and ignorant lecturing style always left me cold. Corporation is a good word for it though. As it sells both a product and a belief system that makes that product seem a lot more valuable than it actually is. Marshy's genius is the lectures he gave that conned everyone into thinking all the unified field, sci, land of the ved bollocks was an ultimate truth for all mankind and that he was its natural voice. Most people in the TMO thought/think that he could do no wrong and always spoke the ultimate truth. All they had to do was interpret and rationalise what he meant. What a great trick, I'm glad Tony Blair never thought of it. I heard so much rubbish when in the TMO I'd like to have my brain replaced so I could use those neurons for something useful. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, dhamiltony2k5@... wrote: TM, more accurately now is a [religious spiritual] sect in its post-charismatic leader phase. As an organizational structure it is a corporation. Fairly, TM is no longer a cult with a charismatic leader. salyavin808 writes: Potayto, potahto. No, most of what you are offering as definition technically is about sects. Cults form around charismatic persons. Sects form out of specialness, exception or differentiation as in different denominations of protestantism or catholicism or denominations or types of meditation. Those are sects. Sects are around fragmentation and cults are around persons as charismatics. For instance, If someone really 'charismatic', like earlier defined by Weber, like a Robin were to show up in Fairfield, Iowa and take off a bunch of meditators as his followers by force and power of personality then we're talking cult, as a sect. That is different than the different sects of people out teaching meditations and some others out there teaching other things they've learned. -Buck in the Dome Salyavin808 writes: You don't need any leader to be a cult. All you need is a belief system that sets you apart from the norm. Om, policy and movement within TM now is based much more on science, merit and efficacy than old ways promoted around Totakacharya-like devotion, fealty and ideology. But that old movement way of fealty test and ideology test is fast dying away of a necessity and become cultural memory of a past. Heck TM does not even have a charismatic leader or leadership anymore. WE got administrators. It is kind of hard to have a cult without a charismatic leader that you could point to. That is defining of cults. Please see FFL post# 370565 . No, people become meditators and then freely participating in this organization because they like meditation and appreciate all the good that the transcendent meditative state provides everyone individually and collectively. Our meditating organization is here to facilitate that good. That facilitating in our case now is the work of good in progress by our new incorporation as meditators. Our corporation as it always has been is certainly about affecting a positive revolutionary radical change in all of society for everybody. Most of us in TM are pretty clear about that. Are you with us or against us in this? -U.S. Buck in the Dome MJ, See Weber's comments on 'cult' in Melton's Intro to The Postcharismatic Fate of New Religious Movements: http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/FairfieldLife/conversations/messages/370565 http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/FairfieldLife/conversations/messages/370565 MJ, Your thesis around TM being a 'cult' has a problem in that we in TM no longer have a charismatic leader of TM. We are either administrators or meditators in TM and anyone in TM is enfranchised by a little of both under Maharishi's Absolute Theories of Management and Government. You clearly are full of your own personal BS and have your ax grinding about something. I feels a sorrow for thee in thy lack of peace around this. -Buck “Which would you rather experience: living the paradox or understanding it to your satisfaction?” Not either position is mutually exclusive, or that there is a third possibility of both. MJ writes: You need to read up on what cults actually are before you make such statements. Nope, not a cult. TM now as a corporation obviously is not a cult any more than any modern productive working corporation of employees is a 'cult'. TM and meditators as a community now are just like airline corporation employee pilots of an airline company. And they might go fly for their work wearing funny looking hats and coats too where they would go to work and pilot an airliner. And those lesser employees too as part of the corporate team who organize a flight as a gate agent or direct people as flight attendants or load luggage or maintain the corporation equipment. TM is as very modern as is any corporation in 'cult' -ure, as Maharishi himself
Re: [FairfieldLife] RE: John M. Knapp: Licensing Board Ruling
Please can we ago back to 50 posts a week, it's for your sanity as much as everybody elses ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend@... wrote: Note the phrase, in Robin's cult, as if it were established fact that he has a cult. He doesn't, of course. But Share didn't choose her words by accident.
Re: [FairfieldLife] RE: John M. Knapp: Licensing Board Ruling
Does anyone remember my prediction, about how a certain obsessive and her brown-nosing buddy would continue to obsess over Judy getting caught in a lie, and as a result subject this place to dozens of their mono-topical gotta get even posts? The fun thing is that they can't blame it on me without *revealing themselves* to be obsessives and grudge-holders. Bawwy has made only one post this posting week, about a funny book, so they can't pretend they're responding to his provocations. Compare and contrast to these two Robin cultists (who have made 45...so far), still stalking their enemies and finding a way to turn almost every topic into something about Robin so they can prosyletize about him, all while claiming that Robin doesn't have a cult. And of course there are the obsess about Barry posts that neither of them seems to be able to do without at this point. They may complain about trolls, but let's face it...these two bimbos are the ones who are so easily trolled. They fall for it even when Richand and I *tell* them what we're doing. And they like to characterize *other* people here as stupid. Go figure. :-) :-) :-) From: salyavin808 no_re...@yahoogroups.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Sunday, February 16, 2014 10:03 AM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] RE: John M. Knapp: Licensing Board Ruling Please can we ago back to 50 posts a week, it's for your sanity as much as everybody elses ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend@... wrote: Note the phrase, in Robin's cult, as if it were established fact that he has a cult. He doesn't, of course. But Share didn't choose her words by accident.
[FairfieldLife] A treat for the eyes and the heart
During our Mayamovies session this morning, I showed this 1956 Oscar-winning classic to Maya and she loved it so much that she demanded to see it twice. I didn't complain, because after all it is 34 minutes of some of the most gorgeous footage of Paris ever, in glorious Technicolor. Enjoy, and may you find a friend as constant as this balloon... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhGLI7yyzYM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhGLI7yyzYM
[FairfieldLife] RE: John M. Knapp: Licensing Board Ruling
I concur. I find it difficult to wade through all this pig-muck and cattle manure to find an odd gem or two. The 50 post limit is got to be back. This group is once again turning anarchist as it was years ago. BTW, how's the weather in old blighty? ---Salyavin808 no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: Please can we ago back to 50 posts a week, it's for your sanity as much as everybody elses --- authfriend@... wrote: Note the phrase, in Robin's cult, as if it were established fact that he has a cult. He doesn't, of course. But Share didn't choose her words by accident.
[FairfieldLife] Addicted to Internet porn? You're probably religious...
This should come as no surprise to those who equate religion with repression, and repression with encouraging the very behavior it claims to be suppressing. On the other hand, most long-term TB TMers are such sexless dweebs that they probably feel guilty for looking at photos of ice cream on the Net. :-) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/15/religious-people-addicted-to-porn_n_4794614.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/15/religious-people-addicted-to-porn_n_4794614.html
[FairfieldLife] Invading the Sacred
India, once a major civilizational and economic power that suffered centuries of decline, is now newly resurgent in business, geopolitics and culture. However, a powerful counterforce within the American Academy is systematically undermining core icons and ideals of Indic Culture and thought. http://rajivmalhotra.com/books/invading-sacred/ http://rajivmalhotra.com/books/invading-sacred/
[FairfieldLife] Buddhist Cave Temples
Nabby will claim this is a troll post because it mentions the dreaded word Buddhist in the title. Others can just enjoy, and compare these places of worship to the butt-ugly Fairfield domes. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/15/buddhist-cave-temples_n_4775101.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/15/buddhist-cave-temples_n_4775101.html
[FairfieldLife] The World's Largest Solar Plant Started Creating Electricity
http://gizmodo.com/the-worlds-largest-solar-plant-started-creating-electr-1521998493?utm_campaign=socialflow_gizmodo_facebookutm_source=gizmodo_facebookutm_medium=socialflow http://gizmodo.com/the-worlds-largest-solar-plant-started-creating-electr-1521998493?utm_campaign=socialflow_gizmodo_facebookutm_source=gizmodo_facebookutm_medium=socialflow
[FairfieldLife] Alchohol, Tobacco, Plastic, Paper companies campaigned and got Cannabis weed banned
Alchohol, Tobacco, Plastic, Paper companies campaigned and got Cannabis weed banned Armchair with a view Rite of passage KRISH ASHOK What connects marijuana, diamonds and baby hair? For most of human history, the annual, dioecious (non-hermaphrodite) flowering herb of the genus Cannabis was grown and consumed quite liberally and had none of the stigma that is attached to it in today's world. In fact, even in the US, where the debate about the legalisation of marijuana rages on in multiple states, the plant has had quite a rich history of legal use till very recently. The founding fathers of America from George Washington to Thomas Jefferson were all known to have farmed (and used) the plant. In fact, smoking was usually the least productive of its uses. The taller, more fibrous variety of this family of plants is known for its Hemp fibre, traditionally used to make everything from ropes, cloth and even paper. The hemp plant is one of mankind's earliest domesticated plants. It dates back almost 12,000 years with everything from paper to pottery being made from hemp in ancient China. Hemp seed and leaves are used as food and there is even hemp milk that serves as an alternative to that vile liquid that tastes like peeled off paint -- Soy milk. And the plant itself is ridiculously easy to grow and farm, a fact that became a bit of a problem for certain industrial interests in the early part of this century. William Randolph Hearst, the newspaper magnate who inspired the Orson Welles classic movie Citizen Kane, needed a way to control the supply of paper as part of his monopolistic strategy to kill his competitors. It is, as you will imagine, slightly hard to make a competing newspaper if you did not have paper to print. The problem, however, was the Cannabis plant. Paper from hemp was quite easy to make and presented a serious challenge to the timber industry where Hearst had a lot of investments in. So thus began the first organised free market smear campaign against the plant. Randolph Hearst's newspapers began to scare the general public about the dangers of Marijuana, a suitably scary sounding foreign term that had never been used in the US to describe the plant before. And while Hearst had paper in mind, plastic manufacturing companies joined the Let's get hemp banned party to ensure that their petrochemical-based plastics had a leg up over bio-degradable hemp-made plastics. The alcohol and tobacco industries also contribute astronomical sums to fund the Weed is a dangerous narcotic drug canard with absolutely zero sense of irony and the pharma industry would prefer that you buy expensive pain killer drugs instead of chewing on some bhang. At this point, you might be thinking -- Wait, this is too malcolmgladwellesquely glib and sounds more like a socialist conspiracy theory, but I'll leave it for you to research this subject as a homework assignment after reading this column. And that brings us to diamonds. These glitteringly beautiful arrangements of the fourth most abundant element in the universe were historically rare for one reason. They were typically fished out of river beds in India and Brazil. But once mankind figured out a way to bore deep holes into the earth, we ended up finding substantially massive sources of this gemstone in places like South Africa, which became a bit of a problem for the British financiers of these mines. Abundance is typically a problem for business because it drives prices down, so the response to this is to create a monopoly that controls all known mines so that an artificial scarcity can be created for diamonds. Combine this with the stunningly effective advertising slogan from 1947, A Diamond is Forever, we now have a product whose raw materials are tightly controlled, and the answer to the question Can I sell my diamond for the price I bought it? is typically Hard luck. Our current image of the Cannabis plant is a product of a century of misinformation and the precious rarity of diamonds is another myth sustained by the nexus of advertising and earth digging interests ... To quote Daniel Patrick Moynihan, you are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts. If you think you are, you might want to stop smoking some of that cannabis. http://www.thehindu.com/features/magazine/rite-of-passage/ article5642999.ece http://www.thehindu.com/features/magazine/rite-of-passage/article5642999.ece http://www.thehindu.com/features/magazine/rite-of-passage/article5642999.ece
[FairfieldLife] RE: Buddhist Cave Temples
Looks damp and uncomfy. I'll prefer a Dome anytime over this place of worship to someone who claimed Nirvana was the final goal ;-)
[FairfieldLife] RE: Buddhist Cave Temples
Who wants to meditate in a snake-pit ?
[FairfieldLife] Alchohol, Tobacco, Plastic, Paper companies campaigned and got Cannabis weed banned
Alchohol, Tobacco, Plastic, Paper companies campaigned and got Cannabis weed banned Armchair with a view Rite of passage KRISH ASHOK What connects marijuana, diamonds and baby hair? For most of human history, the annual, dioecious (non-hermaphrodite) flowering herb of the genus Cannabis was grown and consumed quite liberally and had none of the stigma that is attached to it in today's world. In fact, even in the US, where the debate about the legalisation of marijuana rages on in multiple states, the plant has had quite a rich history of legal use till very recently. The founding fathers of America from George Washington to Thomas Jefferson were all known to have farmed (and used) the plant. In fact, smoking was usually the least productive of its uses. The taller, more fibrous variety of this family of plants is known for its Hemp fibre, traditionally used to make everything from ropes, cloth and even paper. The hemp plant is one of mankind's earliest domesticated plants. It dates back almost 12,000 years with everything from paper to pottery being made from hemp in ancient China. Hemp seed and leaves are used as food and there is even hemp milk that serves as an alternative to that vile liquid that tastes like peeled off paint -- Soy milk. And the plant itself is ridiculously easy to grow and farm, a fact that became a bit of a problem for certain industrial interests in the early part of this century. William Randolph Hearst, the newspaper magnate who inspired the Orson Welles classic movie Citizen Kane, needed a way to control the supply of paper as part of his monopolistic strategy to kill his competitors. It is, as you will imagine, slightly hard to make a competing newspaper if you did not have paper to print. The problem, however, was the Cannabis plant. Paper from hemp was quite easy to make and presented a serious challenge to the timber industry where Hearst had a lot of investments in. So thus began the first organised free market smear campaign against the plant. Randolph Hearst's newspapers began to scare the general public about the dangers of Marijuana, a suitably scary sounding foreign term that had never been used in the US to describe the plant before. And while Hearst had paper in mind, plastic manufacturing companies joined the Let's get hemp banned party to ensure that their petrochemical-based plastics had a leg up over bio-degradable hemp-made plastics. The alcohol and tobacco industries also contribute astronomical sums to fund the Weed is a dangerous narcotic drug canard with absolutely zero sense of irony and the pharma industry would prefer that you buy expensive pain killer drugs instead of chewing on some bhang. At this point, you might be thinking -- Wait, this is too malcolmgladwellesquely glib and sounds more like a socialist conspiracy theory, but I'll leave it for you to research this subject as a homework assignment after reading this column. And that brings us to diamonds. These glitteringly beautiful arrangements of the fourth most abundant element in the universe were historically rare for one reason. They were typically fished out of river beds in India and Brazil. But once mankind figured out a way to bore deep holes into the earth, we ended up finding substantially massive sources of this gemstone in places like South Africa, which became a bit of a problem for the British financiers of these mines. Abundance is typically a problem for business because it drives prices down, so the response to this is to create a monopoly that controls all known mines so that an artificial scarcity can be created for diamonds. Combine this with the stunningly effective advertising slogan from 1947, A Diamond is Forever, we now have a product whose raw materials are tightly controlled, and the answer to the question Can I sell my diamond for the price I bought it? is typically Hard luck. Our current image of the Cannabis plant is a product of a century of misinformation and the precious rarity of diamonds is another myth sustained by the nexus of advertising and earth digging interests ... To quote Daniel Patrick Moynihan, you are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts. If you think you are, you might want to stop smoking some of that cannabis. http://www.thehindu.com/features/magazine/rite-of-passage/ article5642999.ece http://www.thehindu.com/features/magazine/rite-of-passage/article5642999.ece
Re: [FairfieldLife] Buddhist Cave Temples
turq, this is beautiful and I think the Domes are beautiful too, especially on the inside. The wood is a warm shade of light yellow and there are windows all around so lots of natural light. On Sunday, February 16, 2014 5:31 AM, turquoi...@yahoo.com turquoi...@yahoo.com wrote: Nabby will claim this is a troll post because it mentions the dreaded word Buddhist in the title. Others can just enjoy, and compare these places of worship to the butt-ugly Fairfield domes. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/15/buddhist-cave-temples_n_4775101.html
[FairfieldLife] RE: Buddhist Cave Temples
Amazing place and really good photo's, would love to visit but they need some comfy foam and a few blankets about the place if they want me to meditate there! ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb@... wrote: Nabby will claim this is a troll post because it mentions the dreaded word Buddhist in the title. Others can just enjoy, and compare these places of worship to the butt-ugly Fairfield domes. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/15/buddhist-cave-temples_n_4775101.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/15/buddhist-cave-temples_n_4775101.html
Re: [FairfieldLife] RE: John M. Knapp: Licensing Board Ruling
I seem to have scared the piss out of Barry by pointing out how he's been lying about never reading my posts. Now the only way he can comment on them is to respond to someone else's comment on a post of mine quoting me, and he has to be careful not to mention anything else I've said. Oh, and he can't comment on Ann's posts because he's claimed he never reads hers, either. Really kind of limiting. ;-) ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb@... wrote: Does anyone remember my prediction, about how a certain obsessive and her brown-nosing buddy would continue to obsess over Judy getting caught in a lie, and as a result subject this place to dozens of their mono-topical gotta get even posts? The fun thing is that they can't blame it on me without *revealing themselves* to be obsessives and grudge-holders. Bawwy has made only one post this posting week, about a funny book, so they can't pretend they're responding to his provocations. Compare and contrast to these two Robin cultists (who have made 45...so far), still stalking their enemies and finding a way to turn almost every topic into something about Robin so they can prosyletize about him, all while claiming that Robin doesn't have a cult. And of course there are the obsess about Barry posts that neither of them seems to be able to do without at this point. They may complain about trolls, but let's face it...these two bimbos are the ones who are so easily trolled. They fall for it even when Richand and I *tell* them what we're doing. And they like to characterize *other* people here as stupid. Go figure. :-) :-) :-) From: salyavin808 no_re...@yahoogroups.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Sunday, February 16, 2014 10:03 AM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] RE: John M. Knapp: Licensing Board Ruling Please can we ago back to 50 posts a week, it's for your sanity as much as everybody elses ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend@... wrote: Note the phrase, in Robin's cult, as if it were established fact that he has a cult. He doesn't, of course. But Share didn't choose her words by accident.
[FairfieldLife] RE: The World's Largest Solar Plant Started Creating Electricity
I think one has to use Firebug inspect element edit the pic html before posting pics in firefox. http://www.ustr.gov/about-us/press-office/press-releases/2013/february/us-challenges-india-restrictions-solar http://www.ustr.gov/about-us/press-office/press-releases/2013/february/us-challenges-india-restrictions-solar ---Nablusoss no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: http://gizmodo.com/the-worlds-largest-solar-plant-started-creating-electr-1521998493?utm_campaign=socialflow_gizmodo_facebookutm_source=gizmodo_facebookutm_medium=socialflow http://gizmodo.com/the-worlds-largest-solar-plant-started-creating-electr-1521998493?utm_campaign=socialflow_gizmodo_facebookutm_source=gizmodo_facebookutm_medium=socialflow
[FairfieldLife] RE: Drinking Vedic Coffee and Discerning 'Cult' from 'Sect'
Wow, I hope you don't me saying this, but this is the nicest post we've had in about six months. And it sounds like more than witnessing. I say that because as I've always understood it, the transcendental field is without attributes. It is when we experience it that it becomes blissful. But otherwise, it is just a silent witness. Whatever you were experiencing was creeping into waking state. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: Yes, like being wrapped in infinite cotton wool, all rosy and warm. During some of those experiences I'd spend days seeing the world like it's made of christmas tree lights with that angel hair round them. Then it got even better and I saw where the light came from and I knew everything without being able to answer any questions and then it stopped. What the point of it was, other than to make me feel my ascetic life was paying off, is beyond me. But if it had lasted any longer I probably would have started a cult myself. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, steve.sundur@... wrote: (-: Hey, neat about that witnessing experience. I experienced it once, and didn't realize it till after the fact. But was the experience blissful for you? ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: Potayto, potahto. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, dhamiltony2k5@... wrote: No, most of what you are offering as definition technically is about sects. Cults form around charismatic persons. Sects form out of specialness, exception or differentiation as in different denominations of protestantism or catholicism or denominations or types of meditation. Those are sects. Sects are around fragmentation and cults are around persons as charismatics. For instance, If someone really 'charismatic', like earlier defined by Weber, like a Robin were to show up in Fairfield, Iowa and take off a bunch of meditators as his followers by force and power of personality then we're talking cult, as a sect. That is different than the different sects of people out teaching meditations and some others out there teaching other things they've learned. -Buck in the Dome Salyavin808 writes: You don't need any leader to be a cult. All you need is a belief system that sets you apart from the norm.
