The previous forum for the discussion of the Fellowship of Friends has acquired such a high number of comments that it is almost impossible to navigate. This forum has been created in order to continue the discussion started there.
Enjoy.
March 1, 2007
The Fellowship of Friends Discussion, part 2
Posted by Pavel under Discussion, Fellowship of Friends, Forum[339] Comments
March 1, 2007 at 2:13 pm
Rabbi said: “Life is very short. Some people notice that brevity more than others, hence they will do everything they can to use their time properly. And what is a proper use of time? To be aware of God. And how should one be aware of God? By taking carefully measured steps towards God’s presence without deviating.”
March 1, 2007 at 3:15 pm
Have we got an aim? Is it connected to be present? Is it connected to be more our self? What’s our self?!?
If yes, we have to find how to persue our aim, what help us. If we have no aim related to consciousness, to be more ourself and how to discover our self, everything is ok, everything is the same.
Mostly ‘we are thinking’ that to frequent lessons for 5, 10, 20 years ’should be enough’ for buying a tickets for becoming a ‘Guitar’s Teacher’ and doing nothing outside lessons.
The School could be wrong. Yes! I have to find another School!
The Teacher could be wrong. Yes! I must to find another Teacher!
My self could be wrong. Yes! I must find another my self!
With affection to students, ex students and afecionados.
March 1, 2007 at 3:29 pm
Rodney Collin said about the Fourth Way that it was the most complete truth. It is not the way of the Yogi, the Monk nor the way of those who distort their machines to reach a higher state of consciousness. The Fourth way attempts to use all ways to reach the presence of God. The Tao is also the Fourth Way.
March 1, 2007 at 5:57 pm
‘The enlightened Self is not hard to reach but impossible to avoid.’
Ramana
You can’t reach what you have never lost, just as you can’t lose your feet. You can only forget what the word ‘feet’ means and get lost in that. And then suddenly one morning, you stop, look down and recognise your feet again.
March 1, 2007 at 6:19 pm
#294 – No wonder Robert always looks so tired!
March 1, 2007 at 6:38 pm
Hey Gordon ******** (X-man-king-of-club;master-of-bullshit)
Is that you expressing negativity again?
Sorry for letting this one slip through, it won’t happen again. Sheik.
March 1, 2007 at 6:57 pm
Master (#282), I don’t understand your gratuitous contempt for your mother. Do you feel superior to her?
March 1, 2007 at 7:21 pm
Dear Courageous Friends,
I agree with a recent observation that the move away from Gurdjieff and Ouspensky has coincided with a great awakening for many. Probably not because O and G and the Fourth Way are not valid ways but because when Robert Burton began to desperately try and concoct a system of his own by cobbling together bits and pieces of other great systems it became obvious that he doesn’t know what he is talking about.
It truly seems to be the “Fellowsheep of Friends” or perhaps the “Fellowship of Fools.”
Every whim of his has been justified by explanations like, “We are doing this for the Ark” or “This is the will of C Influence.” Some of these whims have included collections of Meissen Porcelain, Steinway pianos, rare books, Eighteen Century French Furniture, An Art Library (when he was trying to reinvent himself as Bernard Berenson), Eighteenth Century European Painting, and Ming Furniture. Many of these collections contained costly fakes and forgeries and the cost to the members has almost been incalculable. During these phases he attempted to build a book bindery which was aborted and now serves as a “Town Hall”, a grandiose winery which also was aborted, a French Chateau (full of gaudy antiques, full length portraits of himself and grotesque murals), a Greek Theatron when he was fashioning his empire after a Greek city state, which was also never finished. Literally millions of dollars have been poured into these aborted projects and yet as he moves on to the next phase no one mentions the abandoned, costly and failed projects but the fund raising just continues as before. What greater proof of sleep of the members could one ask for?
The whole show has been so fantastic that no one could have made it up as a piece of fiction.
I personally wonder if this school and all its manifestations are the result of a serious disorder which I mentioned in an earlier posting. I have enclosed a list of the major characteristics of this disorder. After reading them I felt that I recognized the cause and reason for the existence of the Fellowship and all its attitudes. I also wished, in spite of the damage he has done, that Robert Burton could be helped. Does anyone in or out think there is any possibility of this or any reason or obligation to try?
Warm regards to All, Vena
p.s. I feel sick at my stomach after reading the posting from “Inner Circle Facts” but I thank him for revealing these things. Perhaps it will help some to wake up to the truth.
