Forum V: Archive
Compiled: Fri, Aug 25, 2000 at 12:48:05 (GMT)
From: Aug 13, 2000 To: Aug 22, 2000 Page: 2 Of: 5


Kjarne -:- Kjarne respond to Elaine! -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 16:27:22 (GMT)
__ Elaine -:- Kjarne respond to Elaine! -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 23:36:14 (GMT)
__ __ Kjarne -:- Kjarne respond to Elaine! -:- Sun, Aug 20, 2000 at 01:27:48 (GMT)
__ __ __ Elaine -:- Kjarne -:- Sun, Aug 20, 2000 at 16:46:36 (GMT)
__ __ Elaine -:- Kjarne ,hello? -:- Sun, Aug 20, 2000 at 01:02:05 (GMT)
__ __ cq -:- I don't think any other guru can do the same thing -:- Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 19:00:26 (GMT)
__ __ __ Elaine -:- Doing that speed reading again?cq -:- Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 19:47:27 (GMT)
__ Ben Lurking -:- Kjarne respond to Elaine! Why go to India -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 21:40:40 (GMT)
__ Hal -:- Thank you Kjarne -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 20:13:34 (GMT)
__ poul -:- Kjarne respond to Elaine! -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 17:57:15 (GMT)
__ SB -:- Kjarne respond to Elaine! -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 16:49:43 (GMT)
__ Way -:- Kjarne respond to Elaine! -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 16:44:58 (GMT)
__ __ Shroomananda -:- Muktananda is dead. And he gave a mantra but -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 18:19:09 (GMT)
__ __ __ Hal -:- Muktananda is dead. And he gave a mantra but -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 20:18:41 (GMT)
__ __ __ Salam -:- You mean so humming all the way to the station -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 19:05:21 (GMT)
__ __ __ Way -:- Re:Muktananda is dead. And he gave a mantra but -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 19:05:15 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Shroomananda -:- Did I touch your pingala nerve, Way? -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 20:37:00 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ Way -:- Re:Did I touch your pingala nerve, Way? -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 21:02:31 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- Okay, here's ANOTHER stupid Shroomism! -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 21:02:20 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Shroomananda -:- No, Jim, I haven't experienced other Gurus but -:- Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 07:21:18 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ buzz -:- No, Jim, I haven't experienced other Gurus but -:- Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 11:44:25 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ ham -:- And thats what you base your assumptions on? -:- Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 09:15:04 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ gerry -:- I want one of them magnets... -:- Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 18:27:56 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ ham -:- I want one of them magnets... -:- Sun, Aug 20, 2000 at 03:21:40 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Jethro -:- Re:Muktananda is dead. And he gave a mantra but -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 19:42:04 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ gerry -:- That 's an interesting website, Jethro, thanks (nt -:- Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 18:33:35 (GMT)
__ Elaine -:- Kjarne respond to Elaine! -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 16:35:34 (GMT)
__ __ Salam -:- Kjarne respond to Elaine! -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 16:43:42 (GMT)

Gabriel Golden -:- No God, Thank God! -:- Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 23:53:53 (GMT)
__ Salam -:- Shut up Gabriel. -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 03:07:55 (GMT)
__ __ cq -:- Careful, Salami -:- Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 16:42:35 (GMT)
__ __ Salam -:- OOPs. Did I get that right? -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 03:14:40 (GMT)
__ Gregg -:- Hear, hear; here, here -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 00:45:51 (GMT)
__ __ Jerry -:- Hear, hear; here, here -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 03:44:21 (GMT)
__ __ __ Gregg -:- Preaching to the Orchestra -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 16:55:18 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Zelda -:- Preaching to the Orchestra -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 20:20:04 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- In your imagination, you mean, right Zelda? -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 21:12:25 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Hal -:- Well actually Jim ..... -:- Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 09:39:26 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ G -:- She's not imagining -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 21:38:12 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Katie -:- I think the correct word is 'evangelistic'... -:- Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 14:59:10 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- Depends on what you call 'zealous', I guess -:- Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 15:24:12 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Katie -:- Preaching atheism -:- Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 15:55:14 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- It just HAS to be a religious term, does it? -:- Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 16:33:00 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ hamzen -:- Buddhist, Alien cults? -:- Sun, Aug 20, 2000 at 23:20:20 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ G -:- nonreligious cults -:- Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 18:58:14 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- Twisting MY words to pick a fight, are we, G? -:- Sun, Aug 20, 2000 at 19:59:08 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- Okay, G, let's go -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 21:55:35 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ G -:- Ok, to start with -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 22:38:20 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- Laurie's going to laugh at this one! -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 22:48:53 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ G -:- Laurie's going to laugh at this one! -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 23:23:21 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- Time for you to write a book, G -:- Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 03:32:11 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ G -:- calling people stupid -:- Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 05:04:46 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Zelda -:- Jims needto dominate makes him IMPLY IVERT INVENT -:- Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 02:08:47 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- Your post is truly unintelligible this time, Zelda -:- Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 03:35:59 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Zelda -:- Invert. -:- Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 04:04:07 (GMT)
__ __ __ Sir Dave -:- Not here thank you very much -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 09:04:20 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Lotus Eater -:- On the subject of god and religious tolerance -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 21:38:59 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ Katie -:- On the subject of god and religious tolerance -:- Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 01:38:42 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ ham -:- With you all the way there except for 1 point -:- Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 09:31:52 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Katie -:- Context, Ham! -:- Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 12:38:39 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ ham -:- Ha, well you're obviously not psychic then! -:- Sun, Aug 20, 2000 at 03:34:04 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Katie -:- definitely not psychic -:- Sun, Aug 20, 2000 at 15:44:28 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ ham -:- A deist agnostic? -:- Sun, Aug 20, 2000 at 18:31:01 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ G -:- A deist agnostic, pantheism -:- Sun, Aug 20, 2000 at 21:22:20 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ hamzen -:- A deist agnostic, pantheism -:- Sun, Aug 20, 2000 at 23:06:21 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Lotus Eater -:- Irreligious, caring students of human nature -:- Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 07:08:42 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Katie -:- Irreligious, caring students of human nature -:- Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 12:22:56 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ G -:- Well said, I second that (nt) -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 16:04:06 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Jim -:- What are you talking about, Dave? -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 16:02:02 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ G -:- converted hard-core atheists -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 21:55:19 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- That's absurd -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 22:17:00 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ G -:- your tiresome sarcasm -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 23:02:46 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- Sarcasm = dishonest abuse? -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 23:10:42 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ G -:- Sarcasm = dishonest abuse -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 23:31:25 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- I couldn't last here WITHOUT sarcasm -:- Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 03:15:35 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ G -:- I couldn't last here WITHOUT sarcasm -:- Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 05:23:57 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ ham -:- I couldn't last here WITHOUT sarcasm -:- Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 09:38:27 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ G -:- Is not losing one's temper a fault? -:- Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 16:08:57 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- No, not necessarily -:- Sun, Aug 20, 2000 at 19:53:05 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ ham -:- Luv ya g, :) -:- Sun, Aug 20, 2000 at 05:49:28 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ G -:- big letters -:- Sun, Aug 20, 2000 at 21:00:04 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- You're wrong -:- Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 06:02:13 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ G -:- You're wrong -:- Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 16:20:13 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- Ok, you're just quick to assume things -:- Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 16:41:53 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ G -:- no apology is needed -:- Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 16:55:08 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- Okay, this really IS apples and oranges -:- Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 18:20:26 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ Sir Dave -:- I was talking about this -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 20:10:44 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- That's a difference without a distinction -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 20:55:28 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Sir Dave -:- That's a difference without a distinction -:- Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 00:13:28 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ G -:- grammar check -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 21:24:38 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- Why, THANK you, G! -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 21:29:15 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Zelda -:- Sir Dave- I think that NT -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 10:01:19 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Brucie -:- KNot here thank you very much -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 09:49:54 (GMT)

gErRy -:- Uh Oh Jim -:- Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 23:53:52 (GMT)

Sir Lewis Morris -:- Tolerance -:- Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 18:58:14 (GMT)
__ cq -:- 'the thing to which they kneel' -:- Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 19:37:58 (GMT)
__ __ Gabriel Golden -:- Whoever smelt it dealt it ... -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 00:12:02 (GMT)
__ __ __ cq -:- Whoever smelt it dealt it ... -:- Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 15:22:06 (GMT)
__ __ JohnT -:- 'eternal landmarks' -:- Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 20:52:02 (GMT)
__ __ __ cq -:- 'eternal landmarks' -:- Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 15:34:04 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ JohnT -:- I can dig it. -:- Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 20:23:48 (GMT)

Joe -:- Maharaji And Human Relationships, Etc. -:- Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 18:51:16 (GMT)
__ SB -:- Maharaji And Human Relationships, Etc. -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 17:08:14 (GMT)
__ BIll -:- Maharaji versus Human Relationships -:- Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 22:30:46 (GMT)
__ __ Anyone else remember -:- Maharaji versus Human Relationships -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 02:06:37 (GMT)
__ __ __ bill -:- Maharaji versus Human Relationships -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 13:28:22 (GMT)
__ Joe -:- The Effect on Premies In Relationships..... -:- Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 19:09:48 (GMT)
__ __ TD -:- How was M's own marriage reconciled with this... -:- Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 23:19:54 (GMT)
__ __ __ Joe -:- How was M's own marriage reconciled with this... -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 00:08:35 (GMT)
__ __ bill -:- ownership -:- Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 22:44:47 (GMT)

Gabriel Golden -:- Ex-spouse still a premie -:- Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 18:27:32 (GMT)
__ TD -:- Thanks Golden Gabe -:- Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 23:10:43 (GMT)
__ cq -:- Hooray! She owe you anything, Hornblower? -:- Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 19:48:50 (GMT)
__ Way -:- Ex-spouse still a premie -:- Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 18:54:33 (GMT)
__ __ Zelda -:- about this god thing... -:- Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 19:38:19 (GMT)

Jerry -:- To G. More on consciousness -:- Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 16:46:22 (GMT)
__ G -:- More on consciousness -:- Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 18:48:17 (GMT)
__ __ Jerry -:- More on consciousness -:- Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 21:37:19 (GMT)
__ __ __ Jerry -:- One clarification -:- Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 23:33:55 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ G -:- One clarification -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 00:00:39 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ Jerry -:- One clarification -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 00:50:01 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ G -:- One clarification -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 01:45:15 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jerry -:- You're getting ridiculous -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 03:36:06 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ G -:- No, that's not what I'm saying -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 04:05:30 (GMT)
__ __ __ G -:- More on consciousness -:- Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 23:33:34 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Jerry -:- More on consciousness -:- Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 19:32:41 (GMT)
__ __ G -:- correction: synesthesia -:- Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 20:05:41 (GMT)
__ EddyTheTurtle -:- To G. More on consciousness -:- Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 17:47:49 (GMT)
__ __ G -:- Red, purple, black -:- Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 19:07:32 (GMT)
__ __ __ G -:- nonlocality -:- Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 20:42:01 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ G -:- Online papers on consciousness -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 03:26:43 (GMT)

JTF -:- Rawat and O.J. -:- Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 15:06:01 (GMT)
__ Way -:- Rawat and O.J., and their lackeys -:- Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 16:26:38 (GMT)
__ __ JTF -:- Re: premie friends still trapped in the cult -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 09:55:59 (GMT)
__ __ __ Way -:- Re: premie friends still trapped in the cult -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 14:47:19 (GMT)

buzz -:- 9 tecniques? -:- Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 09:21:56 (GMT)
__ Happy -:- 9 techniques, 5 names -:- Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 10:36:06 (GMT)
__ __ sam -:- 9 techniques, 5 names -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 01:44:13 (GMT)
__ __ buzz -:- 9 techniques, 5 names -:- Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 16:39:08 (GMT)
__ __ __ EddyTheTurtle -:- hope you have a nice buzz -:- Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 17:50:31 (GMT)

asbxd -:- Who is Chia Baba? -:- Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 03:24:36 (GMT)
__ asbxd -:- And who is Sai Clown? -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 02:36:59 (GMT)
__ __ Sir Dave -:- My lawyers will be in touch, Roger -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 09:43:04 (GMT)
__ __ __ Salam -:- My lawyers will be in touch, Roger -:- Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 18:59:53 (GMT)
__ Selene -:- that is great!! -:- Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 03:57:08 (GMT)


Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 16:27:22 (GMT)
From: Kjarne
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: Kjarne respond to Elaine!
Message:
Hey Elaine!

I didn`t think I would post here anymore but I will answer your questions.

Elaine wrote:

1. Can you answer me how you deal with the facts that are here that these techniques are not his, but pretty much makes it seem they are his exclusive domain?

2. Could you articulate why you are a believer in Maharaji?.

Kjarne responded:

Elaine!

Before I start to answer your questions, I think I will tell you a little about myself and how I came to Knowledge.
The first time I heard about Maharaji, was in 1977. I was 29 years old, married and had two children, 4 and 5 years.
I supported my familie as a musician, playing the organ, piano and synteziser. My dreams was to make records and be in a very popular band. At that time, in 1977, my dreams was fullfilled. I was a member of one of the most popular bands in the country, sold a lot of records and even got the silver-and gold records.

By the time all this happend, my feelings about life was miserable.I started to question why was I born? What is the meaning of life? Is THIS, all there is to it.
I had a great family and the band I was a member of, made a lot of money and was very popular.
Evereything looked great, but I was very miserable.

when I heard about Maharaji at that time, I got very excited. Started to attend satsang and I few months later I received Knowledge.
When I was initiated, I did not experience ligth, music or nectar, but when I started to practise the third technique (Holy Name) I experienced such peace and love in me that tears started rolling. I experienced a love deeper than anything I had experienced before and I was convinced that Maharaji was the lord and the love that I felt was the pure love of God.

Many times after this, I have felt that love I talk about. A love so deep, it`s hard to describe.
I see it as the experience of God and Maharaji is the one that gave it to me. I have experienced the light and music too, but the love inside is the greatest experience. When I have this experience it`s like I melt inside. I love the people around me, and I love my wife and children even more when that experience comes.

So. is it all sunshine?

No.

An ex called TD had some coments about it and she wrote:

Not one negative thing to tell at all involved with Maharaji. It`s all bliss and sunshine. C mon Kjarne, you`ve never had any dramas with taking time off work suddenly to attend a program, never struggled with practicing Knowledge, never had your wife prior to her getting K, being just a little bit jealous of your commitment to Maharaji, never ever put K,M or program before your kids?. If you haven`t- you are not like any premie I`ve met.

Yes, I have struggled a lot with practicing Knowledge. I had trouble with my wife because I went to programs, but I never put Knowledge before my kids ( I hope not).
My wife and I got divorced in 1991, but I don`t blame Knowledge for that. I think that would have happend anyway. After a few years, I met another wonderfull woman and got married again, and she is now a premie.

By the way: When I received Knowledge, I was told by the instructor not to put my family aside. I should even give them more love.

I know that there are ex-premies who had a lot of frustrations while they were premies. Some of them lived in ashrams and many of them are very angry for what happend when the ashrams were shut down.

I have never lived in an ashram because I was married and had kids when I received Konwledge. So I don`t know what it was like. I know it was a lot of rules.

I had frustrations in the 70`s and 80`s too.

I remember 'the rotten vegetable satsang' and felt a lot of pressure from other premies to attend the programs.

