From: tt@wag.caltech.edu (Toshi Takeuchi)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern
Subject: Re: Building up ego with answers to questions?
Date: 15 Apr 92 20:26:01 GMT
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA

In article <1992Apr14.213624.12605@iitmax.iit.edu> nabil@ogicse.ogi.edu (Aaron Nabil) writes:
	
[stuff deleted]

>>1. I have experienced such and such a state and or feeling so I am at
>>   this level or attainment or realization.
>>
>>First of all, why should anyone care if you attained such and such a state.
>
>Obviously they care, they asked!

I tried to ask a question earlier with no response.  I'm glad you are
answering now.

[stuff deleted]

I think that the basic point of your argument is that a 
guidebook or roadmap can help.  I agree.

I think it's okay to say during my practice I have experienced this and
this.

I also think it's okay to say this person such and such said in your
path, you will experience these XXXX stages.

However, I think you should watch your intent and your ego if you say
X said you first experience X and I experienced X, you then experience
Y and I experienced Y, you then experience Z and I experience Z.

Where does it help anyone reading to know that you also think you
experienced X,Y, and Z.  That is my point.

The question: At what level of realization do you think you are?
doesn't ask for roadmaps or guidelines.  It seems to ask for a self-evaluation
and a sort of bragging to the world of your ability.  I'm just trying
to point out that possibility.

[...]

>>    --Suppose you only think you attained a state of samadhi or whatever, but
>>      you really didn't.
>>    
>>      Well, telling the world or others that yeah I attained this state 
>>      described by such and such only builds up your ego.  It does no good to
>>      others by saying this.
>
>Hogwash!  It could do a great service for others.  What is more 
>encouraging than finding out that someone else, Mr. Joe Ordinary, can do
>something that might have appeared difficult or impossible.  So Joe 
>stretched the truth a bit, and now 10,000 other Mr. and Ms. Ordinaries
>are out trying it for themselves because Joe said he could.  And they
>are doing it.

I'm just saying watch your intent.  It's just like that post on the
false speech exercise (which doesn't talk about chakras :-) you should
be aware of your actions.  That's all I'm saying.

>My first exposure to mysticism was reading a book by John Lilly, I think
>it was probably "The Center of the Cyclone".  I was about 11 at the time, 
>and I immediatly realized that what he was writing about was what I was
>experiencing at the time.  Suddenly, I was no longer alone in my universe,
>I no longer thought I was going crazy, my future turned from a dark gloom
>to the brilliance of limitless potential.  The experience was probably 
>similar to that a lesbian or gay teenager has when she moves from rural
>hicksburg to The Big City and discovers that indeed other people are 
>like them and they are OK and life looks like it might be worth living
>after all.

>John Lilly could probably be credited with saving my life,  I don't think
>I would have lasted another couple years before I would have called it
>quits, considering what I was going through.  But looking back now on
>his writing I have to chuckle, it's so full of inaccuracies and 
>misunderstandings and simply wrong things that I realize it wasn't so 
>much the technical aspects of mysticism he was discussing that were
>useful to me, it was that he was honestly trying to describe what
>he thought he was experiencing, and that he wasn't scared, he was 
>excited! He managed to convey that elusive kernel, the essence of the 
>mystical experience, to me.  Undoubtably his mistook any number of
>'states' he was in for other 'states', maybe he even stretched things
>a bit to satisfy his own ego or validate his imagination.  Certainly
>his books are the most technically useless bunches of kindling on my
>bookshelf, but they were the universe to me at 11. If however
>he didn't take that chance, to tell others about his level of realization,
>or maybe if Toshi had been around to talk him out of sharing his meager
>experiences with the world, I wouldn't be around now.  

[...]

>Aaron
>nabil@cse.ogi.edu
>
>P.S. Thanks John, wherever you are!

I'm sorry.  I did sound kinda preachy in the post and that's when I get into
trouble.  The spirit of the post that I intended to convey was to be careful
of your ego.

There is a real danger of the I'm better than you syndrome:

I experienced this and this so I must be spiritual and better than you
who has never experienced this and this.

I think that this attitude isn't that healthy, and those people
for which it may be a problem, should beware.

With apologies,

Toshi
tt@wag.caltech.edu

P.S. maybe it's good that I have a preachy post every once in a while.  At
     least people respond to it :-)