Reprint of the faith thread from my satsang in the

[hamzen]

Hope you get something from this thread, I certainly did. Thanks to Francesca for keeping a digital copy.

ham's satsang in the zone forum (http://xpremie.suddenlaunch.com/index.cgi

General >> Spirit and Truth >> Subject? Spirit and truth, of course!

Subject? Spirit and truth, of course!
Post by ChuckS on Aug 2nd, 2002, 04:20am)

Ham, the icons are loading slowly again. Oh well.

Looking back on 20 years of being a premie, there is a lot to see.

My experience was from recieving "Knowledge Lite". My expectations were perhaps different from the premies who recieved K in the 70's. A premie recently asked me when my "spiritual birthday" was. By this, he meant the day I recieved knowledge. He was celebrating his, and asked me when mine was. It was December 24th, 1981. He asked me which one I celebrated, christmas or knowlege birthday, and I told him the truth - I don't celebrate either.

But then I really don't celebrate any holidays. But it made me think about all the reasons why I recieved knowlege. I felt a lot of love from the premies. I felt a ONENESS with them that felt perfectly natural. The love, the oneness, the simplicity, were the things that attracted me to it all the most. I never got involved much with the organization or ashrams or anything like that. The exes, when they get together on forums, tend to talk about all the bad things, which is fine of course, absolute honesty is best. But still, I didn't hang with it for twenty years because it was all bad. Only a crazy person would do that.

When Erika Anderson said on her website, "Please consider this..." that she thought the ex-students of maharaji were "filtering out the good", it was thought by many that she was nuts; clearly, she was filtering out the bad.

I think she was indeed filtering out the bad; it was a way of protecting the good. I am familiar with the excuse, I used it myself. I also may have ridiculed her for saying that, I don't remember. But if I'm honest with myself, I have to say that I do... understand it.

And where I am at now, I really just want to look at things the way they are, without any blinders, voluntary or otherwise. I want to not filter out the good, and not filter out the bad. I want to just look at it all, honestly.

On a website about cults, I remember reading an honest discussion about talking honestly about experiences in a cult. Many people complained that in ex-cult groups, it was very hard to talk about the "good" things about being in the cult. While it is understandable in one way, it was also kind of weird, people said, because it was the "good" things that kept them involved in the first place, and to not acknowlege that created a kind of imbalance; it made it all kind of weird, because if there were no benifit at all, why would anyone have gotten involved in the first place? You'd have to be a masocistic weirdo, and I don't think most premies were that.

Now I'm not trying to make any excuses here for anyone. I want to look at EVERYTHING honestly and truthfully. And the truth is, I really enjoyed the feelings of love, oneness and the simplicity I found with the premies. And all the crap I've found out since, yes, also true, I'm not afraid to admit it.

But since leaving, I've also been trying to find a sense of balance. I wish to honor the good things that attracted me in the first place, and take with me the good things I've learned. I wish to honor the good that was there, because to not acknowledge it or simply discount it or belittle it is like dishonoring or belittling myself. To disown that part of myself would be "filtering out" and I don't want that. I like having feelings. I enjoy love, oneness, and simplicity.

To find that balance,without filtering out anything. That is what I want.

Re: Subject? Spirit and truth, of course!
Post by Thorin on Aug 2nd, 2002, 07:26am


Hey Chuck

That was simply a great post - certainly deserves a wider audience

Could you link it on the new F7 forum perhaps? Also have the added side-benefit of driving traffic to this forum so everybody will have the chance of making up their minds which is better.

I know I could do the link but the (c) is all yours after all!

Cheers
Thorin

Re: Subject? Spirit and truth, of course!
Post by hamzen on Aug 2nd, 2002, 08:30am

Chuck,

icons ok now, guess they've got a few teething problems.
I've also got to split this post, wont let me do more than 5000 characters, no function in the admin to change either, will have to check their forums on thAt 1.

Lovely post and I can relate to the core of the message bigtime, especially at the moment as I'm undergoing the biggest life review I've had for years, maybe even since I walked in 1990.

It's taken me a lot longer to fully come to terms to be able to take that route myself.

As I've said elsewhere it was always primarily the meditation for me and practicing k in a taoist 24/7 way. Although I was always open to the possibility that maharaji was the great lila king, I never had any divine flashes that made it through to my brain.
But the meditation worked for me brilliantly, in fact not only were my experiences in meditation very powerful and quite gorgeous I would also say that there was a feeling of sublimity (?) there, if I had any concept of god, which I don't.

When I walked, I was also questioning the whole notion of spirituality, and even the need for it.
What surprized me at the time was that in spite of always seeing my experience of meditation and living my life in a taoist spirit (I do so hate labels), well trying to with minimal concepts, the zen notion of no concepts which even gm used more regularly in his earlier days especially, I realized that I had picked up many more concepts than I had realized.

Obviously the lila concept, which was the only explanation and excuse I could find for the chaos around gm, and his ineptitude, but there were others too.
Essentially my 24/7 experience was riddled with a grace concept (god, gm, a universal life force, I had no idea of it's source, or if it was real.)
Also the actual notion of 'spiritual' itself.
When on acid, before k, I had had all these experiences, and they triggered day to day changes in being and awareness that had no notion of spirit or anything similar, just were in a wholeness, no separation between body and feelings.
In fact no need for words and concepts at all, except funnily enough our group of acid trippers called that magic sweet space where we felt ourselves in a very real way, knowledge!!!
Obviously the concept of mind and ego came in as well during my premie years, and the concept that only premies had this special connection. This was very noticeable to me when I started going to raves, on the dance floor, especially then 90-91, there was a VERY sweet 'spiritual' vibe and my removedness and unspoken assumption that I knew better came in the way on occasions. What I noticed was that suddenly communication with others, either on the dance floor, or chatting in the chill out rooms, would vanish when I had this feeling, and I was no longer in the flow. It wasn't that I was getting a bad attitude bAck from, just that no flow was happening, and they were more fully and purely in the moment than I was. I suddenly realized one day, strobes were flashing, amazing energy and communication at the deepest level was happening, while dancing, and it all went into slow motion as I realized this was the best satsang I'd ever experienced in my life, the level of communicastion was deep and that these people understood some primary truth about the moment at a deeper level than I did because they had less concepts/baggage. Now obviously that was e influenced for them, I was just smoking hash at the time, but I have found a number of people on the dance scene who have understood that way of being whether on chemikals or not, one of my best friends at the moment understands it deeply, and she does no chemikals at all, and the nearest she gets to any spirituality is practicing a little tai chi. And even if it is e based, character changes over short periods from that effect last and are just as real as any other route. This is all to counter any spiritual purists who might criticize this reality.

Re: Subject? Spirit and truth, of course!
Post by hamzen on Aug 2nd, 2002, 08:32am

I realized just how much I had elevated not just premiedom, but spirituality, as a higher space than the body, and that I needed to re-integrate.
That re-integration feels pretty fully realized for me now, and it's enabling me to want to meditate on a daily basis again. Not out of duty or habit, but from choice and joy.

And the wonder is that my experiences are even more sublime without the baggage and concepts and beliefs than they were before, which is a little surprizing, since they were so good first time around.
I also note that the level of experience has come back VERY fast.
I've always had odd days or two during the last few years where I have meditated and have always had a good experience, but not as consistently as now.
The e similarity is very noticeable so far in the type and depth of my experiences meditating.

Re purely negative reactions to being a follower, can relate to that comment too, cannot imagine how anyone could follow if they were not having a really good time at least part of the time, but I do also accept that some people were head captured when young and hippy naive and put up with dependent states of unhappiness where they didn't realize they truly were able to say no. TEXT

[hamzen]

Re: Subject? Spirit and truth, of course!
Post by ChuckS on Aug 2nd, 2002, 1:08pm

I remember, when researching the Indian background of this Knowledge, when I came accross the Rhadasoami's website. Maharaji has borrowed heavily from that religion.

The first thing the Rhadasoami's did was describe themselvers as a "cult of LOVE". They then went on to describe the "Ocean of love" of which we are all a part.

I loved that! It felt just like the old days when I received Knowlegde. So even though I was shocked to discover the details of the religous background of M & K, I felt a kind of reassurance that it did come from some tradition, and that cults in India were not seen as a bad thing, and perhaps that all cults were not bad?

That feeling of reasurance soon disappeared, though. As I read on, further down the text of that long, introductory page, I saw the usual religious stuff; none of this, none of that, you must be vegetarian, no drugs or mind altering substances, blah blah blah.

I then realized to that One of the things that attracted me to Maharaji was that we was a bit of a bad boy; he wasn't floating around in saffron robes, being "spiritual". He was kind of wild and gritty compared to other gurus.

I say this as a fringe premie, who wasn't involved in the organization. I know my perception was very different from what the Ashram premies were told about how THEY should live. I realize that my perception was from the point of view of the counter culture premies of the Haight Ashbury in the early 1980's. They didn't believe in following a lot of rules, they were only interested in good vibes. That is how I came into it.

I tried acid several times, and I'm glad I did. It changed me forever on some level. But I reached a point with it where I felt it did all the good it could do, it no longer enticed me, and I felt that was a time for me to stop using it.

So when you talk about acid, I feel I can relate to it on some level, but it's hard to know exactly, because peoples experiences with it are so personal. Sort of like meditation?

I think for many of us it was the good vibes, that got us hooked. In the San Francisco community, huge gatherings would could for Satsang, for the "good vibes". Then if something happened, like someone asking for money, everyone would dissapear! They wanted ONLY the good vibes, nothing else! When satsang dissapeared, so did most of the San Francisco community.

But I liken my 20 years with K to reading that Rhadasoami page on their website: which sounded so good at first. The ocean of love, the good vibes, but as you go further along, the attachment to those vibes are used to hitch other things to you.

Now with the Rhadasoami's, I recognized the religious schtick; the way religion often lure you in with the good stuff first, then try to hitch their wagon load of nuts to you, and make you haul it.

I believed that Maharaji was NOT doing that, because we were told often that it was not a religion, and he had seemed to get rid of a lot of the religious trappings. That was my blind spot.

Sure, he did get rid of some of the trappings. The superficial ones. But he kept many others, and disquised or modified others. When compairing M's schtick with the more convetional Indian relgion he' borrowed from, it's interesting to see how he carefully chose what to eliminate. Many of the Rhadasoami rules and beliefs, were there, I think, to prevent abuse by a Master to his followers. Many of M's ways of making things simpler were really just expedient. He was till teaching a bhakti religion, without some of the convetional protections of the traditions it came from. When I realized this, and was willing to look at it honestly, I had to ask some questions. That is when I met The Wall. The wall of secrecy, protecting Maharaji from scrutiny. It caused me to question deeper.