Proposed Amended Criteria for the Narcissistic Personality Disorder
Feels grandiose and self-important (e.g., exaggerates accomplishments, talents, skills, contacts, and personality traits to the point of lying, demands to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements);
Is obsessed with fantasies of unlimited success, fame, fearsome power or omnipotence, unequalled brilliance (the cerebral narcissist), bodily beauty or sexual performance (the somatic narcissist), or ideal, everlasting, all-conquering love or passion;
Firmly convinced that he or she is unique and, being special, can only be understood by, should only be treated by, or associate with, other special or unique, or high-status people (or institutions);
Requires excessive admiration, adulation, attention and affirmation – or, failing that, wishes to be feared and to be notorious (Narcissistic Supply);
Feels entitled. Demands automatic and full compliance with his or her unreasonable expectations for special and favorable priority treatment;
Is “interpersonally exploitative”, i.e., uses others to achieve his or her own ends;
Devoid of empathy. Is unable or unwilling to identify with, acknowledge, or accept the feelings, needs, preferences, priorities, and choices of others;
Constantly envious of others and seeks to hurt or destroy the objects of his or her frustration. Suffers from persecutory (paranoid) delusions as he or she believes that they feel the same about him or her and are likely to act similarly;
Behaves arrogantly and haughtily. Feels superior, omnipotent, omniscient, invincible, immune, “above the law”, and omnipresent (magical thinking). Rages when frustrated, contradicted, or confronted by people he or she considers inferior to him or her and unworthy.
By: Dr. Sam Vaknin
Author of “Malignant Self Love – Narcissism Revisited”
“You are after something your entire life, some goal. Enlightenment is giving it up.” Zen Master
“Be quiet, stay unattached to your thoughts and don’t make efforts.” Papaji
March 1, 2007 at 7:24 pm
No person (#291), some thoughts.
Here is what I came to understand, during and after my time in the fellowship.
That there was a “me” that had to grow to such an extent that it could not help but crack open, revealing an awareness that cannot be reached through “effort.” In this way, the FOF does serve a valuable role — it puts you in an environment where the striving and the effort creates a larger and larger “work self” — one that becomes so large that, like the elephant in the room, it can no longer be ignored. Unfortunately, this “self” is not the answer — it is an obstacle in the path of living authentically.
There is a very good story about this in one of CS Lewis’ books in the Chronicles of Narnia. The book is “Prince Caspian,” and in one part of it a boy stumbles across a dragon’s cave, which is filled with treasure. The boy puts on a beautiful gold bracelet and falls asleep on the pile of treasure. The magic of this cave is that those who fall asleep on the treasure become dragons themselves. After much suffering by the boy, Aslan the lion (the “God” figure in these books), removes the dragon skin. There are many layers, and Aslan must use his claws to cut deep into the dragon skin to remove it. Finally, the last layer is removed and he’s just a boy again, though he remains forever changed — more compassionate and mature, less selfish.
My own experience is that my time in the fellowship built up a person that wasn’t me, layer after layer, all fueled by a kind of spiritual greed for the treasure of MY awakening. ME, ME, ME.
During a series of particularly painful experiences, I felt these inner layers peel away. No more efforts. No more greedy grasping at “states.”
So the fellowship served its purpose for me, in its time. Leaving served me even better. Both were necessary.
Personally, I can’t imagine discovering one’s own inner truth by remaining forever in an environment I found to be increasingly oppressive. But maybe that’s just me.
March 1, 2007 at 7:38 pm
Gwendolyn — the sex makes you “uncomfortable”? How distressing for you. I would think it would make you outraged.
To those who are merely uncomfortable: you might do a little soul searching, and ask yourself whether you have rationalized away some vital core of your humanity in the name of supporting your teacher and school. The joy and beauty and personal nature of awakening do not absolve us of our responsibility for our fellow humans.
And please don’t attempt to explain away Robert’s behaviour by saying “the lower cannot understand the higher” or some other dogmatic cliche — it’s just a cop-out.
March 1, 2007 at 7:59 pm
Here’s an interesting question: what happens to one’s spiritual pursuit when one no longer believes in esoteric knowledge? What happens to the seeker when belief in the search is gone? What happens when the student is ready and the teacher doesn’t arrive? Gurdjieff, no doubt, would hand one a pistol, but what happens when you laugh at him?
There is no secret magical world to which I must petition to for admission and yet here I am, still here.
Just a thought. “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”
March 1, 2007 at 8:14 pm
To current member of 20 years: you said
“Have we got an aim? Is it connected to be present? Is it connected to be more our self? What’s our self?!?
If yes, we have to find how to persue our aim, what help us.”
The main question is WHAT”S OUR SELF. It all starts there. If you are not sure what is your nature – which aims are you talking of getting? WHO is getting these aims, which part of you? Someone bofore said that we are many I’s, and a sentence later – “I-s” are not real. If you agree with him – then which “I” are you? Aren’t they all unreal, according to the teaching?
So here you are, talking about self you are not sure of, and to become more self. What are you saying? Is the self something we can get more or less?
I am not trying to mes with you, I am just trying to challenge the unquestioned beliefs that you (obviously) have. Students repeat stuff they haven’t even looked at, something they heard from whoever with authority. It only breeds confusion.
As for being present – although it seems to be a bggest issue for so many, all I want to ask – is anyone ABSENT? I mean, not here now? Switched off? Is anyone capable of time-travel and can actually go to the future or past? You see, it’s your thought that tells you about the past or future, but it is all happening NOW, and only NOW. If you believe that you are the thought – it seems to take you along. But in fact even the thought is NOW. Nothing is ever out of the now.