But what I remember the most was the experience of love I felt when I practiced Knowledge. This experience is still with me today and that is why I am still a believer of Maharaji and believes that he is the true master of our time.

You asked me about the Radhasoami thing and I have read it.
My first reaction was WOW, what is this?
But after a while I must say that I am not suprised that there is a lot of gurus that are teaching the same techniques. I have been to India and Nepal and there is a lot of gurus, swamies and holy men there.
IF YOU WANT TO GET CONFUSED, go to India.

But, hey, you don`t have to go to India to get confused. Jean-Michel is also teaching the same techniques. He just have`nt come up with a name of his cult yet.

I think there have been many former devotees of the living master of the time that have made they`re own groups and used the same techniques. The question is: Do they work without the grace of the living master? And if they work, you see light, hear music and all that stuff, do you feel that love and peace that I have been talking about. Maybe that love is the grace of the living master.
I know for me, that`s the greatest experience of Knowledge. I don`t think you can get that love from other gurus or from Jean-Michel. I believe that this love is the experience of God.

So why am I still a believer of Maharaji?:

Maharaji showed me where I can find the peace and love of God inside, and by his grace, experience it. That`s why.

I don`t think any other guru can do the same thing, Radhasaomi or not Radhasaomi. And I definitely think that Jean-Michel is not capabel of showing me.

I hope now that I have answered your questions, but I really think that the most important thing for you is to make up you own mind. Do YOU still believe in Maharaji. If not, Maybe it`s time for you to go on and do other things.

Take care!

Sincerely,

Kjarne

I just know that it will be some nasty reactions from some exès here, so I write it myself:

Hey Jim, I will write it for you!

I am nothing but a zombielike, braindead idiot of an asshole. Motherfucker too.

Feels good to read it, heh Jim?

To S.B.

I am a big fool, an arrogant, ignorant crappy cultmember, so stupid that I don`t belong to the human race.

Feels good to read it S.B?.

It`s OK with me if this is a part of your healingprosess.

To Elaine

I hope you understand my helpless english!.

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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 23:36:14 (GMT)
From: Elaine
Email: None
To: Kjarne
Subject: Kjarne respond to Elaine!
Message:
K,
Well, back from work. I've read your post. It's nice you are successful in your profession. You sound like a nice person.
I see that you've gotten alot of other posts. I'll check some out later.

I'd like to quote you here. Re: techniques - 'Do they work w/out the grace of the living master? And if they work,....do you feel that love and peace that I have been talking about. Maybe that love is the grace of the living master.
....I don't think you can get that love from other gurus...'

So, are you saying that if a person gets the techniques - say - from this site - you think they can not experience 'that love and peace'?
What if they put their index fingers in there ears or just use earplugs - or follow their breath a slightly different way than the instructors said to --- will they not experience 'that love and peace'?

This is not sarcasm - this is a real question to you? I ask my premies friends these same questions.

Maybe that 'love' is NOT the grace of the living master - but, rather
just love.
Free for everyone -
available to everyone that stops for awhile to notice. ( Or begs for it or pleads for it or sacrifices for it, etc, Whatever...)

' Maharaji showed me where I can find the peace and love of God...'

He did me, too and I am very happy he happened along.

..and by his grace, experience it.'

Is it indeed his grace. Is there someone between you and God's love. Is there someone that only when he wishes gives you the experience of God's love and peace - other than God Himself?

'I don't think any other guru can do the same thing.'

Well, I never did either. Mainly because - I never checked any out after Maharaji and was perfectly happy with the way things were. I told many people to go ahead and find some other master/guru if they wanted that could give/show what Maharaji did. I have to admit, though Maharaji makes it ridiculously hard to rec Kn now ---I don't know of many out there saying they can show what he does.
I think they are out there somewhere. Maybe some one has a list of others.

Then, I stumbled upon this site...alot of interesting information on Maharaji.

Shroom below asked a ques - about a chef and enjoying the food.
Well, if you go back into the kitchen and find out the chef is a real creep and is even lying about this great recipe being exclusively his creation and is making money off a lie - even tho the food is Great ---do you keep going back to that restaurant and supporting that chef?
(Maybe go to another restaurant - or make the recipe yourself - or go with out all together...)

Anyway, saying that my/your experience is the sheer Grace of the Living Master - is something I'd like you to comment more on. Thank you.

And take care yourself,
Sincerely,
Elaine


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Date: Sun, Aug 20, 2000 at 01:27:48 (GMT)
From: Kjarne
Email: None
To: Elaine
Subject: Kjarne respond to Elaine!
Message:
Elaine Wrote:

Maybe that love is NOT the grace of the living master - but rather just love.

Kjarne writes:

I experience that peace and love when I do some sincere afford to practice Knowledge. I believe it is the grace of the living master.
I am sorry, but that is my answer to you. I don`t see why I should dis`cuss theories.

I believe that Knowledge is an experience and not a theory.

You asked me why I still was a believer of Maharaji and I have told you that.

Answer: Because I experience peace and love when I practice Knowledge sincerely, and I don`t believe that Maharaji is a fraud.

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Date: Sun, Aug 20, 2000 at 16:46:36 (GMT)
From: Elaine
Email: None
To: Kjarne
Subject: Kjarne
Message:
K,

You sound offended. Am I reading you wrong?

' I don't see why I should discuss theories.'

Kjarne,you don't have to discuss anything with me. I was asking for you're opinions,insights,ideas,etc. - I was curious. I'm trying to work some things out.

Forget it.(No hard feelings, as we say in the US.)
Elaine

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Date: Sun, Aug 20, 2000 at 01:02:05 (GMT)
From: Elaine
Email: None
To: Elaine
Subject: Kjarne ,hello?
Message:
Where'd you go?
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Date: Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 19:00:26 (GMT)
From: cq
Email: None
To: Elaine
Subject: I don't think any other guru can do the same thing
Message:
'I don't think any other guru can do the same thing.'

So Kjarne and Elaine agree with each other here.

Doesn't this mean that these two are saying that the 'Knowledge' - though supposedly imparted to mankind in millennia before this, (a decidedly suspect supposition, IMO) is invalid to those who received it from the 'Masters' who have long since died?

Is that the implication you're suggesting, Kjarne and Elaine?

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Date: Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 19:47:27 (GMT)
From: Elaine
Email: None
To: cq
Subject: Doing that speed reading again?cq
Message:
cq,

I re-read your post. I don't understand it .
But, besides that - if you quote someone in italics,when, all of a sudden, is it 'your' belief system?
Read my post again and see if you missed something.

Elaine

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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 21:40:40 (GMT)
From: Ben Lurking
Email: None
To: Kjarne
Subject: Kjarne respond to Elaine! Why go to India
Message:
Why go to India to get confused, that confusion, that stuff was exported to the US and is known as EV or DLM with its own teacher/speaker/guru/master/god/.... etc.
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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 20:13:34 (GMT)
From: Hal
Email: None
To: Kjarne
Subject: Thank you Kjarne
Message:
For your obvious attempt to share your feelings and thoughts sincerely. It makes a change to have a little honesty and openness from a premie. I didn't think you were trying to convert , lecture or be superior and patronising there.

Best wishes to you and yours,

Hal

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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 17:57:15 (GMT)
From: poul
Email: None
To: Kjarne
Subject: Kjarne respond to Elaine!
Message:
I Think that you belive what you are saying .
,

Poul

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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 16:49:43 (GMT)
From: SB
Email: None
To: Kjarne
Subject: Kjarne respond to Elaine!
Message:
No. That is not what I want to hear, In fact, what you do with your life is not my bussiness. The reactions you got were a result of what YOU wrote. You are the one who put the ex-premies down, remember?

The truth is that you and all premies visiting this site need to understand that definetly we all have had 'that' experience and we left because WE realized is just another cult and mahariachi IS NOT THE LORD! I wont lie to you and say that all was misery when I was in the cult; there were many good happy moments but the 'feeling' IS NOT the only thing that is important. Morals are, mahariachi dirt is, not wanting to be related to a lier is, not wanting to lie myself anymore is important.I wanted to know God and m didn't deliver. He just transform me in his PERSONAL devotee.

You may say that devotion in the seventies was a open requirement to receive K: Satsang, service and meditation, but mahariachi changed later on 'his music' and I thought that was inoffensive, not bad. Service became participation. He became a teacher. Well, that is what happens when you are in it: Lard convinces you that all is ok and justifications take care of the doubts one may have. The thing is that there are many more things that a person must ask her/himself to evaluate the importance of remaining in the cult or not and the answer is, dependance on a being that you are never going to meet, adoration to him is wrong. Is wrong also to support an organization which lies asking for money to propagate k when in reality, it goes to Lard's pockets!

You can write what you want but the whole enchilada is not as easy as lard wants to pain it. Enjoy the cult involvement. You are free to do so.

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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 16:44:58 (GMT)
From: Way
Email: None
To: Kjarne
Subject: Kjarne respond to Elaine!
Message:
Kjarne,

I have been reading this Forum for a long time. I appreciate how open and communicative you have been, much better than most premies who post here. And your English is great for someone who speaks it as a second language.

My only problem with your stance about the inner love is that you attribute your experience to Rawat's grace and you say that 'he gave it to you.' I believe you are wrong. I believe that Rawat did not give it to you, that it was already yours, and I believe that Mr. Rawat has no grace to give. It is a delusion to think that he is the master of that experience. He is just a human being who takes credit for the good experiences that people have meditating and he should not be taking that credit. You should not be giving him that credit.

If your life had taken a slightly different turn and you had learned to meditate using some other master's techniques, say Muktananda for example, you would probably be giving him all the credit.

You should be giving credit to the power who graced you with life and with the experience of love within, not to Mr. Rawat. You don't even know Mr. Rawat and you are living in a make-believe little world.

But I do thank you for your sincere posts.

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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 18:19:09 (GMT)
From: Shroomananda
Email: None
To: Way
Subject: Muktananda is dead. And he gave a mantra but
Message:
not the maha-mantra. Same with TM and others. They give you a sacred word like 'choo-choo train' to repeat over and over. Your mind gets into a rhythm but there is not an experience like you get with Knowledge.
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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 20:18:41 (GMT)
From: Hal
Email: None
To: Shroomananda
Subject: Muktananda is dead. And he gave a mantra but
Message:
Many people I know who used other meditations before knowledge which were mere mantras report that they had just as profound or unprofound experiences as with knowledge. They just didn't have the pseudobliss of cultism to go along with it or some fake arsehole claiming to be the perfect one.

Hal

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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 19:05:21 (GMT)
From: Salam
Email: None
To: Shroomananda
Subject: You mean so humming all the way to the station
Message:
nt
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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 19:05:15 (GMT)
From: Way
Email: None
To: Shroomananda
Subject: Re:Muktananda is dead. And he gave a mantra but
Message:
Shroom,

You do not know what you are talking about.

Muktananda's Siddha Yoga incorporates each of the four techniques that Rawat teaches. Muktananda's successor still teaches these same four techniques. She also gives darshan and claims to bestow grace on her followers. She gives 'shaktipat' which supposedly awakens the dormant spiritual energy in her followers.

Muktananda was a charlatan who claimed to be a swami but who repeatedly had sex with his own followers. Gurumayi is just as much a charlatan as Muktananda and Rawat.

The experience that premies have is no different than the experience of devotees of other gurus. All the gurus claim to be the necessary source of those experiences. It is just foolish to believe them.

Read the current websites about Siddha Yoga and Gurumayi, both pro and con, if you care to inform yourself about this subject. In the meantime, I suggest you shut up about subjects that you know nothing about.

By the way, I was posting to Kjarne, who I have some sincere respect for. I have not yet seen one worthy post from you. It is impossible to hold a decent conversation with you, and you are so out of touch with Rawat's current teachings that you are even a lousy premie.

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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 20:37:00 (GMT)
From: Shroomananda
Email: None
To: Way
Subject: Did I touch your pingala nerve, Way?
Message:
Way wrote--

The experience that premies have is no different than the experience of devotees of other gurus.

Shroomananda responds--

How do you know? I said what I said because I've personally spoken with both Muktananda devotees and with TM practicioners. One of the ex-TM guys who is now a premie even told me his mantras. He had 3 of them. Each time one started to wear out, he would pay some money and they would give him a new one. Seems to me you're making a blanket generalization here. What's your experience of other gurus?

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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 21:02:31 (GMT)
From: Way
Email: None
To: Shroomananda
Subject: Re:Did I touch your pingala nerve, Way?
Message:
There was no debate that TM employs mantras.

My point was that you were entirely inaccurate in your statements about Muktananda's meditation. Now you're avoiding admitting that you were wrong by focusing on TM. The fact that you make unsubstantiated remarks and then you try to side-step the issues makes you extremely annoying. You have behaved this way repeatedly.

If you had honestly admitted that you actually know nothing about Muktananda's techniques, I may have been interested in going on to discuss with you why I contend that devotees of various gurus have similar experiences. But I am not interested in debating with you.

Please do not address any more of your posts to me.

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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 21:02:20 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Shroomananda
Subject: Okay, here's ANOTHER stupid Shroomism!
Message:
Flying, as usual, far below any common sense radar screen, the now-predictably stupid Shroom has done it again. He accuses Way of over-generalizing about things just after he himself has truly done that in spades. That is, talking about all other gurus beside the Hamster, none of whom I believe he's ever followed, he said:

Your mind gets into a rhythm but there is not an experience like you get with Knowledge.

God, if only my 'real world' life was this easy! Could you imagine?

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Date: Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 07:21:18 (GMT)
From: Shroomananda
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: No, Jim, I haven't experienced other Gurus but
Message:
the friend of mine who had experienced TM and then Maharaji told me that that's what TM does: gets your mind in a rhythm. So it was hearsay and should be thrown out of court, I guess. But we are not in court, are we? And as far as Way's complaint about Muktananda, I have read some of Muktananda, 'Death of a Guru' and others, and I have a Muktananda tape as well. My understanding of what I read about Muktananda is that he gave a mantra. I think it was 'Om' or something else but it was definately a verbal mantra. Of course, I guess we should defer to Jim because he appears to have all the answers. What's the answer, Jim?
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Date: Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 11:44:25 (GMT)
From: buzz
Email: None
To: Shroomananda
Subject: No, Jim, I haven't experienced other Gurus but
Message:
the book by muktananda called i am that talks about the vibration in the breath which makes a sound like so hum.the point was to listen to the sound of the breath but the point of the practice was to focus on the space between the breaths,because of the correlation between the mind and the breathwhan the breath has naturally stopped then there is an experience called knowledge,i've practised loads of tecniques including muktanandas tm, zen ,ramana maharshi's who am i ,are just a few they all give similar experiences because if you are going within to still the mind then the destination is the same.i have found kriya yoga to be the most potent so far for giving the deepest experience.
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Date: Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 09:15:04 (GMT)
From: ham
Email: None
To: Shroomananda
Subject: And thats what you base your assumptions on?
Message:
You're a sha;llow little person, and so naive about spiritual experiences, you really need to get out there and have a life, you've been stuck in your cult cubicle mentality for way too long.

Have you read about the magnet experiments where even atheists can experience god when the magnet is placed over trhe right spot?