(I've had to shorten my post too. will continue this in a 2nd half).

Re: Subject? Spirit and truth, of course!
Post by ChuckS on Aug 2nd, 2002, 1:09pm

(part 2, continued)

Not do digress into all THAT, which I've said before. Here, I'm wanting to ... claim something back? Like I said, I thought Maharaji was not doing a religous schtick, and then it turned out that is what he was doing after all. I fell for the lure. I remember doing service, helping with the video library table at video events. This was less than two years ago. We were showing an aspirant video that night, (they were often my favorites), and I remember thinking, "Gee, if only what M were saying was true, if only it really WAS like he's describing it to the asprirants". That set off an alarm in my head. It made me think; in what ways was it not true? It made me think of all the things that were NOT being told to the aspirants. It made me feel like I was keeping secrets, and decieving people. I had to ask myself, if what M is saying to aspirants IS'NT true, isn't the way it really is, then what am I doing here? What does all this smooth-talking have to do with the LOVE that attracted me to it all in the first place? Where is the love?

You speak of re-intergration. That's kind of where I am at now. I feel in need to re-intergrate, re-claim my good from all of this. Complaining about the guru was ok for a while, helpful even, in comming to terms with the whole truth, the whole picture. But hating the guru is no place to stay. Being stuck there is kind of like rotting vegetables; it does you no good. And that is true of hating anyone perpetually. Feeling hate, continuouisly, isn't good for the body, mind or soul. I can hate the secrecy surrounding M, I can hate some of the things he's said an done, but if I focus on hating him, it doesn't do ME any good. I have to make peace with him, even if it's only in my mind.

I can forgive him, and still not condone what he's done. Forgiving him doesn't make him any less accountable for what he's done. He will spend the rest of his life dealing with or trying to avoid dealing with that. But forgiving him frees me to claim my good back. A bond of hatred is like a bond of love turned upside down. It still binds. Forgivness is a way of letting go. Letting go, in order to be able to accept something better.

Your re-intergration commentary is appreciated, Ham. I could say more, but it's a work day for me, and I'm going to think more about some of the things you've said. I especially like when you said you are choosing to meditate again, not out of duty or habit, but choice and joy. Joy is what it was all about, wasn't it? At least, that was what I thought, it was my motivation. Joy is where I want to BE.

P.S. Ham. The software here seems to be filtering out swear words. It also puts in it's own substitueds. When I typed "sh*t" it replaced it with "nuts". When I said "b*tching" it substituted "pregnant doging" !!! I know that I'm not THAT bad a typist!

Re: Subject? Spirit and truth, of course!
Post by Francesca on Aug 2nd, 2002, 6:57pm

Took me a while to find the reply icon. This is an excellent thread, and you have all said a lot. Since my exit was essentially done in 1985, my perspective is a bit different, but I obviously spent many months on F5-F7 cleaning out the guts of it that were still left.

I never became dissilusioned with spirituality or meditation, although my daily practice dwindled down for a while after I first let go of the premie thing. I **have** become disillusioned with certain types of labels, religious dogma, being overly reverential to other human beings, etc.

It seems like life, meditation and spirit are very simple sweet things, and somehow our life gets packaged by others and handed back to us, and we say "WOW!" That can be a nice lift at times, a nice game, but they aren't giving us anything we don't already have, or that isn't already there.

I remember the discussion we had about those old premie songs, Chuck (the grovelly ones, ha!!) but that there was a sweetness also there. I can understand people being shy about spirituality and meditation when first leaving, kind of looks like the snake that bit ya. But the same as a bad love affair, one can only hate feeling love for so long, and then the emotion is there without the person we were pinning it on and it's a new day.

I'm sure that some of the things you are saying, Chuck, is why some ex-premies walk away and don't realize what a great deception they were a part of. They're filtering out the bad. But as you say, if it was all bad, we wouldn't have stayed involved for as long as we did. I didn't stay with the Rawat style of meditation, but many types of silent meditation have their similarities. I think the fact that something so simple got made into such a big f**ken deal, a sacred cow, was hard to relinquish.

Anyway, don't want to go on here but glad these discussions have started!

Grovelly songs!

[hamzen]

Post by ChuckS on Aug 3rd, 2002, 02:57am

One of my favorite "Grovelly" songs was actually one of the ones you wrote and said you hated the most! I think it was called "I need your love"? or was that just one of the lines in it?

I was never a gopi, but there was a sweetness in the sincerity of many of those songs, and hearing them brings back a lot of sentimental memories, some of them quite nice.

Even my sister, who was never a premie, loved those songs because I think she could hear the sincerity and love. And feeling THAT, I thought, was the only sort of "propagation" needed. Twenty years later, it's about propagation packets, syncronization and trainings, so we are all talking about Knowledge in exactly the same way, and being careful to keep our mouths shut when - God forbid - we actually feel inspired! Yuk! Where has the love gone? Is it all in GMJ's safe?

The Rhadasoami's don't even have any sort of official propagation program in place. People simply tell their friends. And they claim it's the fastest growing cult in India.

I wanted to talk about faith here, what kind of faith did premies have, regarding M & K, and what do you do with that faith after leaving? Even a year and a half after leaving, and even though I was a "knowledge Lite" premie, I'm still sometimes suprised when I uncover some of the beliefs I had that I had never really examined. I hope we can talk about stuff like that here, but weekends are work days for me, and I'm too tired tonight to write much more right now. But I posted last night because I wanted to just start the ball rolling here, and to try out this new forum.

Hamzen, the icons are loading fast tonight! Too bad about the size limitations of the posts. Ham, did you know that Anyboards can be configured to look a lot like this forum? They call it "guestbook" style. I've even seen an anyboard forum that had the separate catagories like you have done. I know you probably want to keep going with this, but if for any reason it doesn't work out, you could probably create something similar to this at Anyboard.com. Just thought I would mention it, FYI. It's nice to have options.

Re: Subject? Spirit and truth, of course!
Post by hamzen on Aug 3rd, 2002, 1:05pm

Blimey theres a few issues covered in this thread already or wot!

Re the love ting francesca, even when I left gm, the love thing never went in all areas of my life, way too integral, right down to being an old school romantic, how sad, and how true joni mitchells blue was!!!! but that's another issue!!!!

But even though I began to question the whole need for spirituality and spirit I found loadsa of avenues for that love, through work with people with learning disabilities, at raves, from music and art, in my own creativity, with friends, not so much with partners, and just plain being alive and 'appreciating' how magical it was. Spirit began to seem like another bit of baggage, but then I always was a bit zen about it all!!

Re faith, faith for me Chuck was more about hope for the future of this planet and the human race and the abuse we were playin out on it, and having practical solutions to that, and considering I also left the green movement & the systems movement At the same time I left gm, I was pretty devastated. Some hope came back for me on a more local and less grand level seeing the learning and great and wise individuals I've met out clubbing and festivaling over the last decade, and At the local community level re working for people with learning disabilities, and although I'm now more pragnmatic and less hippy naive that loss of hope was hard to work through. I'd say that was the greatest loss for me from leaving, although as I said it wasn't just from leaving gm.
The feeling that I would be ok whatever happened, almost a protecvtive cloaking on a 24/7 basis, trust the flow etc was much easier to let go of, and I suspect it was the key ingredient in feeling superior in some way as a premie, although I never felt it at the time, I know from later conversations with non-premies I was seen as being a bit smug, verging on arrogant then. Going to raves, being confronted with my ignorance about whole beings knocked that out of me fast thank god.

Wanna add some mord to this, but late night last night, and out clubbing soon so I'll have to wait til tomorrow, or monday if it's a heavy one and hopefully

The word replacement is funny chuck, will have to check that out on their support forums, and will discuss bb's as well when back.

Hope you earn lots of dosh, and you have a good un francesca.

[hamzen]

Maharaji, Knowledge, and FAITH...
Post by ChuckS on Aug 7th, 2002, 1:39pm

Sometimes people talk about having more faith, less faith, or not faith at all. I once read somewhere, that all human beings have exactly the same amount of faith; the only thing that varies is, what do we put that faith in?

Even people who don't have religious beliefs put their faith in various things. They have faith that money or the perfect career is going to make them happy, or a new car or the perfect husband/wife lover will make them happy, the new this or new that or whatever. It's all beliefs, and somtimes the choice to put faith in those belief is consious, and sometimes not.

Premies have faith in Maharaji and Knowledge to bring them happiness. Some of them have invested their faith more heavily than others. I think the more heavily a premie has invested his/her faith in M & K, the harder it is to examine the whole thing critically. If that faith is destroyed, there is a large investment of faith to lose.

Belief in Maharahi has sometimes been compared to Santa Claus. While I would say there is a similarity, there is also a difference. The Santa Claus belief is perhaps relatively harmless; children don't have to be talked out of it, they usually just naturally figure it out as they get older, and let it go.

But believing that Maharaji is somehow a special manifistation of God, that is MUCH stronger ju-ju. Especially when reinforced with postitive experiences that have been attributed to the Guru for many years.

I know premies, for whom I would be very afraid for, should their faith in Maharaji suddenly be destroyed.

One of our local Industrial Strength Church Ladies had lived in the ashrams from the age of 15. Whenever the ashrams were open, she was living in one. When they closed, she got married, but if the ashrams were still available, she would be there. Her entire life is built around devotion to The Master. If that were taken away from her, I would be afraid for her. I just don't know how she would cope, her emotional investment is so enourmous. He is her EVERYTHING, her reason for living.

So when premies leave, what do they do with their faith? When I left, I did not have a big emotional investment in M, (I was a "Knowledge Lite" premie), but I have seen that it is very different for premies who recieved K in the 1970's. I also had "faith" in various other things that had helped me in my life, so it was not like I had absolutely nothing to fall back on. But what about those premies who had invested everything, their ALL, in their belief in Maharaji, the Perfect Master?

Ham, you said you had faith in hope for the future. Many premies did, but as time went on, M&K just seemed to become this personal thing that people kept to themselves; the world was more like an enemy to be kept at a distance; in the late 1990's M. said that people without Knowlege are "like" dead people, you must be wary of them. So much for helping the world. But Ham, it sounds like you never gave up on wanting to help the world, and never gave up your "one love" experience, so I think you had that to fall back on when you left M&K. I know other premies who are like that, too. But they are not heavily involved with M&K. It's like a religious belief they keep in their minds, and turn to once in a while. It's their religous faith. It's important to them, but perhaps not EVERYTHING to them.