You don’t have to be connected (or disconnected) with the present, because there is – only – PRESENT. Past and future are mental images, why even discuss it. Do you agree?
So if you really think about it than what you said is kind of contradictory and absurd: you don’t know what is self, you want more of it, then “you” create aims (for the future of course, which doesn’t exist), and want to connect with the present, as if you are ever disconnected… This is called Work. Sisyphus kind of work – the rock rolls down every time.
How about this, it’s very simple. YOU are conscious awareness, looking right now through your eyes, always here and now. And there are passing mental images of future, past, self, “me’, “aim”. All of them are concepts, apprearing in awareness, which is – YOU. It can actually be observed, right here right now.
It is so simple – it feels boring to the mind, who wants aims and struggle in the future. But see things for yourself, don’t just repeat stuff, OK?
March 1, 2007 at 10:32 pm
#6 “Lunatic Exterminator” — many people have a variety of valid reasons for maintaining their anonymity on this site. Whether we agree with their point of view or not, how about respecting that.
Vena #8 — from the research I have done, narcissistic personality disorder is the least treatable of the personality disorders. I read a fascinating account, though I can’t remember where, about a man who had come to fully understand his illness, but was completely powerless to overcome it. If this is true, then even if someone could make Robert understand the nature of his illness (ironically, to know himself), he still would not be able to change. Tragic.
Kid Shellen #11 — right on, right on.
March 1, 2007 at 10:45 pm
#11 You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows, but you need one if you want to know in advance where it’s coming from and what it’s going to do.
#7 Anna, as it happens you are right, but so far all I can do is to observe these pathetic feelings and try not to identify with them.
March 1, 2007 at 11:25 pm
Heartfelt thanks to “Inner Circle Facts” for having the courage to write post #294.
It’s hard to imagine how a person who indulges in these sub-human activities can expect to retain any credibility as a teacher. And he puts himself across as “higher than Life”!!
March 1, 2007 at 11:56 pm
DEAR MODERATOR
My submission for post #13 came out wrong, with some unintentional material on the end. Please post the following instead. Thanks!
____________________________________________
In reply to Traveler, post #290:
I enjoyed your posting, it all sounds very familiar.
You asked about Indian sources describing different possibilities for what can happen after a person has had a spiritual illumination. What I’ve read is that in some cases awakening is a gradual process and in some (rarer) cases it happens with a bang. After a while the person slowly settles down to something closer to normality. At this stage their darker urges may make a comeback, and sometimes the darker urges take over completely. In other cases the pure awareness is all that remains; such a person might be a useful teacher. Robert appears to fall into the previous category. I can’t say I’ve verified any of this, but it does ring true!
As you say, Robert does not seem to be intentionally misleading his students. He seems to believe what he says. But what he says is completely crazy. His life is such a mass of astonishing contradictions and hypocrisy, it must be almost impossible to sustain. IMHO the most likely explanation is that he has in fact gone insane.
March 2, 2007 at 12:56 am
Dear Inner Circle Fact,
Thank you greatly for your post. There is more truth coming out of the FoF in the last month or two than in its entire history. These are the things that were not supposed to be told. These are the things that should always have been revealed. An unfortunate defect of FoF teaching is its dualistic separation of body and soul, of consciousness and mechanicality, of states and machine. It is high time for a reality check.
If we want to help each other, we must make sense and not blather on that nothing is real. For any veteran Fellowship student, that idea should have been exhausted a long time ago under the rubrics: ‘They’re all just I’s’; ‘It’s just a play’. The FoF is long on faith and short on reason. In other words, states have been privileged over common sense. We must have common sense, but this can never come out of a rejection of the senses. We are not “non-persons” talking to other ‘imaginary persons’.
We are real, with bodies, minds, and souls. Moral muddle and mental vagary result from divorcing one’s sense of self from one’s real self. By real self, I’m not referring to states (how refreshing), but the self that lives on the planet, inhabits the body, knows what’s right and wrong unless it is ‘educated into imbecility’ as a famous journalist once said. Morality may sound like an old-fashioned word but it contains fundamental truths of ethical living. Many students have referred to it directly or indirectly, too many to name here. (Most recently, thank you, Rita for your directness and calling attention again to simple truths). Another student alluded to it in his honest re-telling of how accepting sexual domination by Robert resulted in his demeaning starry-eyed young women who were flattered by the attentions of someone close to the so-called Teacher. He didn’t pretend that what he was doing was good. He didn’t say, nothing is bad but only thinking makes it so. He already knew what was wrong, and consequently, he must have known what was right.
For those of you who don’t have a problem with ’sexual activity’: it might be good to be more specific as to what you mean by that phrase. ‘Sexual activity’ is an abstract concept (and not much of one at that), as is ‘free lov”. What happens, though, when you get down to earth level, where–‘astral-cosmonauts-of-pure-presence’ and there-is-no-good-and-evil-but thinking-makes-it-so-advaitists, we also live—things get very messy because human beings live down here and we have feelings and thoughts and sensations. If we think and feel, rather than pretend that we don’t live here and with each other, we will be far less inclined to dismiss as unreal or irrelevant what actual, living, breathing people are doing to each other, and WHY—and why we should act in one way or another. Don’t worry, in doing so you don’t have to dump your personal higher states; you will integrate them into the rest of you and you will evolve. The Wisdom of Solomon was not to cut the baby in two, but to restore it whole to its real owner. My best wishes to you all.