Shroom you are so naive it's almost embarrassing to watch, typical premie kindergarten stuff. If you spoke to the majority of people who've been involved with gm, and bear in mind 98% have left over the years, you would get exactly the same response!

By the way I too used shallow reasoning identical to you for years so I do understand, but I then got a life.......

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Date: Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 18:27:56 (GMT)
From: gerry
Email: None
To: ham
Subject: I want one of them magnets...
Message:
Always looking for a good time...

But seriously, where can I find some more info about this, Ham?

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Date: Sun, Aug 20, 2000 at 03:21:40 (GMT)
From: ham
Email: None
To: gerry
Subject: I want one of them magnets...
Message:
I'll try and find the lit gerry, Susan Greenfield mentioned it recently in a major series on the brain but I missed the bit before it where I presume there were ref's mentioned, also read an article a few months ago, the research was in the USA, Univ of Oregon or Ohio I think.
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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 19:42:04 (GMT)
From: Jethro
Email: None
To: Way
Subject: Re:Muktananda is dead. And he gave a mantra but
Message:
Devtees of muktananda display the same avoidance technique as premies, to see this illustrated here is the address of a forum thread discussion I particpated in some months ago.

http://www.delphi.com/pneumapsyche/messages/?msg=62%2E19

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Date: Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 18:33:35 (GMT)
From: gerry
Email: None
To: Jethro
Subject: That 's an interesting website, Jethro, thanks (nt
Message:
asdf
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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 16:35:34 (GMT)
From: Elaine
Email: None
To: Kjarne
Subject: Kjarne respond to Elaine!
Message:
K,
Printed your post and took it with me to work.
Haven't read it yet. Thanks for your time.
Sorry gotta run.
Bye,
Elaine
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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 16:43:42 (GMT)
From: Salam
Email: None
To: Kjarne
Subject: Kjarne respond to Elaine!
Message:
So you think that he is god after all?
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Date: Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 23:53:53 (GMT)
From: Gabriel Golden
Email: ggolden@planetarymotion.net
To: Everyone
Subject: No God, Thank God!
Message:
Thanks one and all for your cool, neato, Hitler-rific responses to my earlier post ...

My 'No God' postulation seemed to provoke some things, so let me clarify.

Point One (most important point): This is an OPINION, not a FACT! I expect most ex-premies feel a mixture of joy and loss upon realization that anything one Individual says (including me, anyone here, or that funny-lookin' guy that used to say he was God himself) is an opinion, and not dogma.

Point Two: In actuality, I DON'T KNOW who/what created me, if anyone/anything created me, and more importantly, I don't WANT to know! This is called the MYSTERY of life, and one of the things that makes it beautiful. The experience of Knowledge, while it may be profound, serene, or ecstatic, AIN'T God or Maharaji ... it may be beautiful and wonderful, but it is the MIND, the very thing Maharaji decries as a means to bring aspirants and premies further under his control, to cajole them into giving themselves away ...

Point Three: Fact or opinion, true or false, ultimately the thing that matters is that premies find THEMSELVES again, including the shortcomings, imperfections, and foibles that make them wonderful and unique, questions of God notwithstanding ...

It's EASY to bow to the Perfect Master, folks! It is MUCH, MUCH HARDER to look for answers within yourself, and to place value on your own varied, unique experience ...

With love,
Gabriel

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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 03:07:55 (GMT)
From: Salam
Email: None
To: Gabriel Golden
Subject: Shut up Gabriel.
Message:
Are you late or something. Or maybe you just came in. Have not you read the posts here. Stop telling us about life in relation to gumji li.
There is no relation between life and this forum.

Here we say 'gum ji li is a piece of shit lier son of a bitch'.

You say is't life beautiful.

That is irrelevent to the main issue.
Get your bearing right.

Salam the issue man

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Date: Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 16:42:35 (GMT)
From: cq
Email: None
To: Salam
Subject: Careful, Salami
Message:
'Here we say...'

No mate. Here we are free to express the myriad of variations of how it is for each one of us.

Your 'one attitude fits all' idea doesn't do this place justice.

Alright?

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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 03:14:40 (GMT)
From: Salam
Email: None
To: Salam
Subject: OOPs. Did I get that right?
Message:
I am not sure if that was the right post Gabrial.
If it was not, my apology.

Salam-sulking

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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 00:45:51 (GMT)
From: Gregg
Email: None
To: Gabriel Golden
Subject: Hear, hear; here, here
Message:
Wonderful post. I might add, to confuse the issue, that to some of us, Mystery and 'I Don't Know' ...these things ARE God.

In other words, there is a shivery ineffability that thrills to the bones...but it is not a gray-haired Father or a fat greasy Indian...it just is. It just is is.

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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 03:44:21 (GMT)
From: Jerry
Email: None
To: Gregg
Subject: Hear, hear; here, here
Message:
Excuse me, Gregg, but doesn't 'God' mean 'Creator'? How does Mystery and 'I Don't Know' equate to that?
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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 16:55:18 (GMT)
From: Gregg
Email: None
To: Jerry
Subject: Preaching to the Orchestra
Message:
One of the meanings of God is Creator, but another might be (sorry if I sound a little New Agey here) the Creative Force (or Principle) of the Universe.

And it can be experienced as awe-inspiring in its power and presence and mystery. Mystery in the sense of touching something that you know you can never wholly uderstand. The spiritual path is opening yourself, expanding your capacity to receive this lifeforce.

Someone in this post got slammed for 'preaching atheism', and I guess this might sound like preaching something else...but I think one of the purposes of this Forum is to show premie and aspirant visitors (lurkers sounds a little sinister) that post-Maharaji life can lead in many different directions, spiritual, religious, scientific, social etc.

And I am just as interested in hearing from atheists as I am from new agers and Buddhists.

I draw the line, however, at Christians who tell me I'm hellbound because I don't worship as they do and at premies who tell me I never really had 'the experience,' and that's why I'm an embittered loser.

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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 20:20:04 (GMT)
From: Zelda
Email: None
To: Gregg
Subject: Preaching to the Orchestra
Message:
I agree that premies need to know that leaving the cult does not necessarily mean a life without an experience of a higher power.

Also that becoming and ex does not mean the Forum

However if they are thinking of leaving the cult it is important for them to be able to discuss the higher power with exs.

Too often they can be shot down by the vigilante atheists here and go running back to the holy feet for shelter.
Worse still is they end up defending Mahaha and the knowledge

Zelda

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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 21:12:25 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Zelda
Subject: In your imagination, you mean, right Zelda?
Message:
Too often they can be shot down by the vigilante atheists here and go running back to the holy feet for shelter.
Worse still is they end up defending Mahaha and the knowledge

Ah yes, those pesky vigilantes? The same ones that make it difficult to talk about astrology without getting harrassed, right?

Listen, do you know a single premie who was about to leave the cult but instead got freaked out by us atheists and ran back to Maharaji? Who?

Personally, I think you're projecting a bit.

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Date: Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 09:39:26 (GMT)
From: Hal
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Well actually Jim .....
Message:
there was a period just after I'd decided to leave , when I almost went back to Mahaha because I was freaked out with some of the apparently nihilistic and negative views expressed here. I didn't or couldn't go back though. It was actually an interesting experience to deal with as I'd never even bothered communicating with anyone who didn't at least believe in the possibility that there is a supreme intelligence guiding things here. It didn't do me any harm in the end to look at other perspectives.

I am now in the I don't Know anything for sure group. I do agree that it is interesting for some of us to discuss issues of where to go after the cult. Atheism, agnosicism, other paths, none paths etc.. Not all of us abandon our interest in growing, awakening, becoming wiser or more understanding of life etc.

If these areas are not of interest to some , then it's not necessary to join in every conversation here is it?

Hal

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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 21:38:12 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: She's not imagining
Message:
You certaining are a vigilante atheist and many people here are sick of it. You are entitled to your beliefs. It's your manipulative tactics and dishonesty that are repugnant. Verbal abuse, profanity, and twisting peoples' words are some of your tactics. They remind me of the mind control tactics I've read about. You view this forum as a recruiting ground for hard-core atheists.
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Date: Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 14:59:10 (GMT)
From: Katie
Email: None
To: G
Subject: I think the correct word is 'evangelistic'...
Message:
...not 'vigilante', although 'evangelistic atheist' sounds kind of strange. I did look it up in the dictionary though, and it doesn't necessary apply to trying to convert people to Christianity.

Also found out I've been mispronouncing AND mispelling 'proselytizing' all these years. Another good word, though - but I think 'evangelistic' describes the situation more accurately.

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Date: Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 15:24:12 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Katie
Subject: Depends on what you call 'zealous', I guess
Message:
Once you get past all the specifically Christian meanings, 'evangelical', according to Oxford, means 'zealously advocating a cause'.

If you think my challenging spiritual beliefs to the extent I do fits the bill, then I guess you'd say the word applies. Personally, I think it's a stretch. You know, in my general life the subject hardly comes up and when it does it comes up lightly for the most part. It's only here where we talk about our so-called 'spiritual' teacher and the wonderful 'spiritual' gift he gave us that I attack the very notions that support that thinking.

So 'evangelical'? No, I wouldn't say so. Maybe compared to you who doesn't seem to care too much one way or the other about these issues, yes. Compared to others, maybe not.

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Date: Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 15:55:14 (GMT)
From: Katie
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Preaching atheism
Message:
Jim, I don't know how you act when you are at home, but you certainly behave evangelistically here on the forum. In my opinion, anyway.

You wrote:
It's only here where we talk about our so-called 'spiritual' teacher and the wonderful 'spiritual' gift he gave us that I attack the very notions that support that thinking.

What 'notions'? Notions like believing in God, or a higher power, or whatever? Saying that believing in God (or for that matter, astrology, feng shui, chakras, etc. etc. etc.) leads to cult membership is sort of like saying marijuana use leads to heroin addiction. I am sure you know the arguments for and against that little statement.

So 'evangelical'? No, I wouldn't say so. Maybe compared to you who doesn't seem to care too much one way or the other about these issues, yes.

I don't think it is that I don't care too much one way or the other. It would be more accurate to say that I care about OTHER issues more, and that I don't think it's necessary for someone to become an atheist in order to leave Maharaji. Far from it, in fact - and I think that that implication turns a lot of people off on this forum.

I'm also not interested in replacing one belief system, such as belief in Maharaji, with another one, like atheism. I don't think there is any way you can get around the fact that atheism IS a belief system. If it works for you, great. But I don't think that necessarily makes it any better than many other belief systems.

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Date: Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 16:33:00 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Katie
Subject: It just HAS to be a religious term, does it?
Message:
First 'evangelical'. Now 'preaching'. I guess the believers just can't feel comfortable until they think that everyone's playing their same game.

Sorry, Katie, I don't agree. I don't think that atheism is a belief system anything akin to religion, let alone belief in Maharaji. It's a rejection of religious baggage, is what it is. Wiping clean a canvas is not the same as painting it.

Saying that believing in God (or for that matter, astrology, feng shui, chakras, etc. etc. etc.) leads to cult membership is sort of like saying marijuana use leads to heroin addiction. I am sure you know the arguments for and against that little statement.

Well, if you really want to get down to it (and, knowing you, you don't), marijuana use, while not a sufficient precondition to heroin addiction, is indeed a common stepping stone, albeit just one among many, to heroin addiction. In other words, while it's true that most pot smokers don't become junkies, it's very hard to find a junkie who didn't first smoke pot. Believing in God is obviously less than a strong indicator of future cult membership but it's pretty close to a necessary precondition all the same.

Anyway, I don't think I've ever once suggested that belief in God is any more of a precondition to cult membership than it is. I would say this though: I think it's the single most important factor. If not, what is?

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Date: Sun, Aug 20, 2000 at 23:20:20 (GMT)
From: hamzen
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Buddhist, Alien cults?
Message:
Believing in God is obviously less than a strong indicator of future cult membership but it's pretty close to a necessary precondition all the same.
Anyway, I don't think I've ever once suggested that belief in God is any more of a precondition to cult membership than it is. I would say this though: I think it's the single most important factor. If not, what is?

I would have said that new age thinking is more of a cult entree point than a belief in god, but I'm hardly a cult expert either, oh and a rejection of materialism and the corporate hard sell, but then they are key components of new ageism.

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Date: Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 18:58:14 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: nonreligious cults
Message:
There are also nonreligious cults, need I bring that up again? You know, like the one about which you said 'where's the harm?.
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Date: Sun, Aug 20, 2000 at 19:59:08 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: G
Subject: Twisting MY words to pick a fight, are we, G?
Message:
Did I say for a moment that there weren't non-religious cults? No. So what are you fighting about? What I said was that believing in God is 'pretty close to a necessary precondition' to cult membership. That's my way of saying that almost all cults depend on some notion of God or don't you agree with that?

It's not a 'rule' as such and yes, Ayn Rand and others are exceptions. But I still think it's generally true for most cults. And you?

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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 21:55:35 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: G
Subject: Okay, G, let's go
Message:
Spell it out, will you?

Let's see. We have:

1) manipulative tactics

2) dishonesty

3) verbal abuse

4) twisting peoples' words

and, my favorite so far:

5) mind control tactics

I'll concede 'profanity'. Mind you, it was funny watching the normally even-tempered Jerry telling you to ' go fuck yourself'. But then, that's besides the point.

Go on. Make your case.

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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 22:38:20 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Ok, to start with
Message:
Who do you think you're fooling?

I'll concede 'profanity'.

Profanity, the way you use it, is verbal abuse. You're also one of the most insulting people I've ever encountered. How many times have you called people stupid at this forum? Hundreds, thousands?

Mind you, it was funny watching the normally even-tempered Jerry telling you to ' go fuck yourself'. But then, that's besides the point.

Actually it's very relevant. You're saying that you felt sadistic glee when reading Jerry's verbal abuse, which you try to rationalize by describing him as 'normally even-tempered'. That's an example of one of your underhanded tactics. Instead of being straightforward, you imply that I deserved this abuse, that it was my fault because I drove him to say that. What actually happened was that he was angry about his failed conversion attempt. I am under no obligation to submit to indoctrination.

Btw, 'beside the point' is the correct idiom.

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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 22:48:53 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: G
Subject: Laurie's going to laugh at this one!
Message:
Btw, 'beside the point' is the correct idiom.

She's ALWAYS giving me shit for mixing up 'Beside the point' and 'Besides'. Good one!

The rest of your post is a joke. I call people stupid here all the time because this is, don't forget, the Ex-Premie Forum! It's a warming chamber for frozen minds, many of which (and here I'm thinkign of current cult members -- for the most part)do indeed operate at a very stupid level. An exceptionally stupid level.

No apologies there.

And Jerry was trying to 'convert' you? By arguing with you? What were you trying to do then? Convert him? When we gonna see a little 'manifesting', G? What other religious terminology you want to inappropriately bandy about?

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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 23:23:21 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Laurie's going to laugh at this one!
Message:

Btw, 'beside the point' is the correct idiom.

She's ALWAYS giving me shit for mixing up 'Beside the point' and 'Besides'. Good one!

Hey Jim, that's clear proof of synchronicity and/or esp! ;-)

Nah, it's just a coincidence.