Destroying someones faith in M & K, when they have absolutely nothing else to fall back on, is to me a scary prospect. What will they do with their faith? Without somewhere to "put" it, what will they do?

SRe: Subject? Spirit and truth, of course!
Post by Francesca on Aug 7th, 2002, 6:08pm

You are right Chuck, that although I didn't see every step of the process, I gradually withdrew the excessive amount of faith I had in Maharaji back into my own sense of self-worth, soul, spirit, the universe, love, whatever.

He was a one-stop shopping for those many forms of faith, as you so well put it. Faith that nuclear war will not happen tomorrow and the skies will not be brown and I will wake up and go to work again. All those kinds of faith. In fact, the party line, I think was that faith in anything else was a form of disloyalty, or lack of faith in M. Whatever, I started taking my investments out of that bank in ways that I did not notice, and in major upheavals of sanity and health, until I had my life back.

I cannot imagine ever investing in something to that extent again. Good discussion here, and good observation that Ham had something to fall back on, that he'd never lost. I think I had to claim mine back during that point when I was extremely depressed in the ashram. You are right that Santa Claus is not harmful -- we figured it out, and Santa Claus hadn't asked us for anything so we actually had our parents to thank, and they were much more real to us than Santa Claus ever was.

Love,

Francesca

Faith, practical help, and Maharaji...
Post by ChuckS on Aug 8th, 2002, 03:41am

When I recieved K, it was after surviving a construction accident when two tons of steel girders that were piled up against an unsecured fence fell over on top of me.

That brush with death left me feeling very uncomfortable with just "believing" anything. When you are looking at death, you become very aware of what you believe, and what you actually KNOW, and what the difference is.

Knowledge was supposed to be this experiece that you could have for yourself, instead of a belief system.

My experience with Meditation did help me feel more peaceful, and somehow less afraid of death. But there were numerous other areas of my life where M & K just didn't help at all.

During the AIDS epidemic of the 80's, Pat and I watched so many people die. We stopped counting after the 40th one. I just went on and on...

The gay premies at first joked that the "grace" would protect them, but they began to die too. I remember talking to my grandmother on the phone in the late 1980's. She was in her 80's, and I was in my 20's. It was suprising that we both had one thing in common; all our friends had died.

It was traumatic. We would go to programs of Maharaji's, and he would say very little that addressed that sort of thing specifically. I felt I needed something more. He made fun of self-help books and things like that, which I sometimes resented. I had always turned to books for help all through my life, and I didn't stop that when I recieved Knowledge.

I didn't see my mind as an enemy, and while Knowledge seemed to be about experiencing something beyond just the mind, I felt I needed help with my mind. I discovered a philosophy called "Science of Mind", which was about using your thoughts constructively, and understanding how your thinking affects your life and your happiness. I found it very helpful, and it addressed an area of my life in which Maharaji didn't offer me anything.

I became more concious of my thinking and how thoughts affected the way I felt. Over time, it occured to me that Maharaji would sometimes say things that sounded wonderful, things that did seem like positive and constructive thinking. At other times, he said things that were negative, and even potentially destructive, or things that were perplexing, simpley because they were not useful or helpful.

By then I had gotten into the habit of not questioning too deeply what he said (who would I ask anyway, HIM?). If he said something helpful, fine. If he didn't I ignored it. Looking back, I see his messages were often mixed, and contradictory. Intellectually, I found him kind of embarassing at times; yet I cut him slack in a way I would not have done for anyone else.

I hate the word "brainwashing", because it sounds like something that someone does to you without your consent. Premies are more like, "conditioned"; we were conditioned to not question him much, to overlook his illogic or greed or character faults. No one forced us, we just went along with it, because we wanted to feel love, and if being judgmental got in the way of that, then we convinced ourselves that it was not important. We made excuses, and learned not to question too much. We COOPERATED. We went along with it.

And in return, many of us got something out of it, too. But we payed a price.

I'm just glad I didn't put all my eggs in one basket. I did have other things to fall back on when I left. But I can think of many premies for whom that is not true. They gave him everything. Destroy that faith they have invested in him, and what do they have?

As much as I hate religion, and what I call woo-woo beliefs, I have to say that as uncomfortable as I am with the fuzzy thinking that often goes with that sort of thing, I would have to say that, to some extent, I'd rather see ex-premies turn to those sort of things, rather than suicide or anything destructive to themselves or others. For someone who has invested all or most of their faith in believing M & K, it's traumatic to have that faith destroyed. What do they put that faith in afterwards? I'm sure there are many answers to that, and that is what I hope will be talked about here. The power of faith and belief shapes our lives and our happiness, and we need to examine, understand that and use it wisely.

[hamzen]

Re: Subject? Spirit and truth, of course!
Post by Francesca on Aug 8th, 2002, 11:44am

You said:
"That brush with death left me feeling very uncomfortable with just "believing" anything. When you are looking at death, you become very aware of what you believe, and what you actually KNOW, and what the difference is."

This is so true. I know that when my father died, actually, during the whole process before and after, a lot of stuff that wasn't really solid for me seemed either silly or vacuous, or just not an issue. This has happened again in smaller ways, around other people's deaths before and since.

I don't have as much trouble with belief systems as I do the fact that people believe in the systems themselves. If someone is using a system as a tool, as a conceptual framework or a starting point, rather than a sacred cow, I don't have a problem with that approach, as long as they seek to remain open and flexible. Everything's subject to change as new information comes in. I like what you said about getting help from books. Maharaji did cut me off from that because I obeyed the command. All kinds of books can be a window in my mind. Books have always been my friends. Yet for a while, I had no books.

What I did define as something that I developed an aversion to was taking someone else's word for it because they supposedly knew more than I did, were more enlightened than I was, knew the "way things work." I.e., masters, leaders, and pundits. There is no reason for me to believe what people say, no matter who they are.

I see less and less reason to believe anything. Yet, since I didn't recently leave a cult, I am not so snakebitten that I am now afraid of all things metaphysical. But that personal search for a place in this world, for balance and peace, is why I strugged so much as a premie. I am the kind of person that is always questioning things. There was no outlet for that -- there was nothing to question. Question equalled doubt.

But back to what you said about premies' or other people's belief systems. I agree with what you're saying. I don't think that blowing away people's belief systems is the way to go, especially where people are heavily invested in them. It's not kind, and putting people on the defensive often serves the purpose of getting them even more entrenched in their belief system, ideas and concepts. For myself, I can say I learn more and let go of my own cherished concepts just enough to introduce the possibility that they are not true, or that they are mitigated by new information, when I am not being attacked.

I am at a loss to understand the whole phenomenon of Maharaji, having left so many years ago, except for the residual unresolved issues with the whole thing. I see person after person get their "mind blown" by the information on EPO. After my first few years of being involved in K & M, I just don't see that would have ever happened to me, so sometimes I feel at a loss in trying to be supportive. I questioned the whole thing so much that I left with the "Holy Family" in 1974, came back in 1975-76, moved in the ashram in 1978, struggled with that until I moved out in 1982. As I've said before, living in LA for 6 years I knew a lot of the "dirt" about M, although not nearly to the extent of the information on EPO.

I guess I've finally realized it while I was writing here -- my struggle was when I was IN the cult, not in leaving. Leaving was freedom. But that's because I've always had a sense of soul, essence, whatever you want to call it, even though I don't believe in a "God" per se. But that word itself is so vague I've stopped reacting to it so much.

It's easier to say that there's more than meets the eye, and there's more than I know or are aware of presently. Where this gets to be a "spiritual obsession" is the times in my life where I got out of balance -- wanting some experience other than what was available in the present moment and easily accessible, wanting to ring some cosmic gong, wanting to reach some mythical state or "enlightenment" or "realizing Knowledge."

Regarding what you said about conditioning versus brainwasying. Conditioning is a less loaded word, and maybe I don't know the technicalities of it here, but brainwashing seems to be essentially the same thing. One dicitionary definition of brainwashing is "persuasion by propaganda, or salesmanship." There's also the forceful version of brainwashing, like during a war. But, like God, it's a loaded word, and often easier to use another. But truth be told, I think that satsang was a clever way of getting us to brainwash or condition ourselves and each other. But still our own human selves came through, and that's what made it nice. I can't imagine these vid things they've had for years. With less personal interaction and just being force-fed the message. That IS scary.

Well, gotta run.

Francesca

[hamzen]

Re: Subject? Spirit and truth, of course!
Post by hamzen on Aug 8th, 2002, 6:04pm

In a way you are right chuck, the value of that love, trippy almost cosmic for want of a better word feeling was why I came to knowledge, and especially what I got from the meditation.
That trippy feelin from meditation where the body just glows and feels wholesome, but also energizes and pulses I absolutely loved, but although that was essential there was other stuff for me.

While on acid we used to have this thing where occasionally one of our mates would be freakin out, and we always knew they weren't able to open up to the love of being in the moment with us in that real tangible sense of self worth love, was because of their childhood pain and hurts they hasd experienced. We would always respond, in a way that felt almost telepathic, quite often unspoken. Really we were feeling something so strong for them because we really loved them, and on acid that love was amplified, or rather everything else was stripped away and seen as irrelevant.

That pain and separation and the love as counterbalance was one of the reasons I grokked so strongly when gm would talk about the mind, I saw that as pain in the heart, the separation from the real glowing self, and the love I experienced in meditation definitely moved me beyond that pain. Or rather it healed me enough to enable me to let go of the pain I felt about this planet or rise above it, or rather what we did to others and this planet. And I although I think on one level it did, yet the social isolationism of premiedom stopped the real healing that could take place, really dealing with that raw vulnerability, being in that vulnerability of the kind that seems so natural now, and not just soft vulnerability but character defects that are taken the piss out of with affection and the kind of 'satsang' that is so natural amongst my closest mates now, whether explicit or implicit. That was why I loved satsang 76-77, because it allowed that vulnerability in as part of the package, ie it really was about the whole truth at it's best.
That's why your comments re the silecing of premies is so spot on I reckon chuck, because that interpersonal commentary done with acceptance is denied, and downvalued as less than 'real' satsang.