March 2, 2007 at 1:27 am
From the responses here and the fact that there are such resentful reactions, it looks as if some of those who are former followers of Robert Burton are still attached to him only in an resentful way.
I think that these people have not completely left Robert Burton in their minds. Otherwise they wouldn’t occupy themselves in writing here.
Am I right?
March 2, 2007 at 1:48 am
Regarding entry #294 and several other previous comments.
I understand that we all have our ‘Buttons’, so to speak, and sexual morality is a big one for many.
If the knowledge that the Teacher is involved in sexual activities with other students bothers you that much, then indeed, the Fellowship is not the right place for you. I don’t doubt that there are other schools or groups that can help you on your way that won’t challenge your beliefs as much.
I, myself, have not been sexually involved with the teacher, being a woman, but I am intimately involved with someone who has. I also have had many friends in the past who have also.
My question for you is; if I and they don’t have a problem with it then why do you?
Don’t we all have enough to figure out on our own without being so concerned with other peoples situations and lives?
I might ask myself, why am I so interested aruing the point?
For much the same reason. We can’t resist observing others because it’s easier than observing ourselves.
March 2, 2007 at 1:50 am
Even though there were/are many wonderful experiences that the fellowship cult-ure offers, make no mistake about it, RB is the quintessencial ‘put-down’ artist. The main avenue to a win-win-win scenario is typically not possible primarily due to the greed and selfishness, as aforementioned. Let us face the truth and look our selves in the eye, third eye that is, and accept that: 1) we entered this world alone, enter FOF (if you have) alone, depart FOF (if you have) alone, and depart this life alone – any other view is either deluded or imagination – YOU make these choices. 2) we had as our main desire in joining FOF (if you have) that we would get consciousness for ourselves, whether we liked it or not, but did not particularly care about giving consciousness to others, or what have you; it is/was a selfish pursuit.
Mr. Burt in prior post should be Mr. Barth, the 3rd RB pronounced conscious being in FOF. #1: RB, #2: Mr. MacDonald,…. possibly others, too.
Postings here are not necessarily real-time and several posts may be made prior to their appearance (and being read) before people make later comments. This may be a conversation but it is not an interactive real-time conversation with your self or another person. So, it is possible that multiple postings are being written and posted before they appear for reading.
It is possible to find quotations from important people/sources to support almost any possible view and, for that matter, one can use ‘work language’ to justify almost anything. I would not discourage the use of quotations; use them judiciously and tastefully to support your own dialog – not as platitudes to silence other view points.
In post 142, the Esoteric Sheik of Inner Confusion, wrote of the value of suffering as payment for receiving gifts of understanding and appreciating one’s life better. This is a good lesson. On the 4th way there is, as mentioned, ‘voluntary’ or ‘intentional’ suffering, where you expose your self to ‘doing that which you do not wish to do.’ This can produce results but it is best not to expect a direct relationship between making this effort and the resultant realizations that eventually are received as gifts. When you have a birthday party and invite guests, etiquette would dictate, that you not say, ‘Come to my party but you have to bring me a present, and the present I want you to bring me is….’ The gift you get may not be the one you expect.
Also, regarding voluntary or intentional suffering, you have to ask your self, ‘Who is doing the suffering?’ But an even more important question to ask may be, ‘Who decides who does the suffering?’ And, ‘Is it really voluntary?’ Or, is it compulsitory? There is an unofficial work term called ‘the 4th line of work.’ If 1st line of work is work on your self (reading, studying, prayer/meditation/self-remembering, observation, awareness, etc); and 2nd line of work is work for and with others (doing various activities with other people so that 1st line is supported by practice); and 3rd line of work is work for the organization or system that fosters these work possibilities (outward form that provides the environment for 1st and 2nd lines of work for your self and others – note that I do not say ‘working for the teacher, or RB, as an indentured servant or to perform sex acts.’); then ‘4th line of work’ is called ‘work ON other people.’ There really is no ‘4th line of work’ that is part of the ‘System,’ but you may certainly find people doing it; especially in FOF. This is where someone decides ‘who should be doing the suffering’ (and what suffering they should have, I might add) because ‘it would be good for their work;’ a ‘This person, or those people, need to learn a lesson’ kind of attitude. You have to be very careful in this area before you land up with ‘Nazi Germany’ – people punishing each other for no good reason, or for pleasure, or for the ‘hell of it.’ There is no ‘4th line of work’ and do not let anyone convince you otherwise by subterfuge, brutality or ‘bullying.’ (Oh, it feels so good when you finally stop beating your head against the wall of contrived sufferings.) In another system, for example, these 3 lines of work might be called satsang (speak the truth in discourse or conversation with others – 2nd line), service (support your organization and serve others – 3rd line), and meditation (1st line). It is not called ‘1st line of work’ for nothing; it comes first, is most important, you are doing it for your self, and the other lines of work are not possible without it.