[FairfieldLife] RE: Is TM a Cult?
Looking back, I think many of the things you say are true. And it sounds like we still both have friends in the TMO who still have the frame of mind you refer to. But what were some of the positives you took from it, if you don't mind me asking? ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: As far as I'm concerned it never had a charismatic leader. Marshy's woolly, illogical and ignorant lecturing style always left me cold. Corporation is a good word for it though. As it sells both a product and a belief system that makes that product seem a lot more valuable than it actually is. Marshy's genius is the lectures he gave that conned everyone into thinking all the unified field, sci, land of the ved bollocks was an ultimate truth for all mankind and that he was its natural voice. Most people in the TMO thought/think that he could do no wrong and always spoke the ultimate truth. All they had to do was interpret and rationalise what he meant. What a great trick, I'm glad Tony Blair never thought of it. I heard so much rubbish when in the TMO I'd like to have my brain replaced so I could use those neurons for something useful. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, dhamiltony2k5@... wrote: TM, more accurately now is a [religious spiritual] sect in its post-charismatic leader phase. As an organizational structure it is a corporation. Fairly, TM is no longer a cult with a charismatic leader. salyavin808 writes: Potayto, potahto. No, most of what you are offering as definition technically is about sects. Cults form around charismatic persons. Sects form out of specialness, exception or differentiation as in different denominations of protestantism or catholicism or denominations or types of meditation. Those are sects. Sects are around fragmentation and cults are around persons as charismatics. For instance, If someone really 'charismatic', like earlier defined by Weber, like a Robin were to show up in Fairfield, Iowa and take off a bunch of meditators as his followers by force and power of personality then we're talking cult, as a sect. That is different than the different sects of people out teaching meditations and some others out there teaching other things they've learned. -Buck in the Dome Salyavin808 writes: You don't need any leader to be a cult. All you need is a belief system that sets you apart from the norm. Om, policy and movement within TM now is based much more on science, merit and efficacy than old ways promoted around Totakacharya-like devotion, fealty and ideology. But that old movement way of fealty test and ideology test is fast dying away of a necessity and become cultural memory of a past. Heck TM does not even have a charismatic leader or leadership anymore. WE got administrators. It is kind of hard to have a cult without a charismatic leader that you could point to. That is defining of cults. Please see FFL post# 370565 . No, people become meditators and then freely participating in this organization because they like meditation and appreciate all the good that the transcendent meditative state provides everyone individually and collectively. Our meditating organization is here to facilitate that good. That facilitating in our case now is the work of good in progress by our new incorporation as meditators. Our corporation as it always has been is certainly about affecting a positive revolutionary radical change in all of society for everybody. Most of us in TM are pretty clear about that. Are you with us or against us in this? -U.S. Buck in the Dome MJ, See Weber's comments on 'cult' in Melton's Intro to The Postcharismatic Fate of New Religious Movements: http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/FairfieldLife/conversations/messages/370565 http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/FairfieldLife/conversations/messages/370565 MJ, Your thesis around TM being a 'cult' has a problem in that we in TM no longer have a charismatic leader of TM. We are either administrators or meditators in TM and anyone in TM is enfranchised by a little of both under Maharishi's Absolute Theories of Management and Government. You clearly are full of your own personal BS and have your ax grinding about something. I feels a sorrow for thee in thy lack of peace around this. -Buck “Which would you rather experience: living the paradox or understanding it to your satisfaction?” Not either position is mutually exclusive, or that there is a third possibility of both. MJ writes: You need to read up on what cults actually are before you make such statements. Nope, not a cult. TM now as a corporation obviously is not a cult any more than any modern productive working corporation of employees is a 'cult'. TM and meditators as a community now are just like airline corporation employee pilots of an airline company. And they might go fly for their work wearing funny looking hats and coats too
Re: [FairfieldLife] RE: Is TM a Cult?
I won't weigh in on the Subject question because...uh...Duh. Nothing to discuss. Done deal. What still amuses me are some of the direct contradictions that the cultists managed to embrace, and in some cases still embrace. I'm talking about self-contradictory teachings, which almost every TMer and TM teacher managed to not notice *were* contradictory, often for years or decades. Let's take one of the earliest teachings: TM is all you need. That was, after all, the way it was presented by Maharishi early in the game. He taught TM teachers to parrot this line, and they did -- faithfully -- in intro lectures. Often they gave these lectures while on their way to an ATR course they had to pay for, or to get a new technique that was the latest and thus the bestest thing. In other words, they *taught* that TM is all you need, but were part of an organization that not only sold TM, it sold any number of add-on products, ranging from advanced techniques to the Sidhis to yagyas to ayur-vedic potions, to astrology (Jyotish) and even to houses. Some of the products this organization sold cost a million dollars. Classic bait and switch, and yet people failed to even notice the contradiction. Go figure. From: steve.sun...@yahoo.com steve.sun...@yahoo.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Sunday, February 16, 2014 2:13 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] RE: Is TM a Cult? Looking back, I think many of the things you say are true. And it sounds like we still both have friends in the TMO who still have the frame of mind you refer to. But what were some of the positives you took from it, if you don't mind me asking? ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: As far as I'm concerned it never had a charismatic leader. Marshy's woolly, illogical and ignorant lecturing style always left me cold. Corporation is a good word for it though. As it sells both a product and a belief system that makes that product seem a lot more valuable than it actually is. Marshy's genius is the lectures he gave that conned everyone into thinking all the unified field, sci, land of the ved bollocks was an ultimate truth for all mankind and that he was its natural voice. Most people in the TMO thought/think that he could do no wrong and always spoke the ultimate truth. All they had to do was interpret and rationalise what he meant. What a great trick, I'm glad Tony Blair never thought of it. I heard so much rubbish when in the TMO I'd like to have my brain replaced so I could use those neurons for something useful. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, dhamiltony2k5@... wrote: TM, more accurately now is a [religious spiritual] sect in its post-charismatic leader phase. As an organizational structure it is a corporation. Fairly, TM is no longer a cult with a charismatic leader. salyavin808 writes: Potayto, potahto. No, most of what you are offering as definition technically is about sects. Cults form around charismatic persons. Sects form out of specialness, exception or differentiation as in different denominations of protestantism or catholicism or denominations or types of meditation. Those are sects. Sects are around fragmentation and cults are around persons as charismatics. For instance, If someone really 'charismatic', like earlier defined by Weber, like a Robin were to show up in Fairfield, Iowa and take off a bunch of meditators as his followers by force and power of personality then we're talking cult, as a sect. That is different than the different sects of people out teaching meditations and some others out there teaching other things they've learned. -Buck in the Dome Salyavin808 writes: You don't need any leader to be a cult. All you need is a belief system that sets you apart from the norm. Om, policy and movement within TM now is based much more on science, merit and efficacy than old ways promoted around Totakacharya-like devotion, fealty and ideology. But that old movement way of fealty test and ideology test is fast dying away of a necessity and become cultural memory of a past. Heck TM does not even have a charismatic leader or leadership anymore. WE got administrators. It is kind of hard to have a cult without a charismatic leader that you could point to. That is defining of cults. Please see FFL post# 370565 . No, people become meditators and then freely participating in this organization because they like meditation and appreciate all the good that the transcendent meditative state provides everyone individually and collectively. Our meditating organization is here to facilitate that good. That facilitating in our case now is the work of good in progress by our new incorporation as meditators. Our corporation as it always has been is certainly about affecting a positive revolutionary radical change in all of society for everybody. Most of us in TM are pretty clear about that. Are
[FairfieldLife] RE: Drinking Vedic Coffee and Discerning 'Cult' from 'Sect'
Yes, I used to get a lot of things like that. A text book progression of enlightened states as espoused by Marshy. Really amazingly nice and it convinced me I was going to get there but it all stopped, maybe it will start up again but I doubt it and it doesn't even interest me any more, it's like the acid trips I used to do, a great way to spend a day but is it a good long term proposition? At work once I became the unwitting centre of attention when I slipped into unity on a busy friday afternoon when we were normally running around trying to wrap everything up. Everyone else just pulled up a chair and sat round my desk, it was amazing how different yet the same I was, intensely relaxed but wide awake and flowing all things good from some centre that wasn't even me but was everything that existed and it was all lush, powerful and vivid. Happy days, but it wore off a few hours later and that was that. What it all means I cannot say, my guess is nothing, just a phase, maybe all that bending my mind out of shape suddenly reflexively threw it into a euphoric state. But whatever, it doesn't work any more... --In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, steve.sundur@... wrote: Wow, I hope you don't me saying this, but this is the nicest post we've had in about six months. And it sounds like more than witnessing. I say that because as I've always understood it, the transcendental field is without attributes. It is when we experience it that it becomes blissful. But otherwise, it is just a silent witness. Whatever you were experiencing was creeping into waking state. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: Yes, like being wrapped in infinite cotton wool, all rosy and warm. During some of those experiences I'd spend days seeing the world like it's made of christmas tree lights with that angel hair round them. Then it got even better and I saw where the light came from and I knew everything without being able to answer any questions and then it stopped. What the point of it was, other than to make me feel my ascetic life was paying off, is beyond me. But if it had lasted any longer I probably would have started a cult myself. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, steve.sundur@... wrote: (-: Hey, neat about that witnessing experience. I experienced it once, and didn't realize it till after the fact. But was the experience blissful for you? ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: Potayto, potahto. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, dhamiltony2k5@... wrote: No, most of what you are offering as definition technically is about sects. Cults form around charismatic persons. Sects form out of specialness, exception or differentiation as in different denominations of protestantism or catholicism or denominations or types of meditation. Those are sects. Sects are around fragmentation and cults are around persons as charismatics. For instance, If someone really 'charismatic', like earlier defined by Weber, like a Robin were to show up in Fairfield, Iowa and take off a bunch of meditators as his followers by force and power of personality then we're talking cult, as a sect. That is different than the different sects of people out teaching meditations and some others out there teaching other things they've learned. -Buck in the Dome Salyavin808 writes: You don't need any leader to be a cult. All you need is a belief system that sets you apart from the norm.
Re: [FairfieldLife] RE: Drinking Vedic Coffee and Discerning 'Cult' from 'Sect'
that's cause you aren't taking amrit, having yagyas done and practicing TMSP as many hours as possible in a group up in Skelmersdale On Sun, 2/16/14, salyavin808 no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: Subject: [FairfieldLife] RE: Drinking Vedic Coffee and Discerning 'Cult' from 'Sect' To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Date: Sunday, February 16, 2014, 1:49 PM Yes, I used to get a lot of things like that. A text book progression of enlightened states as espoused by Marshy. Really amazingly nice and it convinced me I was going to get there but it all stopped, maybe it will start up again but I doubt it and it doesn't even interest me any more, it's like the acid trips I used to do, a great way to spend a day but is it a good long term proposition? At work once I became the unwitting centre of attention when I slipped into unity on a busy friday afternoon when we were normally running around trying to wrap everything up. Everyone else just pulled up a chair and sat round my desk, it was amazing how different yet the same I was, intensely relaxed but wide awake and flowing all things good from some centre that wasn't even me but was everything that existed and it was all lush, powerful and vivid. Happy days, but it wore off a few hours later and that was that. What it all means I cannot say, my guess is nothing, just a phase, maybe all that bending my mind out of shape suddenly reflexively threw it into a euphoric state. But whatever, it doesn't work any more... --In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, steve.sundur@... wrote: Wow, I hope you don't me saying this, but this is the nicest post we've had in about six months. And it sounds like more than witnessing.I say that because as I've always understood it, the transcendental field is without attributes. It is when we experience it that it becomes blissful. But otherwise, it is just a silent witness.Whatever you were experiencing was creeping into waking state. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: Yes, like being wrapped in infinite cotton wool, all rosy and warm. During some of those experiences I'd spend days seeing the world like it's made of christmas tree lights with that angel hair round them. Then it got even better and I saw where the light came from and I knew everything without being able to answer any questions and then it stopped. What the point of it was, other than to make me feel my ascetic life was paying off, is beyond me. But if it had lasted any longer I probably would have started a cult myself. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, steve.sundur@... wrote: (-: Hey, neat about that witnessing experience. I experienced it once, and didn't realize it till after the fact. But was the experience blissful for you? ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: Potayto, potahto. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, dhamiltony2k5@... wrote: No, most of what you are offering as definition technically is about sects. Cults form around charismatic persons. Sects form out of specialness, exception or differentiation as in different denominations of protestantism or catholicism or denominations or types of meditation. Those are sects. Sects are around fragmentation and cults are around persons as charismatics. For instance, If someone really 'charismatic', like earlier defined by Weber, like a Robin were to show up in Fairfield, Iowa and take off a bunch of meditators as his followers by force and power of personality then we're talking cult, as a sect. That is different than the different sects of people out teaching meditations and some others out there teaching other things they've learned.-Buck in the Dome Salyavin808 writes: You don't need any leader to be a cult. All you need is a belief system that sets you apart from the norm.
Re: [FairfieldLife] RE: John M. Knapp: Licensing Board Ruling
I think he enjoys trolling, baiting and getting stalked. You enjoy correcting, fighting, nitpicking and getting people to task. He insists that he doesn't read your posts. You insist that you hold no grudge against him. Again, Yin and Yang. --- authfriend authfri...@yahoo.com I seem to have scared the piss out of Barry by pointing out how he's been lying about never reading my posts. Now the only way he can comment on them is to respond to someone else's comment on a post of mine quoting me, and he has to be careful not to mention anything else I've said. Oh, and he can't comment on Ann's posts because he's claimed he never reads hers, either. Really kind of limiting. ;-) --- turquoiseb turquoiseb@... wrote: Does anyone remember my prediction, about how a certain obsessive and her brown-nosing buddy would continue to obsess over Judy getting caught in a lie, and as a result subject this place to dozens of their mono-topical gotta get even posts? The fun thing is that they can't blame it on me without *revealing themselves* to be obsessives and grudge-holders. Bawwy has made only one post this posting week, about a funny book, so they can't pretend they're responding to his provocations. Compare and contrast to these two Robin cultists (who have made 45...so far), still stalking their enemies and finding a way to turn almost every topic into something about Robin so they can prosyletize about him, all while claiming that Robin doesn't have a cult. And of course there are the obsess about Barry posts that neither of them seems to be able to do without at this point. They may complain about trolls, but let's face it...these two bimbos are the ones who are so easily trolled. They fall for it even when Richand and I *tell* them what we're doing. And they like to characterize *other* people here as stupid. Go figure. :-) :-) :-) From: salyavin808 no_re...@yahoogroups.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Sunday, February 16, 2014 10:03 AM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] RE: John M. Knapp: Licensing Board Ruling Please can we ago back to 50 posts a week, it's for your sanity as much as everybody elses ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend@... wrote: Note the phrase, in Robin's cult, as if it were established fact that he has a cult. He doesn't, of course. But Share didn't choose her words by accident.
[FairfieldLife] RE: Drinking Vedic Coffee and Discerning 'Cult' from 'Sect'
I'm thinking of some of the other flashy experiences that have been related here periodically. Bob Price related one, sometime ago. MJ related one recently. In both cases they were more or less just footnotes, and then life moved on. But they also seemed to have left their mark and a pretty deep impression, as though saying, We're not finished here, just wanting to set a marker But who knows, maybe it's just random brain activity as I believe Curtis once said. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: Yes, I used to get a lot of things like that. A text book progression of enlightened states as espoused by Marshy. Really amazingly nice and it convinced me I was going to get there but it all stopped, maybe it will start up again but I doubt it and it doesn't even interest me any more, it's like the acid trips I used to do, a great way to spend a day but is it a good long term proposition? At work once I became the unwitting centre of attention when I slipped into unity on a busy friday afternoon when we were normally running around trying to wrap everything up. Everyone else just pulled up a chair and sat round my desk, it was amazing how different yet the same I was, intensely relaxed but wide awake and flowing all things good from some centre that wasn't even me but was everything that existed and it was all lush, powerful and vivid. Happy days, but it wore off a few hours later and that was that. What it all means I cannot say, my guess is nothing, just a phase, maybe all that bending my mind out of shape suddenly reflexively threw it into a euphoric state. But whatever, it doesn't work any more... --In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, steve.sundur@... wrote: Wow, I hope you don't me saying this, but this is the nicest post we've had in about six months. And it sounds like more than witnessing. I say that because as I've always understood it, the transcendental field is without attributes. It is when we experience it that it becomes blissful. But otherwise, it is just a silent witness. Whatever you were experiencing was creeping into waking state. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: Yes, like being wrapped in infinite cotton wool, all rosy and warm. During some of those experiences I'd spend days seeing the world like it's made of christmas tree lights with that angel hair round them. Then it got even better and I saw where the light came from and I knew everything without being able to answer any questions and then it stopped. What the point of it was, other than to make me feel my ascetic life was paying off, is beyond me. But if it had lasted any longer I probably would have started a cult myself. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, steve.sundur@... wrote: (-: Hey, neat about that witnessing experience. I experienced it once, and didn't realize it till after the fact. But was the experience blissful for you? ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: Potayto, potahto. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, dhamiltony2k5@... wrote: No, most of what you are offering as definition technically is about sects. Cults form around charismatic persons. Sects form out of specialness, exception or differentiation as in different denominations of protestantism or catholicism or denominations or types of meditation. Those are sects. Sects are around fragmentation and cults are around persons as charismatics. For instance, If someone really 'charismatic', like earlier defined by Weber, like a Robin were to show up in Fairfield, Iowa and take off a bunch of meditators as his followers by force and power of personality then we're talking cult, as a sect. That is different than the different sects of people out teaching meditations and some others out there teaching other things they've learned. -Buck in the Dome Salyavin808 writes: You don't need any leader to be a cult. All you need is a belief system that sets you apart from the norm.
[FairfieldLife] RE: Drinking Vedic Coffee and Discerning 'Cult' from 'Sect'
[FairfieldLife] RE: Is TM a Cult?