But that one love experience, I wish I had a language to describe that feeling, where trees/flowers/nature/us/ seem to glow and pulse with a unified oneness and those acid day glow colours would tinge the edges of everything, where it was easy to see past the pain, to see where people were holding onto concepts to keep nuts together, for me that love was the meaning of life, the point of it all, and practicing meditation definitely heightened that, and kept me connected to it, which is why I was so devastated when I left, because love for me was only ever going to be the healing source of that global pain. It was a version of that same state of knowing that I'd had on acid.
The thought that he was incapable of giving everyone on this planet a chance to merge with that love was appalling, that he was so incompetent devastated me, in fact for years afterwards I saw no point to life at all, except for music. The rave culture during that period was VERY sweet and always triggered me back into meditation instantaneously, even to call it meditation seems bogus, in fact to use any words to desribe something so beyond words, and so real and vbaluable seems to miss it, but I never saw it as a salvation route for humanity. The culture started getting close to that concept during the period I was first going and they saw that as total illusion, and ditched it fast while still holding onto 85% of that sweet feeling, a practicable compromise that we weren't able to reach in the 60's.

Re: Subject? Spirit and truth, of course!
Post by hamzen on Aug 8th, 2002, 6:08pm

Not even sure why I said all that, just flowing I guess, as though I have to make an excuse and link it to some previous point, duh!

But outside of raves, I was carrying a huge amount of despair and psycho self destruction, which is why all my energy went into buying 12" vinyl, listening to huge amounts of music, and I was completely disfunctional and unable to work.
And that lasted for about 4 years while I ruthlessly stripped back everything to it's core, questioned absolutely everything and even house culture I saw as no more than a way for a percentage of the population in the affluent world to be able to breathe and survive the culture of negativity.

That's why I'm not sure about the faith thing chuck, I lost any real faith in anything, and reached a point where anything that turned up was just a survival bonus, and that was even with everything I was pumping what was left of my passion and respect for life and love into.

Which is why I'm reconnecting now and finally realizing that on some level I did throw the baby out with the bathwater. Meditation was a key 24/7 element of my life and I'd cut it down to an occasional, if very sweet good time.

So I might not have connected with him as the lord or whatever, but I definitely did see him as the managing director of the company that had something absolutely crucial, not him, but k.

Which is why Francesca I can now relate to your comment more sympathetically re using spiritual routes as useful tools for some people in the process of leaving, although even as I write that and know it to be true the obsessive no compromise part of me that came out after leaving is raising an eyebrow.

But, and this is something I've been mulling over for a while, especially thinking in terms of the previous incarnations of the ex-premie forums, that approach is so ruthless. And that ruthlessness is much more a male route than a more integrated female based route, ie it's one dimensionally obsessive, and although it allows empathy, it does not allow much sensitivity and tenderness and real embracing, and again the raised eyebrow is thinking of the bogus sell of new ageism which is a perversion of that.

How to balance the ruthless honesty with the integrative side without building too high a barrier at either end.

Ahh the contradictions eh, cause I just started thinking about those areas where I'm a right soft hippy, but nearly always where there is little need for either conceptualisation or deconstruction.

I'm thinking salmon pink now, a tenderness that is not soft centred.

I guess it's no surprize there are so few female gurus, apart from the odd exception that proves the rule.

[hamzen]

Re: Subject? Spirit and truth, of course!
Post by Francesca on Aug 8th, 2002, 6:34pm

Hamzen, Chuck and anyone else reading this,

Hamzen, you said:
"Which is why Francesca I can now relate to your comment more sympathetically re using spiritual routes as useful tools for some people in the process of leaving, although even as I write that and know it to be true the obsessive no compromise part of me that came out after leaving is raising an eyebrow.

But, and this is something I've been mulling over for a while, especially thinking in terms of the previous incarnations of the ex-premie forums, that approach is so ruthless. And that ruthlessness is much more a male route than a more integrated female based route, ie it's one dimensionally obsessive, and although it allows empathy, it does not allow much sensitivity and tenderness and real embracing, and again the raised eyebrow is thinking of the bogus sell of new ageism which is a perversion of that.

How to balance the ruthless honesty with the integrative side without building too high a barrier at either end."

Having said what I said above about using conceptual frameworks, belief systems and spiritual paths as tools, the period where one first leave strict adherence to the tenets of a spiritual path, such as K, is a tricky period.

One almost naturally stops meditating in order to take a look at it all. I certainly have cut my practice down to next to nothing or close to it, over the years. And then once I was sure in my own mind that it wasn't a mere habit or a neurotic obsession, resumed again, because it felt good. In about 1985, it was K meditation, and then I went on to practice other techniques that were not K. And stopped doing some of them at various points, just for the heck of it.

But before I digress, the main point is that embracing another established path after leaving K or during the leaving process can be like getting involved in another relationship during, or too soon after, a nasty divorce or relationship breakup of some sort. One goes from one relationship to another without ever having time to stand on one's own, so to speak. So it is a tricky time. There are no pat answers.

xoxox

F

Re: Subject? Spirit and truth, of course!
Post by ChuckS on Aug 9th, 2002, 2:07pm

Hamzen said:

"How to balance the ruthless honesty with the integrative side without building too high a barrier at either end."

Yes! That sums it up.

I see too that premies often villify or deny their minds in favor of their feelings. As ex-premies, the reverse may happen; they reclaim their thinking and reasoning, yet push away and deny their feelings, because those feelings were often tied up with their faith and belief in M & K. Yet we are thinking and feeling beings; we have capacity for both, and we should not have to choose one over the other. Other GOOD yoga teachers, who teach the same Yoga techniques as M. does, know this. They do not make an enemy of the mind. Many in fact suggest healing your mental emotional problems before even attempting meditation.

I too had very strong experiences of One Love/Oneness from LSD. I had also had those experiences in meditation, BEFORE LSD. The LSD just seem to underscore, in a very natural, beautiful way, my own meditation experience.

I think I had invested a lot more importance (or faith) in K rather than M. Perhaps that prevented me from feeling hurt much by him, and made it easier to leave. But for many of the Premies of the 1970's, I can see that a great deal of emotion was/is invested in him, and that emotion/faith are closely bonded. Withdrawing that emotion is also withdrawing that faith. The emotions and faith are closely tied, and when you add to that rejection of the mind or intellect concerning all things relating to M & K, it makes it very hard to examine, deconstruct, and thus end the pain of pulling away.

Many premies, like Fran, pulled away gradually, investing their faith in other things, slowly. Finding other things that helped them. And yet never completely broke away, till years later after finding EPO and actively deconstructing their experience.

But for a very active premie now to suddenly do a 100 percent rejection, has to be traumatic. Withdrawing that much faith suddenly, makes it scary to then put your faith in anything. And yet to have faith in nothing and put your faith in nothing... can also be devestating.

When I first posted on F5, I said something about not throwing out the baby with the bathwater, and yet folks seemed to think that was a good idea, some insisting that there WAS no baby. So what does that leave people with? The cold fact that they were "stupid" for believing in "nothing"? Is "nothing" why I hung in there for all those years?

I hung in there for the sake of feeling something. The feelings attracted me, the feelings helped me stay with it, and even ignore or excuse some things my reasoning mind objected too. Was I deluded? Yes. Was I decieved? Yes. Were my feelings completely worthless? NO!

I'm finding that meditation works without the Goober, and that there are many, many ways to have the positive feelings and emotions I had as a premie, without the intellectulal dishonesty, or blindness to deceptions and wrongdoings. That's all for the good. I just don't feel I have to gag or deny my emotional self, either. Intergration of mind and emotions, faith and intellect, Balance. That's what I want.

And when premies first get off Maharaji's merry-go-round, their legs are wobbley; they need to find their balance again. That's why I liked your comment so much: "How to balance the ruthless honesty with the integrative side without building too high a barrier at either end." It really is a matter of finding balance, without compromising truthfullness or over-indulging magical or fuzzy thinking.


Re: Subject? Spirit and truth, of course!
Post by ChuckS on Aug 9th, 2002, 2:19pm

Fran said:

"But before I digress, the main point is that embracing another established path after leaving K or during the leaving process can be like getting involved in another relationship during, or too soon after, a nasty divorce or relationship breakup of some sort. One goes from one relationship to another without ever having time to stand on one's own, so to speak. So it is a tricky time. There are no pat answers."

Yes, very true. On the one hand, just having a premie or recent ex-premie even consider another path, is allowing them a freedom they may have not even allowed themselves for a long time. It could be a bridge to their way out of the cult. But the analogy to starting another realationship during or soon after a nasty divorce is also apt.

We are all so different. What works for one, may not work for another. As you say, there are no pat answers. That is why to some degree, I am willing to tolerate a certian amount of touchy, feely woo-woo stuff, despite what I may think of it personally. It's better than having someone turn to suicide, or be trapped in thinking they are becoming a rotting vegetable. A new path can always be rejected or modified later, when one has time to reflect. I don't see harm in that. In the short term, it might be a matter of "whatever gets you through the night".

[hamzen]

Re: Subject? Spirit and truth, of course!
Post by Francesca on Aug 9th, 2002, 2:43pm

Hamzen,

I am just "grokking" this statement you made further up in the thread:
I realized just how much I had elevated not just premiedom, but spirituality, as a higher space than the body, and that I needed to re-integrate.

This is so true. I had this whole ethic, such that meditation was somehow holier and more worthy, spirituality and metaphysics was a more lofty pursuit, all sorts of programming that I hadn't examined, and worse yet, DIDN'T even KNOW was there!

So many layers to unravel.

And Chuck, I don't even know where to begin with your two recent posts, so much rang true. It seems that in life there is no way to avoid the slippery slope. And even what we think is a rope may turn out to be another part of the slide.

One thing I never want to do is kick the blocks out from under a person. I loved some aspects of that book, "Snapping." I'm glad that so many people including Barbara and Cynthia recommended it. In order to get in a cult, there is some point where a person has a radical "snapping" experience. It is a total 180. But due to the cult conditioning you spoke of, and the individual timing of the whole thing, it sometimes doesn't appear as a snapping experience at all. But at some point there is a shift, often a sudden personality change, but can also appear or be gradual. The transformation is complete: What once seemed absurd and unthinkable is now plausible.

But a sudden personality change seems apparently quite odd to those surrounding the cult recruit. It is unmistakable. The slow slipping into it is less alarming to the inductee and their friends and family. I think that EPO can start the sudden kind of snapping out for some people who have allowed themselves to have no idea that perhaps M and K is not for them. For others, it is just the frosting on the cake. For everyone who has been involved, it is quite a revelation, no doubt!

What it takes to snap back out is as individual as what it takes to snap back in.

xoxoxo

Francesca

Slippery slopes, snapping, and balancing
Post by ChuckS on Aug 10th, 2002, 04:25am

Well, the slippery slope is allways there. So much of life is trial and error. Hopefully we learn from our mistakes.