Beautiful Dreamer
P.S.: RB suffers from the: ‘It’s my way or the highway’ disease as well as the earlier mentioned: ‘If it’s not old it can’t be good’ disease, Caveat Emptor, let the buyer be ware, or, you get what you pay for.
March 2, 2007 at 2:06 am
In reply to the question addressed to me by the author of post #6
‘Is that you expressing negativity again ?’…
I have not previously expressed any opinions be they negative or otherwise on this site either under my own name or any other.Nor have I felt any need to.
If you,who ever you are,have some personal grievance with me and want to believe that I am the source of certain opinions here that most likely have irritated you then why don’t you get in contact with me and we can discuss it face to face?.My contact information is still the same and I’m pretty easy to find . You have thrown my name in to a public arena on an unfounded, wild assumption while hiding behind a mask yourself.
If you do not have the courtesy or the courage to stand behind what you say in print about someone else then it’s really not worth much.
Gordon.
March 2, 2007 at 3:11 am
It has been one of the many pleasures of Karma to find this blog.
I am 19 years old, member of the Fellowship for 3 months now, and may be considered by many to be completely ‘off my rocker’. Why?
Beacuse I find myself jumping between ‘coincidences’. No doubt some of you know what I am talking about.
It was quite a shock to me to find this blog. (I also suspect the blog will receive a lot of new visits, since I’ve received the link through propilaya’s mailing list). It was just a time when I considered giving it all up and moving to Isis, since I am heavili accustomed into reading into signs, and this is the way by which I know which path to choose in life.
I can with all my heart say I believe in Influence C. So, the Fellowship will probably not receive my fourth monthly payment, since I have already finished most books I was interested in. The Fellowship has met its purpose for me.
Onwards now to find a new Teacher. Or maybe I’ll just follow Influence C’s design for me. It’s bound to be interresting.
I wish you luck, Friends. May Karma always watch over you all.
March 2, 2007 at 3:21 am
I’m a current student of the FOF. The following is a selection of my thoughts on Robert’s sex life, not a coherent argument or meditation.
The latest revelations of Robert’s sex life are very troubling to me. The paradox is that the emotional quality of life at Isis is generally very high, and Robert’s personal energy is very good. There are many older students, strong men, with admirable being, who have been having sex with Robert for years. OTOH, I also know students whose relationship to the teacher has been destroyed by Robert’s insistence on sex.
Some of the moral outrage expressed here seems hypocritical. I saw someone who posts to this list trying to seduce a teenage boy a few years ago, and he also went through a phase of exposing himself to other students.
This board also seems to be promoting neo-Advaita. A quick search on Google shows that there have been plenty of sexual and financial scandals connected to Advaita teachers.
March 2, 2007 at 3:21 am
Why focus on the lowest aspect (whether or not these stories are exaggerated) of someone who has successfully devoted his life to bringing out the highest in others? If our weaknesses negated our strengths we would all be reduced to less than nothing.
March 2, 2007 at 4:06 am
Still reading about the downfall of Rajneesh (a.k.a. “Osho”). This, by one of his former disciples, Christopher Calder:
“It shocks me to find that many Osho disciples do not care about the crimes that were committed and are not bothered by the lies and hypocrisy of their own movement. … The attitude of many Osho sannyasins seems to be that as long as they get their psychic kicks out of a cult that it does not matter who was hurt or how unethical and disgraceful the behavior was. …
Rajneesh felt that teaching ethics and morality was unnecessary because the increased consciousness of meditation would automatically lead to good behavior. Rajneesh’s own actions and the behavior of his disciples proves that theory to be untrue. There is no direct connection between meditation and ethics and the dangers and limitations of teaching ethics are far outweighed by the destructive anarchy that a lack of teaching creates. Certainly students of meditation should at least be reminded that lying, cheating, stealing, and killing are not acceptable behavior. But Osho taught that you should do as you please and many of his disciples and he himself committed many ethical crimes. This lapse of judgment was largely due to the arrogant and downright fascist attitude that one can become so high and mighty that one is beyond the need for something as old fashioned as polite and sane ethical behavior. …
When you decapitate the intelligence of human beings you create a situation that is highly dangerous and destructive to the human spirit. You cannot save people from their egos by demanding ‘total surrender.’ The anti-democratic technique of forcing blind obedience did not work well for Hitler, Stalin, or for Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. Germany, Russia, and the Rajneesh Oregon commune were all destroyed because of authoritarian imperial rule. A diversity of opinion is always healthy because it acts as an effective counterbalance to the myopic arrogance of those who would be king. Bhagwan never understood this truth of history and referred to democracy scornfully as ‘mob-ocracy.’ Rajneesh was an imperial aristocrat, never a generous and open minded democrat, and he put his contempt for the democratic process into highly visible action in Oregon.