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: As far as I'm concerned it never had a charismatic leader. Marshy's woolly, illogical and ignorant lecturing style always left me cold. Corporation is a good word for it though. As it sells both a product and a belief system that makes that product seem a lot more valuable than it actually is. Marshy's genius is the lectures he gave that conned everyone into thinking all the unified field, sci, land of the ved bollocks was an ultimate truth for all mankind and that he was its natural voice. I'd have to agree with you about MMY not being the most riveting of speakers. He was a snooze for me but he certainly, at least, seemed like a pleasant enough guy but hardly profound, hardly magnetic and definitely not charismatic. But I know many, many people who felt just the opposite. I guess that is one reason why I never felt the call to become a teacher. Although I believed meditation would facilitate my journey to better health and toward more advanced states of consciousness, listening to Maharishi lectures via hours of tape watching was hardly the highlight of my day during my attendance at MIU. Still, I don't revile the guy but then I didn't dedicate years and years to serving the Movement and giving up other opportunities in my life in exchange for pursuing some dream of enlightenment. And all the vastu, Raja and investment stuff happened long after I moved on to other things. Most people in the TMO thought/think that he could do no wrong and always spoke the ultimate truth. All they had to do was interpret and rationalise what he meant. What a great trick, I'm glad Tony Blair never thought of it. I heard so much rubbish when in the TMO I'd like to have my brain replaced so I could use those neurons for something useful. Funny, you make me laugh. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, dhamiltony2k5@... wrote: TM, more accurately now is a [religious spiritual] sect in its post-charismatic leader phase. As an organizational structure it is a corporation. Fairly, TM is no longer a cult with a charismatic leader. salyavin808 writes: Potayto, potahto. No, most of what you are offering as definition technically is about sects. Cults form around charismatic persons. Sects form out of specialness, exception or differentiation as in different denominations of protestantism or catholicism or denominations or types of meditation. Those are sects. Sects are around fragmentation and cults are around persons as charismatics. For instance, If someone really 'charismatic', like earlier defined by Weber, like a Robin were to show up in Fairfield, Iowa and take off a bunch of meditators as his followers by force and power of personality then we're talking cult, as a sect. That is different than the different sects of people out teaching meditations and some others out there teaching other things they've learned. -Buck in the Dome Salyavin808 writes: You don't need any leader to be a cult. All you need is a belief system that sets you apart from the norm. Om, policy and movement within TM now is based much more on science, merit and efficacy than old ways promoted around Totakacharya-like devotion, fealty and ideology. But that old movement way of fealty test and ideology test is fast dying away of a necessity and become cultural memory of a past. Heck TM does not even have a charismatic leader or leadership anymore. WE got administrators. It is kind of hard to have a cult without a charismatic leader that you could point to. That is defining of cults. Please see FFL post# 370565 . No, people become meditators and then freely participating in this organization because they like meditation and appreciate all the good that the transcendent meditative state provides everyone individually and collectively. Our meditating organization is here to facilitate that good. That facilitating in our case now is the work of good in progress by our new incorporation as meditators. Our corporation as it always has been is certainly about affecting a positive revolutionary radical change in all of society for everybody. Most of us in TM are pretty clear about that. Are you with us or against us in this? -U.S. Buck in the Dome MJ, See Weber's comments on 'cult' in Melton's Intro to The Postcharismatic Fate of New Religious Movements: http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/FairfieldLife/conversations/messages/370565 http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/FairfieldLife/conversations/messages/370565 MJ, Your thesis around TM being a 'cult' has a problem in that we in TM no longer have a charismatic leader of TM. We are either administrators or meditators in TM and anyone in TM is enfranchised by a little of both under Maharishi's Absolute Theories of Management and Government. You clearly are full of your own personal BS and have your ax grinding about something. I feels a
Re: [FairfieldLife] RE: John M. Knapp: Licensing Board Ruling
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: Please can we ago back to 50 posts a week, it's for your sanity as much as everybody elses I asked for the post limit shortly before Christmas but I was poo-pooed and shot down. I thought I, too, was going to go mad with all of Ricky and Share's posts. Crazyville! But it doesn't appear that anyone wants to take on the monitoring/counting job and we are apparently all big boys and girls and can handle it. Or so they say. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend@... wrote: Note the phrase, in Robin's cult, as if it were established fact that he has a cult. He doesn't, of course. But Share didn't choose her words by accident.
Re: [FairfieldLife] RE: Country Chuckles
The wise man has long ears and a short tongue. - Anonymous On Sat, Feb 15, 2014 at 12:09 PM, Pundit Sir pundits...@gmail.com wrote: Don't mess with old men, they didn't get old by being stupid. - Will Rogers On Fri, Feb 14, 2014 at 11:15 AM, Pundit Sir pundits...@gmail.com wrote: Anyone can fail many times, but you aren't a failure until you begin to blame somebody else. - John Burroughs On Fri, Feb 14, 2014 at 8:26 AM, Pundit Sir pundits...@gmail.com wrote: Doing nothing is hard to do - you never know when you're finished. - Leslie Nielsen On Thu, Feb 13, 2014 at 8:35 AM, Pundit Sir pundits...@gmail.comwrote: We are born naked, wet, and hungry. Then things get worse. - Will Rogers On Wed, Feb 12, 2014 at 9:40 PM, Pundit Sir pundits...@gmail.comwrote: Never miss a good chance to shut up. - Will Rogers On Wed, Feb 12, 2014 at 10:27 AM, awoelfleba...@yahoo.com wrote: ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sharelong60@... wrote: That's it, Richard! I'm in love with Will Rogers. Is he still alive? (-: Long dead, Share: On August 15, 1935, Rogers was on a flight to Asia with the famous pilot Wiley Post when the craft developed engine troubles and crashed near Point Barrow, Alaska http://www.history.com/topics/alaska. The crash killed both men. Rogers was only 55. On Wednesday, February 12, 2014 9:46 AM, Pundit Sir punditster@... wrote: Timing has an awful lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance. - Will Rogers On Tue, Feb 11, 2014 at 10:17 AM, Share Long sharelong60@... wrote: Richard, I love this guy! I bet he was enlightened (-: PS Maharishi said that at the deepest level of every atom, even every atom of our body, Purusha IS Prakriti. Go figure! On Tuesday, February 11, 2014 8:14 AM, Pundit Sir punditster@... wrote: Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it. - Will Rogers On Mon, Feb 10, 2014 at 9:43 PM, Pundit Sir punditster@... wrote: Generally speaking, you aren't learning much when your mouth is moving. - Will Rogers On Mon, Feb 10, 2014 at 10:54 AM, authfriend@... wrote: So what was the good catch you said I made, Share? I don't believe you've responded to that question. Keep 'em coming Richard and thank you...
Re: [FairfieldLife] RE: Drinking Vedic Coffee and Discerning 'Cult' from 'Sect'
I agree with some of the things I believe Barry has said - that we are all part of this cosmic soup, and the entire infinite or nearly infinite range of experiences are available to us. The kinds of things Sal relates are available to all of us at anytime, but most of us aren't aware of it. The idea that there is some kind of definable state of awareness and a well laid out progression towards it is in my opinion some made up baloney on the part of the old rishis who didn't want to work, just wanted to set around all day looking at their navel and when they had some of these experiences they said Ah ha! This is REAL reality, and all these po' folk runnin' around doing all this doing are full of crap! WE have the lock on what is true, real and righ! And like everyone else in the world they wanted everyone else to corroborate their reality so they made a big deal out of it and created all the sacred books of the Hindoos that everybody was supposed to embrace if they were smart. Along comes Marshy, fanatic Hindoo, and he used the playbook to make a nice living for himself. So I think we can slip in and out of these different experiences of our own awareness. Some like maybe Eckhart Tolle can choose to stay in one spot for a long time, making it seem permanent. Others go back and forth. Which IMO accounts for the behavior we see in folks like Marshy, Muktananda, Kriyananda and all the rest where they appear to be brilliant enlightened individuals one day and the next day appear to be venal, petty tyrants and sexual opportunists and so forth. On Sun, 2/16/14, steve.sun...@yahoo.com steve.sun...@yahoo.com wrote: Subject: [FairfieldLife] RE: Drinking Vedic Coffee and Discerning 'Cult' from 'Sect' To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Date: Sunday, February 16, 2014, 2:28 PM I'm thinking of some of the other flashy experiences that have been related here periodically. Bob Price related one, sometime ago. MJ related one recently. In both cases they were more or less just footnotes, and then life moved on. But they also seemed to have left their mark and a pretty deep impression, as though saying, We're not finished here, just wanting to set a marker But who knows, maybe it's just random brain activity as I believe Curtis once said. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: Yes, I used to get a lot of things like that. A text book progression of enlightened states as espoused by Marshy. Really amazingly nice and it convinced me I was going to get there but it all stopped, maybe it will start up again but I doubt it and it doesn't even interest me any more, it's like the acid trips I used to do, a great way to spend a day but is it a good long term proposition? At work once I became the unwitting centre of attention when I slipped into unity on a busy friday afternoon when we were normally running around trying to wrap everything up. Everyone else just pulled up a chair and sat round my desk, it was amazing how different yet the same I was, intensely relaxed but wide awake and flowing all things good from some centre that wasn't even me but was everything that existed and it was all lush, powerful and vivid. Happy days, but it wore off a few hours later and that was that. What it all means I cannot say, my guess is nothing, just a phase, maybe all that bending my mind out of shape suddenly reflexively threw it into a euphoric state. But whatever, it doesn't work any more... --In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, steve.sundur@... wrote: Wow, I hope you don't me saying this, but this is the nicest post we've had in about six months. And it sounds like more than witnessing.I say that because as I've always understood it, the transcendental field is without attributes. It is when we experience it that it becomes blissful. But otherwise, it is just a silent witness.Whatever you were experiencing was creeping into waking state. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: Yes, like being wrapped in infinite cotton wool, all rosy and warm. During some of those experiences I'd spend days seeing the world like it's made of christmas tree lights with that angel hair round them. Then it got even better and I saw where the light came from and I knew everything without being able to answer any questions and then it stopped. What the point of it was, other than to make me feel my ascetic life was paying off, is beyond me. But if it had lasted any longer I probably would have started a cult myself. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, steve.sundur@... wrote: (-: Hey, neat about that witnessing experience. I experienced it once, and didn't realize it till after the fact. But was the experience blissful for you? ---In
Re: [FairfieldLife] RE: John M. Knapp: Licensing Board Ruling
Another KEY piece of advice, Share -- DON'T open any emails from Africa, esp. Nigeria - no doubt you'll mortgage your parents house, if you do.:-)
[FairfieldLife] RE: Is TM a Cult?
Okay, no charismatic leader no cult. It is just an organization. So by more scholarly definition evidently your feelings around the TM movement is that TM never quite rose up to be a cult, but was/is a sect. No charismatic leader, no cult. It evidently was a movement that you were part of, -Buck salyavin808 writes: As far as I'm concerned it never had a charismatic leader. Marshy's woolly, illogical and ignorant lecturing style always left me cold. Corporation is a good word for it though. As it sells both a product and a belief system that makes that product seem a lot more valuable than it actually is. Marshy's genius is the lectures he gave that conned everyone into thinking all the unified field, sci, land of the ved bollocks was an ultimate truth for all mankind and that he was its natural voice. awoelflebater writes: I'd have to agree with you about MMY not being the most riveting of speakers. He was a snooze for me but he certainly, at least, seemed like a pleasant enough guy but hardly profound, hardly magnetic and definitely not charismatic. TM, more accurately now is a [religious spiritual] sect in its post-charismatic leader phase. As an organizational structure it is a corporation. Fairly, TM is no longer a cult with a charismatic leader. -Buck salyavin808 writes: Potayto, potahto. No, most of what you are offering as definition technically is about sects. Cults form around charismatic persons. Sects form out of specialness, exception or differentiation as in different denominations of protestantism or catholicism or denominations or types of meditation. Those are sects. Sects are around fragmentation and cults are around persons as charismatics. For instance, If someone really 'charismatic', like earlier defined by Weber, like a Robin were to show up in Fairfield, Iowa and take off a bunch of meditators as his followers by force and power of personality then we're talking cult, as a sect. That is different than the different sects of people out teaching meditations and some others out there teaching other things they've learned. -Buck in the Dome Salyavin808 writes: You don't need any leader to be a cult. All you need is a belief system that sets you apart from the norm. Om, policy and movement within TM now is based much more on science, merit and efficacy than old ways promoted around Totakacharya-like devotion, fealty and ideology. But that old movement way of fealty test and ideology test is fast dying away of a necessity and become cultural memory of a past. Heck TM does not even have a charismatic leader or leadership anymore. WE got administrators. It is kind of hard to have a cult without a charismatic leader that you could point to. That is defining of cults. Please see FFL post# 370565 . No, people become meditators and then freely participating in this organization because they like meditation and appreciate all the good that the transcendent meditative state provides everyone individually and collectively. Our meditating organization is here to facilitate that good. That facilitating in our case now is the work of good in progress by our new incorporation as meditators. Our corporation as it always has been is certainly about affecting a positive revolutionary radical change in all of society for everybody. Most of us in TM are pretty clear about that. Are you with us or against us in this? -U.S. Buck in the Dome MJ, See Weber's comments on 'cult' in Melton's Intro to The Postcharismatic Fate of New Religious Movements: http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/FairfieldLife/conversations/messages/370565 http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/FairfieldLife/conversations/messages/370565 MJ, Your thesis around TM being a 'cult' has a problem in that we in TM no longer have a charismatic leader of TM. We are either administrators or meditators in TM and anyone in TM is enfranchised by a little of both under Maharishi's Absolute Theories of Management and Government. You clearly are full of your own personal BS and have your ax grinding about something. I feels a sorrow for thee in thy lack of peace around this. -Buck “Which would you rather experience: living the paradox or understanding it to your satisfaction?” Not either position is mutually exclusive, or that there is a third possibility of both. MJ writes: You need to read up on what cults actually are before you make such statements. Nope, not a cult. TM now as a corporation obviously is not a cult any more than any modern productive working corporation of employees is a 'cult'. TM and meditators as a community now are just like airline corporation employee pilots of an airline company. And they might go fly for their work wearing funny looking hats and coats too where they would go to work and pilot an airliner. And those lesser employees too as part of the corporate team who organize a flight as a gate
Re: [FairfieldLife] RE: Drinking Vedic Coffee and Discerning 'Cult' from 'Sect'
Hmmm - You probably don't want Barry's cynicism to rub off on you. As far as the long time habit, and progression, of expanding one's awareness, through meditation, it has nothing to do with achieving signposts, or escaping this world, or acting like either an asshole or a saint. It is simply a means of discovering the full range of human experience, and integrating it. No robes or sexual exploitation, required. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, mjackson74@... wrote: I agree with some of the things I believe Barry has said - that we are all part of this cosmic soup, and the entire infinite or nearly infinite range of experiences are available to us. The kinds of things Sal relates are available to all of us at anytime, but most of us aren't aware of it. The idea that there is some kind of definable state of awareness and a well laid out progression towards it is in my opinion some made up baloney on the part of the old rishis who didn't want to work, just wanted to set around all day looking at their navel and when they had some of these experiences they said Ah ha! This is REAL reality, and all these po' folk runnin' around doing all this doing are full of crap! WE have the lock on what is true, real and righ! And like everyone else in the world they wanted everyone else to corroborate their reality so they made a big deal out of it and created all the sacred books of the Hindoos that everybody was supposed to embrace if they were smart. Along comes Marshy, fanatic Hindoo, and he used the playbook to make a nice living for himself. So I think we can slip in and out of these different experiences of our own awareness. Some like maybe Eckhart Tolle can choose to stay in one spot for a long time, making it seem permanent. Others go back and forth. Which IMO accounts for the behavior we see in folks like Marshy, Muktananda, Kriyananda and all the rest where they appear to be brilliant enlightened individuals one day and the next day appear to be venal, petty tyrants and sexual opportunists and so forth. On Sun, 2/16/14, steve.sundur@... mailto:steve.sundur@... steve.sundur@... mailto:steve.sundur@... wrote: Subject: [FairfieldLife] RE: Drinking Vedic Coffee and Discerning 'Cult' from 'Sect' To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Date: Sunday, February 16, 2014, 2:28 PM I'm thinking of some of the other flashy experiences that have been related here periodically. Bob Price related one, sometime ago. MJ related one recently. In both cases they were more or less just footnotes, and then life moved on. But they also seemed to have left their mark and a pretty deep impression, as though saying, We're not finished here, just wanting to set a marker But who knows, maybe it's just random brain activity as I believe Curtis once said. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com mailto:no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: Yes, I used to get a lot of things like that. A text book progression of enlightened states as espoused by Marshy. Really amazingly nice and it convinced me I was going to get there but it all stopped, maybe it will start up again but I doubt it and it doesn't even interest me any more, it's like the acid trips I used to do, a great way to spend a day but is it a good long term proposition? At work once I became the unwitting centre of attention when I slipped into unity on a busy friday afternoon when we were normally running around trying to wrap everything up. Everyone else just pulled up a chair and sat round my desk, it was amazing how different yet the same I was, intensely relaxed but wide awake and flowing all things good from some centre that wasn't even me but was everything that existed and it was all lush, powerful and vivid. Happy days, but it wore off a few hours later and that was that. What it all means I cannot say, my guess is nothing, just a phase, maybe all that bending my mind out of shape suddenly reflexively threw it into a euphoric state. But whatever, it doesn't work any more... --In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, steve.sundur@... wrote: Wow, I hope you don't me saying this, but this is the nicest post we've had in about six months. And it sounds like more than witnessing.I say that because as I've always understood it, the transcendental field is without attributes. It is when we experience it that it becomes blissful. But otherwise, it is just a silent witness.Whatever you were experiencing was creeping into waking state. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com mailto:no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: Yes, like being wrapped in infinite cotton wool, all rosy and warm.
[FairfieldLife] RE: Drinking Vedic Coffee and Discerning 'Cult' from 'Sect'
Fascinating, Salyavin. That is remarkably similar--virtually identical--to how Robin described his own exprience. Except for him, for whatever reason, it lasted for over a decade, and he spent 25 years working to get rid of it because of how ultimately destructive it had proved to be. At work once I became the unwitting centre of attention when I slipped into unity on a busy friday afternoon when we were normally running around trying to wrap everything up. Everyone else just pulled up a chair and sat round my desk, it was amazing how different yet the same I was, intensely relaxed but wide awake and flowing all things good from some centre that wasn't even me but was everything that existed and it was all lush, powerful and vivid. Happy days, but it wore off a few hours later and that was that. What it all means I cannot say, my guess is nothing, just a phase, maybe all that bending my mind out of shape suddenly reflexively threw it into a euphoric state. But whatever, it doesn't work any more.
[FairfieldLife] Cabin Fever
[image: Inline image 1] The latest storms were overkill, though, as Ms. Meacham tried to cope with a houseful of restless children, layers of ice on the roads and makeup school days on the horizon. My friends have their wine and flashlights and candles, she says. I have my Xanax filled. 'Storms Trigger Rash of Cabin Fever' http://tinyurl.com/kss3s4t
[FairfieldLife] RE: Addicted to Internet porn? You're probably religious...
The interesting part of the Huffington Post link are the quotes of the top scientists at the bottom on their take on God. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb@... wrote: This should come as no surprise to those who equate religion with repression, and repression with encouraging the very behavior it claims to be suppressing. On the other hand, most long-term TB TMers are such sexless dweebs that they probably feel guilty for looking at photos of ice cream on the Net. :-) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/15/religious-people-addicted-to-porn_n_4794614.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/15/religious-people-addicted-to-porn_n_4794614.html
[FairfieldLife] RE: Is TM a Cult?
Well, possibly for some folks still within TM it could still be somewhat cult-like serving around the Prime Minister for instance. Life at that level seems still a little like being in the circle of taking your tea with a Joe Stalin. However, they are only a very small element in what is the much larger sect of the community of TM. The cultists are not really representative of the larger sect of TM anymore. They are a very small element as their own group inside the sect of what is the corporation of the TM community. -Buck Weber, in an oft quoted passage, defined charisma as a certain quality of an individual personality, by virtue of which [s/]he is set apart from ordinary [people] and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities. These are such as are not accessible to the ordinary person, but are regarded as of divine origin or as exemplary, and on the basis of them the individual concerned is treated as a leader. 1 See FFL post # 37565 https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/FairfieldLife/conversations/messages/370565 https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/FairfieldLife/conversations/messages/370565 Okay, no charismatic leader no cult. It is just an organization. So by more scholarly definition evidently your feelings around the TM movement is that TM never quite rose up to be a cult, but was/is a sect. No charismatic leader, no cult. It evidently was a movement that you were part of, -Buck salyavin808 writes: As far as I'm concerned it never had a charismatic leader. Marshy's woolly, illogical and ignorant lecturing style always left me cold. Corporation is a good word for it though. As it sells both a product and a belief system that makes that product seem a lot more valuable than it actually is. Marshy's genius is the lectures he gave that conned everyone into thinking all the unified field, sci, land of the ved bollocks was an ultimate truth for all mankind and that he was its natural voice. awoelflebater writes: I'd have to agree with you about MMY not being the most riveting of speakers. He was a snooze for me but he certainly, at least, seemed like a pleasant enough guy but hardly profound, hardly magnetic and definitely not charismatic. TM, more accurately now is a [religious spiritual] sect in its post-charismatic leader phase. As an organizational structure it is a corporation. Fairly, TM is no longer a cult with a charismatic leader. -Buck salyavin808 writes: Potayto, potahto. No, most of what you are offering as definition technically is about sects. Cults form around charismatic persons. Sects form out of specialness, exception or differentiation as in different denominations of protestantism or catholicism or denominations or types of meditation. Those are sects. Sects are around fragmentation and cults are around persons as charismatics. For instance, If someone really 'charismatic', like earlier defined by Weber, like a Robin were to show up in Fairfield, Iowa and take off a bunch of meditators as his followers by force and power of personality then we're talking cult, as a sect. That is different than the different sects of people out teaching meditations and some others out there teaching other things they've learned. -Buck in the Dome Salyavin808 writes: You don't need any leader to be a cult. All you need is a belief system that sets you apart from the norm. Om, policy and movement within TM now is based much more on science, merit and efficacy than old ways promoted around Totakacharya-like devotion, fealty and ideology. But that old movement way of fealty test and ideology test is fast dying away of a necessity and become cultural memory of a past. Heck TM does not even have a charismatic leader or leadership anymore. WE got administrators. It is kind of hard to have a cult without a charismatic leader that you could point to. That is defining of cults. Please see FFL post# 370565 . No, people become meditators and then freely participating in this organization because they like meditation and appreciate all the good that the transcendent meditative state provides everyone individually and collectively. Our meditating organization is here to facilitate that good. That facilitating in our case now is the work of good in progress by our new incorporation as meditators. Our corporation as it always has been is certainly about affecting a positive revolutionary radical change in all of society for everybody. Most of us in TM are pretty clear about that. Are you with us or against us in this? -U.S. Buck in the Dome MJ, See Weber's comments on 'cult' in Melton's Intro to The Postcharismatic Fate of New Religious Movements: http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/FairfieldLife/conversations/messages/370565 http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/FairfieldLife/conversations/messages/370565 MJ, Your thesis around TM
Re: [FairfieldLife] RE: John M. Knapp: Licensing Board Ruling
Actually what I insist is that holding a grudge is not an appropriate phrase to describe my attitude toward Barry, because his offenses have been ongoing. That doesn't mean I don't think he's a lying scumbag, however. I think he enjoys trolling, baiting and getting stalked. You enjoy correcting, fighting, nitpicking and getting people to task. He insists that he doesn't read your posts. You insist that you hold no grudge against him. Again, Yin and Yang. I seem to have scared the piss out of Barry by pointing out how he's been lying about never reading my posts. Now the only way he can comment on them is to respond to someone else's comment on a post of mine quoting me, and he has to be careful not to mention anything else I've said. Oh, and he can't comment on Ann's posts because he's claimed he never reads hers, either. Really kind of limiting. ;-)
Re: [FairfieldLife] RE: Test: Can you spot the HYPOCRISY in this Barry Wright post?