It's interesting how some people used other spiritual paths or religon to tranfer their faith away from Maharaji, some partially, and some completely, while others broke away more abruptly, and then regarded all spritual things as suspect.

People who got K in the 1970's were often in their 20's. I had recieved K when I was twenty. I had already had some experience with the Christian religion and had broken with it. I was not looking for religion to believe in, or a Messiah, when I got K in 1981.

So for twenty years, I pretty much related to M&K in the terms it was introduced to me. The funny thing is, I can think of so many things that have changed in 20 years; I mean, I belived all sorts of things then that I don't believe now, I've changed in many ways. But my beliefs about M&K, and my way of thinking about it, hadn't changed much. Untill I got involved with Premies again in the late 1990's, and discovered EPO on the internet, hadn't thought much about it or examined it much in detail. There were hardly abundant sources of alternative information, till folks started talking on the internet.

Are people in their 20's so impressionable, that if they have a positive experience with something percieved as spiritual, that they are inclined to stick with it, even when it get's crappy latter? Are emotional experiences with faith in our youth that resistant to change? I mean, now that I've allowed myself to really look at things critically now, Maharaji's schtick seems so CHEEZY . But premies don't see that, because they see him with eyes of love, a love that is blind.

William James, the famous Psychiatrist, once wrote about people who had a strong experience with religous faith, and how they often hung with the religion long after it appealed to them, simply because of their inital positive experience. Is that what is happening with premies?

It's funny how some premies find EPO, read, and leave almost immediately, while others take years. I myself took a couple of years (though not reading EPO the whole time). Getting involved with "Participation" was quite an eye opener, too. If anything "snapped" me, it was probaby the Atlanta training video. Maharaji himself, snapped me with his own words and actions. Yet some premies thought that video was inspiring.

I know the premies get something out of loving M. Many would even say that it doesn't matter that he doesn't know their names, and doesn't want to know.

It reminds me of Christians, who insist they have a "personal" realationship with Jesus. They go on about their "relationship" with Jesus at great length. A relationship with a person who's been dead for 2000 years (if he ever really existed). So the relationship is in their imagination, but they insist it's real. It IS real to them, because they BELIEVE.

Premies do something similar. They at least have a "living" master. They can buy his tapes, see him on stage, and view his broadcasts. Some even get to see him closeup. Few get to know him personally. For most, it's a kind of imaginary relationship. Yet it must seem more sane to them than loving someone who died 2,000 years ago.

But what kind of love is it? I mean, when I was coming to Knowlege, so much was talked about love, and there was this kind of univeral way Knowlege was talked about, like it was a great thing for everyone, because it was inside of everyone, and Mahararji had this wonderful job of revealing it to people. As an aspirant, it seemed like there was this "One Love", as Hamzen calls it, that we could all be a part of, because we all WERE a part of it, if only we could experience that.

But at some point, the love gets narrowed. Maharaji becomes more important than other people, he is some sort of indespensible element, without which we are lost. The love is all focused on him. It's all about him. What seemed to be about a universal love became a non-univesal, narrow love, that excluded instead of including. "One Love" became "Love for One".

Nowadays, "Knowlege isn't for everyone", we are told. We shouldn't even talk about it, ESPECIALLY when we feel inspired. What happened? Is Knowledge about seeing "God" in one person, and one person only, and loving that person more than anything or anyone else? Just give your love to Maharaji, and all else will be taken care of? Because no-one can "save" himself? How balanced is that? Why must one man be worshipped as a master, and how does that "save" you?

Saved? From what?
Post by Francesca on Aug 12th, 2002, 12:56am

The whole thing does fall apart, at least to me, when you examine things as you did, Chuck.

Why the need to worship one person?

Why the need to have some imaginary personal relationship with him?

And what are we getting saved from?

One biggie for me is when people are not separating their beliefs from obvious facts. In a belief system, it seems like people cross over a line and postulate their beliefs as fact. Maharaji is the Master. Christ is my Lord and Savior. He talks to me, he listens to me.

It crosses over into "fact" and then we have the whole "knowing" thing. Someone "knows" something is true to the point where it "becomes" true.

I'm not totally knocking the knowing thing. We have to trust ourselves or we will go around listening to everyone else, or seek the approval of others in order to listen to ourselves. But the balance to that is that we have to be willing to learn, grow, change, and see the same things again with our current perspectives and knowledge. But this knowing thing. In religions and cults, somehow we are told what is "true," and pretty soon, we "know" it is.

How many millions of times have I looked at this life of mine and it has appeared different? I think that will continue to happen as long as I have eyes to see and a new day!

I'm not dependent upon science for fact though, although it is certainly helpful. The more the merrier and all that. For example, indigenous peoples have said that crows are smart, and a few days ago a scientist did a test where a female crow created a tool -- not just used a tool -- and she did it several times to prove that it wasn't a fluke. So all those years that bird lovers and indigenous people said that the crows were smart, were they wrong, just because some Western scientist hadn't done a test that "proved" it?

Anyway, I don't want to get into an argument with any science lovers out there, but there are limits to everything.

Chuck said:
It's interesting how some people used other spiritual paths or religon to tranfer their faith away from Maharaji, some partially, and some completely, while others broke away more abruptly, and then regarded all spritual things as suspect.

Yes, I think that has created some tensions on forums in the past. Those who regarded all spiritual views as suspect were -- in my estimation -- a bit harsh and dismissive of those who entertain such views, be they personal or adopted from some philosophy or other.

My own personal suspicion of the week is anyone who appears to think they have it all together, be they a person who espouses a spiritual path or an atheist. Of course, those are two extremes and I think many people fall more to to middle.

But I ramble ... goodnight!

xoxox

Francesca

[hamzen]

The original leap
Post by Francesca on Aug 12th, 2002, 12:21pm

Chuck, Hamzen and all,

I'm remembering my original leap. I was feeling very unhappy and just wishing I was dead, and I went up to the Arcata area to visit with my sister and some other premies. I was so depressed that for the first time, I really listened to the satsang, and started asking questions.

I started reading the literature (pre And It is Divine I think) with a lot of questions and answers with GMJ. He was making no bones back then about who he was, and what he was here to do. Oh, the cagey little stuff -- he never came out and said he was G-O-D, but then of course, that's the schtick. But he was definitely the Satguru, the Lord, the embodiment of that Truth that was G-O-D, so whatever.

That evening before dinner, my sister encouraged me to go up to my room and try doing the old TM (transcendental meditation) techniques that I had learned and abandoned several years before, in order to experience some peace. When I meditated, at some point, I felt all the love in the universe coming into my heart, and then I took the NEXT STEP. I attributed it to Maharaji, after reading all day about his love, and his coming here to save us, and his Lordship and all that.

I suppose that was the "snap." After that, there was quite a personality change. When my roommates would get ready to go buy some alcohol and other substances, I would walk down the hill past the Hell's Angels clubhouse and catch the bus to satsang. It was hard for my old roomates to understand it, but they were extremely tolerant. One of them actually said, in all sincerity, "pray for us." It was quite an amazing change to see me coming out of the depression and having hope again.

One funny story is that I was very emotional and could make some intense displays of the same back then. After I received K, I was sitting in my room meditating with a blanket over my head, and a friend was afraid to approach me because he thought I was mad. He thought, "now we've done it!" He ended up receiving K and moving into the San Francisco ashram. The next-door neighbor also received K, as he already had premie friends. I know that he was totally amazed at the transformation I'd gone through.

I'll have to think about the snap back. It was in several stages, one big one being the depression and long illness before I moved out of the ashram. David Smith was sure a reality check, as were many of the instructors. I thought many of them were in la-la land, even the nicer ones.

xoxoxox

F

Re: Subject? Spirit and truth, of course!
Post by ChuckS on Aug 12th, 2002, 3:04pm

Why the need to worship one person?

The Indians have a saying, "No guru, not a man." They believe that until you choose a guru to surrender yourself too, you are not a real man, because you are a slave to maya and your ego.

Many of the premies accepted this belief, too. Yet really, it's just one of the foundation stones of the guru-worshiping religion. People just accept it as some unquestionable truth, but does it really make sense?

What is called "maya" is just the temporariness of this life. If you believe it's real, or that it's and illusion, it's still temporary; you are here for a while, and then you are not. Everything changes. It's like that, wether you believe it's real or not. But the Indian religion uses it as a boggy man that you need to be some "saved" from. Yeah, right. As if premies don't die like everyone else.

Then the ego thing. You need to surrender to one man, a guru guy, who has an ego of his own. You have to surrender to Him, to crush your own horrible ego. So many premies would worry about their minds and their egos, as being terrible things they needed to be "saved" from. But according to who, and why?

For one thing, why do you need this one special guru guy to crush your ego? Doesn't just plain living in the real world do that every day? Heck, just working for lawyers does that quite nicely! But seriously, the ego get's put in it's place everyday, just by living with other people. I never saw THAT as a problem. Even the most ordinary, unspiritual people are capable of recognizing the ego for what it is, and just dealing with it, without having this grand struggle, this DRAMA with it. It actually isn't a problem, unless you BELIEVE it is. We all have egos for a reason; if we were not meant to have them, then we wouldn't. Isn't this just another example of religion telling us there is something wrong with us, then offering itself as the solution? And lets not forget the enourmous spriitual egos that premies can get, to which they are completely blind to, but which other's see quite plainly. I have never noticed that premies have less ego than anyone else. They just feel guilty about it more.

As for the mind being the enemy; anyone who is unhappy might easily believe that, because it is your thoughts that make you depressed. If you have no control over your thoughts, no understanding of how your thought process works, and how your beliefs and thinking affect your happiness, you might well think of your mind as an enemy, from which you need to be "saved". But if you use meditation to just escape or ignore your mind, then you can't heal your thought process with understanding. You can't get mentally clear, if you are just pushing your mind away all the time. GOOD yoga teachers teach you that the mind is NOT your enemy. Manipulative religious exploiters teach you that it is your enemy, because it's a way to get a handle on you. Young people are especially vulnerable to this.

Why the need to have some imaginary personal relationship with him?

It's a feel-good security blanket. Just like the Christians who have their "personal" relationship with a dead Jesus. Premies may give their love to Maharaji, and that makes them feel good. In a way, it's even better that they don't have a personal relationship with him, because then they don't have to be confronted with things about him that they may not like. An imaginary relationship allows you to fill in the blanks yourself, and have a lot of things your way. In many ways it's easier to love a carefully edited stage and screen persona; you don't have to expose yourself to the unpleasant, gritty things that would make a difference to your perception, or challenge your beliefs.