Rajneesh used people, spoke out of both sides of his mouth, and betrayed the trust of his own disciples. This betrayal caused Vivek, his longtime girlfriend and companion, to commit suicide. Rajneesh even lied about her death, slandering his greatest love in her grave by falsely claiming that she was chronically depressed due to some intrinsic emotional instability. Vivek was never depressed during the years I knew her and she was the most radiant women I have ever known. … Rajneesh lied about her death simply to avoid taking responsibility for his own bizarre behavior, which was the underlying cause of Vivek’s despair.
When you combine man’s natural tendency for selfishness with an ivory tower lifestyle, you have a situation where ethical behavior can appear to be optional. Combine the unhealthy atmosphere of self-deification with a debilitating progressive illness that lowers IQ, and on top of that add drug abuse, then you have a cliff that even an enlightened man could fall from. That fall could happen only if the enlightened man makes one wrong choice, one false move, from both the heart and from the mind.
Bhagwan’s wrong choice was to disregard truthfulness in favor of what he thought were useful lies. Once you make that wrong turn, away from ordinary straightforward truth, you have lost your way. No human being can disregard fact on a regular basis without finding himself in a sea of turmoil because by discarding fact you discard the ground beneath your feet. Little lies grow into big lies and the now hidden truth becomes your enemy, not your friend and ally.
The disaster of Rajneesh appointing himself the singular great brain of the universe was compounded by his lack of real world reasoning skills, and this was the case even before he started taking large amounts of Valium. Rajneesh could weave magnificent philosophical dreams and addict his disciples to imagined worlds of spiritual adventure, but those dreams did not have to stand any empirical test of truth. In the world of science you have to prove what you say is true through testing. In the world of philosophy and religion you can say anything you desire and throw caution to the wind. If your words sound good to the masses they will sell, whether they are fact or fiction.
Rajneesh ruled his empire as a warlord with his own private army and puppet government. His visions and ideas, faulty or not, were taken without question as the word of God. His disciples were judged by their ability to surrender to his will and any opposing views were branded as negativity and an unspiritual lack of faith. …
Even in his fifties Rajneesh was still lying to get his own way, still demanding to always be the center of attention, and by 1988, suffering from drug and illness induced dementia, was pouting that his box of toys, his expensive car collection and jewel encrusted watches, had been taken away. …
His biggest flaw, his disregard for the ordinary concept of truth, was his ultimate downfall and for that crime he must be held fully responsible with no excuses….
Bhagwan lied when he said he had enlightened disciples. He lied when he said he never made a mistake. Later he was forced to admit he was fallible as his list of bungles grew to monstrous proportions. He lied by pretending that the therapy groups run by his disciples were not mainly a money making device. Rajneesh broke immigration laws and lied about it in court.
Rajneesh’s life is a lesson for us all to practice what we preach. Bhagwan gave great advice but he could not heed his own wise words. He is also a reminder not to take what people say very seriously. It is better to observe how people live and put less emphasis on what they speak. Talk is cheap. Actions are more costly and telling.”
March 2, 2007 at 5:57 am
Right,
thank god Gordon is not X man lower self, Gordons english is much better and Gordon would not waste his time like this…(Miss you Gordon)
X man lower self is……X man lower self
And that’s about the only thing he got right, his alias
cheers
March 2, 2007 at 6:45 am
I would like to add my SEX story to this on going whatever it is.
I was in FOF for a very short period. I never met Robert but did see him on stage at a large meeting at a Masonic Lodge in San Francisco.
At the onset I would like to admit that my mental and emotional state was troubled before I met FOF. I was skating on thin ice at the beginning.
In San Francisco I was ‘camping’ out in an apartment with other students from out of state.
One was a married female whose husband and boyfriend were at two different locations in the Bay area.
One day three of us went shopping at Union Square and to have lunch. On the bus down she admitted later she became “horney” and since I was the only human dildo around her attention came at me. I’m trying to be a good student and not picking up her womanly wiles.
On the way back to the apartment she decides she wants to walk. The other student takes the bus.
As we walk she shocks me by saying she wanted to smoke marijuana. I suggested that we had lots of wine at the apartment and thinking that I can help her as student to student. Never knowing that I was being had.
Well, I got drunk and had not another student woke up from first state and made intentional noise I would have committed adultry that night.
The next morning I approached her and apologized for my part and hoped that it would not happen again. The next week -end everybody went to the farm except those who were not current in their payments. I was alone in the apartment when she came in drunk. We were in the kitchen when she said, “well, I guess I’ll have to go to bed alone again”. She left and the ‘I’s began. What did she mean, “I guess I’ll have to go to bed alone again”. Was that a hint? Things of a sexual nature began occuring in my machine. So, I went into her bedroom sat next to her body and bent over toward her. She said “no’and I immediately got up and left. Evidently she complained to somebody because G. Haven called me to hear my side of the story. I told him that whatever she said was true. He fined me $2,500.00 dollars and would consider reinstatement whenever I paid the fine. That was 28 years ago. Seven devils worse than the first came and left.