The rest of your post is a joke. I call people stupid here all the time because this is, don't forget, the Ex-Premie Forum! It's a warming chamber for frozen minds, many of which (and here I'm thinkign of current cult members -- for the most part)do indeed operate at a very stupid level. An exceptionally stupid level.

No apologies there.

Calling it a joke does not make it a joke. This is another example of your mindset. You think you're going to intimidate me with a meaningless sentence like that.

Your attempt to rationalize your calling people stupid by claiming it's for their own good is unhealthly. This is the same kind of rationalization that occurs in cults. You should apologize, but better yet, stop doing it. It also shows that you have an exaggerated opinion of your intelligence.

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Date: Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 03:32:11 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: G
Subject: Time for you to write a book, G
Message:
Your attempt to rationalize your calling people stupid by claiming it's for their own good is unhealthly.

Did I say it was for their own good? Or is this just another example of G twisting people's words again? I said this was a warming chamber for frozen minds but that's not to say that I call people stupid for their own good, is it? You doing a little inferring there, by chance?

Oops! Sorry for the sarcasm (i.e. verbal abuse). My father verbally abused me when I was a kid, I think.

But this interests me:

This is the same kind of rationalization that occurs in cults.

Please elaborate. I'll take notes. Tell me why calling someone stupid is tantamount to cult behaviour? Or, if that's not what you meant, what's the connection?

You should apologize, but better yet, stop doing it. It also shows that you have an exaggerated opinion of your intelligence.

Maybe your second chapter could be on how calling people stupid indicates an exaggerated opinion of one's intelligence. I know I'll read it. You might have a little trouble publishing under 'G' though.

So, tell me, how the human psche best deals with blatant lies, obfuscation and sheer stupidity (and by stupidity I mean cow-like disregard for alternative explanations, etc. as exemplified in the routine posts of cult members such as O or Shroom these days)? What's the 'G' way, the way that keeps your head from overinflating and possibly even exploding, I guess?

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Date: Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 05:04:46 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: calling people stupid
Message:

I said this was a warming chamber for frozen minds but that's not to say that I call people stupid for their own good, is it?

You said this in relation to the insults you spew. Your are obviously claiming that insulting them warms their 'frozen minds' and that this is good for them.

My father verbally abused me when I was a kid, I think.

I don't know if you mean this or not. If so, you didn't deserve it.
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Date: Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 02:08:47 (GMT)
From: Zelda
Email: None
To: G
Subject: Jims needto dominate makes him IMPLY IVERT INVENT
Message:
and it makes him tell Dave that if he thinks that knowledge shows god or whatever it was then thats his right but JIM sure doesnt believe that.
(This he IMPLYS AND INVENTS from Daves post.)
From that point on, Jim is fighting a windmill of his own making and trying to get everyone to play. If they dont he just bullies- but in doing TRIES TO shift the other person to the defensive.

Jim just doesnt see when his slip is showing and he imagines that has to keep to hide it he needs to contort the discussion.

Whats really funny is that is is so clear on the screen.

Like he says, we are all really stupid you see.

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Date: Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 03:35:59 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Zelda
Subject: Your post is truly unintelligible this time, Zelda
Message:
But one thing I did get (I think!) was the misuse of the word 'imply'. You mean 'infer', I imagine.

The rest escapes me.

What's your sign, by the way?

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Date: Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 04:04:07 (GMT)
From: Zelda
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Invert.
Message:
invert as in turn upside down , reverse position order or relation of -to change the emphasis

first you imply then invert then invent the argument against

It is a rusty old transparent tactic and it wouldst behoove you to change your ways.

nevr mind
whats yours

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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 09:04:20 (GMT)
From: Sir Dave
Email: None
To: Gabriel not so golden
Subject: Not here thank you very much
Message:
This place is becoming like an atheist's convention. I don't mind atheists but I don't like having atheism rammed down my throat just like I don't like any religion rammed down my throat.

I'm an agnostic but I wouldn't use this forum to preach about it. To me, converted hard-core atheists are no different to all the other religious nuts that are around.

So please, don't try to convert people here to your particular belief system or philosophy. It is not wanted or needed, except by perhaps a minority who agree with you and you could create your own atheist's forum for those.

Keep your religion to yourself and don't try to ram it down people's throats.

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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 21:38:59 (GMT)
From: Lotus Eater
Email: None
To: Sir Dave
Subject: On the subject of god and religious tolerance
Message:
Sir Dave,
I do agree about not ramming one's religious beliefs down other people's throats, but I think Jim nailed this one. GG did preface by saying it was his opinion.

I don't know if you remember your early days of exiting, but I know I derived a lot of comfort from the commonsense approach taken by Jim among others.

Jim is right, none of us would have been interested in the first place if we hadn't thought it was THE Experience, so the subject of god and religion IS very closely linked to the topic of the relevance of Maharaji.

Here's my take: among many catalysts, meditation and devotion brings a particular experience characterised by golden light and feelings of oneness etc. I agree with GG, in that it is generated by brain chemistry. People who have NDEs are a classic example. Many of the descriptions are surprisingly similar yet a buddhist will see buddha in the light, a christian Jesus, into your relatives, guess what, there'll be a bunch of them waiting, loved your dog? well woof woof there he is. (Confession time: me, I had a rather neat conversation with a beautiful bird.)

From my personal experience, and from listening to and observing other people I have come to the conclusion that in the same way as any other emotional state generates it's own type of thinking so does the 'transcendental' one, and the 'transcendental' one causes religious thinking.

So what is religion all about? do I have to worry about my state of mind at the time that I die, ie if I am in a bad mood will I go to hell eternal, good mood heaven forever? Unresolved issues causing me anger and pain will damn me forever? Unwavering belief in god the good rewarded by love eternal? Or maybe, just maybe when I die, I die. A chimpanzee dies in terror, pain and confusion in the laboratory of human endeavour, what's the prognosis? Lesley

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Date: Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 01:38:42 (GMT)
From: Katie
Email: None
To: Lotus Eater
Subject: On the subject of god and religious tolerance
Message:
Hi Lesley -
I'm an agnostic ('don't know') like Sir David. I'm also a scientist. While I can appreciate the stance taken by Jim (among others) on this forum, I have to say that there is NO scientific proof that a higher power does or does not exist. All theories as regards to such are based on assumptions - belief systems, in other words.

You wrote:
So what is religion all about? do I have to worry about my state of mind at the time that I die, ie if I am in a bad mood will I go to hell eternal, good mood heaven forever? Unresolved issues causing me anger and pain will damn me forever? Unwavering belief in god the good rewarded by love eternal? Or maybe, just maybe when I die, I die. A chimpanzee dies in terror, pain and confusion in the laboratory of human endeavour, what's the prognosis?

Good questions - and very near and dear to my own heart too.

I think 'don't know' is a better answer to 'Does god exist?' than 'NO'. I agree that it's good to get rid of the mumbo-jumbo, and if being an atheist makes you a better person, then I'm all for it.

Although I don't know if god exists or not, I have completely rejected the fact that it 'matters' what state of mind I am in when I die (if you ask me, this is cult - and Judeo-Christian - propaganda). I don't think it matters what we believe when we are alive - at all! I'm also prepared for the eventuality that if I die - I just die. I do a lot of work with compost (decaying organic matter) and some days, I would be happy just to BE compost! It helps plants and microorganisms grow - it becomes a part of them, and a part of life.

Re the lab animals - I have thought a lot about this, and I don't have any easy answers. It is something that torments me. I HOPE, some days, that there is a higher purpose that can answer the suffering that these beings undergo. But other days, I think that all there is is to be dead, and to be compost.

Irregardless of all this - I think that the best thing we all can do is to live the best lives possible, and inflict as little pain on other beings as possible (it's not completely possible to inflict no pain, but we can try). And try to help other beings as much as we can - while we are here - but without hurting ourselves, or other people too.

Secularly humanistically yours :) -
(Do they hate 'secular humanists in Oz the way they do in the US?)

Katie

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Date: Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 09:31:52 (GMT)
From: ham
Email: None
To: Katie
Subject: With you all the way there except for 1 point
Message:
I don't think it matters what we believe when we are alive - at all!

You really mean that?

ps Katie did you post up which Brit lit middle class writers you like? Would be interested, really!

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Date: Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 12:38:39 (GMT)
From: Katie
Email: None
To: ham
Subject: Context, Ham!
Message:
When I said 'I don't think it matters what we believe when we are alive - at all!' - I was referring to how our beliefs while we are alive affect what happens to us after death.

Re female British writers - you're gonna flame me! Seriously, I do not know anything about the personal lives of these people - I just like their books. I'll probably leave someone out too (it's early in the morning here).

Penelope Lively has got to be my favorite contemporary British author. I also really like Margaret Drabble ('The Needle's Eye' is my favorite of her books) and A.S. Byatt. I like some of Penelope Fitzgerald's books a lot - some not so much. And I like Joanna Trollope for light reading (her books are SO much better than most other 'light' reading!). I have had trouble reading Iris Murdoch, and do not like Doris Lessing, except for some of her essays(I know she is originally South African).

Don't read many contemporary male British writers. I went through a period where I read all of Conrad (but he wasn't really British) and most of Kipling (yes, I know!...but it was interesting to read the books.) And as I said, I thought 'High Fidelity' was great.

Well, you asked!
Love,
Katie

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Date: Sun, Aug 20, 2000 at 03:34:04 (GMT)
From: ham
Email: None
To: Katie
Subject: Ha, well you're obviously not psychic then!
Message:
Re your quote, apologies, just teasing, that dry brit humour's gonna get me in trouble some day, what am I talking about, bosses never appreciate it, already got me in loads of grief over the years, ahh well!

When have I ever flamed you Katie, as though?
Personally I reserve flaming for those who can't discuss stuff, never ever had that problem with you.
Just because I hate the effect of Drabble & her Oxbridge cohorts over here doesn't mean someone from outside couldn't appreciate their lit, just want them banned over here from the media, in the 50's-70's they ran media stuff, ie tv cultural & broadsheets!
Anyway were you teasing me about the flaming? 50/50?

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Date: Sun, Aug 20, 2000 at 15:44:28 (GMT)
From: Katie
Email: None
To: ham
Subject: definitely not psychic
Message:
Hi Ham -
Relieved to find out you meant your post to be humourous. Maybe there should be an emoticon for dry humor :). I hear through my spy network (snicker) that your sense of humor, however dry, comes across very well face to face.

Problem is that I've had other people here take things out of context in my posts in the same way and then want to argue with me about the out-of-context quote. (This is why I WOULD never post on an EV website, even if I could!)

I WAS joking about your flaming me, though! Not 50/50, either. I did think you might flame some of the authors I mentioned, but that's not a personal flame.

You should read some (not all) of the fiction that makes the best-seller lists and wins prizes here in the US - you'd probably understand why I like British authors so much. (Actually Canadian authors are great too - the women, especially.) I will always at least check out a book if it wins, or has won, the Booker Prize, although I have been disappointed in some of them.

BTW, I didn't want to get into the agnostic/atheist discussion elsewhere, although I did make one post to Jim somewhere around here. But I agree with you that atheism is a belief system, because the atheistic stance cannot be proven. Neither can the existence of god. Agnosticism runs the gamut from deistic agnostics to atheistic agnostics - I think if one tends to one side or another, it's still more honest to be an agnostic.

Take care -
Love,
Katie

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Date: Sun, Aug 20, 2000 at 18:31:01 (GMT)
From: ham
Email: None
To: Katie
Subject: A deist agnostic?
Message:
Surely that's a contradiction in terms?
Could understand someone who's agnostic preferring the company of religious people for personal or social or longevity reasons, but believing? I find that truly bizarre, and the first time I've ever come across such a thought.

Atheism I see as an entirely understandable emotional response ie anti-religious ie social reasons or for the Occams Razor argument, although there should also be an offical response for buddhist/taoist sorts like myself that is neither belief driven, agnostic logic driven, or atheist.

Re lit, can well understand your response to brit/canadian lit, read it all myself early days before the social rev's over here, it's the social uses of that articulacy that drove me nuts, the media power they all had, they were like the cultural mafia over here for ages, all masquerading under that nicey nicey liberal umbrella of special status for a classical liberal education, creepy shit.

Re humour, god yeah, been accused of having a 'wicked' sense of humour that can drive everyone nuts by being non-stop, and have almost got rid of that premie po-face ness as well, my god there is still hope for me!

As for you. well I always secretly fancied you, especially after seeing your photo, never had any problems with you ever, even when we had that little tiff always felt comfortable communicating, but then always had a soft spot for nice girls with a hint of naughty about them!

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Date: Sun, Aug 20, 2000 at 21:22:20 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: ham
Subject: A deist agnostic, pantheism
Message:
I consider myself to be a deist agnostic, with a bit of theism thrown in, and perhaps a dash of pantheism. Pantheism is a bit systems oriented. You can believe something while admitting that you're not sure.
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Date: Sun, Aug 20, 2000 at 23:06:21 (GMT)
From: hamzen
Email: None
To: G
Subject: A deist agnostic, pantheism
Message:
I consider myself to be a deist agnostic, with a bit of theism thrown in, and perhaps a dash of pantheism. Pantheism is a bit systems oriented. You can believe something while admitting that you're not sure.

Nice link g, not so sure about the organized side of it, but yeah I guess I'm a pantheist too, well panthe'ish.
I would love you to read The Web of Life, which I guess is pantheistic too, certain that if nothing else you'll find relief from your present isolation. Apart from your deist and theist touches think our positions are similar'ish, and know I found my position a bit isolated for a long time, but maybe I'm just projecting. You ever read Capra's 'The Turning Point'?

But then isn't everyone who's no god follower and amazed by so much in this universe a pantheist, and doesn't that mean any scientist without religion, apart from anyone else who gets a real buzz from living? At this point I wonder if it relly means anything, if you know what I mean, because it becomes so general, and would it include my love of decks, dj'ing & music, all products of this universe?.

How you can believe something while not being sure, completely bamboozles me! And I've never met an agnostic who believes, ever, and I've known quite a few agnostics.
Trying to get my head around this but......

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Date: Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 07:08:42 (GMT)
From: Lotus Eater
Email: None
To: Katie
Subject: Irreligious, caring students of human nature
Message:
Dear Katie, I looked up secular and humanist in the Macquarie (oz dictionary), the subject title being the result. As a formal organization I guess it would get the thumbs down, but as a type of person, popular!

I think that the Judaeo/christian/cult thinking is not the cause but the result of the questions I am posing. No more graphic example of the effect on my life of what I believe comes to mind than the subject of this forum. As I said the commonsense approach was very comforting as I worked my way out of the religious funk I was in.

Having had the experiences of acid, meditation and devotion, NDE and psychosis, I am well aware of the states commonly called heaven and hell and the sense of timelessness they evoke, compost sounds just great to me!

Getting serious though, I love being human, and I'll stake my chips on the courage, kindness, and love I see every day in my fellow human beings; that still operates, despite the fears and the muck of arrogant stupidity and greed. Thanks for your post, love lesley

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Date: Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 12:22:56 (GMT)
From: Katie
Email: None
To: Lotus Eater
Subject: Irreligious, caring students of human nature
Message:
Hi Lesley -
Glad you liked the post. Here in the US some Christian groups seem to feel that 'secular humanists' are worse than Satan worshippers - maybe they should look the word up in the dictionary too!