Let's have a closer look at this post of Barry's from Friday; I didn't feel like bothering to fisk it at the time:: See what I mean about challenging her projected image driving her crazy? :-) Awfully mild version of crazy, I'd say. More like annoyed, if even that. Barry's pissed that I simply dismissed the post he had hoped would drive me crazy. What you should expect for the rest of the day -- if not week or month -- is an avalanche of posts about what a liar Barry is. So what else is new? Barry's a liar. For example: This from the woman who *still* claims that Robin Carlsen wasn't lying about striking his students, even after he admitted it on this forum, even after her only supporter here (Ann) said that it probably happened at least once *at a seminar* (refuting the dodge she used to claim he wasn't lying even after he admitted it). No refutation there, and Robin never admitted to lying in any case, because he hadn't. With regard to the non-seminar incidents, he said, accurately, that he hadn't denied the truth, he'd denied what he'd been accused of--which was that he'd struck students during seminars. The seminar incident Ann described, he genuinely didn't remember the way she told it. What he recalled was that someone else onstage with him had struck the guy. However, as I noted, he didn't contest Ann's version. He said that if she remembered him doing it, he accepted that that's what happened. Can you imagine Barry responding to a correction in this manner? It's all a matter of knowing things, you see. Judy just knows who is lying and who isn't. The same way she claims to know what everyone here was 'really' thinking when they posted something she doesn't like. Um, sometimes, yes. Of course, Barry himself NEVER does that. snicker So whenever Robin said something about himself or about anyone else, he was always telling the truth. Certainly nobody ever found him not to be telling the truth, except in that one case Ann recounted, which he genuinely didn't remember as she told it. As Xeno has repeatedly pointed out, memory can be fallible, including Barry's. The difference is that Robin CARED about being accurate, whereas Barry (as Xeno has also noted) does not. See below for Xeno's comments. Unless he was being ironic, of course, Perhaps Barry's most laughable assertion is that irony is equivalent to lying. Which must mean that Barry does a lot of lying in his own ironic posts. Oooopsie! or...uh...lying, as he was about never striking any of his students, using phrases like I would never do that. I would never do that DURING A SEMINAR, Barry carefully forgets to add. That's what Robin believed when he said it. He was, it appears, mistaken, given the one incident Ann remembers. Lying is when you say something you DON'T believe to be true, as Barry does all the time. But whenever Barry says something, Judy knows that I'm lying. No, only when you lie. The thing Judy is ignoring in all of her tirades -- and will continue to ignore, I'm fairly sure -- is that NO ONE is rushing to her defense. And I should pay attention to that why, exactly? Should I be saying things I don't believe to be true in order to inspire folks to defend me? So far, not even Ann, who probably has her tongue stuck up Judy's butt and has been unable to post yet today. :-) Ann is perhaps the most independent poster on FFL (as was demonstrated by her report of the striking incident during one of Robin's seminars, contradicting the dude she has, according to Barry, been brainwashed by). NO ONE believes her I don't lie horseshit. NO ONE. Sez Barry, who has read the minds of every poster here. Obviously, not even her, since she refuses to even *address* getting caught in one of these lies, except to try to turn it into a challenge that she knows I will never respond to. It's of considerable interest that Barry is unwilling to state for the record three FACTS that he knows to be true. What a loon. And a thoroughly dishonest loon, to boot... Coming from Barry, the inadvertent irony is quite remarkable. What's also remarkable is that he makes this claim even though he has never managed to catch me in a lie, hard as he's tried. What I said about his therapist friend was the closest I've ever come, and in that case it was a decision not to fix an inadvertent error before posting it. You might say that was a decision to push Barry's buttons for a change, and boy, has it paid off. He'll be referring to it forever as proof that I'm a liar. It's all he's got, after all, to balance the hundreds of lies he's told about me. BTW, I still think Barry WAS in therapy for his NPD with this dude. Strictly speaking, then, to say the dude was Barry's therapist wasn't a lie, because it's what I believe to be true. To be scrupulously honest, I should have mentioned Barry's claim that the therapist was just
Re: [FairfieldLife] RE: John M. Knapp: Licensing Board Ruling
On 2/15/2014 11:50 AM, jchwe...@gmail.com wrote: It was a type of psychological/emotional rape that Knapp exacted upon more than one person. Thanks for the information about Knapp. We've been discussing this almost endlessly for months. We just got rid of one therapist who came to this discussion group and tried to psychologically rape one of our informants - it's been a total mind-fuck ever since! Now we not only have to defend ourselves from the anonymous mind police posting here, but these days even some informants from of the TM-Free are attacking us - trying to use mind control and brainwashing techniques on us, in order to get us to stop meditating and stop supporting some poor Hindu boys trying to get an education up in Fairfield and over in India. Go figure.
Re: [FairfieldLife] RE: John M. Knapp: Licensing Board Ruling
Dear Dear Awoelflebate and friends, to the 50 post limit I have offered my help with moderating FFL many times and everyone is clearly scared of me taking care of things here. I don't understand people's unfriendliness to my offers. Try as I might to be charismatic here and take some better control of FFL I have achieved no followers for my moderation movement. No charisma, no cult, no coup de tat. Damn. Fairness is my middle name. You people will one day come see the light under my hat. Signed, FFL 30!-posts-a-week Buck and a much tighter control over FFL membership and those unkind personal posts being made here.. Jai Guru Dev, -Buck in the Dome Please can we ago back to 50 posts a week, it's for your sanity as much as everybody elses Awoelflebater writes: I asked for the post limit shortly before Christmas but I was poo-pooed and shot down. I thought I, too, was going to go mad with all of Ricky and Share's posts. Crazyville! But it doesn't appear that anyone wants to take on the monitoring/counting job and we are apparently all big boys and girls and can handle it. Or so they say.
[FairfieldLife] It's just sheer awareness (drišti-mâtratâ) and it ain't transcendent
Still believe in the four states of consciousness? While the waker, dreamer, and deep sleeper as well as the worlds they appear to inhabit continuously shuffle in and out of existence, assiduous inquiry does reveal a “fourth factor,” as it is called in the Mandukya Upanishad, that remains a constant though subtle presence throughout all three states of experience. This “fourth factor” is often misunderstood to be a transcendental state, and many a seeker spends years, often a whole lifetime, striving to reach, experience, merge with, and ultimately become permanently established in this blissful realm. All such attempts, however, are inevitably doomed to failure because all states are experiential and, therefore, no state is eternal. Rather than a state, the “fourth factor” is quite simply the limitless, attributeless awareness in which all three experiential states appear. This “fourth factor” never fails to shine, never fades away, never forfeits its all-pervasive existence. It is the singular substratum of the apparent universe. It is the sole reality. It is the eternal self. from the blog of Ted Schmidt
Re: [FairfieldLife] RE: John M. Knapp: Licensing Board Ruling
Carol, I'm not sure you've been around FFL long enough to know that Richard is a troll and says all kinds of things that aren't true or are wildly distorted, as he does in this post. If you ever have a question about the veracity of something he posts, ask one of the regulars. Thanks for the information about Knapp. We've been discussing this almost endlessly for months. We just got rid of one therapist who came to this discussion group and tried to psychologically rape one of our informants - it's been a total mind-fuck ever since! Now we not only have to defend ourselves from the anonymous mind police posting here, but these days even some informants from of the TM-Free are attacking us - trying to use mind control and brainwashing techniques on us, in order to get us to stop meditating and stop supporting some poor Hindu boys trying to get an education up in Fairfield and over in India. Go figure.
Re: [FairfieldLife] RE: John M. Knapp: Licensing Board Ruling
On 2/15/2014 11:50 AM, jchwe...@gmail.com wrote: After the news sank in, I realized I felt like I just wanted to take a shower and wash it all off. That's what it feels like alright - except we can't seem to get out of the cesspool. Almost every post sent here goes to shit in a matter on minutes! Almost everyday we TMers on FFL are getting mind-raped by anonymous posters attempting to start fights with us and try to take over our minds by posting inflammatory messages with the intent to confuse and trap us with parodies posts and fibs and stuff. One informant almost started a riot the other day by insinuating that the TMers on FFL were trolls - WHOSE FUKIN NEWSGROUP IS THIS ANYWAY?!!! Go figure.
[FairfieldLife] RE: John M. Knapp: Licensing Board Ruling
When I read Richard's post just now, I thought it might be sarcasm? (Or are you serious Richard?) I don't read here often these days. When Yahoo changed format...well...I don't like this new format. I know things take getting used to, but still, I don't like it. Thanks Judy for the input.
Re: [FairfieldLife] RE: John M. Knapp: Licensing Board Ruling
On 2/15/2014 11:50 AM, jchwe...@gmail.com wrote: One of Knapp's former victims responded..And now we heal. Well, if the post-trappers and mental therapists would stop trying to push our buttons and trying to take over FFL and trying to mentally rape our minds; if they would stop making up parodies and lying to us about our leaders; if they would just shut their big pie holes for just a few hours so we TMers could get in a word edgewise; - WE COULD START THE HEALING PROCESS. We've been getting mind-fucked for at least two years by some anti-TM anti-MMY trolls. Thank you for posting this.
[FairfieldLife] RE: Buddhist Cave Temples
There's actually a big cave right near Dubuque they could use. Trouble is, it's not quite as picturesque: http://digitaldubuque.com/crystal_lake_cave/ http://digitaldubuque.com/crystal_lake_cave/ Nabby will claim this is a troll post because it mentions the dreaded word Buddhist in the title. Others can just enjoy, and compare these places of worship to the butt-ugly Fairfield domes. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/15/buddhist-cave-temples_n_4775101.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/15/buddhist-cave-temples_n_4775101.html
Re: [FairfieldLife] RE: John M. Knapp: Licensing Board Ruling
On 2/15/2014 7:07 PM, Share Long wrote: I also want to make the point that Emily posted some definitions of the term psychological rape so again, I'm quite sure that no one on FFL thought that I coined the term. The term psychological rape is frequently used in cult awareness discussion boards to describe how some people feel when some anonymous therapist tries to attack our online TMer group and tries to brainwash us into renouncing our religion and our spiritual practice. When they do this, we usually send them packing with a few words just to let them know that we see through their snake-oil scams and button-pushing - we almost always reveal them to be impostors and cranks. It's open season on the trolls, liars, parody posters, and button-pushers! Maybe they should all go back to TM-Free where they belong. WE ARE MAD AS HELL AND WE'RE NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE!!!
Re: [FairfieldLife] RE: John M. Knapp: Licensing Board Ruling
Richard, I admit that your writing style delights me. Even when I don't agree with the content! Go figure! It's just that you almost always sound light hearted about all this stuff. And I thoroughly enjoy how you skip from one topic to the other. Those funny combo help me be more light hearted about it too. Anyway, thank you so much for making me smile and even laugh out loud a lot. On Sunday, February 16, 2014 9:51 AM, Richard J. Williams pundits...@gmail.com wrote: On 2/15/2014 11:50 AM, jchwe...@gmail.com wrote: It was a type of psychological/emotional rape that Knapp exacted upon more than one person. Thanks for the information about Knapp. We've been discussing this almost endlessly for months. We just got rid of one therapist who came to this discussion group and tried to psychologically rape one of our informants - it's been a total mind-fuck ever since! Now we not only have to defend ourselves from the anonymous mind police posting here, but these days even some informants from of the TM-Free are attacking us - trying to use mind control and brainwashing techniques on us, in order to get us to stop meditating and stop supporting some poor Hindu boys trying to get an education up in Fairfield and over in India. Go figure.
[FairfieldLife] RE: John M. Knapp: Licensing Board Ruling
It sounds like you are serious Richard...but again, I may be misunderstanding and it may be sarcasm. I don't know this board well enough to have any input on the state of the FFL...nor is it something I have energy to investigate. In the past, I've been labeled a troll on FFL by at least one member. The label may be thrown at me again. (I'm not saying you are labeling me with that title.) You're welcome on the info.
Re: [FairfieldLife] RE: Buddhist Cave Temples
oy! major claustrophobia! On Sunday, February 16, 2014 10:17 AM, authfri...@yahoo.com authfri...@yahoo.com wrote: There's actually a big cave right near Dubuque they could use. Trouble is, it's not quite as picturesque: http://digitaldubuque.com/crystal_lake_cave/ Nabby will claim this is a troll post because it mentions the dreaded word Buddhist in the title. Others can just enjoy, and compare these places of worship to the butt-ugly Fairfield domes. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/15/buddhist-cave-temples_n_4775101.html
Re: [FairfieldLife] RE: Is TM a Cult?
Actually, contradiction and bait-and-switch are both misnomers in this case. With a classic bait-and-switch, they won't sell you what they were promoting, but only something more expensive. And TM is all you need isn't contradicted by the fact that there are lots of other offerings. The issue is, all you need for what? In the case of most attending TM intro lectures, what they're looking for is a simple method for managing stress. For those few who are after enlightenment, the all you need assertion is merely incomplete--e.g., TM is all you need to become enlightened (but it'll probably take a long time if you don't avail yourself of the various enhancements we offer). I won't weigh in on the Subject question because...uh...Duh. Nothing to discuss. Done deal. What still amuses me are some of the direct contradictions that the cultists managed to embrace, and in some cases still embrace. I'm talking about self-contradictory teachings, which almost every TMer and TM teacher managed to not notice *were* contradictory, often for years or decades. Let's take one of the earliest teachings: TM is all you need. That was, after all, the way it was presented by Maharishi early in the game. He taught TM teachers to parrot this line, and they did -- faithfully -- in intro lectures. Often they gave these lectures while on their way to an ATR course they had to pay for, or to get a new technique that was the latest and thus the bestest thing. In other words, they *taught* that TM is all you need, but were part of an organization that not only sold TM, it sold any number of add-on products, ranging from advanced techniques to the Sidhis to yagyas to ayur-vedic potions, to astrology (Jyotish) and even to houses. Some of the products this organization sold cost a million dollars. Classic bait and switch, and yet people failed to even notice the contradiction. Go figure.
Re: [FairfieldLife] RE: John M. Knapp: Licensing Board Ruling
Share to the defense! guffaw Richard, I admit that your writing style delights me. Even when I don't agree with the content! Go figure! It's just that you almost always sound light hearted about all this stuff. And I thoroughly enjoy how you skip from one topic to the other. Those funny combo help me be more light hearted about it too. Anyway, thank you so much for making me smile and even laugh out loud a lot. On Sunday, February 16, 2014 9:51 AM, Richard J. Williams punditster@... wrote: On 2/15/2014 11:50 AM, jchwelch@... wrote: It was a type of psychological/emotional rape that Knapp exacted upon more than one person. Thanks for the information about Knapp. We've been discussing this almost endlessly for months. We just got rid of one therapist who came to this discussion group and tried to psychologically rape one of our informants - it's been a total mind-fuck ever since! Now we not only have to defend ourselves from the anonymous mind police posting here, but these days even some informants from of the TM-Free are attacking us - trying to use mind control and brainwashing techniques on us, in order to get us to stop meditating and stop supporting some poor Hindu boys trying to get an education up in Fairfield and over in India. Go figure.
Re: [FairfieldLife] RE: Buddhist Cave Temples
Most of those pics look like someone trying to pull their shoe loose from a huge wad of chewing gum. oy! major claustrophobia! There's actually a big cave right near Dubuque they could use. Trouble is, it's not quite as picturesque: http://digitaldubuque.com/crystal_lake_cave/ http://digitaldubuque.com/crystal_lake_cave/ Nabby will claim this is a troll post because it mentions the dreaded word Buddhist in the title. Others can just enjoy, and compare these places of worship to the butt-ugly Fairfield domes. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/15/buddhist-cave-temples_n_4775101.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/15/buddhist-cave-temples_n_4775101.html
Re: [FairfieldLife] RE: Drinking Vedic Coffee and Discerning 'Cult' from 'Sect'
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, mjackson74@... wrote: And like everyone else in the world they wanted everyone else to corroborate their reality so they made a big deal out of it and created all the sacred books of the Hindoos that everybody was supposed to embrace if they were smart. Along comes Marshy, fanatic Hindoo, and he used the playbook to make a nice living for himself. I can't help but think MJ, that you have not had much exposure to some of the Vedic, or Hindu literature. I say that because I think you sort of misrepresent it. I am not saying that it is the ultimate Truth, but you are painting a picture that I don't recognize, nor would, I think, most people who have had some exposure to it.