SEX reminds me of that story told by the female journalist who attended a dinner given by Gurdjieff. Her intent was to expose him as a scammer of souls, a money grubbing fool and ultimate fake.
At dinner with Gurdjieff she noticed he wasnt eating but just looking. At some time during dinner she looked at him and experienced an orgasm that felt like the back of her head blew off.
Can Robert do that?
March 2, 2007 at 6:51 am
Innernaut, I love the story about a boy in a dragon cave. And I totally agree that FOF plays a very important role in our lives, just the fact that we were/are members of it proves that it has to be so.
Whether we would have come to this or that without FOF – this is just thoughts, speculations, who knows. It didn’t happen this way, so why even guess, right?
If it’s a part of our play to leave FOF – it’s just what it is, it is perfectly appropriate, otherwise it wouldn’t be so.
In the story you posted it’s so beautifully said that the boy finally lost all the layers, and became a boy again, just like in the beginning, may be more compassionate. Interestingly, he didn’t turn into a superboy, or conscious beeing boy – he just returned to his ORIGINAL innocent nature of a little kid.
It seems to be the whole thing – we tend to depelop through life all these personality layers, big and selfish and defensive. We get entangled in the ideas and burried under these mental layers of our false contradicting identities… While retaining our true nature inside all the time.
And then one day these layers just shed. Kind of by themselves, becaused they are not believed in anymore, they are seenthrough as false. Sometimes – with tremendous pain, sometimes – completely without pain, there seem to be no set rules. And underneath we are this “boy” again, this conscious curious awareness, just like we were once when we were kids – simple, pure, not selfish – just because we didn’t learn the concept of separate self and selfishness yet. Our true nature – consciousness – is not selfish at all, because it is not attached to any specific “self”. It’s the same everywhere. The game of “me” and “my awakening” is played until it is seen through.
When we were small kids – life was fun and we had no problems. There was not much worry, or fear or judgment. World was one big beautiful home for all, it was very comforting. Every day was an exciting new adventure. What changed? It’s still is a beautiful world, but we are covered with those imaginary skins. We are still exact same thing underneath that we remember from childhood, it’s alive and watching. The “skins” are not real because they are mind constructions, imaginary false identities, and yet we are talking here about struggling with it, removing it, as if they are real. But they exist in the mind ONLY. That struggle, effort and work on them just gives them life, just perpetuates illusion. It’s like Don Kihote fighting wind mills – just leave it, see it for what it is.
March 2, 2007 at 7:33 am
I don’t honestly think that preventing others from joining the FOF is such as good idea.I would highly recommend to join to verify it all your self.If not the FOF then it would be some other sect.In fact,FOF is the great one for this reason.The combination of all aspects of life in such a condense form is a perfect study ground for all purposes.That is in fact the real reason for schools.To include all and every aspect of our liefs in it in order to observe and learn from it.The problem with it that people are tend to forget the purpose quickly and are ready to ideologies every thing at once.The camping ground become a Holy ground.The instructor become a Teacher and so on and on..
I am personally glad that I came to FOF and thanks to this difficult experience I can say for certainty that I am free from cultism in general and there is a very little chance of me to join any other in the future.I can see now where they all connect.By knowing one we knows al.They all the same.So,please,don’t be afraid and join but remember who you are and what you want.Just stay detached and simply watch the show.And last,jump off before it gets to late.
For those who left..keep on to dig in side.Its healthy..We left in silence from a different reasons and now its our time to speak out loud our last words.Because if we will not then Burton will speak them up for us and his words would not be to our favor.
And one recommendation to all members.It is a courtesy (as some one mentioned) to keep the forum in anonymous way.This form will allow more people to speak up.Why mass it out?
If you have a personal accounts then solve it all in a mature and dignifying way.Don’t mention names or make assumptions public.We are not here to fight but to discuss a serious matter which still is troubling many hearts.
AND BY THE WAY,THE LOW SELFKING OF CLUB AND MASTER OF BULL SHIT ARE DIFFERENT PEOPLE.WE AREN’T PLAYING SHERLOCK HOLMES IN HERE SO PLEASE KEEP YOUR STUPID ASSUMPTIONS QUIET.
lowselfkingofclub@yahoo.com
March 2, 2007 at 9:55 am
It might be useful if this forum had a focus, I would like to hear what you have observed about Philip’s question, which was, as I remember it, about how to really accept whatever happends. I had an experience yesterday which made me think about it. I was having dinner, which I had prepared, at my sister’s house. My 16 year old nephew came to the table wearing a hooded sweatshirt, and my sister told him it was not acceptable attire for the dinner table. He put the hood back, revealing that he had pierced his ear and was wearing a safety pin in it. Mother and son proceeded to have a knock down drag out shouting match at the table. Internally I could produce nothing but judgment ‘I’s about both of them, what they were saying to each other, what they had done recently and in the past, resentment that they had ruined the meal with their negativity, and so forth. I got up from the table and left, sarcastically thanking them for a lovely evening as I went out the door. The point here is that day after day at work and with family and in traffic and elsewhere, things bump along the bottom like this, and I am very far from rejoicing in the fact that it is all somehow manifestations of divinity. I can see some of the imaginary things in myself–such as the sense of entitlement I felt as a result of having prepared dinner, and the imagination I had harbored about some sort of Norman Rockwell family dinner I hoped to experience, but even discounting those elements I don’t think I would have been able to accept the hurtful things they said to each other. Are we really supposed to have a quiet place of inner peace in the midst of the world as it is? This discussion seems to be being carried on by beings that live in some other world than the one I’m in.