The interesting thing is, that in India, the guru often lives in a village with his followers, and they do have personal access to him. He even performs weddings, gives advice, helps their children to tuition money for college, etc. He holds down a job, instead of living off donations. He is a member of their community, as well as a Sat Guru. He aids local charities. He is accessable, and accountable for a great deal of what he does. It's hard to keep secrets in a village.

(continued in next post)

[hamzen]

PRe: Subject? Spirit and truth, of course!
Post by ChuckS on Aug 12th, 2002, 3:06pm

(Part 2 continued)

I don't deny that the premies get something out of loving Maharaji. Loving anyone and feeling gratitude to anyone can be a wonderful experience. But when you make that love and gratitude into a religion that must never be questioned, an must be aimed at one person only, for the sake of your happiness, you are setting yourself up to be used. And abused. And calling that "lila" just doesn't cut it, at least not for me. I prefer honesty and integrity, thanks.

Yet the premies DO feel love for Mahraji, and have been conditioned to think about it only in terms set by the guru-worshiping bhakti religion that they are enmeshed in. To see it ouside of those terms would spoil the dance, shatter the illusion. Who wants to loose the feeling of love, or even worse, go from loving your guru, to hating him? That idea hardly seems attractive! What is their incentive to change their perception, when they are enjoying it the way it is? But to preserve that, they have to filter out anything that challenges that. Rationality and integrity get sacrified for "feeling".

I think some premies become exes, when they want their rationality and integrity back. I think some people do this gradually, by transfering their feeling/faith to other things or beliefs. Doing so may also spare them the grief of turning against or hating the beloved guru. They may just drift way, although part of their minds may have unresloved conficts or guilt about it, because the underlying beliefs about their feelings have not been thoroughly examined.

Even now, I don't want to hate the guru. I can acually think of him quite fondly, if I let myself. It's like conditioning, and I find I can turn it on and off like a light switch, now that I'm aware of it. It's really kind of funny. I've become detached from those feelings, because I've become aware of the fact that I really don't know him at all, he's a total stranger to me. Whenever I feel those "fond" sentimental feelings, I just remember that. I much prefer that to hating him, because hating him is too much like having a relationship with him. Besides, how can I hate someone I don't even know? I hate many of the things he's done, but I simply don't know the man. That might seem like spitting hairs, but it helps me to look at it that way. He can still be held accountable for his actions, but I don't have to invest my passions in an imaginary relationship of either love or hate.

And what are we getting saved from?

He saves us from all the things the guru-worshipping bhakti religion tells us we need saving from. And until the premie breaks out of the guru-worshipping bhakti religion box, the frame of reference which dictates what the problems and solutions are, he/she will be terrified to leave. The thought system that creates the problems and offers the solutions, also hold the believer captive. Until those accepted, implanted beliefs are examined rationally and understood, they have the power to hold the believer, and make it impossilbe to see the problem/solution dilemma any other way without experiencing suffering and conflict. If you believe the only choices are Surrender to the Master or become a rotting vegetable, then there are not other choices for you, because you don't believe there are. Your faith, or ability to believe, in invested in the bhakti-guru religion.

The power of belief is SO strong. Whatever we believe as the truth, becomes true for us. Yet, it is not necessarily true at all, it's just something we chose to believe. We believe we are being "saved", because we belived in the threat as it was explained to us, accepted the offered solution, and then stopped questioning. But is are the beliefs real? Can reality actually be threatened? Does it need to be protected from scrutiny and examination? What kind of truth doesn't hold up to scrutiny?

"Belief is Relief", says Maharaji nowadays. Had he said that back in 1981, I would have said "Sounds like just another religion to me".

I really don't hate Maharaji or the premies at all, and I don't want to fight with or argue with premies. That's why I'm not posting this on LG. Strictly speaking, what premies believe isn't my business, it's theirs. I really don't go around confronting premies I know with things they don't want to hear. But I do love reality, and I'm saying this here, because the topic is Spirit and TRUTH, and to me, truth always will hold up to examination. Reality just is; sometimes it needs to be uncovered, but it doesn't need a defense. The feelings people have may be true enough for them, but the beliefs those feelings are supported with needn't be true, just believed. Belief is Relief. Religion thrives on it. But is it true? And does it matter? I think it does.

[hamzen]

Yow, Chuck, BRAVO!
Post by Francesca on Aug 12th, 2002, 4:11pm

So much again ringing true here, especially liked this capsulization:

The thought system that creates the problems and offers the solutions, also hold the believer captive. Until those accepted, implanted beliefs are examined rationally and understood, they have the power to hold the believer, and make it impossilbe to see the problem/solution dilemma any other way without experiencing suffering and conflict.

After so many years of being gone, and since about 1992-93 seeing M as a raving, cheezy, histrionic used car salesman of spirituality, it is really hard to generate any fond memories, because the thrill is so long gone. So unlike recent exes that are trying NOT to get sucked into the conditioning of liking him, I have been in his presence and wanted to HURL, bigtime. So I have to search to find some benign feelings for him, because I don't want to hate him either. That is t-0-0 much like a relationship in the reverse. After that program he was sort of out of my life except for the premies in my life, until EPO. And then of course, one had to say, ugh, this is so wrong.

That being said, so many public figures are frauds. The president of the united states, for starters. Many congressmen and senators. Many priests of many sects, living a lie. Many civil leaders and "upstanding" state and local governmental officials. So what's the big deal. There's sharks in the ocean, and all sorts of other fish. So a shark is a shark is a shark. I'm going through my period of lightening up about it without losing the insight gained.

That being said, I'm not going to work too hard at liking him, cheeze, I don't like Rev. Sung Myung Moon or AC Bhakivedanta (can't remember if I spelled that right, hubby and I called him AC/DC), Billy Graham, the Pope, and all sorts of other cheezy newage and traditional old-age drum beaters. But I don't need to spend much time despising them either. Different strokes for different folks.

A pile of cr*p is a pile of cr*p, but I don't need to park my chair in front of it, meditate on it, and count the buzzing flies. So it is funny, eh? But there are times to remember what it all is, and not fool ourselves about it either.

I think what you are getting at in your post is the core of the matter -- really examining oneself, one's beliefs, where one's fears and bogeymen come from, and seeing what it all is. The truth will set you free and all that. A lot to think about here, definitely.

xoxoxoxo

f

Sacred beliefs as sacred cows...
Post by ChuckS on Aug 12th, 2002, 4:12pm

Geez, I'm probably posting too much , but I did want to address this comment by Fran:

"Yes, I think that has created some tensions on forums in the past. Those who regarded all spiritual views as suspect were -- in my estimation -- a bit harsh and dismissive of those who entertain such views, be they personal or adopted from some philosophy or other.

There is a great difficulty on the F7 forum about talking about spritual things.

There is a general understanding in our culture, that a persons "spiritual" beliefs are private and personal, and it is very impolite to question such beliefs, because they are matters of "faith". So you may find highly intelligent, educated people who would not heistate to question anything, suddenly make an exception when it comes to their private, personal beliefs/religious faith. They can become highly irrational and emotional when questioned about THAT. And the culture we live in supports them completely in that feeling.

The ex-premie forum is in large part about examining irrational beliefs, and deconstructing them. Premies often take great offence at this, because they feel their beliefs in M and K fall into the catagory of "religious/spiritual beliefs/faith" that are private and should not be questioned.

If other religious beliefs, that are matters of personal faith, are not also examined as rationally as premie beliefs, then the premies might well feel that THEIR beliefs are being singled out unfairly. They could quite justly complain that, since other people's spritual beliefs go unchallenged, that we are just prejudiced against Maharaji for reasons of our own. How can we rationally deconstruct Maharajism, if we are not willling to apply it to all sacred cows equally?

And yet, our culture says it's rude to question other people's faith. So anyone who does is often called rude, callous, unfeeling, uncaring, or a bully.

If you don't believe me, just look at the persecution of athiests that has been happening in California in recent months. People take great offense at having their "faith", their religious/spiritual beliefs openly challenged. As a result, atheists are often villified as monsters. I see that as pretty silly, as athiest just believe in not believing in god. But it's a hot potatoe.

So when deconstructing beliefs, where does one draw the line? At what point does it become unacceptably rude, and who gets to decide that? I'm not an athiest myself, perhaps more an Agnostic, so I'm not jumping on the athiest bandwagon. But athiesm should not be more or less a sacred cow than anything else. And since the ex-forum is about deconsructing and challenging beliefs, it does not seem the best place to talk about spiritual stuff in a relaxed, non-confronting way.

Spirituality/faith/feelings, are so tied together. I believe feelings are important. Happiness is a feeling, and someting most of us value and want. But because feelings aren't always rational, becaue they CAN be based on complete fantasy and unreality, they run headfirst into atheistic logic. If atheism appears to only hammer away at peoples beliefs, and undermine people feelings, without leaving them with anything in it's place, I think it just leaves many people feeling resentful.

To me, it comes back to balance. I enjoy my emotional, intuitive, imaginative feeling nature, and my rational, intellectual, reasoning and thinking nature, too. We all have both for a reason, and I want them to exist harmoniously in myself, side by side. I really think each is a protection and a brake for the other. Embrace both, and they keep you out of trouble. I'm hoping that is something we can explore here. Balance, without sacrificing truthfulness or reality. I feel it's very hard to do on that on the ex-premie forum though, because of it's de-constructive nature. It HAS to be deconstructive, because it is counterbalancing an off-balanced system of belief that defies rational examination.

Here on Hamzen's forum, I think we can indulge woo-woo FEELINGS more, but I hope we can be honest too about the sources and beliefs that create these feelings. Fantasy and imagination are fine, and can be useful tools too in creating a happy life, but if they become confused with reality, or are allowed to contradict it, we invite trouble. To me it always comes back to harmoney and balance, without compromising truthfulness or reality. It takes some effort, isn't always comfortable, (especially if one of our Sacred Cows gets gored ) but lots of good comes from it. So for me, it's worth it

P.S. Fran I appreciated your comments about people confusing belief with "knowing"; you and Ham have both made dozens of comments I'd like to respond to (and not argumentively, either but would just like to chat about because they are interesting) but the day is just flying by. Hopefully more later; perhaps some other folks will join in, too.

[hamzen]

Questioning others
Post by Francesca on Aug 13th, 2002, 2:45pm

Chuck, you said:

And yet, our culture says it's rude to question other people's faith. So anyone who does is often called rude, callous, unfeeling, uncaring, or a bully.