Re: [FairfieldLife] RE: Drinking Vedic Coffee and Discerning 'Cult' from 'Sect'
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, mjackson74@... wrote: I agree with some of the things I believe Barry has said - that we are all part of this cosmic soup, and the entire infinite or nearly infinite range of experiences are available to us. The kinds of things Sal relates are available to all of us at anytime, but most of us aren't aware of it. The idea that there is some kind of definable state of awareness and a well laid out progression towards it is in my opinion some made up baloney on the part of the old rishis who didn't want to work, just wanted to set around all day looking at their navel and when they had some of these experiences they said Ah ha! This is REAL reality, and all these po' folk runnin' around doing all this doing are full of crap! WE have the lock on what is true, real and righ! And like everyone else in the world they wanted everyone else to corroborate their reality so they made a big deal out of it and created all the sacred books of the Hindoos that everybody was supposed to embrace if they were smart. Along comes Marshy, fanatic Hindoo, and he used the playbook to make a nice living for himself. So I think we can slip in and out of these different experiences of our own awareness. Some like maybe Eckhart Tolle can choose to stay in one spot for a long time, making it seem permanent. Others go back and forth. Which IMO accounts for the behavior we see in folks like Marshy, Muktananda, Kriyananda and all the rest where they appear to be brilliant enlightened individuals one day and the next day appear to be venal, petty tyrants and sexual opportunists and so forth. Well, just as in waking state there are almost infinite manifestations of perception, behaviour, intelligence then why wouldn't there be the same in so-called enlightened or at least, 'other' states of awareness? I am still not convinced there are these enlightened altered states of consciousness at all and I certainly don't think you can categorize these states, if they do exist, into tight little cubicles of defined characteristics that are the same for all those having attained those states. On Sun, 2/16/14, steve.sundur@... mailto:steve.sundur@... steve.sundur@... mailto:steve.sundur@... wrote: Subject: [FairfieldLife] RE: Drinking Vedic Coffee and Discerning 'Cult' from 'Sect' To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Date: Sunday, February 16, 2014, 2:28 PM I'm thinking of some of the other flashy experiences that have been related here periodically. Bob Price related one, sometime ago. MJ related one recently. In both cases they were more or less just footnotes, and then life moved on. But they also seemed to have left their mark and a pretty deep impression, as though saying, We're not finished here, just wanting to set a marker But who knows, maybe it's just random brain activity as I believe Curtis once said. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com mailto:no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: Yes, I used to get a lot of things like that. A text book progression of enlightened states as espoused by Marshy. Really amazingly nice and it convinced me I was going to get there but it all stopped, maybe it will start up again but I doubt it and it doesn't even interest me any more, it's like the acid trips I used to do, a great way to spend a day but is it a good long term proposition? At work once I became the unwitting centre of attention when I slipped into unity on a busy friday afternoon when we were normally running around trying to wrap everything up. Everyone else just pulled up a chair and sat round my desk, it was amazing how different yet the same I was, intensely relaxed but wide awake and flowing all things good from some centre that wasn't even me but was everything that existed and it was all lush, powerful and vivid. Happy days, but it wore off a few hours later and that was that. What it all means I cannot say, my guess is nothing, just a phase, maybe all that bending my mind out of shape suddenly reflexively threw it into a euphoric state. But whatever, it doesn't work any more... --In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, steve.sundur@... wrote: Wow, I hope you don't me saying this, but this is the nicest post we've had in about six months. And it sounds like more than witnessing.I say that because as I've always understood it, the transcendental field is without attributes. It is when we experience it that it becomes blissful. But otherwise, it is just a silent witness.Whatever you were experiencing was creeping into waking state. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com
Re: [FairfieldLife] RE: Drinking Vedic Coffee and Discerning 'Cult' from 'Sect'
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, mjackson74@... wrote: I agree with some of the things I believe Barry has said - that we are all part of this cosmic soup, and the entire infinite or nearly infinite range of experiences are available to us. The kinds of things Sal relates are available to all of us at anytime, but most of us aren't aware of it. I am sure you are aware, this isn't really a revelation, and happens to be one of the things most every piece of Hindu points out, right? As I said before, I think the rest is sort of skewed, or a sort of limited view. The idea that there is some kind of definable state of awareness and a well laid out progression towards it is in my opinion some made up baloney on the part of the old rishis who didn't want to work, just wanted to set around all day looking at their navel and when they had some of these experiences they said Ah ha! This is REAL reality, and all these po' folk runnin' around doing all this doing are full of crap! WE have the lock on what is true, real and righ! And like everyone else in the world they wanted everyone else to corroborate their reality so they made a big deal out of it and created all the sacred books of the Hindoos that everybody was supposed to embrace if they were smart. Along comes Marshy, fanatic Hindoo, and he used the playbook to make a nice living for himself. So I think we can slip in and out of these different experiences of our own awareness. Some like maybe Eckhart Tolle can choose to stay in one spot for a long time, making it seem permanent. Others go back and forth. Which IMO accounts for the behavior we see in folks like Marshy, Muktananda, Kriyananda and all the rest where they appear to be brilliant enlightened individuals one day and the next day appear to be venal, petty tyrants and sexual opportunists and so forth. On Sun, 2/16/14, steve.sundur@... mailto:steve.sundur@... steve.sundur@... mailto:steve.sundur@... wrote: Subject: [FairfieldLife] RE: Drinking Vedic Coffee and Discerning 'Cult' from 'Sect' To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Date: Sunday, February 16, 2014, 2:28 PM I'm thinking of some of the other flashy experiences that have been related here periodically. Bob Price related one, sometime ago. MJ related one recently. In both cases they were more or less just footnotes, and then life moved on. But they also seemed to have left their mark and a pretty deep impression, as though saying, We're not finished here, just wanting to set a marker But who knows, maybe it's just random brain activity as I believe Curtis once said. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com mailto:no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: Yes, I used to get a lot of things like that. A text book progression of enlightened states as espoused by Marshy. Really amazingly nice and it convinced me I was going to get there but it all stopped, maybe it will start up again but I doubt it and it doesn't even interest me any more, it's like the acid trips I used to do, a great way to spend a day but is it a good long term proposition? At work once I became the unwitting centre of attention when I slipped into unity on a busy friday afternoon when we were normally running around trying to wrap everything up. Everyone else just pulled up a chair and sat round my desk, it was amazing how different yet the same I was, intensely relaxed but wide awake and flowing all things good from some centre that wasn't even me but was everything that existed and it was all lush, powerful and vivid. Happy days, but it wore off a few hours later and that was that. What it all means I cannot say, my guess is nothing, just a phase, maybe all that bending my mind out of shape suddenly reflexively threw it into a euphoric state. But whatever, it doesn't work any more... --In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, steve.sundur@... wrote: Wow, I hope you don't me saying this, but this is the nicest post we've had in about six months. And it sounds like more than witnessing.I say that because as I've always understood it, the transcendental field is without attributes. It is when we experience it that it becomes blissful. But otherwise, it is just a silent witness.Whatever you were experiencing was creeping into waking state. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com mailto:no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: Yes, like being wrapped in infinite cotton wool, all rosy and warm. During some of those experiences I'd spend days seeing the world like it's made of christmas tree lights with that angel hair round them. Then it got even better and I saw where the light
[FairfieldLife] RE: Is TM a Cult?
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, dhamiltony2k5@... wrote: Okay, no charismatic leader no cult. It is just an organization. So by more scholarly definition evidently your feelings around the TM movement is that TM never quite rose up to be a cult, but was/is a sect. No charismatic leader, no cult. It evidently was a movement that you were part of, -Buck You'd have to read my post yesterday about how I feel about cults or no cults. I don't care if something is a cult, that doesn't automatically make it bad or good, positive or negative. I don't really think of the TM Movement a cult. But, like I said, I've been in a cult, gotten some good stuff out of it and moved on. Cults aren't fatal, they're just another life experience. Similarly, I don't care if TM is a religion, that word doesn't scare me either. It is what it is. If some want to think of it as a religion then go for it, if they want to think of it as a country club they can do that too, whatever floats their proverbial boat. salyavin808 writes: As far as I'm concerned it never had a charismatic leader. Marshy's woolly, illogical and ignorant lecturing style always left me cold. Corporation is a good word for it though. As it sells both a product and a belief system that makes that product seem a lot more valuable than it actually is. Marshy's genius is the lectures he gave that conned everyone into thinking all the unified field, sci, land of the ved bollocks was an ultimate truth for all mankind and that he was its natural voice. awoelflebater writes: I'd have to agree with you about MMY not being the most riveting of speakers. He was a snooze for me but he certainly, at least, seemed like a pleasant enough guy but hardly profound, hardly magnetic and definitely not charismatic. TM, more accurately now is a [religious spiritual] sect in its post-charismatic leader phase. As an organizational structure it is a corporation. Fairly, TM is no longer a cult with a charismatic leader. -Buck salyavin808 writes: Potayto, potahto. No, most of what you are offering as definition technically is about sects. Cults form around charismatic persons. Sects form out of specialness, exception or differentiation as in different denominations of protestantism or catholicism or denominations or types of meditation. Those are sects. Sects are around fragmentation and cults are around persons as charismatics. For instance, If someone really 'charismatic', like earlier defined by Weber, like a Robin were to show up in Fairfield, Iowa and take off a bunch of meditators as his followers by force and power of personality then we're talking cult, as a sect. That is different than the different sects of people out teaching meditations and some others out there teaching other things they've learned. -Buck in the Dome Salyavin808 writes: You don't need any leader to be a cult. All you need is a belief system that sets you apart from the norm. Om, policy and movement within TM now is based much more on science, merit and efficacy than old ways promoted around Totakacharya-like devotion, fealty and ideology. But that old movement way of fealty test and ideology test is fast dying away of a necessity and become cultural memory of a past. Heck TM does not even have a charismatic leader or leadership anymore. WE got administrators. It is kind of hard to have a cult without a charismatic leader that you could point to. That is defining of cults. Please see FFL post# 370565 . No, people become meditators and then freely participating in this organization because they like meditation and appreciate all the good that the transcendent meditative state provides everyone individually and collectively. Our meditating organization is here to facilitate that good. That facilitating in our case now is the work of good in progress by our new incorporation as meditators. Our corporation as it always has been is certainly about affecting a positive revolutionary radical change in all of society for everybody. Most of us in TM are pretty clear about that. Are you with us or against us in this? -U.S. Buck in the Dome MJ, See Weber's comments on 'cult' in Melton's Intro to The Postcharismatic Fate of New Religious Movements: http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/FairfieldLife/conversations/messages/370565 http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/FairfieldLife/conversations/messages/370565 MJ, Your thesis around TM being a 'cult' has a problem in that we in TM no longer have a charismatic leader of TM. We are either administrators or meditators in TM and anyone in TM is enfranchised by a little of both under Maharishi's Absolute Theories of Management and Government. You clearly are full of your own personal BS and have your ax grinding about something. I feels a sorrow for thee in thy lack of peace around this. -Buck “Which would you rather experience: living the paradox or
Re: [FairfieldLife] John M. Knapp: Licensing Board Ruling
On 2/15/2014 10:04 AM, jchwe...@gmail.com wrote: Knapp was my former cult-recovery therapist from around July, 2008, until August, 2010. That's what I'm talking about! One of these therapists trolled to FFL recently and tried to recruit some new members to his Cult of Robin. He apparently snagged one new one to his personality cult, but some of the former members sent him a long message telling him to stop all the trolling and button-pushing - they didn't want to buy any more snake-oil. What they probably need was a good cult-recovery therapist. Go figure. One FFL informant said she felt like she had been psychological raped by Robin, but the guy that really got the mind rape was Curtis, the former leader of the TMO. Robin, posing as the Masked Zebra, tried to fuck over Curtis's mind with a long 300,000 word series of messages trying to prove to Curtis that Robin got enlightened on the side of a mpuntain and that he had become God by practicing TM and the MMY Yoga Asanas.
[FairfieldLife] RE: Drinking Vedic Coffee and Discerning 'Cult' from 'Sect'
Yes it did sound familiar to Robin, I didn't have any rolling about on the floor crying. I was just sitting at my desk looking at a paper clip, suddenly I noticed a fingerprint on the metal and then I saw a rainbow in the oil of my fingerprint. And then everything changed, very real and profound. Wish I had the words to do it justice but the inner clarity and the colours and the sweetness and variety of emotion. All I remember thinking was wow, I am the world. It only lasted four hours too, which isn't enough time to get a spiritual movement together. Probably just as well, all my followers would probably wear paperclips round their necks to signal their devotion - it could've been awful - but may have been great, the sitting round talking to people was really lovely, like those late night chats with good friends where you forget who you are and just roll with the conversation.Turn that up to eleven and you'll know where I'm coming from. I think it takes a certain sort of person to get an experience like that and take it some different level so other people can benefit. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend@... wrote: Fascinating, Salyavin. That is remarkably similar--virtually identical--to how Robin described his own exprience. Except for him, for whatever reason, it lasted for over a decade, and he spent 25 years working to get rid of it because of how ultimately destructive it had proved to be. At work once I became the unwitting centre of attention when I slipped into unity on a busy friday afternoon when we were normally running around trying to wrap everything up. Everyone else just pulled up a chair and sat round my desk, it was amazing how different yet the same I was, intensely relaxed but wide awake and flowing all things good from some centre that wasn't even me but was everything that existed and it was all lush, powerful and vivid. Happy days, but it wore off a few hours later and that was that. What it all means I cannot say, my guess is nothing, just a phase, maybe all that bending my mind out of shape suddenly reflexively threw it into a euphoric state. But whatever, it doesn't work any more.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: What I Did Today
Yesterday we saw this cat sleeping on a porch: [image: Inline image 1] On Sat, Feb 15, 2014 at 1:20 PM, Pundit Sir pundits...@gmail.com wrote: Yesterday we went to this place: [image: Inline image 4] The San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo http://www.sarodeo.com/ [image: Inline image 2] Heart - The San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo Friday, February 14th 2014 http://www.sarodeo.com/entertainers/prca-rodeo-w-heart Notes: The San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo has been around since 1950. But, the whole town is based on cattle trails. One location called Five Points is where a drunk cowboy once fell off his horse. Spaniards founded the San Antonio Missions - apparently the very first rodeo may have been when Jose left the gate to the stable open by mistake, causing the very first round up (rodeo). Go figure. [image: Inline image 3] On Fri, Feb 14, 2014 at 4:16 PM, Pundit Sir pundits...@gmail.com wrote: We also picked up some wine at this place. [image: Inline image 1] On Fri, Feb 14, 2014 at 1:10 PM, Pundit Sir pundits...@gmail.com wrote: We went by this place a few days ago to get some beer. [image: Inline image 1] On Sun, Feb 2, 2014 at 1:00 PM, Richard Williams pundits...@gmail.comwrote: We went to this place yesterday: [image: Inline image 1] On Mon, Jan 27, 2014 at 6:33 PM, Richard Williams pundits...@gmail.com wrote: Today we went to this place: [image: Inline image 1] They have a good cheese selection: [image: Inline image 2] [image: Inline image 3] On Sun, Jan 19, 2014 at 10:59 AM, awoelfleba...@yahoo.com wrote: ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, punditster@... wrote: We went to this place yesterday - they have some boots for sale. That's a whole lotta shit stompers in one place. I prefer shopping in smaller, boutique-y stores though. I always have people coming into my strictly English tack store asking where to buy cowboy boots because Victoria doesn't have anywhere that sells them. Next time I'll send them to Texas. [image: Inline image 1] Cavender's Boot City [image: Inline image 2] Tony Lama, Justin, Lucchese, Laredo On Sat, Jan 18, 2014 at 6:13 PM, Richard Williams punditster@...wrote: Today, we went to this place: [image: Inline image 2] On Sun, Dec 29, 2013 at 1:05 PM, Richard Williams punditster@...wrote: * I read through this post, bemused by it, but I didn't notice until I'd gotten almost all the way to the end of it that part of my mind was still saying, What's a car? :-)* You probably don't even need a car over there - in fact, it would be a problem. Over, here a car is just another tool for most people. Without one, I'd be dead in the water. Some people who are rich probably drive cars just for fun and pleasure, like my neighbor, who doesn't drive these cars much - there just for shows. I inherited the Eldorado from Mom. She bought it new off the show room floor and it's been garaged it's whole life. She still had a driver's license at age 86, but hadn't driven in about ten years. So, one day I just took it - I'm using it for highway driving. I put some new tires on it and a new disc brakes. You can't get anything these days for a car like that - maybe $1500. The AC still works and it has cruise control. Also, it has a kick-ass Delco Bose sound system with CD player inside. Sweet! [image: Inline image 1] On Sun, Dec 29, 2013 at 11:54 AM, TurquoiseB turquoiseb@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Share Long wrote: noozguru et al, small country, flat land. And no snow or ice on the roads and bike paths! *Ahem. Only pussies leave their bikes at home when it snows. * * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMv3OB6XHvQ*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMv3OB6XHvQ*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMv3OB6XHvQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMv3OB6XHvQ* On Sunday, December 29, 2013 11:11 AM, Bhairitu noozguru@... wrote: Small country, flat land. On 12/29/2013 07:43 AM, TurquoiseB wrote: Uh oh. I think I've achieved one of those milestones along the path to You know you're in danger of becoming Dutch when... consciousness. I read through this post, bemused by it, but I didn't notice until I'd gotten almost all the way to the end of it that part of my mind was still saying, What's a car? :-) http://whowhatwhy.com/2013/04/09/learning-from-the-netherlands-about-bikes/
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Now Playing
The Jerks At Work - Will Rigby - Paradoxaholic album http://youtu.be/xf0SFX3IW94 [image: Inline image 1] Yeah the jerks at work want genuflection from me I'm all booked up but my middle finger might be free... On Sat, Feb 15, 2014 at 1:44 PM, Pundit Sir pundits...@gmail.com wrote: [image: Inline image 1] Alan Jackson, Clint Black, George Strait, Jimmy Buffett, Kenny Chesney, and Toby Keith Margaritaville - Alan Jackson - Jimmy Buffet http://youtu.be/LascX14s_EY On Fri, Feb 14, 2014 at 6:38 PM, Pundit Sir pundits...@gmail.com wrote: Willie Nelson On the Road Again http://youtu.be/1TD_pSeNelU [image: Inline image 1] Vintage JVC PL-10 Direct Drive 1978 On Wed, Feb 12, 2014 at 9:38 PM, Pundit Sir pundits...@gmail.com wrote: Best known for her 1977 country-pop crossover hit song, Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue, she accumulated 20 number one country hits during the 1970s and 1980s (18 on Billboard and 2 on Cashbox) with six albums certified Gold by the RIAA. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_Gayle Too Many Lovers (Not enough love) http://youtu.be/W0EQlXG2q3s [image: Inline image 1] Crystal Gayle's Greatest Hits (1983) http://youtu.be/30b-UKwYCRE On Fri, Feb 7, 2014 at 1:23 PM, Pundit Sir pundits...@gmail.com wrote: The dB's - Wake up,that time is gone. [image: Inline image 1] That Time Is Gone - Peter Holsapple, vocals and guitar http://youtu.be/f9CwLD1Yrvo Recorded live in 2012 in Austin, Texas at Threadgill's during the Music Fog Marathon. When Rita was living in San Diego the guitarist in this video, Peter Holsapple, was her boyfriends roommate. It was great meeting up with him again in Austin. An amazing reunion from the old days in California! MusicFog review: http://musicfog.com/home/2012/6/12/the-dbs-that-time-is-gone.html On Thu, Feb 6, 2014 at 11:54 AM, Pundit Sir pundits...@gmail.comwrote: Now playing: Get ready for a tribal beat stomp dance down at the Techno Club with DJ Pseudo Buddha. Work it! [image: Inline image 1] How Ya Doin? Factory Mix - Beat Your Meat (Move Your Body 2) 1994 http://youtu.be/edSWATUnxwc On Mon, Feb 3, 2014 at 8:54 AM, Pundit Sir pundits...@gmail.comwrote: One Dove [image: Inline image 1] One Dove - White Love (Psychic Masterbation) - from Platinum on Black Vol 1 http://youtu.be/pqIsWexYD74 White Love - One Dove - Video http://youtu.be/5Z_hcAQz1Rw One Dove was a Scottish alternative dance music group active in the early 1990s, consisting of Dot Allison, Ian Carmichael and Jim McKinven. One Dove: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Dove On Sat, Feb 1, 2014 at 9:27 PM, Richard Williams pundits...@gmail.com wrote: The Jim Cullum Jazz Band [image: Inline image 1] We saw this band a few years ago and we listen to them on PRI every week. So, we decided to see them again soon. This is going to be a very busy time for music lovers around here what with the San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo followed by South by Southwest (SxSW) the music and film festival in Austin (Rodriquez will probably be there and Linklater too). In this video the Jim Cullum Jazz Band is joined by David Jellema when they performed at the historic Pearl Brewery in San Antonio Texas, for the public radio series Riverwalk Jazz in October 2009: Clarinet Marmalade http://youtu.be/z4RWkTrU2d8 Jim Cullum Jazz Band Boardwalk Bistro 7:30pm -- 10:30pm Friday February 7, 2014 4011 Broadway, San Antonio http://riverwalkjazz.org/ http://www.pri.org/programs/riverwalk-jazz The Jim Cullum Jazz Band is an acoustic seven-piece traditional jazz ensemble led by cornetist Jim Cullum, Jr.. Since 1989, the band has been featured nationally on their own weekly public radio series Riverwalk Jazz. The band performs live Tuesday through Saturday at the Landing Jazz Club on the Riverwalk in San Antonio, Texas. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Cullum_Jazz_Band On Sat, Feb 1, 2014 at 11:57 AM, Richard Williams pundits...@gmail.com wrote: The dB's [image: Inline image 1] That Time Is Gone - Peter Holsapple, vocals and guitar http://youtu.be/f9CwLD1Yrvo Recorded live in 2012 in Austin, Texas at Threadgill's during the Music Fog Marathon. When Rita was living in San Diego the guitarist in this video, Peter Holsapple, was her boyfriends roommate. It was great meeting up with him again in Austin. An amazing reunion from the old days in California! MusicFog review: http://musicfog.com/home/2012/6/12/the-dbs-that-time-is-gone.html On Fri, Jan 31, 2014 at 9:58 PM, Richard Williams pundits...@gmail.com wrote: Orianthi [image: Inline image 3] Orienthe with Carls Santana Orianthi Panagaris, better known by her mononym Orianthi, is an Australian musician, singer-songwriter and guitarist. Orianthi was named one of the 12 Greatest Female Electric Guitarists by Elle magazine.[3] She also won the award as Breakthrough Guitarist of the Year 2010 by Guitar International
[FairfieldLife] RE: Drinking Vedic Coffee and Discerning 'Cult' from 'Sect'
I don't know if it's random brain activity or sudden increase in brain activity or coherence if you like, but it seems like an improvement unlike other altered brain states which are mostly awful. Even the positive sounding ones like the upturn of bipolar disorder leave you less able to get things done. I knew someone who had schizophrenia and on the way from psychosis or mania via depression he would sometimes hit a sweet spot I called his Jesus mode where he radiated love and peace and became the centre of attention when he walked into a room, people would just sit silently waiting for their turn for his attention. Amazing to watch but if it lasted an hour we were lucky because he went from there to taking his clothes off and starting fights. Not a well man. But it's interesting to speculate that the potential for what we call enlightenment is just part of our fragile range of possible experiences but which is the rarer, psychosis or enlightenment? If you get too much of one do you get labelled with the other? ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, steve.sundur@... wrote: I'm thinking of some of the other flashy experiences that have been related here periodically. Bob Price related one, sometime ago. MJ related one recently. In both cases they were more or less just footnotes, and then life moved on. But they also seemed to have left their mark and a pretty deep impression, as though saying, We're not finished here, just wanting to set a marker But who knows, maybe it's just random brain activity as I believe Curtis once said. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: Yes, I used to get a lot of things like that. A text book progression of enlightened states as espoused by Marshy. Really amazingly nice and it convinced me I was going to get there but it all stopped, maybe it will start up again but I doubt it and it doesn't even interest me any more, it's like the acid trips I used to do, a great way to spend a day but is it a good long term proposition? At work once I became the unwitting centre of attention when I slipped into unity on a busy friday afternoon when we were normally running around trying to wrap everything up. Everyone else just pulled up a chair and sat round my desk, it was amazing how different yet the same I was, intensely relaxed but wide awake and flowing all things good from some centre that wasn't even me but was everything that existed and it was all lush, powerful and vivid. Happy days, but it wore off a few hours later and that was that. What it all means I cannot say, my guess is nothing, just a phase, maybe all that bending my mind out of shape suddenly reflexively threw it into a euphoric state. But whatever, it doesn't work any more... --In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, steve.sundur@... wrote: Wow, I hope you don't me saying this, but this is the nicest post we've had in about six months. And it sounds like more than witnessing. I say that because as I've always understood it, the transcendental field is without attributes. It is when we experience it that it becomes blissful. But otherwise, it is just a silent witness. Whatever you were experiencing was creeping into waking state. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: Yes, like being wrapped in infinite cotton wool, all rosy and warm. During some of those experiences I'd spend days seeing the world like it's made of christmas tree lights with that angel hair round them. Then it got even better and I saw where the light came from and I knew everything without being able to answer any questions and then it stopped. What the point of it was, other than to make me feel my ascetic life was paying off, is beyond me. But if it had lasted any longer I probably would have started a cult myself. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, steve.sundur@... wrote: (-: Hey, neat about that witnessing experience. I experienced it once, and didn't realize it till after the fact. But was the experience blissful for you? ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: Potayto, potahto. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, dhamiltony2k5@... wrote: No, most of what you are offering as definition technically is about sects. Cults form around charismatic persons. Sects form out of specialness, exception or differentiation as in different denominations of protestantism or catholicism or denominations or types of meditation. Those are sects. Sects are around fragmentation and cults are around persons as charismatics. For instance, If someone really 'charismatic', like earlier defined by Weber, like a Robin were to show up in Fairfield, Iowa and take off a bunch of meditators as his followers by force and power of personality then we're talking cult, as a sect. That is different than the different sects of people out teaching meditations
Re: [FairfieldLife] RE: John M. Knapp: Licensing Board Ruling
On 2/15/2014 8:43 PM, jchwe...@gmail.com wrote: Judy...that is correct. there was no sexual or romantic relationship between Knapp I. Neither I am aware of any stories regarding sexual abuse and Knapp. Thanks for all the information. Maybe that impostor Michael Jackson was just trolling for attention and making stuff up - we get that a lot here from trolls and paraody-pushers. On discussion groups or bulletin boards this type of post is called an effect change - stating extreme positions to make his or her actual beliefs seem moderate. It should be noted that this MJ alias is a contributor to Knapp's web site, TM-Free blog. Go figure.
