Steve Briggs
Member
I was furious when I first learned of Maharishi's indiscretions. I ranted and raved to my friends. Did my reaction improve my life? Had to let it all go... the sooner the better.
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Indian parable: A yogi lived across the alley from a prostitute. Every day the yogi watched with scorn as men came and went, thinking how sinful the woman was. And, seeing the yogi meditating, the prostitute thought how pure and holy he must be.
When yogi and prostitute died, the prostitute ascended to heaven but the yogi ended up in hell. Seeing the woman in heaven, the yogi was outraged, 'Why this injustice?" The gatekeeper replied, "because you spent your life thinking how sinful the prostitute was while she spent her life thinking how pure you were. Remember, what you think, you become."
Sorry, Michael, but here I disagree with you - quite strongly. With the emotion being placed above intellect, or at least granted an equal stance,
P.S. Well, to be honest, I can't say I'm immune to moral arguments myself: for example, I reject biological racism ("our race's IQ test results are so much higher than yours!") because of my ethical choices and emotional preferences, rather than on a detailed assessment of a relevant research.
(For David Bailey and Alex: I hope, such comment is not too much here? Nowadays, a defence of sexuality outside of the bonds of the dominant sexual morality may be quite perilous and unwelcome even here on Skeptiko, as I once painfully learned myself. Please tell me whether my comment is acceptable or not - and if it is not, I will just remove it.)
I have heard these claims and I wonder what the point is in making them. There is a presumption that there is some IQ standard that is meaningful and I struggle to comprehend what this might be. I suppose there is a rational motive to make comparative measures, but I have no idea what it could be. I am more disposed to doubt that this testing has any real merit. For me there are so many problematic issues to be considered around testing that there is no strong motive to bother with the results at all.
From what little I have bothered to observe about these supposed tests I ask myself what have the higher scorers done to bring merit to their actions? If we measured a people by how they have lived their lives rather than what they have scored on a test, we may have a more useful indication.
As a person who has had his IQ tested multiple times between aged 16 and 30 I can tell you that over time you come to understand that having an impressive score doesn't mean squat if you are a fucked up mess. I like MLK's observation that its the content of your character that counts. In my choice of friends it is character first, by a long chalk.
More me testing people for their IQ in isolation from their EQ and MQ (moral intelligence) is simply a signal of how dumb those who champion IQ alone really are.
If no-one in the church had become angry on the children’s behalf the situation would still be the same. Congregations in Catholic Churches have little influence on the hierarchy and I think too much forgiveness and moving priests around went on there.
My friends are good and charitable people, they have lived their lives around their faith and the church but that is all breaking down now. If their anger is an impetus for change so be it but the only people who can forgive in this situation are the children who are probably messed up for life. It isn’t only the abuse that matters it’s the trust that is lost in other areas of faith as well.
If no-one in the church had become angry on the children’s behalf the situation would still be the same. Congregations in Catholic Churches have little influence on the hierarchy and I think too much forgiveness and moving priests around went on there.
My friends are good and charitable people, they have lived their lives around their faith and the church but that is all breaking down now. If their anger is an impetus for change so be it but the only people who can forgive in this situation are the children who are probably messed up for life. It isn’t only the abuse that matters it’s the trust that is lost in other areas of faith as well.
Hi Steve. That is not what I am arguing. It is clear that intellect without emotion is dangerous - generating psychopathic mentality. What we call emotion is a mixture of instinct and another sense we seem not to have a clear name for. I think that sense is Love - but usually filtered through trauma and mingled with instinct. For the want of another name we do call it emotion. It is something we find hard to handle. For example we call emotional trauma a mental illness.
Most of the crap that plagues our world is not a want of intellect but screwed up emotions that lead to a lack of authenticity, integrity, honesty. I want to call that 'injured love'. Early on in the climate change debate there was an argument that 'science' would come up with the answer (like clean coal), because the alternative was moderation of demands and wants - which were inimical to capitalism. So when faced with a head or a heart response there are still those who insist that head alone will solve the problems.
Heart oriented solutions require 'emotional intelligence' (EQ as opposed to IQ). i don't want to get into a debate about how Buddhist compassion is different to Christian love. It is sufficient to observe that Love demands levels of self-authenticity and self-awareness that tax most of us. For the most part we talk about such attributes in terms of emotions.
So let me rephrase my assertion in the understanding that 'emotions' embrace instincts and the love impulse which must become conscious, and then disciplined with the aid of the intellect.
For me the intellect (head - as opposed to reason, which was originally soul awareness) is a servant of the heart, not the master.
Steve: Such a profound insight...
The western idea of mind replaced the earlier idea of soul. So reason became intellect.