And I definitely understand why you would prefer the common-sense approach after years of mystical experiences. I feel the same way.

Take care -
Love,
Katie

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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 16:04:06 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: Sir Dave
Subject: Well said, I second that (nt)
Message:
nt
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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 16:02:02 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Sir Dave
Subject: What are you talking about, Dave?
Message:
How does Gabriel's post 'ram atheism down your throat'? It doesn't. As he himself says, he's merely expressing his opinion which happens to be that knowledge is not an experience of God.

What's wrong with that? Do you think it IS an experience of God? Fine, then. Say so and argue the point if you wish. Personally, I think that's silly but if that's what you think, help yourself.

BTW, saying that 'hard-core' atheists are no different than any other kind of 'religious nut' is like calling a group of ex-cult members a cult themselves. It's stupid.

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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 21:55:19 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: converted hard-core atheists
Message:

BTW, saying that 'hard-core' atheists are no different than any other kind of 'religious nut' is like calling a group of ex-cult members a cult themselves. It's stupid.

That's a poor analogy.

You left out the word converted and put quotes around 'hard-core' as if 'hard-core' had no meaning. You know quite well what he means. What you're into goes far beyond not believing in the God of the Bible. You have many dogmatic beliefs. You've even posted at the 'Church of Virus' web site.

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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 22:17:00 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: G
Subject: That's absurd
Message:
For such a bright, bright fellow, as we all know you are, G, what with your qualia and assorted other quantum magic -- sorry, I meant 'physics' -- recipes, you sure say some dumb things sometimes. Like this:

You left out the word converted and put quotes around 'hard-core' as if 'hard-core' had no meaning. You know quite well what he means. What you're into goes far beyond not believing in the God of the Bible. You have many dogmatic beliefs. You've even posted at the 'Church of Virus' web site.

1) 'Converted' is meaningless here. As I've said many a time here, I don't know if there's a God. I simply note that the belief in such a wonderful, mysterious character is unsupported by any proof whatsoever. Hence, I say, fuck it. There was no 'conversion', merely the relinquishing of some residual spirituality slopping around ankle-deep throughout our culture.

Point in fact, my father was an atheist and I only approached spirituality as a teenager a few years before becoming a premie. I'm not a member of any congregation, there are no fixed tenets I adhere to, nothing of the sort. Much as you might disingenuously like to bring atheism down to the same level as spiritual belief you can't because, at the end of the day, the truth is there is simply no reason to believe in God. Other than wishful thinking, I mean. The burden of proof's on spirituality, not its rejection.

So 'conversion' is not applicable. Not to me, anyway.

2) What's the difference between a 'hard-core' atheist and a regular one? That distinction makes no sense to me. I can understand a hard-core premie, a hard-core christian but a hard-core atheist? No.

3) What am I 'into' that 'goes far beyond not believing in the God in the Bible'? You mean I'm also not into all the foo foo attempts to salvage some good old religion in the face of science?

Look at you. You're so darned ginger about your own beliefs you can't articulate them for fear that you'll come to close to classic religion or spirituality which, you yourself know, is insupportable. What does G believe, anyway? That there's some amorphous divinity out there, bereft of human traits but Godlike all the same? What?

4) What are my 'many dogmatic beliefs'? I know of one strong belief, and that's that there's no proof of God and thus no reason to believe in him (unlike you, I'm okay with the classic terminology. It's all the same, as far as I can tell, anyway).

5) What do you think the 'Church of the Virus' is beside a big satire on religion? Didn't you get that?


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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 23:02:46 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: your tiresome sarcasm
Message:

For such a bright, bright fellow, as we all know you are, G, what with your qualia and assorted other quantum magic -- sorry, I meant 'physics' -- recipes, you sure say some dumb things sometimes. Like this: ...

Here's another example of the dishonest abuse that you are so proud of, an insult thinly disguised in your tiresome sarcasm. It's also an example of evasion. Instead of rational discussion, you resort to words like 'magic' and 'recipes', ignoring the fact that there is empirical evidence for quantum physics. Those physicists you disparage are much smarter than you.

The way your post begins is a good indication that the rest isn't even worth reading.

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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 23:10:42 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: G
Subject: Sarcasm = dishonest abuse?
Message:
What a prig you are!

And a mistaken prig at that. I have no doubt that quantum pyshics is real and wouldn't be surprised if many, if not all, its practitioners are much smarter than me. Hell, maybe all of them are. Who knows? They might even be smarter than you!

What I object to is your funny attempt to argue the existence of God on the back of this stuff.

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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 23:31:25 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Sarcasm = dishonest abuse
Message:
Many of them are.

What I object to is your funny attempt to argue the existence of God on the back of this stuff.

There you go again, this time with the word 'funny' and one thing I mentioned, twisting peoples' word. The existence of God was not even being discussed. Jerry was claiming that consciousness is material, I disagreed. You equate that to aguing for the existence of God? Why?

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Date: Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 03:15:35 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: G
Subject: I couldn't last here WITHOUT sarcasm
Message:
Personally, G, I couldn't survive here without sarcasm. But then that's just me. I'm sure you respect that.

No, I know you didn't mention God in your recent argument with Jerry. But that's not the only such discussion you've had here, is it? Maybe I'm wrong, but I seem to recall others, with me in fact, where you did argue the existence of some higher intelligence and where you did indeed incorporate quantum mechanics.

Am I right or wrong? If I'm wrong, then I'm imagining things. Let me know and I'll apologize. I'm the first one to concede that you hadn't (yet?) dragged God into your recent dispute with Jerry. But if I'm right, then you might think about how else you might justify your 'twisting words' allegation.

Well?

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Date: Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 05:23:57 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: I couldn't last here WITHOUT sarcasm
Message:

Personally, G, I couldn't survive here without sarcasm. But then that's just me. I'm sure you respect that.

Maybe you just think you couldn't survive without it. So are you saying that you do it as a psychological defense mechanism? Do you feel threatened? You do it excessively to the point where it's predictable.

No, I know you didn't mention God in your recent argument with Jerry. (and then for some reason you go on to talk about other threads)

Exactly, and the other posts are not relevant. You need to learn to stick to a subject.
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Date: Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 09:38:27 (GMT)
From: ham
Email: None
To: G
Subject: I couldn't last here WITHOUT sarcasm
Message:
You do it excessively to the point where it's predictable.

Could apply exactly the same argument to you g, that it's almost predictable that you'll never lose your temper and will always appear a bit stiff emotionally, but thats you, and Jim's Jim.

Personally think it's good that all the colours of the rainbow are here

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Date: Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 16:08:57 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: ham
Subject: Is not losing one's temper a fault?
Message:
'all the colours of the rainbow' could include anything, so that doesn't justify the behaviour. I'm not condemning Jim or anyone else but criticizing the excessive use of this behaviour as harmful. I have a right to criticize it. Do you have a problem with that? So

Fuck off!

There, happy now? Wow, G lost his temper, he's a good 'ole boy. Wow, he just used some sarcasm also.

This is a public forum. My attitude is to discuss things civilly and to treat others with general respect. That does not equate to being emotionally stiff.

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Date: Sun, Aug 20, 2000 at 19:53:05 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: G
Subject: No, not necessarily
Message:
Losing one's temper is, at times, if not the only appropriate response to a situation, at least an acceptable one. Just think back in your own life to all the times when you did soemthing really bad or stupid and someone's fast balst on the horn, so to speak, shook you out of your complacency, made you really appreciate just how fucked what you did was.

Now I'm not talking about all the other times when you either discovered your mistakes by yourself or faced a different kind of correction. The way I see it, there's room for all sorts of human interactions. Anger's a universal one and it didn't develop because it was entirely useless.

Talking to premies here sometimes -- often -- taxes patience more than any other interaction I can think of. Their wilfull ignorance is just too much sometimes. So you think there's some great virtue in never showing your frutration. Hey, maybe you're even able to avoid any emotional involvement in a discusion (something you weren't able to do with me though, by the way) so there's nothing to show. Whatever. That's you.

There is nothing wrong with losing one's temper at the right time, in the right circumstances. It can be communicative and cathartic in ways that maintaining a stiff front never can at times.

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Date: Sun, Aug 20, 2000 at 05:49:28 (GMT)
From: ham
Email: None
To: G
Subject: Luv ya g, :)
Message:
Obviously I'm not being clear enough here, of course you've got the right to state your position, and I would fight like hell to defend your right to state your position, all I was doing was adding my tuppence worth from my position.

Personally I don't find Jim excessive, but then I wouldn't call the language he uses profane.

Hhhhmmmm, as to swearing, your emotional stiffness has got nothing to do with swearing or not swearing, and what's wrong with emotional stiffness anyway, got plenty of it myself, as I said all the colours etc, was just trying to make the point that our perceptions of each other are just that, perceptions, blah de blah

I also chipped in because I oscillate here between being pretty polite and pretty angry, so can understand both positions, again blah de blah

PS How do you get those big letters in html, colours also?

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Date: Sun, Aug 20, 2000 at 21:00:04 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: ham
Subject: big letters
Message:
If you open my post and do a mouse right click and select View Source, you can see the source and do a find on 'Fuck'. In Netscape, use Ctrl-f to find, in IE, use the menu.

Click on the Forum Help link at the top of this page. The help page explains what HTML tags are, which I think you are familiar with. To change the size and/or color of text, use the FONT tag. Enclose the text to be changed within an opening and closing FONT tag. The size is changed with the size=m parameter, where m can be +n, -n, or n, n a number. +n increases the size, -n decreases it, and n is a particular size. To change the color, use color=thecolor. thecolor can be a color such as red or blue (e.g. color=red), or can be specified as a combination of red green and blue (e.g. color=#112233 indicates 11 units of red, 22 units of green, 33 units of blue, where the units go from 00 to FF in hexadecimal, white would be #FFFFFF, black #000000, and yellow #FFFF00). An example of an opening tag: start with the less than character, followed by FONT SIZE=+3 COLOR=RED, followed by the greater than character.

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Date: Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 06:02:13 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: G
Subject: You're wrong
Message:
You're wrong, G. I never once said or remotely suggested that I was only talking about your using QM to argue God in your recent argument with Jerry. That was your idea. I was just talking about you doing it generally. I never said otherwise. So, you're wrong. The other discussions are relevant. Your whole criticism that I was twisting your words was premised on your false assumption that I was talking about you and Jerry. So that example of me 'twisting words' fails. In fact, if anything, it applies to you. But, don't worry. I won't rub your face in it.
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Date: Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 16:20:13 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: You're wrong
Message:
I assumed that because I expected you to stick to the subject and not go off on a tangent. I could see no reason for you to do so. This misinterpretation that you claim that I made, which I cannot disprove, does not equate to a willfull twisting of words.
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Date: Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 16:41:53 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: G
Subject: Ok, you're just quick to assume things
Message:
That's okay, G. Nobody's perfect. We all make mistakes.

See, you had no reason to think that I was only referring to your last argument with Jerry. Read the posts again. You'll see. That was just a bad assumption on your part.

But where's your apology, G? You accused me of twisting your words when in fact I didn't. I was just thinking of other words of yours from other conversations. You're right. I can't properly call this mistake of yours anything wilfull. Honestly, I was just teasing you there. But you weren't teasing. You meant it.

So......?

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Date: Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 16:55:08 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: no apology is needed
Message:
No apology is needed, that was reaonable assumption, not a 'bad' one, and a misinterpretation (I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt here), not something done willfully.

You expect an apology from me yet won't apologize for willfully calling people stupid. Go figure.

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Date: Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 18:20:26 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: G
Subject: Okay, this really IS apples and oranges
Message:
You should apologize for calling me a liar based on your false assumption. Even if your assumption was made in good faith it was wrong and you extrapolated something quite ugly from it, namely that I was twisting your words. You alleged bad faith and really, the only problem was you'd made a false and hasty assumption.

Calling people stupid has nothing to do with this. And, as I've said before, I stand by it. When someone claims, as O has tried, that Maharaji never said he was God, I say that's stupid. No apologies at all.

But listen, G, don't worry about it. I know you only meant well. :)

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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 20:10:44 (GMT)
From: Sir Dave
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: I was talking about this
Message:
On this forum there is a mixture of atheists, agnostics (don't knows) and believers. I had in mind Gabriel's first posts below where he was pretty dogmatic about the way it is.

I'm tired of people who think they know the truth, trying to enlighten us. We each have our own particular set of beliefs and experiences and I don't think it's good form to try to persuade other people here to believe our own version of reality after the cult.

The only truth here is about Maharaji. What he's done and what he's up to. Of course, premies won't agree with our version but some do after a while and the ones who disagree can be as vocal as they like in their rejection of our revelations about Maharaji.

I wasn't talking about knowledge or meditation. Practically everyone who's ever tried it has had a different experience. Whether it made some people 'feel closer to God' or not is entirely a personal subjective experience and I don't think I can comment on someone elses experience of that.

The only comment I can make with any certainty is that meditational experiences don't come from Maharaji, any more than the weather does.

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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 20:55:28 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Sir Dave
Subject: That's a difference without a distinction
Message:
Whether it made some people 'feel closer to God' or not is entirely a personal subjective experience and I don't think I can comment on someone elses experience of that.

The only comment I can make with any certainty is that meditational experiences don't come from Maharaji, any more than the weather does.

God? Maharaji? What's the difference? How can you, on the one hand, opine on the validity of someone's claim that the meditation makes people feel claim that the meditation has something to do with an inner connection to Maharaji but not if you substitute the word 'God' for 'Maharaji'? They're both imaginary friends, as far as I'm concerned. There's certainly no difference in my or anyone voicing their opinion as to the likelihood of such inner connections actually taking place no matter which one we're talking about.

As delicate as it may be for some folks, the fact is that the Maharaji question does indeed lead into the God question. There's no clear dividing line between the two, as far as I can tell. Yes, they're different issues but they're strongly connected. Many exes, like myself, have found themselves rejecting all religious myths, not just those about Maharaji specifically. It's a natural progression for many and there's no harm discussing it.

Sometimes God-believing exes or others suggest that atheistic exes have thrown out the baby with the bathwater. The problem I have is that I've looked in the tub and there's no baby. Not that I wanted to throw it out, it just wasn't there. Now, you might say the baby's there, I just don't see it. Fine, that's your opinion. But mine is that the baby's all part of the myth and I have to save nothing. More precisely, there's nothing to save.

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Date: Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 00:13:28 (GMT)
From: Sir Dave
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: That's a difference without a distinction
Message:
I'm partly in agreement because I'm agnostic but of course, I'd also be open to the possibility that there is a God of some sort. Such are the 'don't knows'.

Maharaji needn't come into the equation about whether God exists any more than Sai Baba or Moses David need come into the equation. It's just been imprinted on us that Maharaji has something to do with God. Throw away the imprint and the possibility of improbability of God is still there, regardless of whether Maharaji ever existed or not.

I accept that there appears to be no baby in the bathwater. Also, much of our society's beliefs in God are based upon old stories and legends. Atheism looks like a sensible thing, which it is.

But some of us just happen to still think there might be something else, beyond what we perceive at the moment. That's not so stupid either.

