| John Manning 2006-09-06, 4:27 pm |
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MM [lackpurity] typifies the long-held misunderstandings about achieving
the 'Kingdom of Heaven' being difficult that Maharishi easily repudiated
and elucidated from the beginning.
Lawson English wrote:
> lackpurity wrote:
>
>
>
> Dualist thinking at its finest.
>
>
>
> ah.... No buddhists or humanists or yogis or zen monks or Shintoists,
> or B'hai, or etc., need apply? People who believe in a pantheistic
> religion can't gain the Kingdom of Heaven?
>
>
>
>
> I understand where you're coming from. You're a faux mystical Christian:
> a fundamentalist at heart.
>
>
>
> Enemy? Which enemy?
>
>
> NO-ONE gets to the Kingdom by trying. It is by God's grace. The debate
> is about what that means.
>
>
> What we have here is a failure to kommoonikate..,
>
>
> OK, and he said that good works don't get you to the Kingdom. Only God's
> grace can.
>
>
>
>
> Where did I say it was difficult? It's easy. Period.
>
>
> Heh.
>
>
>
> The right conditions are: preferably a sitting position of some kind,
> preferably comfortable, where it is SAFE to close one's eyes for a
> while, preferably without being in pain although obviously if you are
> lying wounded on a battlefield waiting either unavoidable death or
> last-minute rescue, you take what you can get.
>
>
>
>
> I would say you've chosen the latter yourself.
>
> If you find you are having troubles of some kind with meditation, that
> is another place where a teacher comes in handy. In the vast majority of
> cases, according to the experience of 40,000 TM teachers who have taught
> about 5 million people TM over the last 50 years, most people can
> meditate just fine with minimal followup the teacher. Some need more;
> some need less--it's a free followup, regardless.
>
>
>
> Which saints? Meditation is easy. Most people don't have any problems
> learning it. Most people don't have any problems practicing it. The
> biggest problem for most people is *boredom*-- and for the most part,
> that is simply because they want flash rather than slow and steady growth.
>
>
> With extremely few exceptions--generally people with severe mental
> illness--virtually everyone finds TM easy to learn and practice. Some
> require more attention than others, but the vast majority are well
> served by the generic TM program set up by MMY.
>
>
> <chuckle> the Red Queen is your hero, isn't she?
>
>
> I see. So, is the world round or flat? Is a photon a particle or a wave
> or both or neither?
>
>
>
> A piss-poor "Master" if he/she can't impart wisdom that lasts beyond
> his/her own lifetime.
>
>
> So "We are spiritually bankrupt" doesn't really include YOU?
>
>
> Ah, so love of Jesus CANNOT awaken one via the path of Bhakti?
>
>
>
>
> Aren't we all? This IS Usenet afterall...
>
>
> An elitist interpretation. I'm sure other students of teh Bible have
> opinons different from yours. BTW, are you a Calvinist who believes that
> only 144000 souls will be saved, period?
>
>
>
>
> OK, thanks for correcting me.
>
>
> Struggle is what you're all about, eh?
>
>
> OOOOKAY...
>
>
> Heh. So the wealthy man needs to convert his wealth to dimes and he'll
> be just fine?
>
>
> Achieve, shmieve.
>
>
> OKAY, thanks for correcting me.
>
>
> So you, a spiritual master, are greater than Satan?
>
>
> Let my camels go, dude. I'd say "kill that Buddha" but you might take me
> literally.
>
>
>
>
> I have my own definition, obviously. What's yours?
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Okay, thanks for correcting me...
>
>
> I never used the word "conquer." That is YOUR projection. Are you SURE
> you know what you are talking about here?
>
> [reference to Princess Bride goes here]
>
>
> Or not, but thanks for correcting me.
>
>
> Or have a competent teacher who knows the simple "secret" and how to
> impart it effectively. The nice thing about the TM teacher training
> program is that even if the TM teacher doesn't get it, as long as he
> follows the teaching procedure laid out for him by Maharishi Mahesh
> Yogi, his students will likely get it.
>
>
> Thanks for correcting me. Would you like some tea?
>
>
>
> Thanks for correcting me. I see you left your umbrella by the door...
> Expecting rain?
>
>
> We're all born saints given the right teacher. Luckily, there's
> literally 10's of thousands of them who have been trained.
>
>
> Seek the highest first and all that. Seek ye the Kingdom of Heaven and
> all else will be added unto you. BTW, the Kingdom of Heaven lies within
> you AND it is not by good works that we enter the Kingdom...
>
>
> No, the first step is to close the eyes. This shuts off a huge amount of
> sensory input.