In the Western mystical tradition Love/Wisdom is a binary attribute. Intellect isn't mentioned, and that's because it is dislocated subset of wisdom (remember - data isn't information, information isn't knowledge and knowledge isn't wisdom).
I entirely agree that emotion as that fusion of injured love and instinct is dangerous of itself - but fuse it with a rampant but weak intellect and you get the profoundly dangerous passions that fuel both extreme sides of contemporary politics. And this was nowhere better exemplified than a recent US poll that show Republicans and Democrats almost exactly polarised on all assessed themes, save the extent to which they are polarised - where the agreement pretty well matched.
Anyone observing the yogic tradition will see that gurus are not exactly exemplars of personal authenticity. Of course some are deeply aware and profoundly sacred beings. In fact none of the religious traditions are free from deep conceits and inauthenticity. Proper training in the mystery tradition includes the struggle to attain genuine self-awareness. But so often that 'training' becomes a bureaucratic process that embodies indoctrination and engagement in organisational, politics.
Steve: The religious traditions that I've been exposed to are top heavy with dogma, indoctrination, and politics, and that may be motivated by a number of less than noble goals such as control and financial gain. The authentic mystery schools focus on freeing the individual, making them self sufficient, rather than dependent.on an organization In Catholicism, you're taught that you're not going to progress very far without the priest and church liturgy. The emphasis in most religions has not been on inner experience because once the individual taps into their soul directly, they realize that everything they could ever want is inside, 'the kingdom of heaven is within,' so the formal religion is eliminated, actually undesirable. This becomes a threat to organized religion because it undermines church authority and impacts tithing among other things.
The practices of yoga and meditation have become automatic signals of spiritual advancement these days in the same way that Bible study and attending church were/are. You can do both and not get close to the struggle of personal authenticity - as liars, fraudsters and wankers constantly remind us.
I think the struggle for personal authenticity through increasing awareness of our emotional states, so that we understand and learn to heal our injured capacity for love is far more a critical objective than the acquisition of knowledge. But that is not to say that knowledge seeking through intellectual endeavour has no proper value or place. The head is the servant of the heart.
The very best computer technology we can develop is employed to create animated stories about learning how to love. The exemplar of the contemporary expresses the exemplar of the ancient. That is how it should be - what we craft with our head and hands gives voice to our hearts.
Steve: wonderful observation. You should develop this theme in a book
What we call emotion, then kind you are concerned about, is the absence of self awareness. In the denial of the soul to create mind, we also created an irrationality (fit only for women and children). Mind eschewed emotion as a lesser and inferior primitive attribute - closer to animals (and hence more like women and children as well as 'savages' and 'primitives')., That gave us the rational (and Christian) capacity to perpetrate genocide on 'inferior races' and rape the natural world (a quarry, butchery and sewer) with aplomb.
I have just finished listening to an autobiography on US VP Mike Pence, in which was described the contemporary view of some Christians that God gave the world to them to do as they pleased - so whatever they did was cool with Him. Last time I heard anything like that was in the description of some pretty disturbed people. There's no love here. You don't get to this deranged state of mind through a struggle to love. You get there because you enlist your fucked up intellect to concoct rabid nonsense no sane person would accept.
That was what I meant to convey. I hope its clear now.
I'm unaware of any situation where Maharishi's relationships weren't 100% consensual between two adults. IMO, that's a far cry from what has surfaced across the Catholic community, is it not?
great... I'm happy to carry this burden for you :)I tread lightly on this topic for one very important reason -- causing a person to lose faith in their guru is something I would never want to be responsible for...
free thought rules! :)(For David Bailey and Alex: I hope, such comment is not too much here? Nowadays, a defence of sexuality outside of the bonds of the dominant sexual morality may be quite perilous and unwelcome even here on Skeptiko, as I once painfully learned myself. Please tell me whether my comment is acceptable or not - and if it is not, I will just remove it.)
free thought rules! :)
Hi Steve. That is not what I am arguing. It is clear that intellect without emotion is dangerous - generating psychopathic mentality. What we call emotion is a mixture of instinct and another sense we seem not to have a clear name for. I think that sense is Love - but usually filtered through trauma and mingled with instinct. For the want of another name we do call it emotion. It is something we find hard to handle. For example we call emotional trauma a mental illness.
Most of the crap that plagues our world is not a want of intellect but screwed up emotions that lead to a lack of authenticity, integrity, honesty. I want to call that 'injured love'. Early on in the climate change debate there was an argument that 'science' would come up with the answer (like clean coal), because the alternative was moderation of demands and wants - which were inimical to capitalism. So when faced with a head or a heart response there are still those who insist that head alone will solve the problems.
Heart oriented solutions require 'emotional intelligence' (EQ as opposed to IQ). i don't want to get into a debate about how Buddhist compassion is different to Christian love. It is sufficient to observe that Love demands levels of self-authenticity and self-awareness that tax most of us. For the most part we talk about such attributes in terms of emotions.