Re: [FairfieldLife] RE: John M. Knapp: Licensing Board Ruling
The 50 post limit was stupid. Alex doesn't want to deal with it. It's no problem to ignore the riff raff if you read the group with an email client like Thunderbird. Grown ups don't need no stinkin' post limit. On 02/16/2014 02:15 AM, jedi_sp...@yahoo.com wrote: I concur. I find it difficult to wade through all this pig-muck and cattle manure to find an odd gem or two. The 50 post limit is got to be back. This group is once again turning anarchist as it was years ago. BTW, how's the weather in old blighty? ---Salyavin808 no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: Please can we ago back to 50 posts a week, it's for your sanity as much as everybody elses --- authfriend@... wrote: Note the phrase, in Robin's cult, as if it were established fact that he has a cult. He doesn't, of course. But Share didn't choose her words by accident.
[FairfieldLife] The bastard union of psychotherapy and anti-cultism: it's all about the money
http://thenewobserver.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/therapy_short.pdf http://thenewobserver.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/therapy_short.pdf Psychotherapy and counseling are growth industries. The BBC for example finds it necessary to frequently add after stories involving any degree of shock those effected are receiving counseling or are being offered counseling. Psychotherapy and counseling are widely seen as acceptable, meaningful and valid. That they may be unscientific folk practices offered by unscrupulous individuals is not a popular view. But it may be a more accurate assessment. This essay considers psychotherapy and counseling as social movements. We look at the ideology of therapy and ask whether it is really there to benefit the patient. We reflect on the 'long and arduous' training for psychotherapy and find that in fact it is neither long nor arduous. We look at the view of people that therapy holds to; necessarily people are seen as in need of therapy, that is weak and lacking. We suggest that the valuation of emotionalism in therapy is a retreat from a difficult world not a mature response to it. We consider whether therapy is a cult, a religion or a science; it seems that therapy has most in common with folk movements. And finally we ask how it is that people do not leave their therapists; here we catch a glimpse into the power of the therapist, a power not unlike that of the witch-doctor in a primitive society.
[FairfieldLife] SECURITY BELIEFS
SECURITY BELIEFS Some of us may recall the author Arthur C. Clarke's three laws of prediction: When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. These 'laws' apply to scientific advancement. In the field of human psychology, there are a set of statements made by another author, Isaac Asimov, which refer to beliefs we humans invoke in order to feel 'safer', beliefs that reduce cognitive dissonance when what we think and how we act does not seem to be approved of by the world world around us. These beliefs tend to be rampant in spiritual circles, where belief dominates rather than simple observation and direct experience, the latter two always seemingly to be somewhat in short supply. Azimov called these six items 'security beliefs'. In the spirit of modesty (rather atypical for Azimov), he suggested the reader could supply a seventh, if one could be thought of. Because of their prevalence however, one might think of these items as laws. These beliefs and their descriptions are not really laws, just as Clarke's 'laws' are not really laws, they are just simple observations about human behaviour and human responses to situations, but because they are so prevalent, they might be accorded informal status as 'laws' of human behaviour. Azimov's Security Beliefs: There exist supernatural forces that can be cajoled or forced into protecting mankind. There is no such thing, really, as death. There is some purpose to the Universe. Individuals have special powers that will enable them to get something for nothing. You are better than the next fellow. If anything goes wrong, it's not one's own fault. I found these in a book titled 'Magic', a collection of stories and essays published not long after Asimov's death. Asimov was one of the most prolific authors of the 20th century, having written or edited more than 500 books, and an equally large number of short stories and essays. Assuming his professional writing career began about 1940, that comes to nearly ten books a year, not including the other material. As you can gander from the 'security beliefs', they seem to apply in full force to our group of miscreants here on FFL. I have certainly fallen into their grip at one time or another in my life, and am still probably not free of them - yet - although if number two is false, there's hope. One way to look at these is if they are not true, then their opposites are what is true, and they would be laws of the Universe.
[FairfieldLife] RE: Drinking Vedic Coffee and Discerning 'Cult' from 'Sect'
But you do seem to understand how someone who had that experience and had it stick would want to do what he or she could to share it with others, help them get there as well. Not really a matter of ego per se. On the other hand, I can understand how being in that state and having others soaking up what they could of it might eventually bring out some of one's worst qualities that somehow never got expunged when the light dawned. Seems to me it would be hard to tell, if one's sustained experience is that I am the world, what was flowing all things good from some centre that wasn't even me but was everything that existed, on the one hand, and what was coming from the dregs of one's own personality, on the other. Yes it did sound familiar to Robin, I didn't have any rolling about on the floor crying. I was just sitting at my desk looking at a paper clip, suddenly I noticed a fingerprint on the metal and then I saw a rainbow in the oil of my fingerprint. And then everything changed, very real and profound. Wish I had the words to do it justice but the inner clarity and the colours and the sweetness and variety of emotion. All I remember thinking was wow, I am the world. It only lasted four hours too, which isn't enough time to get a spiritual movement together. Probably just as well, all my followers would probably wear paperclips round their necks to signal their devotion - it could've been awful - but may have been great, the sitting round talking to people was really lovely, like those late night chats with good friends where you forget who you are and just roll with the conversation.Turn that up to eleven and you'll know where I'm coming from. I think it takes a certain sort of person to get an experience like that and take it some different level so other people can benefit. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend@... wrote: Fascinating, Salyavin. That is remarkably similar--virtually identical--to how Robin described his own exprience. Except for him, for whatever reason, it lasted for over a decade, and he spent 25 years working to get rid of it because of how ultimately destructive it had proved to be. At work once I became the unwitting centre of attention when I slipped into unity on a busy friday afternoon when we were normally running around trying to wrap everything up. Everyone else just pulled up a chair and sat round my desk, it was amazing how different yet the same I was, intensely relaxed but wide awake and flowing all things good from some centre that wasn't even me but was everything that existed and it was all lush, powerful and vivid. Happy days, but it wore off a few hours later and that was that. What it all means I cannot say, my guess is nothing, just a phase, maybe all that bending my mind out of shape suddenly reflexively threw it into a euphoric state. But whatever, it doesn't work any more.
[FairfieldLife] An acute differnce between Eastern Orthodox Christianity and Roman Catholicism
Original Sin vs Ancestral Sin Another point of theological contention according to some Orthodox theologians is the Roman Catholic teachings on Original Sin. Orthodox theologians trace this position to having its roots in the works of Saint Augustine. Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy and Eastern Catholicism, which together make up Eastern Christianity, acknowledge that the introduction of ancestral sin into the human race affected the subsequent environment for humanity, but never accepted Augustine of Hippo's notions of original sin and hereditary guilt. The Roman Catholic Church did not accept all of Augustine's ideas, at least as these are commonly interpreted outside the Church, such as the idea that original sin deprives man of free will or that God predestines some people to hell, and also his teaching that infants who die without baptism are confined to hell. It holds that original sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of Adam's descendants.
Re: [FairfieldLife] RE: John M. Knapp: Licensing Board Ruling
On 2/16/2014 10:06 AM, jchwe...@gmail.com wrote: Or are you serious Richard? Seriously, I feel like I just got mind-fucked again today. It's almost to the point that the button-pushers have taken over the whole newsgroup. All we want to do is meditate twice a day, chat with a few TMers, and support some poor Hindu boys over in India. Why is that so difficult to deal with? Why do therapists and cult reformers have to troll here to tell us what to do - it's a free country, we can pray and believe in anything we want to, up to and including that people can fly and become enlightened. Go figure.
[FairfieldLife] RE: It's just sheer awareness (drišti- mâtratâ) and it ain't transcendent
For me, there is consciousness, but it is not a state. It can be intellectually and roughly catagorised as having three basic sequential characteristics: sleeping, dreaming, and waking. Waking contains the whole world we call the universe, which includes the mind which in thinking mode interprets the universe, i.e., e.g., the interpretation that there is consciousness and it can be roughly categorised as having three basic sequential characteristics. Another interpretation: the consciousness is not a witness of the activity of the three characteristics: it IS the three characteristics. Spiritual traditions sometimes benchmark experience; everyone here is aware of M's seven states of consciousness benchmarks. I have always doubted that everyone would necessarily experience all these or even in the order that was specified. Some people seem to have a hodgepodge of experiences like this but not necessarily in the same sequence and some do not, or have gaps in the sequence. This may depend on the kind of techniques one is practising, and one's situation. Probably not a good idea to believe too strongly that any particular sequence is THE sequence of experiences one could have. Awakening experiences, which are more common now, usually occur in daylight (waking) and can show one the nature of unity. It might not last long and close down. So someone might experience unity first, have it disappear, but then they might be curious enough to pursue wanting it back again. After such an experience someone might think 'transcending' in meditation is rather tame by comparison. However, being still seems to be one of the most productive methods for having more expanded experience. The only reason early experiences of meditation seem to be transcendent is because they are unfamiliar, they seem far away, a different kind of experience than typical, but eventually such experience becomes immanent, in your face so to speak, immediate and here and now, not beyond at all. When that happens, the spiritual path is seen as having been a total myth, a con. The laugh is on us, because we fell for our own deception, but the corollary here is we cannot blame someone else for having been taken in.
Re: [FairfieldLife] An acute differnce between Eastern Orthodox Christianity and Roman Catholicism
On 2/16/2014 12:15 PM, emptyb...@yahoo.com wrote: The Roman Catholic Church did not accept all of Augustine's ideas... So, where is the part about man becoming God in the Eastern Orthdoxy?
[FairfieldLife] RE: John M. Knapp: Licensing Board Ruling
This is hillarious Willy. You always give the knockout punch and seal the argument. ---WillyTex punditster@... wrote: Seriously, I feel like I just got mind-fucked again today. It's almost to the point that the button-pushers have taken over the whole newsgroup. All we want to do is meditate twice a day, chat with a few TMers, and support some poor Hindu boys over in India. Why is that so difficult to deal with? Why do therapists and cult reformers have to troll here to tell us what to do - it's a free country, we can pray and believe in anything we want to, up to and including that people can fly and become enlightened. Go figure. Thanks for all the information. Maybe that impostor Michael Jackson was just trolling for attention and making stuff up - we get that a lot here from trolls and paraody-pushers. On discussion groups or bulletin boards this type of post is called an effect change - stating extreme positions to make his or her actual beliefs seem moderate. It should be noted that this MJ alias is a contributor to Knapp's web site, TM-Free blog. Go figure. That's what I'm talking about! One of these therapists trolled to FFL recently and tried to recruit some new members to his Cult of Robin. He apparently snagged one new one to his personality cult, but some of the former members sent him a long message telling him to stop all the trolling and button-pushing - they didn't want to buy any more snake-oil. What they probably need was a good cult-recovery therapist. Go figure. One FFL informant said she felt like she had been psychological raped by Robin, but the guy that really got the mind rape was Curtis, the former leader of the TMO. Robin, posing as the Masked Zebra, tried to fuck over Curtis's mind with a long 300,000 word series of messages trying to prove to Curtis that Robin got enlightened on the side of a mpuntain and that he had become God by practicing TM and the MMY Yoga Asanas. The term psychological rape is frequently used in cult awareness discussion boards to describe how some people feel when some anonymous therapist tries to attack our online TMer group and tries to brainwash us into renouncing our religion and our spiritual practice. When they do this, we usually send them packing with a few words just to let them know that we see through their snake-oil scams and button-pushing - we almost always reveal them to be impostors and cranks. It's open season on the trolls, liars, parody posters, and button-pushers! Maybe they should all go back to TM-Free where they belong. WE ARE MAD AS HELL AND WE'RE NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE!!! Well, if the post-trappers and mental therapists would stop trying to push our buttons and trying to take over FFL and trying to mentally rape our minds; if they would stop making up parodies and lying to us about our leaders; if they would just shut their big pie holes for just a few hours so we TMers could get in a word edgewise; - WE COULD START THE HEALING PROCESS. We've been getting mind-fucked for at least two years by some anti-TM anti-MMY trolls. Thank you for posting this. That's what it feels like alright - except we can't seem to get out of the cesspool. Almost every post sent here goes to shit in a matter on minutes! Almost everyday we TMers on FFL are getting mind-raped by anonymous posters attempting to start fights with us and try to take over our minds by posting inflammatory messages with the intent to confuse and trap us with parodies posts and fibs and stuff. One informant almost started a riot the other day by insinuating that the TMers on FFL were trolls - WHOSE FUKIN NEWSGROUP IS THIS ANYWAY?!!! Go figure. Thanks for the information about Knapp. We've been discussing this almost endlessly for months. We just got rid of one therapist who came to this discussion group and tried to psychologically rape one of our informants - it's been a total mind-fuck ever since! Now we not only have to defend ourselves from the anonymous mind police posting here, but these days even some informants from of the TM-Free are attacking us - trying to use mind control and brainwashing techniques on us, in order to get us to stop meditating and stop supporting some poor Hindu boys trying to get an education up in Fairfield and over in India. Go figure. On 2/16/2014 10:06 AM, jchwelch@... wrote: Or are you serious Richard?
[FairfieldLife] RE: Drink Vedic Coffee and Support Peace
For me, certain visual or auditory experiences came and went before strong witnessing developed, which then went away for about three decades, buy then eventually returned in a new guise and a new understanding and that was stable for a few years and then became unstable again without being completely lost, and then returned again with what so far seems much more stability. This new witnessing though does not follow the 'screen of consciousness' model we find described in CC because it is not sensed as a separate process looking on experience. It is just experience in total. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, salyavin808@... wrote: Yes, I used to get a lot of things like that. A text book progression of enlightened states as espoused by Marshy. Really amazingly nice and it convinced me I was going to get there but it all stopped, maybe it will start up again but I doubt it and it doesn't even interest me any more, it's like the acid trips I used to do, a great way to spend a day but is it a good long term proposition? At work once I became the unwitting centre of attention when I slipped into unity on a busy friday afternoon when we were normally running around trying to wrap everything up. Everyone else just pulled up a chair and sat round my desk, it was amazing how different yet the same I was, intensely relaxed but wide awake and flowing all things good from some centre that wasn't even me but was everything that existed and it was all lush, powerful and vivid. Happy days, but it wore off a few hours later and that was that. What it all means I cannot say, my guess is nothing, just a phase, maybe all that bending my mind out of shape suddenly reflexively threw it into a euphoric state. But whatever, it doesn't work any more... --In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, steve.sundur@... wrote: Wow, I hope you don't me saying this, but this is the nicest post we've had in about six months. And it sounds like more than witnessing. I say that because as I've always understood it, the transcendental field is without attributes. It is when we experience it that it becomes blissful. But otherwise, it is just a silent witness. Whatever you were experiencing was creeping into waking state. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: Yes, like being wrapped in infinite cotton wool, all rosy and warm. During some of those experiences I'd spend days seeing the world like it's made of christmas tree lights with that angel hair round them. Then it got even better and I saw where the light came from and I knew everything without being able to answer any questions and then it stopped. What the point of it was, other than to make me feel my ascetic life was paying off, is beyond me. But if it had lasted any longer I probably would have started a cult myself. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, steve.sundur@... wrote: (-: Hey, neat about that witnessing experience. I experienced it once, and didn't realize it till after the fact. But was the experience blissful for you? ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: Potayto, potahto. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, dhamiltony2k5@... wrote: No, most of what you are offering as definition technically is about sects. Cults form around charismatic persons. Sects form out of specialness, exception or differentiation as in different denominations of protestantism or catholicism or denominations or types of meditation. Those are sects. Sects are around fragmentation and cults are around persons as charismatics. For instance, If someone really 'charismatic', like earlier defined by Weber, like a Robin were to show up in Fairfield, Iowa and take off a bunch of meditators as his followers by force and power of personality then we're talking cult, as a sect. That is different than the different sects of people out teaching meditations and some others out there teaching other things they've learned. -Buck in the Dome Salyavin808 writes: You don't need any leader to be a cult. All you need is a belief system that sets you apart from the norm.