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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 21:24:38 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: grammar check
Message:
Preacher Jim wrote:

How can you, on the one hand, opine on the validity of someone's claim that the meditation makes people feel claim that the meditation has something to do with an inner connection to Maharaji but not if you substitute the word 'God' for 'Maharaji'? ... There's certainly no difference in my or anyone voicing their opinion as to the likelihood of such inner connections actually taking place no matter which one we're talking about. ...

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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 21:29:15 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: G
Subject: Why, THANK you, G!
Message:
Yes, well done. Obviously, I'd revised a sentence but forgotten to take out the old part, that being, 'makes people feel claim that the meditation'.

Thanks for showing me pointing that out my mistake.

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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 10:01:19 (GMT)
From: Zelda
Email: None
To: Sir Dave
Subject: Sir Dave- I think that NT
Message:
NT
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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 09:49:54 (GMT)
From: Brucie
Email: None
To: Sir
Subject: KNot here thank you very much
Message:
if Adulf HILLER had a pee on...?
E .....I....E.....I....ooooooooooooooooooo
Now I realize that, this, is 2 deep for you guys butt...
remember the movie 'charly
..;;..''////;''/l
thatthatisisthatthatisn'tisn'tisthatit ???
and Charlie says punctuate...!
THAT,
THAT IS.
IS.
DOTCOM
THAT.
THAT ISN'T.
ISN'T.
IS THAT IT????????
IT IS...........
NOW REMEMBER THE ALAMO OR TRY A DIFFERENT POEM.
THANK YOU VERY MUCH..SENT THE CARDS AND LETTERS 2 PREFACE.NET
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Date: Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 23:53:52 (GMT)
From: gErRy
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Uh Oh Jim
Message:
In Luke 11:52, Jesus rebukes the Pharisees of his day saying:

'Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered.'

Maybe mushroomanananda is right...(snicker)

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Date: Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 18:58:14 (GMT)
From: Sir Lewis Morris
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: Tolerance
Message:
Actually, Lewis died in 1907, but he's left a poem I'm sure everyone here will enjoy in parts.

Premies will take a peculiar delight in the first three stanzas. And should any ex fail to find pleasure there, the second half will make ample repayment, of that I am sure!

Ladies and Gentlemen, I commend to you a poem for this place

Tolerance

Call no faith false which e'er has brought
Relief to any laden life,
Cessation from the pain of thought,
Refreshment 'mid the dust of strife.

What though the thing to which they kneel
Be dumb and dead as wood or stone,
Though all the rapture which they feel
Be for the worshipper alone ?

They worship, they adore, they bow
Before the Ineffable Source, before
The hidden soul of good; and thou,
With all thy wit, what dost thou more ?

Kneel with them, only if there come
Some zealot or sleek knave who strives
To mar the sanctities of home,
To tear asunder wedded lives;

Or who by subtle wile has sought,
By shameful promise, shameful threat,
To turn the thinker from his thought,
To efface the eternal landmarks set

'Twixt faith and knowledge; hold not peace
For such, but like a sudden flame
Let loose thy scorn on him, nor cease
Till thou hast cover'd him with shame.


What a treat! It's worth a remark that 'sleek' has as one of its meanings 'unctuous' as in slippery or greasy.

JohnT

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Date: Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 19:37:58 (GMT)
From: cq
Email: None
To: Sir Lewis Morris
Subject: 'the thing to which they kneel'
Message:
As for 'eternal landmarks set 'twixt faith and knowledge', try this one here: (WARNING - you'll be shocked, it's a quote 'religious' site) http://www.godhatesfags.com/faq/

'Call no faith false which e'er has brought
Relief to any laden life ...'

Oh yeah?

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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 00:12:02 (GMT)
From: Gabriel Golden
Email: ggolden@planetarymotion.net
To: cq
Subject: Whoever smelt it dealt it ...
Message:
In re Fred Phelps:

Never has there been a clearer case of a man just aching to suck cock.

Not that there's anything wrong with that ... =8-)

GG

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Date: Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 15:22:06 (GMT)
From: cq
Email: None
To: Gabriel Golden and JohnT
Subject: Whoever smelt it dealt it ...
Message:
You mean the same Fred Phelps who said:

'She's a famous, promiscuous whore, Elizabeth Taylor. Second only nowadays, to Princess Diana. Though we've got big signs now, state of the art, color, with her face on it, that says, 'Royal Whore, in hell'.'

Blimey. And all this under the umbrella of religion.

Was Morris suggesting we tolerate this kind of stuff, John?

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Date: Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 20:52:02 (GMT)
From: JohnT
Email: None
To: cq
Subject: 'eternal landmarks'
Message:
I'd say that nasty bunch of wicked theists were exactly

'(effacing) the eternal landmarks set
'Twixt faith and knowledge; ... '

They're not reasoning in a well-informed and knowledgeable manner. Their 'faith' gives all the answers their closed minds need. But they try to pass those off as some kind of real knowledge of how things are.

Just like premies, but more obviously up to no good.


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Date: Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 15:34:04 (GMT)
From: cq
Email: None
To: JohnT
Subject: 'eternal landmarks'
Message:
'Call no faith false which e'er has brought ... Cessation from the pain of thought'

Premies continue to indulge in their adolation of the Maha precisely as a consequence of the fact that thinking about it brings them pain.

They might THINK they're being true to themselves, but
that's never been a criterion for judgement as to whether the object of their faith is true or false.

Morris' poem sounds great, ... until you think a little deeper about what he's saying (in my ever-so humble opinion!)

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Date: Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 20:23:48 (GMT)
From: JohnT
Email: None
To: cq
Subject: I can dig it.
Message:
The way I read that piece, it starts off with a hook - an innocent appeal so broad it that religionists lap it up. Lewis tightens the noose around his prey almost with each line.

True, he does not talk about the pernicious effects of organised religion at the begining. He paints a picture of simple and happy delusion comforting a hard and dusty life. He may have had in mind rural labourers of 19th Century England. Sophisticates, he says, leave these people their ignorant bliss.

But the second half goes on to qualify this appeal for 'Tolerance'. The ground shifts imperceptibly with the words

Kneel with them, only if there come

Imperceptibly, because that only means unless - but the reader does not notice at first.

The hapless believer continues to drink in the poem which then goes on to prescribe no-go areas for religion. And these no go areas are

1) A person's home life
2) A person's relationships - those one is 'wedded' to, poetically speaking, of course
3) Religion must not discourage independant thought
4) Religious faith must not claim real knowledge - its province is faith, and it must stay there.

If a zealot or sleek knave attempts to foist his faith derived certainties onto the rest of us in any of these areas we are enjoined in the name of Tolerance as follows:

... ... ... ... ; hold not peace
For such, but like a sudden flame
Ler loose thy scorn on him, nor cease
Till thou hast cover'd him with shame.

It was probably written around 1870 and seems, in the enlightened spirit of Victorian science, to want to put religion or 'faith' firmly in its place. Poetry can be very powerful. I reckon this one helped the Victorian rationalists get the Church out of secular society and into irrelevance.

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Date: Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 18:51:16 (GMT)
From: Joe
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: Maharaji And Human Relationships, Etc.
Message:
Here is another quote from BM (haven't heard that in awhile, but it used to be popular). I remember listening to Maharaji tell this story on more than one occasion. It is illustrative of a number of wonderful things that Maharaji used to try to indoctrinate his devotees with, including:

1. You are supposed to dedicate your life to him 100%;
2. Human relationships are just part of the 'world' and get in the way or 100% dedication, which is the purpose of your life, and are a form of 'entrappment';
3. If you move into his ashram you shouldn't ever move out, even if you fall in love and want to get married;
4. It's all Maharaji's 'grace' that 'saves' us from our own minds, which is your very own devil living inside you.

What do you think of this? God, no wonder we were all so screwed up and most premies still are. This is Maharaji around 1978:

The Premie who decided to get married

Mind lulls us away into something, but everything's here, like that example, that story of this premie who came to Guru Maharaj Ji's ashram to dedicate his life.... He moved into Guru Maharaj Ji's ashram and stayed there and he would do service every day. One day he decided he wanted to go off and get married.

And to me it's so real; Guru Maharaj Ji's Grace, saving us every moment. He went off to be married. And in the Indian marriage custom the bridegroom rides a horse to the bride's house and picks her up there. There's where the whole ceremony happens.

And Guru Maharaj Ji - all these devotees wanted to go to his marriage, too. All the brothers who were in the ashram - 'ashram mates', I guess - wanted to go there. I don't know. Probably another excuse. Nothing much. Guru Maharaj Ji was there. What's in a marriage being performed? Seeing another creature getting entrapped, perhaps.

They went off and Guru Maharaj Ji handed them a letter and said, 'Listen. Give this letter to him, but wait until just before he hops on his horse to go to the bride's house' - because that's were the final ceremony happens. 'Give this letter to him.'

And just as he was ready to ride the horse, they came and handed him the letter. 'There is a letter from Guru Maharaj Ji'.

And he was pleased. 'Oh, how fantastic. Guru Maharaj Ji remembered me.' And probably in his concepts he was thinking that Guru Maharaj Ji has probably said, 'Congratulations. Have a nice marriage,' or something like that - what he really wanted to hear, I guess.

But he opened up the letter and it didn't say that at all. What it said is you came into this world to surrender to me, to completely focus yourself on me, to completely let go to me. And now you are wearing this whole costume of a bridegroom, and are going to get entrapped into this world. You came to get away from this world and now you're going right back into this world. You came from that place of misery to an incredible satisfaction and now you're going back to misery.

And I guess it really did him in. It was 'the right place at the right time,' plus a lot of Grace from Guru Maharaj Ji. He really realized. He took his horse and headed right to the ashram. And he went there and then he really realized, he really could see.

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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 17:08:14 (GMT)
From: SB
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: Maharaji And Human Relationships, Etc.
Message:
Thanks for reminding me of the human relationships Lard ruined in my life. Lard inculcated to us clearly that relationships were not good. Few months after I received K I got married to a non-premie and ended my marriage a while later because he 'wouldn't convert'. My first husband was a beautiful person and I left him because of Lard's propositions of 'total dedication' to him. The pig...

How can Lard now wash his hands; is impossible.

Thanks for your post!

S

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Date: Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 22:30:46 (GMT)
From: BIll
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: Maharaji versus Human Relationships
Message:
Thank you Joe, I remember when I was approaching getting married,
I had to remove sentence after sentence that had me walled in.

This exerpt is a key one.
About 2 hours ago I was making a pile of stuff to send you and one of the things is right from that era.

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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 02:06:37 (GMT)
From: Anyone else remember
Email: None
To: BIll
Subject: Maharaji versus Human Relationships
Message:
Maharaji giving Randy Prouty and Ellie H. agya to separate!

I guess he needed his penny stock broker close by at all times.

;-)

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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 13:28:22 (GMT)
From: bill
Email: None
To: Anyone else remember
Subject: Maharaji versus Human Relationships
Message:
I know he told barbara Kolodny and Mike Donner to break up.
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Date: Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 19:09:48 (GMT)
From: Joe
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: The Effect on Premies In Relationships.....
Message:
It didn't happen to me personally, but I have heard plenty of stories from, especially female premies, who were in relationships premie 'brothers' and who said they were always being put down by their partners as something that was preventing them from dedicating their lives to Maharaji. I assume there were probably 'sisters' who felt the same way. Perhaps children were even resented by their own parents for being little 'entrappments' themselves?

I think it's probably hard to calculate the amount of damage caused to many people by this this kind of bullshit Maharaji (not God, only the physical manifestation of God) preached.

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Date: Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 23:19:54 (GMT)
From: TD
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: How was M's own marriage reconciled with this...
Message:
...kind of statement by ashram premies? At the time, I imagine it was accepted coz he was the Lard and could do anything, but it probably fucked even more with premie's heads. On the one hand they're being told that marriage is an entrapment, but then M goes on to do the very same thing himself.

I wonder why this didn't feature in the Q and A section on EV's website?

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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 00:08:35 (GMT)
From: Joe
Email: None
To: TD
Subject: How was M's own marriage reconciled with this...
Message:
I remember when Maharaji got married in 1974. The premies knew nothing about it and it was only announced after it happened. I remember being very surprised, because Maharaji was only 16 and because I just didn't see him as an adult, which he wasn't. I was off in the Midwest living in an ashram, while Maharaji was living it up in LA.

I think some premies did flip out and leave. I think some ashram premies took this as a cue to leave the ashram, but only if they were getting married. They, of course, were made to feel guilty about this in years to come. But I think this was relatively few. I only knew one couple that did that. There was another exodus into family life in 1976 when there was a bit of a renaissance from Maharaji's preaching fear and self-loathing, but that ended big time by 1977 when the dark period really began.

I think most premies chocked Maharaji's marriage up just like everything else when it came to Maharaji. Maharaji was a lotus, he lived in the world, but the world didn't touch him, so he could do anything he wanted and he was exempt from any rules or regulations. Since he wasn't 'attached' to anything in the world, he could play in it freely. [Funny how Elan Vital still talks about it being okay for Maharaji to be rich if he isn't 'attached.' Some concepts just continue.] Of couse, WE had to be constantly terrified that we would get entrapped by the world, and relationships and sex were by far the worst thing to be afraid of, as Maharaji warned us in this story.

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Date: Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 22:44:47 (GMT)
From: bill
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: ownership
Message:
Be like a child Your questions and doubts will go away. Because these questions and doubts are not from you. these questions and doubts, how can they be from you? YOU ARE MINE!
sept 30 78
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Date: Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 18:27:32 (GMT)
From: Gabriel Golden
Email: ggolden@planetarymotion.net
To: Everyone
Subject: Ex-spouse still a premie
Message:
Hi everyone,

What a refreshing breath of fresh air to discover this forum and Web site!

Between 1990 and 1992, I was married to an Australian premie (I'm Amercian), and lived in Australia. I was very curious about M and his K, attended quite a few video meetings, met quite a few 'old-school' premies, etc, but something in me always resisted taking the plunge. In retrospect, I see that something as being the healthier side of my nature, but I came close enough to appreciate what many of you surely have experienced in leaving M.

Subsequent to my failed marriage, I have continued to pursue 'knowledge' (NOT M's brand of it) of life and human nature, and have come to a number of conclusions I wanted to share with this community:

1.) The most far out, 'spiritual,' loving, precious, sublime experiences of consciousness are products of the MIND and its chemicals. There is nothing inherently wrong with this; what does it mean to be really into your work, or to fall in love?

2.) There is no God, either of the traditional stripe or the vague, 'vast energy field' variety. We have ourselves and each other, and the only relationships that count are of the interpersonal variety, not the worshipping-from-afar kind.

3.) You are alone. Yes, YOU. That is a depressing fact, but a true one. So make friends with the notion! Meaning: ACCEPT it. Acceptance offers the keys to the Magic Kingdom.

To the best of my knowledge, my ex is living on a ranch/station somewhere in remote Australia and, as mentioned, is still a premie. She would now be 50 years old, and she still hasn't learned. Heaven help her. Heaven help all those who, in their quite natural and noble desire for levity and enlightenment, make the mistake of thinking that the experience comes from somewhere other than 'themselves.'