So let me rephrase my assertion in the understanding that 'emotions' embrace instincts and the love impulse which must become conscious, and then disciplined with the aid of the intellect. For me the intellect (head - as opposed to reason, which was originally soul awareness) is a servant of the heart, not the master. The western idea of mind replaced the earlier idea of soul. So reason became intellect.
In the Western mystical tradition Love/Wisdom is a binary attribute. Intellect isn't mentioned, and that's because it is dislocated subset of wisdom (remember - data isn't information, information isn't knowledge and knowledge isn't wisdom).
I entirely agree that emotion as that fusion of injured love and instinct is dangerous of itself - but fuse it with a rampant but weak intellect and you get the profoundly dangerous passions that fuel both extreme sides of contemporary politics. And this was nowhere better exemplified than a recent US poll that show Republicans and Democrats almost exactly polarised on all assessed themes, save the extent to which they are polarised - where the agreement pretty well matched.
Anyone observing the yogic tradition will see that gurus are not exactly exemplars of personal authenticity. Of course some are deeply aware and profoundly sacred beings. In fact none of the religious traditions are free from deep conceits and inauthenticity. Proper training in the mystery tradition includes the struggle to attain genuine self-awareness. But so often that 'training' becomes a bureaucratic process that embodies indoctrination and engagement in organisational, politics. That's what produces priests who rape children and gurus who fondle their students.
The practices of yoga and meditation have become automatic signals of spiritual advancement these days in the same way that Bible study and attending church were/are. You can do both and not get close to the struggle of personal authenticity - as liars, fraudsters and wankers constantly remind us.
I think the struggle for personal authenticity through increasing awareness of our emotional states, so that we understand and learn to heal our injured capacity for love is far more a critical objective than the acquisition of knowledge. But that is not to say that knowledge seeking through intellectual endeavour has no proper value or place. The head is the servant of the heart.
The very best computer technology we can develop is employed to create animated stories about learning how to love. The exemplar of the contemporary expresses the exemplar of the ancient. That is how it should be - what we craft with our head and hands gives voice to our hearts.
What we call emotion, then kind you are concerned about, is the absence of self awareness. In the denial of the soul to create mind, we also created an irrationality (fit only for women and children). Mind eschewed emotion as a lesser and inferior primitive attribute - closer to animals (and hence more like women and children as well as 'savages' and 'primitives')., That gave us the rational (and Christian) capacity to perpetrate genocide on 'inferior races' and rape the natural world (a quarry, butchery and sewer) with aplomb.
I have just finished listening to an autobiography on US VP Mike Pence, in which was described the contemporary view of some Christians that God gave the world to them to do as they pleased - so whatever they did was cool with Him. Last time I heard anything like that was in the description of some pretty disturbed people. There's no love here. You don't get to this deranged state of mind through a struggle to love. You get there because you enlist your fucked up intellect to concoct rabid nonsense no sane person would accept.
That was what I meant to convey. I hope its clear now.
Obama was CIA... just like the Bush clan. this fact isn't hard to verify... i.e. not super-conspiratorial.
I think the real answer is not religion - which inevitably becomes a man-made political device - but more personal study, using all the links on the internet - avoiding things that seem too controlling.My friends are good and charitable people, they have lived their lives around their faith and the church but that is all breaking down now. If their anger is an impetus for change so be it but the only people who can forgive in this situation are the children who are probably messed up for life. It isn’t only the abuse that matters it’s the trust that is lost in other areas of faith as well.
OK, but he did get an arms reduction treaty with Russia.
My feeling is that perhaps he tried to do his own thing when be became president, but was gradually brought to heel.
He, above all must have realised just how fake and twisted the quarrel with Russia really was. Crimea, for example, was originally part of Russia, given away by Gorbachev without asking the people! Russia gave them a vote on whether to join Russia or take their chances with the Kiev regime. Since the Kiev regime was threatening to take them back by force, their choice was inevitable.
David
I think the real answer is not religion - which inevitably becomes a man-made political device - but more personal study, using all the links on the internet - avoiding things that seem too controlling.
Even without the scandals of Catholic priests, I don't think the Catholic Church was a force for good, particularly because of its excessively strict views on sex. Unfortunately I suspect people can end up tethered to a religion because they are made to feel sinful, and therefore unworthy to choose to leave. A man I know, who went to a Catholic school, told me that each of them was quizzed about whether and how often they masturbated, and told to confess these 'sins'. I would say that such behaviour was itself child abuse, never mind the rest!
David
point taken. all the more reason to keep hammering on this and allowing distinctions to emerge.
great... I'm happy to carry this burden for you :)
if you encounter Buddha on the road/path...