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| Re: romantic notions |  | ||
| Re: Re: romantic notions -- Manincar | Top of thread | Post Reply | Forum |
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Manincar > I love it when someone (at least appears) to have a firm grasp on social/spiritual history or perhaps has benefited from a classical education.< Not really. You just have to be prepared to spend an entire weekend polishing a post for fear of sounding like a fool. I intended to call the post, Historical Perspectives, but forgot to change the title line. I guess the reason I went into such detail was actually in response to stuff that DCcultmember has been writing about his conversations with old timers. My impression was that these people have been into rawat for so long that they are incapable of change. But I wonder if that is really the case. I know there are situations where people have religious committments that really would create severe upheavals were they to change. I'm thinking of the Clergy Project run by Richard Dawkins and various atheist organizations. They are a support group for clergy that have lost their faith but would have a terrible time - economically, socially and personally - if they "came out". But most premie old timers are not like that: they are free to change their mind at any time without any great fallout - externally at least. The question is why don't they. I don't have any contact with any old-timers so I don't really know, but I wonder if the answer is that both they and we exes focus so much on aspects of rawatism that are purely subjective: our view of rawat and our experience of meditation. And I suppose that this is the connection with Suzie's post: they are indulging in an illusory relationship that (I presume) is detremental to their happiness. But, as the philosphers like to say, personal experience is priveledged. You can't tell someone that they are not experiencing god without implying that you have special knowledge of god yourself. Of course you're entitled to think that the person is deluded, but if they otherwise act in a normal way then the burdon of proof is on you. Maybe as a premie my meditation experiences were very modest. Instead, my faith was bolstered by reading scriptures or reading about yogis or gurus, such as Yogananda. This stuff encouraged me to think that I wasn't just worshipping an arbirary guru from India who had showed up on English shores, but that I was part of an eternal drama that plays out through the ages, involving devotees and the master and realizing god. For me, what was most persuasive about rawatism wasn't the meditation experience but rather two assertion that were routinely made at satsang meetings. One was that god was energy and that religion and science were essentially seeking the same thing. The other, and more relevent to the present thread, was that all religions are one; that if you scrape off the excrescence wrought by time, theology, delusion and corruption, you would see the same fundamental picture: a perfect master spreading the knowledge to seekers of truth. (And satsang also encouraged me to see myself as such a seeker of truth, rather than someone just looking for happiness (or romance)). But, to the extent that this "perenially philosophy" as Huxley called it is not merely an interesting but trivial claim that spiritual people have spiritual experiences, it is just plain wrong. Masters don't start religions. Religions don't all worship "essentially" the same god. Admittedly, there are a few minor exception. A while back I listened to an In Our Time podcast about Sikhism. Sikhism is useful because it is a relatively major religion which started relatively recently (14th or 15th century), so it is relatively well-documented. According to the experts on that program, the originator of the religion, Guru Nanak, began with a political message and as a preacher of social change. Only later were spiritual practices and finally a whole religious ideology added. I don't think that there was anything nefarious or dishonest going on. That's just the way that later generations understood and interpreted the past.This seems fairly typical of newer religions. The ancient ones clearly grew out of superstitions. Pascal Boyer, whom I mentioned in my other post, likes to say that religions are guilds that grew out of superstitions as simple tribes evolved heirarchical cultures. The priesthoods of the old superstitions were coopted into the heirarchy to legitimate the priviledges of the elite and to reify the mores of society and thus cement those priviledges in place. But all this stuff is debatable. I'm definitely not an expert and I'm not saying I am right about it all. But if premies, especially old timers, are anything like I was, then their faith is based on a lot of very questionable beliefs. Premies like to say that they have no beliefs, only an experience. But that is impossible; there are always beliefs and concepts. So maybe in a discussion with an old timer, rather than argue that rawat can't be a master because he has a mistress, it might be better to argue that Guru Nanak didn't conduct initiations. Or that there is no meditation tradition in the Abrahamic religions. Or that the Bhagavad Gita episode seems to have been added to the Krishna legend hundreds of years after the first stories appeared. Of course, they may not care. But for those that still hold on to these ideas, maybe it encourages a drip or two. On the other hand, if a premie can accept that there is no such thing as masters, or lineage of masters, or secret knowledge, or a common message among religions; and that what they see of Rawat, a middle-aged pedler of new-age-inspired self-help platitudes, is what they get, and have the honesty to acknowledge the madness that went on in the early decades, and still feel there is something of value in "following" him, then they are really entitled to their beliefs. ********** By the way, Manincar, I remember readingt AOAY not long after receiving special K and wishing that rawat was more like Yogananda, and that the whole DLM movment was smaller and intimate, as Yogananda was with his guru. I believed every word of the book (as I did with Carlos Castenada and pretty much every other spiritual thing I read). But one section did make me a little uncomfortable, even back then. He stated, if I remember, that the "cause" of the holocaust was the bad karma of the Jews for crucifying Jesus. Which just goes to show how otherwise harmless and even holy people can entertain really bad beliefs and not realize how bad they are. rgj |
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