It's not just a matter of questioning faith as much as it is about boundaries, invasiveness, appropriateness, and someone's right to questions people's core beliefs and operating principles -- i.e., what gets them through the day.

In an encounter group, for example, that is set up by a psychiatrist or pscyhologist with agreed-upon rules by the participants, the interaction is a lot more intense and personal than the kinds of interactions one would engage in socially. Some people, myself included, feel that someone has no right to question or interrogate me at a certain level -- about anything unless I have given them permission to do so, or agreed to engage with them like that. It's just plain rude otherwise. Certainly I don't feel compelled to have to answer someone just because they come at me in an aggressive manner and demand an answer from me (unless they are providing me with a paycheck or due to my relationship with them I feel the responsibility to do so). Someone has to be at a certain level of trust with me before I will let them in to that extent, and even then, I might not put up with it.

I found that on public bulletin boards I was having unpleasant interactions that never occurred in my life otherwise. I just didn't deal with people on a daily basis, even in the streets, that, in general, came at me like many folks came at each other on the public bulleting boards. So except for this one, I'm shunning them. I don't need that type of conflict in my life. It's not productive.

I realize now that I stayed too long at the fair. As far as the places where people are constantly challenging and questioning each other goes, I was among a group of people that feel the need to do that, I had voluntarily sought their company and input, and I was eventually out of place there. It's not because my thoughts and beliefs are sacred; it's because I don't need to have them attacked constantly in order to think I'm O.K. Nor do I want to explain myself to every person who has access to a public board. I'll talk with people that I trust, and where I feel the interaction is worth my time and their time. I'm not here to take all comers. And that's what you have to be ready for in many public fora.

As you said, people are in a state of deconstructing on the main ex-premie forums, and I don't want to constantly be deconstructing and tearing things apart. That's fine for when I needed that, and if I need it again, perhaps. It certainly is true that ex-premies were just as "fair game" for that as premies are.

At one point, I had worked myself up into such a state of deconstruction that the only people I could talk to about sprituality or any related topic were ex-premies on the boards, because other people, ex-premies included, found it just too intense, or I didn't know the people well enough and it would have been, in my view, not civilized and very invasive. I just do not have the right to do that to people. And people do not have the right to do that to me, because I haven't given it to them.

I also found there was a major preoccupation with examining my beliefs all the time that was a bit unnatural. Fine for someone who just left a cult, but not a way of life. My ex-premie husband enjoyed some of our discussions, but after a while it became clear just by interacting with him that I was a bit obsessed with it all, to put it mildly.

Hope this makes sense. It's not a judgment on anyone else so much as it is an understand of where I feel at home.

Francesca

Re: Subject? Spirit and truth, of course!
Post by hamzen on Aug 13th, 2002, 5:30pmb]

Francesca, REALLY appreciate your last post, I really needed to hear that, although not the worst in that kind of questioning there was plenty of it in me, and I really want to let go of that part of me at the moment.
To the extent that I can hardly spend any time with men at the moment at all, because in the end, the stuff you're talking about is predominantly male I suspect, and that's because women appreciate the value of life and the value of time a lot more I suspect, and won't waste it, or bore themselves and others. What I liked about the post was that it fleshed out a lot of ideas/feeling mix I'm starting to grope towareds at the moment.

At the age of 50, I've finally started to realize just how much more wise some women are than men in general, and it's a bit of a mind blower. I suspect it's because I've never known women as strong as the one's I do at the moment, and I don't mean strong in a 70's feminist way but something else, but instead of just being in sync with 'spirit' for want of a better word, and I wish I had a better word for that liquid appreciation of the moment, they are stronger in themselves.

And as for your previous posts you and chuck, jesus that's a lot to catch up on!!!!

I would like to say to both of you how much I've appreciated this thread and especially it's attitude, the kind of truth seeking with good vibe I need to soak up from anywhere I can get it at the moment.

The mad thing is, as anyone who's read some of my posts in other threads will realize, I was hardly unnatracted to that spirit vibe, and always had a soft side, but never realized the level of wisdom floating around in the female of the species probably because that female hippy earth mother new age vibe always seemed so so, out to lunch, and I'd hardly ever come across that vibe elsewhere, and it was so crucial to me.

How easy it is to isolate yourself, and miss out on potential and learning.

I could be wrong, but I seriously suspect you'd love ANYTHING by lamb, although they have come out of dance culture, they are much more chillout hippy and old school authentic than purely that route, while still carrying some of the deepest understandings of it over, fusion music at it's best, and as for her voice, a key ingredient, soaked in vibe.

Deconstruction
Post by Francesca on Aug 13th, 2002, 5:56pm

Well, Hamzen, men have a lot of wisdom too. It's that balance thing Chuck talks about. Another brilliant part of Chuck's post:

But because feelings aren't always rational, because they CAN be based on complete fantasy and unreality, they run headfirst into atheistic logic. If atheism appears to only hammer away at peoples beliefs, and undermine people feelings, without leaving them with anything in it's place, I think it just leaves many people feeling resentful.

To me, it comes back to balance. I enjoy my emotional, intuitive, imaginative feeling nature, and my rational, intellectual, reasoning and thinking nature, too. We all have both for a reason, and I want them to exist harmoniously in myself, side by side. I really think each is a protection and a brake for the other. Embrace both, and they keep you out of trouble. I'm hoping that is something we can explore here. Balance, without sacrificing truthfulness or reality. I feel it's very hard to do on that on the ex-premie forum though, because of it's de-constructive nature. It HAS to be deconstructive, because it is counterbalancing an off-balanced system of belief that defies rational examination.

And yes, it still comes back to a trite truism -- there is a time and place for everything (well, almost). I agree about the balance. Feelings by themselves can take you down to fuzzy-ville. Relying on them alone and refusing to listen to the rational mind can definitely be a prescription for some "interesting times." The rational, reasoning stuff doesn't leave enough "flow" for me by itself.

But I do agree. Not listening to the mind is as silly as not listening to my feelings. But I'm not supposed to listen to either exclusively, so there's no problem, as long as I take in ALL the input and don't shut it off.

Hamzen, I'm over 50 myself, so I'm still learning. It is fun for me to have friends of all ages. Some of them have parents my age. That says a lot about them as well. I really appreciate their views. Wisdom comes in all sorts of packages.

But I love this little saying from one of the Grooks (a cartoon): "Wisdom is the booby prize, given when you've been unwise."

xoxox

Francesca

[hamzen]

Re: Subject? Spirit and truth, of course!
Post by ChuckS on Aug 14th, 2002, 1:03pm

Wow Fran, you covered a lot of stuff there!

I can relate. You made an interesting point:

"In an encounter group, for example, that is set up by a psychiatrist or pscyhologist with agreed-upon rules by the participants, the interaction is a lot more intense and personal than the kinds of interactions one would engage in socially. Some people, myself included, feel that someone has no right to question or interrogate me at a certain level -- about anything unless I have given them permission to do so, or agreed to engage with them like that. It's just plain rude otherwise."

A moderated group, with a certian purpose in mind and clearly defined rules, just HAS to be more civil. Thearapy groups don't let just anyone in, and do require those who join to follow their rules. The public internet forums, in contrast, seem rather lawless. And God help anyone who tries to moderate there! It's a pretty thankless job.

I expect RE, or whatever they call it now, was a little more like an encounter group, and perhaps for that reason and others had appeal for many people. After asking folks about RE and hearing what they had to say, I backed down with my objections, simply because I felt people were entitled to do what they wanted in that regard; if I didn't like it, I didn't have to participate. To each his own.

On the public forums, there are a lot of people who would argue about a lot of things, many of which I am simply not interested in arguing about. I definitely found it useful for a while, but if you spend too much time there, things start to seem more important than they are. It's more tolerable if you don't spend a lot of time there. That is the great difficulty if you are an FA; you have some responsibility to be there and see what is being posted. I've decided to be a "Bad" FA in that regard, and am much happier for it!

The medium too, is strange and different from face to face contact. Words can be interpreted in ways they were not meant. I have met quite a number of exes in person, and often found that they were quite different from what I imagined them to be. And reading their posts on the forum AFTER meeting them, I found that I viewed their posts differently, too. I seemed to understand what they were saying in their posts better, having met them and gotten a more complete picture of what they are like. I've found it makes a world of difference.

That is one reason why I've disliked anonymice trolls so much; you can never get to know them as people, and they are free to lash out with impunity. It's too creepy.

The public forums are not likely to become less argumentative without more moderation and control, which IMO isn't likely to happen. So while they can be useful for deconstructing, they aren't for the faint hearted. To persist there you have to toughen yourself up, and forgive/ignore a lot.

When you were away visiting with your Dad, there was quite a lot of negative stuff being said on the forum about meditation and meditators. I had wished you were there, to stick up for people who felt that meditation had some value. It was a mini anti-meditation fest.

Now on the one hand, I hated that. > But on the other hand, it taught me to just agree to disagree with some people. It forced me to recognize that my subjective experiences with meditation were not universal to everyone. It taught me that my experiences with meditation also didn't really depend on approval or validation by anyone else either, so really, there wasn't even anything for me to be upset about, other than perhaps I thought some people were a bit tackless. But even then, I survived, I didn't melt like a sugar cookie, so I also learned how tough I really am . So even though it pushed me out of my comfort zone, some good came out of it, and it left me stronger.

(continued on next post)

Partnership of mind and emotions...
Post by ChuckS on Aug 14th, 2002, 1:05pm

(part two continued...) Over time, I even came to appreciate some of the critisizms more with hindsight. Meditation can be such a RELIGION, a religion of habit. Now it's so much simpler for me.

One can spend so much time on the forums arguing about all sorts of things. There are a great many things I prefer not to argue about, not because I can't, but just because they don't seem that important, and there are so many other things I'd rather do with my time. So I've actually learned a lot on these forums, including that I don't want to spend lots of time on them arguing!

Fran, I appreciated your comment:

"After so many years of being gone, and since about 1992-93 seeing M as a raving, cheezy, histrionic used car salesman of spirituality, it is really hard to generate any fond memories, because the thrill is so long gone."

Would you say that by then, you had other things to compare M's teachings to, and that is when he started to seem "cheezy" in comparison? I think I knew for a long time that he was not "brilliant" in his satsangs, although occasionally he would say something that sounded pretty nice, or actually seemed helpful. But as I turned to different sources for help in my life with various things, other people often would say things that seemed a lot more wise and profound. For some reason I cut M. a lot of slack for many years. Sentiment, perhaps? I do know that when you stop looking to him to be the source of anything special, it's a lot easier to just look at him objectively.