Just my $0.02 ...
Gabriel

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Date: Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 23:10:43 (GMT)
From: TD
Email: None
To: Gabriel Golden
Subject: Thanks Golden Gabe
Message:
...for your post and your insights. Like Zelda too, my ex is still a premie (has been for 26 years - god help him!) and I don't know how anyone can sustain a healthy relationship with someone who is effectively in a cult, and worships someone outside the relationship. It's a menage a trois!

You did well, not getting sucked into premiedom because of the love for your partner, and saved yourself a lot of grief I'm sure.

I agree on the whole with your conclusions. Finding enjoyment in what you do workwise, being in love, having a good laugh, great food and grog, and great experiences when you travel or stay at home is what to me, makes me feel alive and to use a tacky new-age phrase 'at one with the ole world'. Nothing as a premie came close to that. Oh apart from the odd recreational drug experience, but that's another story.

I now reject anything anyone tells me about a so-called 'spiritual' experience or state with a fair amount of skepticism, as unless it happens to me too, then it's totally a subjective experience, and I reckon a lot of wishful thinking on their part, or the person is, in a way, trying to make out that they are better than me, because of their spooky tales that only they may feel they are privy too. My general rule is that if it happens to me I'll believe it - until then, I won't. (Hey, what's that alien doing at the door with that big anal probe in his hand??) And if anything does happen to me, well then I'll accept it (to use your words) as a mystery of life (that may or may not have a plausible explanation yet) but not make too big a deal out of it, but put it down to another experience of life that I should probably investigate or deduce an answer to.

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Date: Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 19:48:50 (GMT)
From: cq
Email: None
To: Gabriel Golden
Subject: Hooray! She owe you anything, Hornblower?
Message:
Sorry, sorry, sorry for the terrible play on words there, Gabriel. You know how it is, - I felt I just HAD to.

Anyway, welcome on board the life-raft. We're all shipwrecks here (in the mind of the premies at least) but there's one hell of a lot of fun to be had in watching the Perfect Pirate (i.e. the Maha, in case you hadn't guessed) slowly taking one small step after the other towards walking the plank.

You're right you know. There is no God.

And heaven help us.

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Date: Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 18:54:33 (GMT)
From: Way
Email: None
To: Gabriel Golden
Subject: Ex-spouse still a premie
Message:
GG,

Is that the name you were given at birth? If so, I suspect you have a history of religious instruction beyond the guru videos. Congratulations on your three conclusions. It must be nice to have the universe so neatly wrapped up. I wonder what brain chemistry it takes to close up a mind so tightly within its own limitations. Many ex-premies share your viewpoint, others do not. Thanks for your comments (sincerely).

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Date: Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 19:38:19 (GMT)
From: Zelda
Email: None
To: GG
Subject: about this god thing...
Message:
Hello Gabriel

since you put it so nice, I thought I would ask something that I never do.
What you say about there being no God - do you have with that a view on how we got here- how the universe keeps in relative order and especially out of all those dots in the sky, we are on this lone lorn plannet?
Are you saying that the existence of conception and birth is a thing of science or what??
This may not be the right thing to spring on a new comer but the way you wrote your post prompted it.

BTW my ex is still a premie and and I pray to god if there is one that he would go to some outback in Austrailia and stop acting Holy at me.

nice of you to drop by
Zelda

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Date: Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 16:46:22 (GMT)
From: Jerry
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: To G. More on consciousness
Message:
I would speculate that there is a process that occurs in a multi-dimensional space that includes space/time but 'larger' than space/time and that nonlocality is involved.

That's a hell of a speculation. On what grounds are you making it? Just because you can't fathom how the color red is part of a material universe? Well, guess what, it is. It's here, isn't it?

What about the qualitative aspects, how could red be made of material particles? What would the mechanics be? Any ideas?

The color red exists because of how we are built to interpret electromagnetic waves. It doesn't exist on it's own. And as I've said, all the mechanics are yet to be discovered. Unlike you, I see no reason to go multi-dimensional or start thinking in terms of non-locality. If we couldn't see the color red in this dimension, I might say you could be onto something, but since we can, I don't think you are. I think you're reaching further than currently should be.

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Date: Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 18:48:17 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: Jerry
Subject: More on consciousness
Message:

G:
I would speculate that there is a process that occurs in a multi-dimensional space that includes space/time but 'larger' than space/time and that nonlocality is involved.

Jerry:
That's a hell of a speculation. On what grounds are you making it? Just because you can't fathom how the color red is part of a material universe? Well, guess what, it is. It's here, isn't it?

I've already told you on what grounds, because of the simultaneous experience of a vast amount of qualia. I did qualify it with the word speculation. You however do not qualify your theory as speculation. What 'It's here' really means is that it's part of our subjective experience. Yes it is, but that does not mean it's made of material particles. You're trying to prove your theory by assuming it.

The color red exists because of how we are built to interpret electromagnetic waves. It doesn't exist on it's own.

How do you know? Prove it. That's not an explanation and you can't prove your theory simply by emphatically stating it as true. Maybe bats perceive distance as color, as Dawkins speculated. Also consider synethesia. You can't just reduce color to its function, there's more to it than that.

And as I've said, all the mechanics are yet to be discovered.

Meaning what? That the material mechanics that you assume totally explain it will be discovered? You're soothsaying again. That's like saying 'You just wait, you'll see, they'll prove me right, I just know it.'

Unlike you, I see no reason to go multi-dimensional or start thinking in terms of non-locality.

Obviously not, what's your point? Btw, there is empirical evidence for non-locality and non-locality has profound implications.

If we couldn't see the color red in this dimension, I might say you could be onto something, but since we can, I don't think you are. I think you're reaching further than currently should be.

In what dimension? We see color placed in our subjective experience of space. Are you equating subjective space with material space? They are not the same thing. Consider the taste experiment where they numbed half of a person's tongue and what they found out. Consider hallucinations where the sense of space is distorted or where color is perceived. Also, by dimension, I don't just mean dimension in the sense of a distance dimension.

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Date: Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 21:37:19 (GMT)
From: Jerry
Email: None
To: G
Subject: More on consciousness
Message:
G,

The fact that we can be simultaneiously aware of vast amounts of qualia, simultaneously, doesn't mean jack. As I've stated before, the brain is a multi-processing mechanism. You agree, but you have this thing about material versus consciousness. You think because the brain is 3 pounds of grey matter, it's inconceivable how consciousness could rise from it. But, time and again, when the brain is damaged, through loss of oxygen, or a severe blow, consciousness is lost. Explain that one to me.

All synesthesia is is confusion in the brain processing information from the senses. Read Oliver Sachs and his adventures in this area if you want to learn more. Antonio DiMassio has studied it in detail, also. I don't understand why you brought it up. It doesn't help your case at all, and may help mine. It only goes to show that what we're aware of depends on how the brain processes information.

I can't believe you asked me to prove that the color red exists because of our interpretation of electromagnetic rays. I'm not the one who said it. This is what scientists have discovered. If color exists of it's own accord, without a need for a representation of it created in our visual cortex based on our eyes translation of light into chemical messages, that's news to me.

Btw, there is empirical evidence for non-locality and non-locality has profound implications.

I don't know much about this non-local stuff, but I believe it's all happening in quantum theory, right? The new ager's best friend. However, I know of no philosopher, or scientist (except Penrose), who is examining consciousness in this light. And who the fuck can understand him? But humor me, G. How does non-locality suggest that consciousness is a non-local phenomena?

In what dimension?

In our dimension, G. You know, the one we live in? The one we're AWARE of?

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Date: Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 23:33:55 (GMT)
From: Jerry
Email: None
To: Jerry
Subject: One clarification
Message:
When I said all the mechanics are yet to be discovered, I was talking about consciousness of red, not red, itself. Scientists have pretty much figured out the mechanics on what transpires in the eyes and brain when we see color, but they haven't figured out the mechanics of how it is we're conscious of it. But like you've said, just you wait and see. Not very scientific, I know, but ask me if I care. If I thought you cared about being honest on this subject, I might, but I'm beginning to wonder. Your whole argument sounds like a crock of shit. Non-local, multi-dimensional. Give me a fucking break.
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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 00:00:39 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: Jerry
Subject: One clarification
Message:

When I said all the mechanics are yet to be discovered, I was talking about consciousness of red, not red, itself.

There is no red out there, just wavelengths of light.

Scientists have pretty much figured out the mechanics on what transpires in the eyes and brain when we see color, but they haven't figured out the mechanics of how it is we're conscious of it.

If they've pretty much figured out the mechanics and still cannot explain how we're conscious of color, then how can you say there's not also something else involved? You just strengthened my case.

But like you've said, just you wait and see.

I didn't say that, you said it. Maybe you should get a job reading tarot cards.

Not very scientific, I know, but ask me if I care.

Ok, do you care?

If I thought you cared about being honest on this subject, I might, but I'm beginning to wonder.

Empty words. I'm being very honest about it.

Your whole argument sounds like a crock of shit. Non-local, multi-dimensional. Give me a fucking break.

I must be getting to you. Those are just emotional statements. Simply because you can't understand what I'm saying doesn't mean jack. Btw, you're the one who brought it up.
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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 00:50:01 (GMT)
From: Jerry
Email: None
To: G
Subject: One clarification
Message:
I must be getting to you. Those are just emotional statements.

Yes you are. I think you're just dodging bullets. I don't see an effort, on your part, to look at this honestly, like your remark in your last post where you asked me what do I mean by a loss of consciousness, 'that the person was unresponsive to his environment'? I meant loss of consciousness, no awareness. And that's ALL I meant. You need me to elaborate on that? Get serious.

Simply because you can't understand what I'm saying doesn't mean jack.

I understand you, G. I've read up a little on quantum theory. Of course, I'm not an expert on the subject, LIKE YOU, but I get the picture. Just because things act strangely on the quantum level doesn't mean that practical observations have to be abandoned; like how consciousness is OBVIOUSLY present only in those who's brains are functioning properly. Gee (not G), you know, silly me thinks that that might indicate that consciousness is dependent upon the brain. What a strange idea, huh?

Btw, you're the one who brought it up.

I'm almost sorry I did.

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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 01:45:15 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: Jerry
Subject: One clarification
Message:

I meant loss of consciousness, no awareness.

Prove that there is 'no awareness' without using unresponsiveness, lack of memory, or subjective sense of time as criteria to measure awareness. That's looking at it from a viewpoint outside the person's awareness, from the viewpoint that the material world is the absolute reality, that it should be the measuring stick. It also assumes that awareness can be measured.
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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 03:36:06 (GMT)
From: Jerry
Email: None
To: G
Subject: You're getting ridiculous
Message:
Let me ask you this. Why would you assume that consciousness exists in a person rendered 'unconscious', only they just can't remember that's what they were? What you're saying, in essense, is that while a person is 'unconscious', they're really not. They just don't remember anything during their 'unresponsive' state. And you want to talk to me about being unscientific? Go fuck yourself.
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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 04:05:30 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: Jerry
Subject: No, that's not what I'm saying
Message:
I'm saying that awareness is not within material space and time and cannot be judged from an material viewpoint. Your conclusion is based on materialistic assumptions, you think that consciousness has to be in physical time. You're hung up on this notion of nothingness. There's no such thing.

You have no proof of your vague unscientific theory so I see absolutely no reason to believe it.

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Date: Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 23:33:34 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: Jerry
Subject: More on consciousness
Message:
Jerry,

The fact that we can be simultaneiously aware of vast amounts of qualia, simultaneously, doesn't mean jack.

I disagree. You haven't shown that the multi-processing mechanism of the brain can produce, by itself, simultaneous awareness of a vast amount of qualia. That is a vague theory that needs detail and needs to be proven. Simultaneous implies instantaneous, no time delay, and therefore suggests nonlocality.

'material versus consciousness'? This is not a war.

By 'consciousness is lost', you mean what, that the person is unresponsive to their environment? So what? I don't have to explain anything about that. How does that prove that consciousness is material?

All synesthesia is is confusion in the brain processing information from the senses.

I brought up synesthesia to illustrate that the color red is not simply what it is for and it doesn't help your case at all.

I can't believe you asked me to prove that the color red exists because of our interpretation of electromagnetic rays. I'm not the one who said it. This is what scientists have discovered.

The color red is triggered by neural processing, I'm well aware of that. That does not show that the neural processing creates the existence of the color red. It is up to you to prove it, it is not up to me to disprove it. Color can be experienced during hallucinations, so a translation of light is not needed.

I don't know much about this non-local stuff, but I believe it's all happening in quantum theory, right? The new ager's best friend.

There is empirical evidence for both nonlocality and quantum theory, and you don't know much about it, yet you want to dismiss it as 'stuff', as the 'new ager's best friend'. Why? This is irrational. Define 'new ager'.

However, I know of no philosopher, or scientist (except Penrose), who is examining consciousness in this light. And who the fuck can understand him?

Penrose, one of the greatest scientists, is not the only scientist or philosopher examining consciousness in this light. You cannot understand him.

But humor me, G. How does non-locality suggest that consciousness is a non-local phenomena?

I'm not writing this for your amusement. It's simultaneous awareness of qualia that suggests that consciousness is a nonlocal phenomena.

From Quantum Nonlocality:


Nature has shown us that our concept of reality, consisting of units that can be considered as separate from each other, is fundamentally wrong. For this reason, Bell's theorem may be the most profound discovery of science. (Kafatos and Kafatou, 1991, 64-65).

In our dimension, G. You know, the one we live in? The one we're AWARE of?

You omitted what I wrote. I pointed out that qualia are experienced within our subjective experience of space and time, which is not the same as material time and space. So you cannot conclude from that that qualia are made of material particles in space/time.
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Date: Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 19:32:41 (GMT)
From: Jerry
Email: None
To: G
Subject: More on consciousness
Message:
With some reluctance, I am responding to this post. I had actually lost a long reply a couple of days ago, and just didn't care to type it all over again. But, here goes, although I have to admit, I'm beginning to find this tiresome, due to your outlandish replies, like this one:

Simultaneous implies instantaneous, no time delay, and therefore suggests nonlocality.

How's that, G? Just because things happen at once it has to be nonlocal to where it's happening? How do you figure?

I brought up synesthesia to illustrate that the color red is not simply what it is for and it doesn't help your case at all.

Oh, yes it does, G. If auditory stimuli is wrongly being routed to the visual cortex, and we 'see' sound, or visual stimuli gets routed to the auditory cortex, and we 'hear' colors, that would indicate that there is a correlation between the brain and conscious experience. So, how does this not help my case?

The color red is triggered by neural processing, I'm well aware of that. That does not show that the neural processing creates the existence of the color red.

If you mean 'consiousness' of the color red, you might be right. At this point, nobody really knows.

It is up to you to prove it, it is not up to me to disprove it.

It's not up to me to prove anything, G, just to provide evidence for why I think the way I do. You on the other hand have no evidence at all for thinking the way you do. How nonlocality of subatomic particles provides evidence that consciousness, too, is nonlocal is beyond me. All that says to me is that particles behave in strange ways. And G, these are particles we're talking about, you know, matter? Why are you using the behaviour of matter to provide evidence that consciousnous is immaterial? Does that make sense?

Color can be experienced during hallucinations, so a translation of light is not needed.

But a visual cortex (brain) is.