[FairfieldLife] RE: Drinking Vedic Coffee and Discerning 'Cult' from 'Sect'
Comments below... ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend@... wrote: But you do seem to understand how someone who had that experience and had it stick would want to do what he or she could to share it with others, help them get there as well. Not really a matter of ego per se. I think it would depend on the sort of person they were before the moment as to how they acted, my tendency is to be a loner so any sharing would come from the simple desire others might have to be near me because of what they pick up. I really doubt I would go searching for people to help. I think you'd have to be an extrovert to become any sort of spiritual teacher and you could only teach from what you had acquired in your life, Marshy obviously had his Hindu upbringing, Robin his drama teaching. I'm a good cyclist and keen photographer but I'd have a job working that into a path others could follow! On the other hand, I can understand how being in that state and having others soaking up what they could of it might eventually bring out some of one's worst qualities that somehow never got expunged when the light dawned. But does anything get expunged? Maybe people stay fundamentally the same except for the transformation in inner perception. That's the best way I could put it, the relationship between what you see and who you are stays the same but is enhanced by a sudden lack of inner contradiction and a perceptionary changes. But as it's all undercut by a rushing surge of love you could be right, hard to be nasty when the simple act of speaking to someone is so enriching. Yes, the desire is to be evolutionary in the sense of making the most of who you are with. The idea of a moral superiority from being there is fascinating but what gets chucked out as far as brain functioning goes? Are all our problems caused by those niggling unbidden extra voices that suddenly take a sabbatical when you are enlightened? it would be a great thing to study, it feels like a switch being thrown, night into day. That must show up spectacularly on an EEG. Shame it's a bit on the rare side. Seems to me it would be hard to tell, if one's sustained experience is that I am the world, what was flowing all things good from some centre that wasn't even me but was everything that existed, on the one hand, and what was coming from the dregs of one's own personality, on the other. The I am the world thing was a simple observation I made and it had no huge ego attached to it, no matter how it sounds! It was simply seeing everything as both as it is, seperate from you, and part of the same thing as you in the sense that we're all part of this perfectly still but eternally rushing reality. The old metaphor of seeing the screen that the world is projected onto springs to mind here, but it's much better than that sounds. I think the more contradictory it sounds the better it's being explained but both things seem to be part of the one reality. I think it's all brain stuff but I can see how such a big deal gets made out of it with all this unified field talk. More interesting is the feeling that you couldn't go any further evolution wise, that the final end had been reached. All waveforms collapsed. Satisfaction. No more struggle. Is that a good thing? Maybe the dregs are simply what we are anyway and the inability of gurus to not screw up comes from the fact we (and they) have a far higher opinion of them than they deserve. We always project and expect holy men to be whiter than white but yes, maybe that wears off... ... or perhaps having people around you with such high expectations becomes wearying after a while and the ego starts to reassert itself to try and keep you sane, or make the most of what it can get. I don't know, just speculating from my meagre experience. But as experiences go it's up at the top of my personal most intriguing moments. Yes it did sound familiar to Robin, I didn't have any rolling about on the floor crying. I was just sitting at my desk looking at a paper clip, suddenly I noticed a fingerprint on the metal and then I saw a rainbow in the oil of my fingerprint. And then everything changed, very real and profound. Wish I had the words to do it justice but the inner clarity and the colours and the sweetness and variety of emotion. All I remember thinking was wow, I am the world. It only lasted four hours too, which isn't enough time to get a spiritual movement together. Probably just as well, all my followers would probably wear paperclips round their necks to signal their devotion - it could've been awful - but may have been great, the sitting round talking to people was really lovely, like those late night chats with good friends where you forget who you are and just roll with the conversation.Turn that up to eleven and you'll know where I'm coming from. I think it takes a certain sort of person to get an experience
Re: [FairfieldLife] RE: Drinking Vedic Coffee and Discerning 'Cult' from 'Sect'
On 2/16/2014 9:10 AM, Michael Jackson wrote: Along comes Marshy, fanatic Hindoo, and he used the playbook to make a nice living for himself. This message feels like a mind-fuck posted by a button-pushing troll that doesn't like Hindus or Hindu Pundits. Why shouldn't Hindus be able to make a nice living for themselves? Go figure.
[FairfieldLife] RE: John M. Knapp: Licensing Board Ruling
See?, this is exactly the reason you are seen as a grudge holder here. Was there any need to make that post? Excessive posts clog up the bandwidth and slow down data traffic. ---authfriend authfriend@... wrote: Share to the defense! guffaw Richard, I admit that your writing style delights me. Even when I don't agree with the content! Go figure! It's just that you almost always sound light hearted about all this stuff. And I thoroughly enjoy how you skip from one topic to the other. Those funny combo help me be more light hearted about it too. Anyway, thank you so much for making me smile and even laugh out loud a lot. On 2/15/2014 11:50 AM, jchwelch@... wrote: It was a type of psychological/emotional rape that Knapp exacted upon more than one person. On Sunday, February 16, 2014 9:51 AM, Richard J. Williams punditster@... wrote: Thanks for the information about Knapp. We've been discussing this almost endlessly for months. We just got rid of one therapist who came to this discussion group and tried to psychologically rape one of our informants - it's been a total mind-fuck ever since! Now we not only have to defend ourselves from the anonymous mind police posting here, but these days even some informants from of the TM-Free are attacking us - trying to use mind control and brainwashing techniques on us, in order to get us to stop meditating and stop supporting some poor Hindu boys trying to get an education up in Fairfield and over in India. Go figure.
[FairfieldLife] RE: SECURITY BELIEFS
Interesting how you can see the security beliefs in the article that Jason (I think) posted about Hameroff's ideas about quantum consciousness. Quanta have really become the get out clause of the modern world, probably because it's not well understood and is often a bit weird. It's no excuse for bad science though and the claims made for Penroses ideas are being stretched way beyond what he was originally trying to prove. And by one of the authors! Does it make me more likely to believe it? No, I think that everyone has the desire to live forever, it's buried deep down but it might be tricky getting going in the morning without it. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, anartaxius@... wrote: SECURITY BELIEFS Some of us may recall the author Arthur C. Clarke's three laws of prediction: When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. These 'laws' apply to scientific advancement. In the field of human psychology, there are a set of statements made by another author, Isaac Asimov, which refer to beliefs we humans invoke in order to feel 'safer', beliefs that reduce cognitive dissonance when what we think and how we act does not seem to be approved of by the world world around us. These beliefs tend to be rampant in spiritual circles, where belief dominates rather than simple observation and direct experience, the latter two always seemingly to be somewhat in short supply. Azimov called these six items 'security beliefs'. In the spirit of modesty (rather atypical for Azimov), he suggested the reader could supply a seventh, if one could be thought of. Because of their prevalence however, one might think of these items as laws. These beliefs and their descriptions are not really laws, just as Clarke's 'laws' are not really laws, they are just simple observations about human behaviour and human responses to situations, but because they are so prevalent, they might be accorded informal status as 'laws' of human behaviour. Azimov's Security Beliefs: There exist supernatural forces that can be cajoled or forced into protecting mankind. There is no such thing, really, as death. There is some purpose to the Universe. Individuals have special powers that will enable them to get something for nothing. You are better than the next fellow. If anything goes wrong, it's not one's own fault. I found these in a book titled 'Magic', a collection of stories and essays published not long after Asimov's death. Asimov was one of the most prolific authors of the 20th century, having written or edited more than 500 books, and an equally large number of short stories and essays. Assuming his professional writing career began about 1940, that comes to nearly ten books a year, not including the other material. As you can gander from the 'security beliefs', they seem to apply in full force to our group of miscreants here on FFL. I have certainly fallen into their grip at one time or another in my life, and am still probably not free of them - yet - although if number two is false, there's hope. One way to look at these is if they are not true, then their opposites are what is true, and they would be laws of the Universe.
[FairfieldLife] RE: Drink Vedic Coffee and Support Peace
I wonder if I'll ever get interested in it again. I used to have such a hunger for enlightenment but not now, I just enjoy meditating for it's own sake and do different types now according to what I want to achieve. One thing that makes me wonder is: what if you learn TM because you believe the propaganda that it makes you better in business. And then one day you are half way through a powerpoint presentation to some new clients and your mind suddenly explodes into Unity. Does the presentation get better or worse? ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, anartaxius@... wrote: For me, certain visual or auditory experiences came and went before strong witnessing developed, which then went away for about three decades, buy then eventually returned in a new guise and a new understanding and that was stable for a few years and then became unstable again without being completely lost, and then returned again with what so far seems much more stability. This new witnessing though does not follow the 'screen of consciousness' model we find described in CC because it is not sensed as a separate process looking on experience. It is just experience in total. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, salyavin808@... wrote: Yes, I used to get a lot of things like that. A text book progression of enlightened states as espoused by Marshy. Really amazingly nice and it convinced me I was going to get there but it all stopped, maybe it will start up again but I doubt it and it doesn't even interest me any more, it's like the acid trips I used to do, a great way to spend a day but is it a good long term proposition? At work once I became the unwitting centre of attention when I slipped into unity on a busy friday afternoon when we were normally running around trying to wrap everything up. Everyone else just pulled up a chair and sat round my desk, it was amazing how different yet the same I was, intensely relaxed but wide awake and flowing all things good from some centre that wasn't even me but was everything that existed and it was all lush, powerful and vivid. Happy days, but it wore off a few hours later and that was that. What it all means I cannot say, my guess is nothing, just a phase, maybe all that bending my mind out of shape suddenly reflexively threw it into a euphoric state. But whatever, it doesn't work any more... --In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, steve.sundur@... wrote: Wow, I hope you don't me saying this, but this is the nicest post we've had in about six months. And it sounds like more than witnessing. I say that because as I've always understood it, the transcendental field is without attributes. It is when we experience it that it becomes blissful. But otherwise, it is just a silent witness. Whatever you were experiencing was creeping into waking state. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: Yes, like being wrapped in infinite cotton wool, all rosy and warm. During some of those experiences I'd spend days seeing the world like it's made of christmas tree lights with that angel hair round them. Then it got even better and I saw where the light came from and I knew everything without being able to answer any questions and then it stopped. What the point of it was, other than to make me feel my ascetic life was paying off, is beyond me. But if it had lasted any longer I probably would have started a cult myself. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, steve.sundur@... wrote: (-: Hey, neat about that witnessing experience. I experienced it once, and didn't realize it till after the fact. But was the experience blissful for you? ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: Potayto, potahto. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, dhamiltony2k5@... wrote: No, most of what you are offering as definition technically is about sects. Cults form around charismatic persons. Sects form out of specialness, exception or differentiation as in different denominations of protestantism or catholicism or denominations or types of meditation. Those are sects. Sects are around fragmentation and cults are around persons as charismatics. For instance, If someone really 'charismatic', like earlier defined by Weber, like a Robin were to show up in Fairfield, Iowa and take off a bunch of meditators as his followers by force and power of personality then we're talking cult, as a sect. That is different than the different sects of people out teaching meditations and some others out there teaching other things they've learned. -Buck in the Dome Salyavin808 writes: You don't need any leader to be a cult. All you need is a belief system that sets you apart from the norm.
[FairfieldLife] RE: SECURITY BELIEFS
In considering how the Wikipedia entry for quantum defines 'quantum' one wonders how it could be stretched to attempt to explain so many odd ideas QUANTUM: In physics, a quantum is the minimum amount of any physical entity involved in an interaction. Behind this, one finds the fundamental notion that a physical property may be 'quantized', referred to as 'the hypothesis of quantization'. This means that the magnitude can take on only certain discrete values.
Re: [FairfieldLife] RE: Drinking Vedic Coffee and Discerning 'Cult' from 'Sect'
I'm convinced you can categorise these different states into the boxes as described by Marshy, but is that because my experiences were influenced by his clear descriptions. If I'd never read the book or seen the lecture, would I have had the experiences in the same order in the same way? There's no way to rule it out. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, awoelflebater@... wrote: ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, mjackson74@... wrote: I agree with some of the things I believe Barry has said - that we are all part of this cosmic soup, and the entire infinite or nearly infinite range of experiences are available to us. The kinds of things Sal relates are available to all of us at anytime, but most of us aren't aware of it. The idea that there is some kind of definable state of awareness and a well laid out progression towards it is in my opinion some made up baloney on the part of the old rishis who didn't want to work, just wanted to set around all day looking at their navel and when they had some of these experiences they said Ah ha! This is REAL reality, and all these po' folk runnin' around doing all this doing are full of crap! WE have the lock on what is true, real and righ! And like everyone else in the world they wanted everyone else to corroborate their reality so they made a big deal out of it and created all the sacred books of the Hindoos that everybody was supposed to embrace if they were smart. Along comes Marshy, fanatic Hindoo, and he used the playbook to make a nice living for himself. So I think we can slip in and out of these different experiences of our own awareness. Some like maybe Eckhart Tolle can choose to stay in one spot for a long time, making it seem permanent. Others go back and forth. Which IMO accounts for the behavior we see in folks like Marshy, Muktananda, Kriyananda and all the rest where they appear to be brilliant enlightened individuals one day and the next day appear to be venal, petty tyrants and sexual opportunists and so forth. Well, just as in waking state there are almost infinite manifestations of perception, behaviour, intelligence then why wouldn't there be the same in so-called enlightened or at least, 'other' states of awareness? I am still not convinced there are these enlightened altered states of consciousness at all and I certainly don't think you can categorize these states, if they do exist, into tight little cubicles of defined characteristics that are the same for all those having attained those states. On Sun, 2/16/14, steve.sundur@... mailto:steve.sundur@... steve.sundur@... mailto:steve.sundur@... wrote: Subject: [FairfieldLife] RE: Drinking Vedic Coffee and Discerning 'Cult' from 'Sect' To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Date: Sunday, February 16, 2014, 2:28 PM I'm thinking of some of the other flashy experiences that have been related here periodically. Bob Price related one, sometime ago. MJ related one recently. In both cases they were more or less just footnotes, and then life moved on. But they also seemed to have left their mark and a pretty deep impression, as though saying, We're not finished here, just wanting to set a marker But who knows, maybe it's just random brain activity as I believe Curtis once said. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com mailto:no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: Yes, I used to get a lot of things like that. A text book progression of enlightened states as espoused by Marshy. Really amazingly nice and it convinced me I was going to get there but it all stopped, maybe it will start up again but I doubt it and it doesn't even interest me any more, it's like the acid trips I used to do, a great way to spend a day but is it a good long term proposition? At work once I became the unwitting centre of attention when I slipped into unity on a busy friday afternoon when we were normally running around trying to wrap everything up. Everyone else just pulled up a chair and sat round my desk, it was amazing how different yet the same I was, intensely relaxed but wide awake and flowing all things good from some centre that wasn't even me but was everything that existed and it was all lush, powerful and vivid. Happy days, but it wore off a few hours later and that was that. What it all means I cannot say, my guess is nothing, just a phase, maybe all that bending my mind out of shape suddenly reflexively threw it into a euphoric state. But whatever, it doesn't work any more... --In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, steve.sundur@... wrote: Wow, I hope you don't me saying this, but this is the nicest post we've had in about six months. And it sounds like more than witnessing.I
Re: [FairfieldLife] RE: Is TM a Cult?
On 2/16/2014 7:42 AM, TurquoiseBee wrote: Let's take one of the earliest teachings: TM is all you need. Is there a better way? One of the earliest teachings of MMY was TM is what works. In TM, you get only one single bija mantra for meditation - that's all you need to realize your full mental potential - you are only going to get as much enlightenment as you are going to get. All you can do after learning how to meditate is to add some fertilizer. You plant the seed then watch it grow. Just go in and meditate and then come out and radiate. It's that simple. Everyone needs a house and some music to listen to, and maybe some vitamins and we all look up at the stars and at the moon. Who is to say that your snake-oil is better? Go figure.
[FairfieldLife] RE: John M. Knapp: Licensing Board Ruling
Sheesh, that had nothing to do with any grudge. I was just poking fun at her insatiable urge to pander. That's not necessary either, certainly not with Richard. Nor was this post of yours, for that matter! Plus which, unless you're on dial-up and not broadband, I seriously doubt that data traffic gets slowed down by lots of posts. See?, this is exactly the reason you are seen as a grudge holder here. Was there any need to make that post? Excessive posts clog up the bandwidth and slow down data traffic. ---authfriend authfriend@... wrote: Share to the defense! guffaw Richard, I admit that your writing style delights me. Even when I don't agree with the content! Go figure! It's just that you almost always sound light hearted about all this stuff. And I thoroughly enjoy how you skip from one topic to the other. Those funny combo help me be more light hearted about it too. Anyway, thank you so much for making me smile and even laugh out loud a lot.
Re: [FairfieldLife] RE: John M. Knapp: Licensing Board Ruling
On 2/16/2014 1:31 PM, jedi_sp...@yahoo.com wrote: See?, this is exactly the reason you are seen as a grudge holder here. Was there any need to make that post? Excessive posts clog up the bandwidth and slow down data traffic. ---authfriend authfriend@... wrote: Share to the defense! guffaw We have to put up with this kind of snark all day on FFL posted by the button-pushers. Poor Share: she complained that dialoging with Robin was like getting psychologically raped, and gets another mind-fuck reply from Judy, blaming the victim, and mocking her. If Judy was a therapist instead of an editor, she'd probably get her license revoked. We came here to get some spiritual help, not get our mind fucked up by pseudo-therapists and computer repair men. Go figure.
[FairfieldLife] RE: SECURITY BELIEFS
Especially when you consider the unlikelihood of quantum events stacking up or meaning something. According to my book, a subatomic particle can be anywhere in the universe at any time but the chances of finding a single electron 1cm away from where it's most likely to be are so small you'd have to wait for billions of times longer than the current age of the universe. So where these quantum physicists get their fancy ideas from is beyond me when what you get taught at PHD level is the most unquestionably accurate math known.To coin a phrase, go figure. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, anartaxius@... wrote: In considering how the Wikipedia entry for quantum defines 'quantum' one wonders how it could be stretched to attempt to explain so many odd ideas QUANTUM: In physics, a quantum is the minimum amount of any physical entity involved in an interaction. Behind this, one finds the fundamental notion that a physical property may be 'quantized', referred to as 'the hypothesis of quantization'. This means that the magnitude can take on only certain discrete values.
Re: [FairfieldLife] RE: John M. Knapp: Licensing Board Ruling
Richard, I thought Judy was an editor. Are you telling us she's really a computer repair man?! Go figure! On Sunday, February 16, 2014 2:12 PM, Richard J. Williams pundits...@gmail.com wrote: On 2/16/2014 1:31 PM, jedi_sp...@yahoo.com wrote: See?, this is exactly the reason you are seen as a grudge holder here. Was there any need to make that post? Excessive posts clog up the bandwidth and slow down data traffic. ---authfriend authfriend@... wrote: Share to the defense! guffaw We have to put up with this kind of snark all day on FFL posted by the button-pushers. Poor Share: she complained that dialoging with Robin was like getting psychologically raped, and gets another mind-fuck reply from Judy, blaming the victim, and mocking her. If Judy was a therapist instead of an editor, she'd probably get her license revoked. We came here to get some spiritual help, not get our mind fucked up by pseudo-therapists and computer repair men. Go figure.