I'd like to clarify, that when I said I can still think of him fondly, I didn't actually mean that I DO still think of him fondly. I just meant that I can turn it on and off like a light switch, which is kinda weird. I can't actually BE fond of him, because when I feel that, I immediatly realize that I don't even know the man, and those "fond" feelings are the same kind that you can have for a character on your favorite TV show. The feelings are for a stage and screen persona, not an actual person I know. I suppose a certain satisfaction can be had from that, but it just seems so shallow that I can't get into it. I'd rather save my fondness for real people that I know, who don't tell lies and collect money under false pretenses. I agree that none of us needs to work at liking him. But it might be worthwhile forgiving him, (which isn't condoning what he's done or agreeing to not talk about it), if only to let go of him. Hate is often love turned upside down, with a bond of attachment that is just as strong. I'm much happier remembering I have no relationship with him, and never did, except perhaps an imaginary one.

Ham, you may be right about the Male/Female thing, that perhaps the guys sometimes argue too much from the point of view of rationality only. Yet we all have those male/female aspects in ourselves, and we need them both.

I tend to feel nowadays that the touchy-feely emotional stuff is ok, as long as it can make friends with the logical rational stuff. For example, insofar as I'm not sacrificing logic or reason to have an emotional reward.

Sometimes I will indulge my emotions or imagination in ways that I can't back up with logic or reason, but even then, I let logic and reason be my bodygards, and ask "can there be any harm in indulging these feelings or this fantasy?" That awareness keeps me honest and out of trouble. Emotions and imagination are good if you recognize them for what they are. Ditto logic and cold reality. The mind and the emotions can be a fantastic partnership, when they work together and cooperate. When they clash, that is when we need to take notice and sort it out, and become clear.

Hamzen, I just wanted to say thanks too, for providing this place. I'm getting used to the sofware and the format. It works great most of the time. Sometimes the server is slow, and the icons will load slow or not at all, but if it's real slow, I just come back later. Most of the time though it seems fine.

[hamzen]

Well, you said a lot too!
Post by Francesca on Aug 14th, 2002, 6:08pm

Chuck,

It is interesting that you took my encounter group example in a kinder, gentler direction that I had intended. It is true thought, that even when encounter groups encourage or allow aggressive behavior, they are still moderated.

I was thinking of the kind of controlled stuff that goes on where people really get intense and rip into each other, figuratively speaking, in ways that they often will not let themselves be ripped into by just anybody. Someone I know conducts a men's group where the men are all wife beaters. You can imagine that some of the discussions are rather intense. But as those people start to work with each other, and gain respect for each other, the interactions, even when intense, do have a certain degree of trust and respect involved. And of course, the moderator won't let it go too far.

In encounter groups there is a lot of soul searching but also, as you pointed out, the safety factors. Except in a controlled situation, I don't want to engage on that level with people in large and daily doses. It's intense, and I see no reason to prove anything.

I also appreciated your comments about RE, now called Life After Maharaji. I hope to be able to participate here and on Symposium also, and mix the private with the public. You are right that one can practice a bit of detachment to the public outcomes.

About M, you said:
Would you say that by then, you had other things to compare M's teachings to, and that is when he started to seem "cheezy" in comparison? I think I knew for a long time that he was not "brilliant" in his satsangs, although occasionally he would say something that sounded pretty nice, or actually seemed helpful. But as I turned to different sources for help in my life with various things, other people often would say things that seemed a lot more wise and profound. For some reason I cut M. a lot of slack for many years. Sentiment, perhaps? I do know that when you stop looking to him to be the source of anything special, it's a lot easier to just look at him objectively.

I agree, it is because I had moved on, and it was in comparison. Not everything he said is dopey. I still find myself quoting him on occasions, because there is an element of truth to many things he has said (gasp, horror) -- along with, of course, all the histrionic and manipulative garbage. If it was all horrible, as you have said in other posts, intelligent and lovely people wouldn't have stuck around.

xoxoxo

F

Constructive confrontation VS CAC lawlessness...
Post by ChuckS on Aug 15th, 2002, 2:12pm

Encounter/Thearapy groups can delve into emotions and be more confrontational than more ordinary communication that people usually experience, it's true. I see now that's what you were getting at. Still, with a moderator who knows what they are doing, who knows how to safely facilitate constructive confrontation, it's much more civilized than the verbal "shoot outs" that can happen on ex-premie forums. Therapy groups can be thankful too, that they don't have Catweasel et al pouring gasoline on the flames! The anonymice sniping, and the CACing, don't bring out the best in the ex-premies, which is exactly what the trolls wanted.

There was even some crowing on the LG forum, that they had "finally" suceeded in their mission to drive ex-premies off public forums into password protected ones. Kind of ironic, when you consider that the new password protected forums, like this one and anyboards, are completely viewable without a password. Perhaps they meant RE (now LAM, "Life After Maharaji" as you've said). But even so, the public forums have not disappeared, and now there are even more choices for exes, recent or not.

In theory, maybe it's harder for a new person to post, if they have to sign up for a password. But it's hardly difficult to do. And for a relatively troll-free environment, I think it's worth it. The trolls used to keep trying to scare new people off anyway, so the benefits of a password free forum were voided.

I've left the old Symposium up for anyone who may want to post without a password, but it's also a troll stomping ground. So either way there is a trade-off.

I think the new forums are better, all things considered. Certainly easier and less expensive for the FA. And better for posters, who don't have to subject themselves to being poked and proded by scores of anyonymice entities. And I hope that as people dispell their fears in private forums like LAM, they may become more confident in sharing things on public forums.

I too, still find myself quoting M. on occasion. Sometimes I just find myself recalling things he said in the past that I liked, that might fit well with a particular thing I'm dealing with. Often some of the best stuff he said anyway wasn't original, but stuff that others have said. In fact, when you look at other gurus, there is a whole lot of stuff they say that has been said by gurus and others going way back, very little of it is original.

Those little bits of wisdom were one of the things that kept me comming back. It was quite a relief to find that not only was there was nothing stopping me from contuining to enjoy such little bits of wisdom after leaving M, but that such wisdom is available from many sources, freely given, without strings, without being mixed with self serving motives and ideology. When you separate the good from the bad, the good is even better.

(continued next post)

Our faith, where we invest it and why...
Post by ChuckS on Aug 15th, 2002, 2:14pm

(part two continued)

People put their faith in so many things. The good and bad mixture of things M. said was about getting us to put our faith in him and his brand of special K. People all over the world put their faith in all kinds of things, without examining their beliefs. And they often get results! Yet I believe it's the FAITH itself that brings the results, not necessarily the object, person or belief the faith is invested in.

I heard a story about this soldier who returned from Euorope after world war II. His father, a devout Catholic, was diagnosed with terminal cancer. So this soldier gives his dad a little plastic box, with some wood splinters in it. He tells his dad that the splinters are from the True Cross, which he got when he was overseas.

His dad was thrilled with these Holy Relics. He put them on a chain and wore them around his neck, believing that they had healing properties. To the amazment of his doctors, his cancer went into remission. It's a miricle!

It's especially miraculous, because the splinters didn't come from The True Cross. They came of one of the old splintering railroad ties on the railway track a few blocks from this man's house!

His son knew his dad well, and decided to appeal to his dad's religious imagination. As Jesus said, "As a man believith, so is it done unto him".

There are people all over the world, from many religious faiths, who will tell you that god answers their prayers. These folks usually have one thing in common. They have faith that their god cares about them, and takes care of them. They place their faith in this, and it tends to manifest in their experience.

People who believe in an angry, vengeful, despotic god, who judges and punishes them, tend to manifest THAT in their experience, too. As they believe, so is it done to them.

Faith is so powerful. That's why it's so interesting to me, about what premies placed their faith in, and where they place it after they leave Maharaji. If they just leave M., without examining the faith dynamic, and without being consiously aware of what they had done with their faith, and don't deconstruct that, but just leave their faith hanging in limbo, or subconciously still invested in M and K, on M's terms, then they leave theselves open to implanted fears and the consequeses of unexamined beliefs that they have invested the power of their faith in.

That is what motivates me to want to talk about faith. It's not that I want to find something in particular that people "should" put their faith in. I want to examin the power of faith, and the dynamics of how it works. If we understand that, it's a lot harder to be hurt by beliefs, and in fact, becomes easier to choose beliefs that actually help us. We all have the same amout of faith. And it gets put into all sorts of things, wether we consiously choose them or not. I think it helps us to be aware of what we choose to put it in, and why.

[hamzen]

More on this topic
Post by Francesca on Aug 16th, 2002, 4:57pm

Chuck, you said:
There was even some crowing on the LG forum, that they had "finally" suceeded in their mission to drive ex-premies off public forums into password protected ones.

As usual, more spin. The password protected forums, except for RE, are all public -- you merely need to sign up to post. What they should have said was troll free, but of course, that would be too close to the truth. And how would they know if they drove exes to RE/LAM in droves, since none of them can read there or have anyone who tells them what goes on there. Of course, I can assure you that did NOT happen.

About M's wise and witty sayings, you said:

Often some of the best stuff he said anyway wasn't original, but stuff that others have said. In fact, when you look at other gurus, there is a whole lot of stuff they say that has been said by gurus and others going way back, very little of it is original.

So true. It was pathetic that since most of us were not listening to what other spiritual teachers were saying, or what self-help writers were doling out in books or on the lecture circuit, premies thought that all of these sayings originated with M.

And of course, if there was a good love song, the writer was for sure a premie, or was a premie "at heart" and just didn't know it. So there is a danger to closed systems.

And what you are saying about faith (and belief) is true. It is powerful. The Tibetans have a story about a dog's tooth that was the same type of story as your story about the piece of the original cross. Same plot, a man, an elderly mother asking for the son to bring back a relic from a holy shrine. On the way back he realizes that he's forgotten her, sees a dead dog on the road and gives her the tooth, saying that it was Buddha's tooth. And she kept it on her altar and on and on.

Maharaji even has the "world famous ladues" story from Kissimmee. Same plot, on the way home the man realizes that he forgot, and makes some "ladues" out of camel dung. The mother eats them and enjoys them thinking that they are the "world famous ladues."

Now note the difference here. The "piece of the original cross" and the "Buddha's tooth" story would have been a little too close to home!

Good discussion here! Nothing on the new Symposium II yet, but it's only a matter of time.

Francesca