There is empirical evidence for both nonlocality and quantum theory, and you don't know much about it, yet you want to dismiss it as 'stuff', as the 'new ager's best friend'. Why? This is irrational.

I dismiss it as 'stuff', because I don't see how the behaviour of subatomic particles provides evidence that consciousness is a nonlocal, immaterial phenomenon. It seems absurd to me to try to make a such a connection.

Define 'new ager'.

A new ager is someone who's philosopy is rooted in a combination of eastern mysticism and western occult. They dismiss science when it provides evidence that their beliefs are bunk, such as the evidence provided against astrology or psi, where they make all kinds of excuses why the experiments failed, but use science to their advantage, in the flimsiest of manners, if it provides, what they believe, is evidence for their philosophy, such as the behaviour of subatomic particles somehow providing evidence that consciousness is a nonlocal, immaterial phenomenon, not of this world. Bunk!

Penrose, one of the greatest scientists, is not the only scientist or philosopher examining consciousness in this light. You cannot understand him.

I could understand Penrose, if I took the time to. He just doesn't target a curious public with his theories, just his colleagues, of which I am not one. So, fuck him. If he's not writing his books for me, I'm not paying good money to read them.

Nature has shown us that our concept of reality, consisting of units that can be considered as separate from each other, is fundamentally wrong. For this reason, Bell's theorem may be the most profound discovery of science. (Kafatos and Kafatou, 1991, 64-65).

And this quote is supposed to suggest to me that consciousness is nonlocal? Hey, G, if things aren't separate from each other, than maybe consciousness and the brain are the same thing. Ya think?

I pointed out that qualia are experienced within our subjective experience of space and time, which is not the same as material time and space. So you cannot conclude from that that qualia are made of material particles in space/time.

I never conclded anything. Nor have I ever suggested that material space and time are the same as subjective experience. I'm aware of the difference. All I'm saying is the subjective experience, most likely, exists in the brain. I'm just telling you why I think the way I do. I think I have good reason to think that way.

And I hope I don't lose this fucking post, because I'm not typing it again.

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Date: Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 20:05:41 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: Jerry
Subject: correction: synesthesia
Message:
synesthesia
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Date: Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 17:47:49 (GMT)
From: EddyTheTurtle
Email: None
To: Jerry
Subject: To G. More on consciousness
Message:
What are you talking about.....what thread are you refering to....Red is just a colour....if you want to know the Physics of red...its relatively simple....

Red objects reflect/emit light (e.m. radiation) of a specific wavelenth ( photons of a specific frequency and energy) ...when that falls on the retina...we 'see' the colour red....

As far as non-locatity and multi-dimensional universe...I dont know what u are talking about

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Date: Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 19:07:32 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: EddyTheTurtle
Subject: Red, purple, black
Message:
When 'red' wavelengths of light fall on the retina, they temporarily change the structure of rhodopsin molecules in photoreceptor cells. This triggers a complicated process that leads to neural processing the optic area of the brain. But how that triggers the experience of red is not known.

There are no wavelengths of light that correspond to black and certain shades of purple. What about them?

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Date: Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 20:42:01 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: EddyTheTurtle
Subject: nonlocality
Message:
For information on nonlocality, see

Quantum Nonlocality

Links on Quantum Information

Regarding empirical evidence for nonlocality:

Another Version of Quantum Teleportation

Nonlocality gets more real

By multi-dimensional, what I really meant was having more dimensions than just the four dimensions of space and time. For example, physicists speculate that the material universe may be 11-dimensional, 13-dimensional, 26-dimensional, or whatever-dimensional. They have good reasons for these speculations. However, I'm not trying to relate my speculation to their theories, that's just to illustrate what I meant. Also, my speculation is just that, speculation.

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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 03:26:43 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: all
Subject: Online papers on consciousness
Message:
In a list of Online papers on consciousness, there is a paper called The Nonlocality of Mind.
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Date: Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 15:06:01 (GMT)
From: JTF
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: Rawat and O.J.
Message:
Anyone who reads the evidence presented here at ex-premie.org and does any research into cults in general can only come to the conclusion that rawat is running a cheap dime/dozen scam. As in the O.J. trial, you might be able to dismiss some of the evidence against the former lord of the universe but not the totality....too many coincidences just like the O.J.crime.

I just felt this needs to be pointed out here every so often.

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Date: Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 16:26:38 (GMT)
From: Way
Email: None
To: JTF
Subject: Rawat and O.J., and their lackeys
Message:
I have sometimes noticed a certain physical similarity between these two con-artists - a facial expression of powerful magalomania. The gait is similar as well. They command constant attention.

Both these people have the power to attract lackeys. OJ's lawyers were obviously motivated by their desire to share in the spotlight and leach off some of the supposed power. M's PAM's are the same.

I know one PAM very well. He has given up his entire personal life and personal power for the last twenty five years. He thinks he occupies an extremely privileged position and gains all his gratification from that supposed exhaulted status. He is literally at Rawat's beck and call, night and day. He has admitted to me that he regrets the lack of normalcy in his life, particularly the lack of romance, and music (he is an extremely talently musician). He is now nearly 50 years old and I think it is so pathethic, but all I can do is hope that he breaks free one day.

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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 09:55:59 (GMT)
From: JTF
Email: None
To: Way
Subject: Re: premie friends still trapped in the cult
Message:
Hi-

I'd be very interested in hearing your opinion of how to deal with these friends still hopelessly lost. I've gone back and forth on the issue. Currently, my thinking is that while I'm quite willing to talk about it, I should not press the issue because I am no more a savior that rawat. I have a very good friend who recently escaped. Prior to his deciding that something was very fucked up about rawat & stooges, I had refrained from giving my opinion. Once he expressed himself to me, it became very enjoyable to tell him how I felt.

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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 14:47:19 (GMT)
From: Way
Email: None
To: JTF
Subject: Re: premie friends still trapped in the cult
Message:
JTF,

I agree with your sentiments about old friends, best to talk only when they are open to discussion. I will not criticise Rawat to my own personal friends who still honor him, unless they say they are open to a blunt discussion.

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Date: Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 09:21:56 (GMT)
From: buzz
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: 9 tecniques?
Message:
reading some of the forum archives i noticed 1 or 2 about a mahatma that gave 9 tecniques in india.this was from mike addison i think.
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Date: Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 10:36:06 (GMT)
From: Happy
Email: None
To: buzz
Subject: 9 techniques, 5 names
Message:
Hi Buzz,

I enclose below some posts dated Jan 26 this year, in which the 9 technique issue, and the five names as thought within the Beas branch of the Radhasoamis are mentioned (note, not within the Agra branch, in which Swarupanand was a guru of one line. Altogether, there are still about 12 lines existing within the Radhasoami movement.)

As far as I have been able to find out, from digging into old papers about both the Radhasoamis and DLM, Hans Ji was a follower of Swarupanand in the 20s and 30s. During the 30s, he was spreading Swarupanand's 'teaching' in Punjab. When he was not chosen as Swarupanand's successor, he became disappointed and started his own guru business. He started centers in Northern India, the most important being the ashram Punjabi Bagh in Delhi, besides Prem Nagar in Hardwar, of course. DLM was first registered in Patna, Bihar, in 1960 under the name 'Divya Sandesh Parishad', i.e. the Divine Light Mission. How many techniques were taught before 1960 is not sure, but the 4-K package is clearly described at least in DLM texts from the beginning of the 1960s, so, the hypothesis (mentioned below) that the 4-K package was developed for Westerners cannot be accurate.

Some of Hans Ji's mahatmas were obviously converts from Radhasoami lineages teaching the repetition of one of five mantras ('5 names of God') in addition to meditating on the breath, and taught this in the initiations, something which DLM did not approve of.

Anyway, these are the posts discussing the 9 technique issue:

Ms K
Jan 26,2000
To G and everyone, as promised, here is part of the story from the archives where a person received nine meditation techniques from one of Shri Hans' Mahatmas. The person's name was Dr. Mike, but he's not any of the Mike's or Michael's who are posting on the forum right now. I've put some explanatory notes in brackets for anyone who isn't familiar with Maharaji's family history. Please note that Dr. Mike refers to Maharaji as 'Prempal' (his given name. I think there is more of this story in the archives, but maybe not. Dr. Mike had understandably mixed feelings about revealing the nine techniques - although he did say that five of them were breath techniques.
Dr. Mike wrote:
'I was initiated by Satyanand (one of the Mahatmas under Prempals [Maharaji’s] father [Shri Hans]...After the festival at Amherst [summer 1974](which was just after I graduated from High School), my parents gave me a ticket to where ever I wanted to go as a graduation present. Naturally I chose India. Some of my friends who'd also received the same type of present (some just got money which they put to their tickets) and I flew from New York to Delhi and spent what felt like forever on a bus to get to Prem Negar. When we got there, Bal Bhagwan [Maharaji’s older brother] was giving Satsang and we were given a place to stash our stuff and put our sleeping bags out. He was giving satsang in Hindi, so we just grooved on the energy (not knowing Hindi). The next day we were introduced to Mahatma Satyanand and listened to his Satsang for hours. My friends decided this 'Monk Life' wasn't for them and they left to go to a Rock Concert in Ganshipuri. I stayed around for a few weeks listening everyday to Satyanand for hours and doing service.'
'I really didn't request to receive Knowledge. Satyanand at one point of his satsang started to instruct me and I followed along. He taught nine techniques and quoted them from the Bramanand Gita. It was a looonnnnggg knowledge session compared to another knowledge session I sat in with JagDeo when I got back to the states. I thought that either JagDeo had forgotten or just gave an overview of the techniques. Anyway, Satyanand reviewed the techniques for several days with me. I also sat in on a knowledge session with Parlokanand back in the states and he had the same techniques as JagDeo exect just a wee bit different. Each state-side Mahatma taught a very shortened and abbreviated version of what Satyanand taught in India.)'
'I always found it curious that during the break-up of Mata-Ji [Maharaji’s mother] and Prempal, that Satyanand was one of the Mahatmas that Prempal named that he didn't want speaking in public. I spoke to Satyanand about this and the old guy said that it was orignally intended that premies would come and study an assortment of Astanga-Yoga (8 branch practices of Yoga) that had been collected by Shri Hans [Maharaji’s father] from various gurus and munis. That the Mahamas, who were teachers in their own right, from various Yoga traditions would be invited to teach their methods as well.'
'It was only after Prempal came into view that people started calling Shri Hans 'Bhagwan' (implying Lord of the Universe). Satyanand said that Shri Hans told them just to go with it and pay it no mind. However, when the snowball effect florished... a large amount of the old guys (mahatmas) were left behind in India rather than having the family confronted in front of Americans, and the idea of having an eclectic teaching center was forgotten altogether. A large amount of the old guys are dead now however, after DLM got rolling... they formed their own centers and said the hell with DLM. Some of them still exist today and when you ask those who know the entire episode... they sound a lot like Ex-Premies do now


Jean-Michel
Jan 26,.2000
This is from a post on one of the ex-satsangis websites:
The Radhasoami Beas five names are as follows:
JYOT NIRANJAN
OANKAAR
RARANKAAR
SOHANG
SATNAAM

From what I've understood reading (part of) the endless controversies and discussions on the ex-satsangi forums,
is that some 'masters' merely teach 'panch naam', some teach the 5 names, some only teach some of them, some are supposed to take you to some 'spiritual' places, some say it doesn't matter etc etc etc

Ms K (Katie)
Jan 26, 2000
I have tried to find a post in which Dr. Mike described the nine techniques, and I think the information was in an e-mail conversation we had. The basic idea was that 'so-hum' was just one of the original breath techniques that was taught - there were four more, and they were all based on different syllables (I guess these could be called mantras) 'heard' on different parts of the intake and outake of breath - supposedly resulting in feeling different things 'behind' the breath. Also, the light, music, and nectar techniques he was taught were much less simple that the ones we were taught.
I just think the whole story is really interesting. It very much contradicts the idea that the Big Four techniques were some secret and holy tradition that was passed down for generations. Also, it calls the whole 'Satguru' concept (that Maharaji and Shri Hans were the 'perfect masters of the age) into question. It really makes it sound like the Big Four techniques were packaged as a quick and easy way to teach 'knowledge' to ignorant westerners - ditto with the perfect master idea.

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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 01:44:13 (GMT)
From: sam
Email: -
To: Happy
Subject: 9 techniques, 5 names
Message:
But what are these techs? Could you describe how as has been done with m's techniques on net, or are they also secret. Do ex prems usually not show people m's techniques or tell everyone (if anyone wanted to know that is)-I guess it's probably an individual thing
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Date: Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 16:39:08 (GMT)
From: buzz
Email: None
To: Happy
Subject: 9 techniques, 5 names
Message:
hi happy thanks for that post very interesting.i was given a k review recently by one of satpal ji's baiji's and the holy name was very differantly taught much more like kriya yoga and the emphasis was on the ciculation of the prana around the spine with the sound and importantly the nectar tecnique had to be practiced with each tecnique,in kriya this is a very important tecnique to go into deep meditation,she told me that she recieved k. this way and has taught it this way for 20 years,i wanted to find out about this as i had suspicions we were not getting the full works because around 15 yrs ago i started doing kriya yoga through yogagnadas group and within the first day or two the whole experiance was very much more .i guess magnetic would be the best way to describe it,creating a very strong magnetic feild around the crown area which then intensified the light and music experience but ultimately gave an experience like one of those helium gas baloons. it was like pulling up and up in an expansive sort of way etc.there was no doubt that holy name practiced in the way this baiji taught was much more effective if one was looking for a more trippy type of experience rather than just being sent to sleep.
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Date: Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 17:50:31 (GMT)
From: EddyTheTurtle
Email: None
To: buzz
Subject: hope you have a nice buzz
Message:
hhh
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Date: Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 03:24:36 (GMT)
From: asbxd
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: Who is Chia Baba?
Message:
Answer: Chia Baba
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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 02:36:59 (GMT)
From: asbxd
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: And who is Sai Clown?
Message:
.
Answer here
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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 09:43:04 (GMT)
From: Sir Dave
Email: None
To: asbxd
Subject: My lawyers will be in touch, Roger
Message:
for blatant pirating of my idea which I stole off G and put on my Incarnations of God page.

By the way, check out the mpeg on Sai Baba's site (linked from my incarnations page) and you'll see how he performs a magic trick by putting a bauble in his mouth and spitting it out again to the amazement of his ecstatic devotees.

Truly this man is God, for he makes things appear out of thin air!

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Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 18:59:53 (GMT)
From: Salam
Email: None
To: Sir Dave
Subject: My lawyers will be in touch, Roger
Message:
I can not belive those idiots standing around him, totally ingrossed in their devotion to him,
while he is having a go at them, what a bunch of egg
sucking trach. The best part about it, is hairy is stuck
on my monitor on top of everyhting, I think I will
need to re-boot to clear him of. Anyone has this
problem
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Date: Thurs, Aug 17, 2000 at 03:57:08 (GMT)
From: Selene
Email: None
To: asbxd
Subject: that is great!!
Message:
whoever you are thanks for the laugh.

Once again I am amazed that people follow this guy.

Why I am amazed I don't know, this coming from me, the idiot who followed M for 25 years or more.
eeessshhh.

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