[FairfieldLife] RE: Drink Vedic Coffee and Support Peace
Well, during that thirty year period I just mostly lost interest in spiritual things. I became more interested in outside things. When experiences returned, I got intensely interested again, but only because of a need to find an intellectual understanding for what happened. Once an understanding seems 'satisfactory', then I drop it until some other experience comes along. It's kind of information on an as-needed basis. If this information is available in the TM machinery, it seems to be locked behind a steep financial wall. I go for cost effectiveness when seeking information. When experiences returned it also brought an end to general seeking, the 'path' just came to an end all at once, but that did not mean I was home free, but now navigating experience became very specific in what I needed to explain. Some intellectual understanding seems necessary for stability, but the information I need seems to now just fall in my lap when it is needed, I do not have to do much in the way of investigation. Changes in experience from this point on seem to be spontaneous, they are not the result of technique, though I still meditate in various ways as you do - meditation seems to act like a keel on a boat, while nature provides the ride. I have heard that people can go through periods where they get so saturated with spiritual stuff they spontaneously have to take a sabbatical and do something else to recover. This seemed to happen to me. What could be happening with you is it is all smoldering beneath the surface, and one day, maybe, maybe not, it will break open again, and it will be a surprise. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: I wonder if I'll ever get interested in it again. I used to have such a hunger for enlightenment but not now, I just enjoy meditating for it's own sake and do different types now according to what I want to achieve. One thing that makes me wonder is: what if you learn TM because you believe the propaganda that it makes you better in business. And then one day you are half way through a powerpoint presentation to some new clients and your mind suddenly explodes into Unity. Does the presentation get better or worse? ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, anartaxius@... wrote: For me, certain visual or auditory experiences came and went before strong witnessing developed, which then went away for about three decades, buy then eventually returned in a new guise and a new understanding and that was stable for a few years and then became unstable again without being completely lost, and then returned again with what so far seems much more stability. This new witnessing though does not follow the 'screen of consciousness' model we find described in CC because it is not sensed as a separate process looking on experience. It is just experience in total. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, salyavin808@... wrote: Yes, I used to get a lot of things like that. A text book progression of enlightened states as espoused by Marshy. Really amazingly nice and it convinced me I was going to get there but it all stopped, maybe it will start up again but I doubt it and it doesn't even interest me any more, it's like the acid trips I used to do, a great way to spend a day but is it a good long term proposition? At work once I became the unwitting centre of attention when I slipped into unity on a busy friday afternoon when we were normally running around trying to wrap everything up. Everyone else just pulled up a chair and sat round my desk, it was amazing how different yet the same I was, intensely relaxed but wide awake and flowing all things good from some centre that wasn't even me but was everything that existed and it was all lush, powerful and vivid. Happy days, but it wore off a few hours later and that was that. What it all means I cannot say, my guess is nothing, just a phase, maybe all that bending my mind out of shape suddenly reflexively threw it into a euphoric state. But whatever, it doesn't work any more... --In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, steve.sundur@... wrote: Wow, I hope you don't me saying this, but this is the nicest post we've had in about six months. And it sounds like more than witnessing. I say that because as I've always understood it, the transcendental field is without attributes. It is when we experience it that it becomes blissful. But otherwise, it is just a silent witness. Whatever you were experiencing was creeping into waking state. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: Yes, like being wrapped in infinite cotton wool, all rosy and warm. During some of those experiences I'd spend days seeing the world like it's made of christmas tree lights with that angel hair round them. Then it got even better and I saw where the light came from and I knew everything without being able to answer any
[FairfieldLife] RE: Drinking Vedic Coffee and Discerning 'Cult' from 'Sect'
Very interesting speculations, thank you. You could well be right on many if not all of them. I don't really have anything to add, except a couple of caveats: First, as far as Robin was concerned, he was teaching primarily TM initiators, who all had Maharishi's techniques under their belts. So his approaches had to do more with making the most of the development of consciousness that came with those practices, stuff that he felt was missing from Maharishi's teaching, or at least was being missed by practitioners. He did use his drama training to convey this, and he certainly is an extrovert, but I don't think you could really say he was teaching his path per se. Maybe Ann has more to say, or would dispute this. Second, I didn't mean to suggest that I am the world was an egotistical statement! I assume it's simply a way of describing an experience. My thought was, if you've been living that experience for some time, if you're used to all your impulses seeming to come from there, how can you tell if something pops up that comes from a different place (presumably the small self)? Wouldn't you assume it was just one more universally beneficent impulse? I'm thinking of all the various harmful misbehaviors that so many spiritual teachers seem prone to. Comments below... But you do seem to understand how someone who had that experience and had it stick would want to do what he or she could to share it with others, help them get there as well. Not really a matter of ego per se. I think it would depend on the sort of person they were before the moment as to how they acted, my tendency is to be a loner so any sharing would come from the simple desire others might have to be near me because of what they pick up. I really doubt I would go searching for people to help. I think you'd have to be an extrovert to become any sort of spiritual teacher and you could only teach from what you had acquired in your life, Marshy obviously had his Hindu upbringing, Robin his drama teaching. I'm a good cyclist and keen photographer but I'd have a job working that into a path others could follow! On the other hand, I can understand how being in that state and having others soaking up what they could of it might eventually bring out some of one's worst qualities that somehow never got expunged when the light dawned. But does anything get expunged? Maybe people stay fundamentally the same except for the transformation in inner perception. That's the best way I could put it, the relationship between what you see and who you are stays the same but is enhanced by a sudden lack of inner contradiction and a perceptionary changes. But as it's all undercut by a rushing surge of love you could be right, hard to be nasty when the simple act of speaking to someone is so enriching. Yes, the desire is to be evolutionary in the sense of making the most of who you are with. The idea of a moral superiority from being there is fascinating but what gets chucked out as far as brain functioning goes? Are all our problems caused by those niggling unbidden extra voices that suddenly take a sabbatical when you are enlightened? it would be a great thing to study, it feels like a switch being thrown, night into day. That must show up spectacularly on an EEG. Shame it's a bit on the rare side. Seems to me it would be hard to tell, if one's sustained experience is that I am the world, what was flowing all things good from some centre that wasn't even me but was everything that existed, on the one hand, and what was coming from the dregs of one's own personality, on the other. The I am the world thing was a simple observation I made and it had no huge ego attached to it, no matter how it sounds! It was simply seeing everything as both as it is, seperate from you, and part of the same thing as you in the sense that we're all part of this perfectly still but eternally rushing reality. The old metaphor of seeing the screen that the world is projected onto springs to mind here, but it's much better than that sounds. I think the more contradictory it sounds the better it's being explained but both things seem to be part of the one reality. I think it's all brain stuff but I can see how such a big deal gets made out of it with all this unified field talk. More interesting is the feeling that you couldn't go any further evolution wise, that the final end had been reached. All waveforms collapsed. Satisfaction. No more struggle. Is that a good thing? Maybe the dregs are simply what we are anyway and the inability of gurus to not screw up comes from the fact we (and they) have a far higher opinion of them than they deserve. We always project and expect holy men to be whiter than white but yes, maybe that wears off... ... or perhaps having people around you with such high expectations becomes wearying after a while and the ego starts to reassert itself to try and keep
[FairfieldLife] RE: SECURITY BELIEFS
Another thing about the Penrose/Hammeroff theory, as Stenger observed, is that the microtubules that these quantum events are supposed to cohere in are too large for the particles to communicate or stack up. And even if they did the brain is too hot to allow it, quantum freakiness is generally observed at vanishingly low temperatures. It's an interesting and cute idea that if there was a way round the above problems they could survive without us as our soul. But another problem with quantum stuff going beyond the mind is that there's no way it could avoid bumping into other quantum stuff and losing its coherence. And it wouldn't get very far, probably to the next atom would be about it's lot. Unless there's something we don't know of course but I don't know of any serious physicist that would entertain it unless none of them do it publicly. Pointless relying on the spiritual physics crowd they all have books to promote like John Hagelin's appalling the secret or check out his Science of Jyotish video on youtube. LOL. Penrose and Hammeroff are in a much higher league than Hagelin of course but I still can't get round the obstacles put forward by Stenger, the ball is in the mystics court. I await a rebuttal from Penrose, I think Hammeroff has too much need of a quantum security blanket to keep him on the scientifically straight path. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: Especially when you consider the unlikelihood of quantum events stacking up or meaning something. According to my book, a subatomic particle can be anywhere in the universe at any time but the chances of finding a single electron 1cm away from where it's most likely to be are so small you'd have to wait for billions of times longer than the current age of the universe. So where these quantum physicists get their fancy ideas from is beyond me when what you get taught at PHD level is the most unquestionably accurate math known.To coin a phrase, go figure. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, anartaxius@... wrote: In considering how the Wikipedia entry for quantum defines 'quantum' one wonders how it could be stretched to attempt to explain so many odd ideas QUANTUM: In physics, a quantum is the minimum amount of any physical entity involved in an interaction. Behind this, one finds the fundamental notion that a physical property may be 'quantized', referred to as 'the hypothesis of quantization'. This means that the magnitude can take on only certain discrete values.
Re: [FairfieldLife] RE: John M. Knapp: Licensing Board Ruling
On 2/16/2014 12:59 PM, jedi_sp...@yahoo.com wrote: You always give the knockout punch and seal the argument. So, let's review what we know: John Knapp got his therapist license revoked for unprofessional behavior with more than one client. One of his clients said she felt like she had been psychologically/mentally raped by Knapp. When we got this news, Judy tried to pull Share into the conversation by trying to get us to blame Share for posting the almost same comment about Robin, somehow trying to connect the two incidents together, blaming the victims - typical button-pushing behavior. Go figure. We were just talking about button-pushers yesterday and now comes news that Knapp was a button-pusher himself. So, it looks like we got abused by Knapp and parody-posted by Robin. It looks like we just can't get away from the therapists who want to save us from ourselves - they followed me here from Google Groups and have been causing trouble ever since they found out I was over here on Yahoo Groups taking up for the MMY. There is just no stopping these trolls! Go figure.
[FairfieldLife] RE: Drinking Vedic Coffee and Discerning 'Cult' from 'Sect'
Yeah, that is because Unity Consciousness is still Unity, in terms of the Self; a person's 'owned' universality. It isn't full enlightenment. Brahman, where the identity dissolves, is actual enlightenment. All the seven states, in MMY's early model (before he began in the 80's talking about Brahman), are recognized in terms of the self, Universal or not. Beyond that, lies true freedom and liberation. I can understand the lock UC could have on a dramatic personality, but *25 years* to 'get rid of it'? That seems really weird to me, and excessive. I wonder where he ended up? ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend@... wrote: Fascinating, Salyavin. That is remarkably similar--virtually identical--to how Robin described his own exprience. Except for him, for whatever reason, it lasted for over a decade, and he spent 25 years working to get rid of it because of how ultimately destructive it had proved to be. At work once I became the unwitting centre of attention when I slipped into unity on a busy friday afternoon when we were normally running around trying to wrap everything up. Everyone else just pulled up a chair and sat round my desk, it was amazing how different yet the same I was, intensely relaxed but wide awake and flowing all things good from some centre that wasn't even me but was everything that existed and it was all lush, powerful and vivid. Happy days, but it wore off a few hours later and that was that. What it all means I cannot say, my guess is nothing, just a phase, maybe all that bending my mind out of shape suddenly reflexively threw it into a euphoric state. But whatever, it doesn't work any more.
Re: [FairfieldLife] RE: John M. Knapp: Licensing Board Ruling
On 2/16/2014 2:38 PM, Share Long wrote: Are you telling us she's really a computer repair man? Probably a computer nerd - rumor has it that Judy is pretty savvy about computers and computer software. The newest contributors to JK's TM-Free blog are the alias Michael H. Jackson and the Masked Zebra - the computer repairman and the spiritual therapist. We don't know why they trolled over here to harass us on FFL and why Judy keeps enabling their bad behavior. You'd think she could do better than just babbling on and on about the MZ as if he was some kind of parody-posting, intellectual giant or God or something. At least the MJ guy isn't trying to trap us into believing in levitation events or mountainside enlightenment events - MJ seems to be a pretty sensible working guy, trying to support his family - not a cult leader posting trick parodies and trying to recruit some new members for his own cult of computer-nerds. Go figure.
[FairfieldLife] RE: John M. Knapp: Licensing Board Ruling
I don't think she can help herself. It's just a rut that I think she is totally unaware of at this point that she just falls into time and time again. Well, maybe falls into is not the right way to describe it. (-: (and yes, others do it, including me, but maybe it's not the main feature that defines us) ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, jedi_spock@... wrote: See?, this is exactly the reason you are seen as a grudge holder here. Was there any need to make that post? Excessive posts clog up the bandwidth and slow down data traffic. ---authfriend authfriend@... wrote: Share to the defense! guffaw Richard, I admit that your writing style delights me. Even when I don't agree with the content! Go figure! It's just that you almost always sound light hearted about all this stuff. And I thoroughly enjoy how you skip from one topic to the other. Those funny combo help me be more light hearted about it too. Anyway, thank you so much for making me smile and even laugh out loud a lot. On 2/15/2014 11:50 AM, jchwelch@... wrote: It was a type of psychological/emotional rape that Knapp exacted upon more than one person. On Sunday, February 16, 2014 9:51 AM, Richard J. Williams punditster@... wrote: Thanks for the information about Knapp. We've been discussing this almost endlessly for months. We just got rid of one therapist who came to this discussion group and tried to psychologically rape one of our informants - it's been a total mind-fuck ever since! Now we not only have to defend ourselves from the anonymous mind police posting here, but these days even some informants from of the TM-Free are attacking us - trying to use mind control and brainwashing techniques on us, in order to get us to stop meditating and stop supporting some poor Hindu boys trying to get an education up in Fairfield and over in India. Go figure.
[FairfieldLife] RE: SECURITY BELIEFS
Xeno, Regarding Asimov's second point, the following existential sentence is apparently true: HE DEAD (with emphasis on the stretched vowels).
[FairfieldLife] Quote of the day...
Religion started when the first scoundrel met the first fool. -Voltaire
[FairfieldLife] RE: SECURITY BELIEFS
Salyavin, You have to remember that a theory is not a proven scientific fact. Penrose or Hammeroff can talk quantum theories until the cows come home. But they haven't proved a thing.
[FairfieldLife] RE: Quote of the day...
I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours. Stephen Roberts
[FairfieldLife] RE: Quote of the day...
That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. Christopher Hitchens
Re: [FairfieldLife] RE: Drinking Vedic Coffee and Discerning 'Cult' from 'Sect'
I love that question, and its one that I've increasingly asked myself, especially since I've been posting here over the years. And that is one reason I think the spiritual, i.e. Hindu, Vedic literature is helpful. Yes, I know that is something Maharishi would say. Now, for me, there is a corollary question. Actually two. 1) People, perhaps Barry especially, state that Maharishi had charisma, but basically no real enlightenment. I don't agree with that. The question arises for me, if he didn't have any enlightenment, where the hell do the experiences I sometimes have come from. I mean, I subscribe to the tenant that the development of consciousness requires a lot of inner work, i.e., a lot of sorting out of the quirks in personality and false beliefs, in addition to meditation. But aside from that, I haven't followed any other teacher, so again, where do some of my experiences come from. 2) Not so much a question, but an uncertainty. I've pretty much divorced myself from the TMO, and even my practice of meditation, but I find the experiences I have fall within the guidelines of the seven states as outlined by MMY. And, is that because I was so invested for all those years? On the other hand, I haven't been invested for over 20 years. (coinciding when our first child was born), but those seven states is the template I come back to. But I have also learned to push any expectations away. What I mean by that is that when I have any so called experiences, I don't pay attention to them, because I know that any kind of mood making is absolutely anathema to spiritual development. Those experiences are going to have to prove themselves over time. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: I'm convinced you can categorise these different states into the boxes as described by Marshy, but is that because my experiences were influenced by his clear descriptions. If I'd never read the book or seen the lecture, would I have had the experiences in the same order in the same way? There's no way to rule it out. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, awoelflebater@... wrote: ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, mjackson74@... wrote: I agree with some of the things I believe Barry has said - that we are all part of this cosmic soup, and the entire infinite or nearly infinite range of experiences are available to us. The kinds of things Sal relates are available to all of us at anytime, but most of us aren't aware of it. The idea that there is some kind of definable state of awareness and a well laid out progression towards it is in my opinion some made up baloney on the part of the old rishis who didn't want to work, just wanted to set around all day looking at their navel and when they had some of these experiences they said Ah ha! This is REAL reality, and all these po' folk runnin' around doing all this doing are full of crap! WE have the lock on what is true, real and righ! And like everyone else in the world they wanted everyone else to corroborate their reality so they made a big deal out of it and created all the sacred books of the Hindoos that everybody was supposed to embrace if they were smart. Along comes Marshy, fanatic Hindoo, and he used the playbook to make a nice living for himself. So I think we can slip in and out of these different experiences of our own awareness. Some like maybe Eckhart Tolle can choose to stay in one spot for a long time, making it seem permanent. Others go back and forth. Which IMO accounts for the behavior we see in folks like Marshy, Muktananda, Kriyananda and all the rest where they appear to be brilliant enlightened individuals one day and the next day appear to be venal, petty tyrants and sexual opportunists and so forth. Well, just as in waking state there are almost infinite manifestations of perception, behaviour, intelligence then why wouldn't there be the same in so-called enlightened or at least, 'other' states of awareness? I am still not convinced there are these enlightened altered states of consciousness at all and I certainly don't think you can categorize these states, if they do exist, into tight little cubicles of defined characteristics that are the same for all those having attained those states. On Sun, 2/16/14, steve.sundur@... mailto:steve.sundur@... steve.sundur@... mailto:steve.sundur@... wrote: Subject: [FairfieldLife] RE: Drinking Vedic Coffee and Discerning 'Cult' from 'Sect' To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Date: Sunday, February 16, 2014, 2:28 PM I'm thinking of some of the other flashy experiences that have been related here periodically. Bob Price related one, sometime ago. MJ related one recently. In both cases they were more or less just footnotes, and then life
Re: [FairfieldLife] RE: John M. Knapp: Licensing Board Ruling
On 2/16/2014 9:57 AM, authfri...@yahoo.com wrote: *Carol, I'm not sure you've been around FFL long enough to know that Richard is a troll and says all kinds of things that aren't true or are wildly distorted, as he does in this post. If you ever have a question about the veracity of something he posts, ask one of the regulars.* Carol, if you see anything posted by me that looks like trolling or is untrue or distorted, please let me know. Thanks. - One of the regulars
[FairfieldLife] RE: Drinking Vedic Coffee and Discerning 'Cult' from 'Sect'
Not sure what you mean by ended up. Could you explain? A lot of what he was doing, apparently, was purging himself of what he called his secret infirmities--presumably personality flaws he hadn't been aware of--that he believed were responsible for things going so wrong. Or rather, as he saw it, what the negative intelligences he perceived to have brought about his enlightenment took advantage of to bring him to grief. The other big part, I gather, was fighting to get his free will back. He said he hadn't been able to access it while he was in Unity. (Caveat for the terminally confused: This is what Robin said. I'm simply recounting it, not endorsing it. I haven't a clue as to its accuracy reality-wise.) Yeah, that is because Unity Consciousness is still Unity, in terms of the Self; a person's 'owned' universality. It isn't full enlightenment. Brahman, where the identity dissolves, is actual enlightenment. All the seven states, in MMY's early model (before he began in the 80's talking about Brahman), are recognized in terms of the self, Universal or not. Beyond that, lies true freedom and liberation. I can understand the lock UC could have on a dramatic personality, but *25 years* to 'get rid of it'? That seems really weird to me, and excessive. I wonder where he ended up? ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend@... wrote: Fascinating, Salyavin. That is remarkably similar--virtually identical--to how Robin described his own exprience. Except for him, for whatever reason, it lasted for over a decade, and he spent 25 years working to get rid of it because of how ultimately destructive it had proved to be. At work once I became the unwitting centre of attention when I slipped into unity on a busy friday afternoon when we were normally running around trying to wrap everything up. Everyone else just pulled up a chair and sat round my desk, it was amazing how different yet the same I was, intensely relaxed but wide awake and flowing all things good from some centre that wasn't even me but was everything that existed and it was all lush, powerful and vivid. Happy days, but it wore off a few hours later and that was that. What it all means I cannot say, my guess is nothing, just a phase, maybe all that bending my mind out of shape suddenly reflexively threw it into a euphoric state. But whatever, it doesn't work any more.