>
>
> The only reason why the mind isn't still is because of stress, sometimes
> called samskara (sp) in yogic circles. The process of meditation repairs
> this stress in the long run, and the process of meditation alternated
> with activity, helps stabilize the stress-free functioning of the
> nervous system. A fully (more or less) stress-free nervous system is one
> that operates at peak efficiency without restraints and bondage to prior
> experiences. This is called "enlightenment." The ultimate state of this
> is jivanmukti, though there are further refinements of the nervous
> system that can take place, even before all stresses are resolved.
>
>
> That wasn't a sentence, I think...
>
>
>
> How could not-trying lead to samadhi, according to your theory? Or do
> you simply dismiss all the people who report episodes of samadhi during
> TM as having hallucinations?
>
>
> We just have to set up the right conditions and the rest happens
> naturally, without effort. And those conditions are almost always
> trivial (unless you are dying on a battlefield, and even then, someone
> might find samadhi during TM, hoepfully the deep rest will help prolong
> their life until rescue might come).
>
>
> Thanks for correcting me. Do you put butter outside your door to scare
> away tigers, BTW?
>
>
> Thanks for correcting me.
>
>
> Here's the real deal: rest, activity, rest activity. There's never any
> struggle to rest during meditation, although the resulting activity from
> the rest might happen so fast and be so intense that we might not feel
> like we've gained any rest at all. This is called "paradoxical anxiety"
> or "relaxation-induced anxiety" by Western scientists, BTW.
>
>
> Thanks for correcting me... I'm all out of pithy and sarcastic
> comebacks. Do you have any to contribute?
>
>
> Thanks for correcting me. See above: I'm all out.
>
>
>
> Make sure that you have large denomination traveler's checks so your
> wealth becomes smaller too.
>
> [Darn, I've definitely run out of material here]
>
>
>
> God's grace attracts one's attention within. No tring necessary and when
> applied it becomes detrimental. Be still and all that...
>
>
>
> So true. And we all are born saints. OH. You believe in Original Sin,
> doncha?
>
>
>
>
> Without knowing the people involved or what they claim, you're sure of
> this? Kill that camel, dude. Wait a minute, or is it let go of the
> Buddha? No that's not right. Convert your buddhas into tiny lucky charms
> and take them with you and eat them for breakfast after passing through
> the eye of the needle... Nope, that's not it either... You're confusing
> me...
>
>
> Looking within is trivially easy. You do it all the time. Everyone does.
>
>
>
> It's always easy to look within, though a very few it uncomfortable to
> do for more than a very brief period.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Saints might still be a little wet, but they don't have to waste all
> their time treading water.
>
>
>
> So its the MASTER who does all the work? OK, that's fine. As long as you
> understand that the process of looking within is easy. We reach, dude.
>
>
>
> Satan exists in a place where he hides from God. God abides in pure
> peace, so Satan likes noise and violence and effort and control and war
> and terrorism and George Bush (couldn't resist).
>
>
>
>
> OK. So you close the gap 99.999% of the way by good works and the master
> carries you the rest of the way...
>
>
> The odds are 100% that when you turn within and stop trying, you will
> become, however briefly, more quiet. The trick is to facilitate that
> process. That's where a teacher has value for virtually everyone. That
> one in a million you talk about is someone who "gets it" without anyone
> saying anything to them.
>
>
> In fact, over a period of years, many TMers find that they just no
> longer want to smoke or get high or drunk or whatever. Of course, if
> smoking/drinking/getting high are an immediate problem, you may need to
> use more drastic means to address your addiction, but even then,
> meditation makes most other anti-addiction programs more effective.
>
> David Lynch is an exception, of course...
>
> http://www.davidlynchfoundation.org he's the antiposter-child for
> cigarettes and TM, but he's happy, so who can complain?
>
>
>
>
> But it hates getting small and kicks a lot...
>
>
> Rah, rah. Go team, go. Visions of Team Rocket fighting raksashas with
> pokemon come to mind...
>
>
>
>
> Only to someone who can't stop fighting.
>
>
> No...
>
>
> Obviously, because your cup of tea is rather too full to begin with...
>
>
> All bad habits tend to drop away with exposure to samadhi or at least
> the process of heading towards it.
>
>
> Close your eyes.
>
>
>
> The monkey is hungry, not drunk, as Maharishi Mahesh Yogi likes to say.
> You don't chain a monkey: you give it a banana and it follows you
> everywhere. There's no need to fight the mind, or chain the monkey, or
> whatever.
>
>
>
> The mind naturally unscatters as it rests.
>
>
> Give it a banana or whatever it is that camels like to eat. Personally,
> I'd just let it go and enter the gate quietly.
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