March 2, 2007 at 10:20 am
Waking-up is not a group experience
Walking in a sugar cane field at night in the Fiji islands some thoughts were coming to me that maybe some of you find useful.(See pictures here: http://www.energy-medicine.info/kiran.html)
As you can imagine I am still in a process of transforming all the things that happened to me in the last 16 month, starting with the death of my dear Cassandra and Daniela, my own time of being two weeks in a coma and then waking up in one of the strangest third world hospitals that had not even hot water,
Being received back in Oregon House by hundreds of Jack and Queen of hearts that did not have a clue how to deal with this shock. Being given a three month medical leave of absence because I informed RB about the sexual escapades of one of his main female supporters. Loosing the connection with my parents and sister because they found that I was following what they called a “sex guru”. Then being cheated by students who I had trusted so much to put them in charge of my business when moving to Egypt and finally being asked to leave the school because I did not want to accept a jacket from RB.
So some judge without ever having talked to me since then that my actions show that I either have a brain damage, am negative, depressed, aggressive, crazy or simply put in work language “completely in the grips of the King of Clubs”. For some who do not just want to believe their thoughts I can offer to talk to me or see how much the pictures of the recent month on this site, support this believe.
Of course a lot has changed in my psychology, after facing death so intensely and certainly orchestrated by the gods I have lost most or all naivety, I am not afraid anymore of anything, I have no tolerance for feminine dominance and I live my life now with an intensity that is aware in every moment that it can be over very quickly.
What looked profound and with much authority in RB’s actions looks rather shallow from this new perspective and even more so. that of most of his inner circle. It is apparent now that people like Rovena, Kevin, Gernot, Eaton, Linda, Mark are increasingly becoming caricatures of “dedicated followers” that get their identity from sitting in the first row and getting some attention form RB.
So one of the questions that is coming to my mind is ‘Why is RB surrounding himself with those kind of people who have a particularly weak Self, so that they need to to enhance it with this greed for their teachers attention.
I am, as I said many times, not in favor of for example of Girard’s interpretations that explain everything that I do not like on RB with some of his mechanical weaknesses. I know he is a conscious being what I understand as “being a perfect tool of the gods”. But different than what a Christian and feminine dominance program would make you believe , the role of such a divine tool is not “to be followed without it thinking” but to be an oracle that leads those who want to learn to their own Self.
Now what most student understand by “to learn” and “to follow” is what usually is expected in a kinder garden “learning by heart” and “following by simple repetition”. Of course even in university teachers expect a very different understanding and practice of “learning” and how much more would this differ in an advanced school for spiritual awakening.
But just look at the last event that after every “good student” had dropped their better understanding that things did not start in Egypt but much earlier, if you even wanted to talk of “beginning”. But as soon as they had become good in repeating this new understanding from the divine mouth of their teacher like sheep, he rrevealed a new and even more profound understanding “that it all did begin in Prehistoric time”.
The gods have their own laws to obey, the tool they are using to teach has always some very definite limitations which are for example described in the ‘Theory of mechanics”. A Krisnamurti had to act and be limited by his Lunar body typ, a Bhagwan Rajnees had to teach within the limitations of a Jovial. RB has to be understood as a Saturn, Jack of Diamonds with a very limited formal education and coming from a very simple family.
Now again it is not up to me to decide and discriminate, like Girard does, what are divine actions coming form his higher centers and which is just mechanical weaknesses. For me this way of dealing with the contradictions is simply a buffer and based on the usual concept that one knows better. However also the other alternative to “blindly follow and repeat everything’ as practiced by most is leading nowhere.
And the soul inhabiting the role of RB has the same challenge not to “believe his own actions”, particularly now that the gods, after many years of building many very successful decisions into RB’s play, apparently made him make one “mistake” after another. But as RB often said “The gods do not miss and they are not under the law of accident’, so mistakes do not exist for the gods only we can miss the point. And as always the point here is to disentangle ones identity form external events, from believe in success and failure, form ones believe in a teacher or a student.
So the way out is to be courageous and trying to “Be oneself” and this is usually not a result of thinking but of “resisting to be in imagination” about how things really are. And it is exactly this state of contradiction that the gods want to promote when they designed the role of any real teacher.
One of the more profound statements of G. was that : “If things could have been done in another way they would have been done in another way”. Looking for faults, blaming, explaining and comparing is the usual way our of this uncomfortable state of contradiction. However it is exactly the tension of this contradiction that like the tension of electric voltage will eventually make it possible to jump the gap.
For that reason awakening has never been a group emotion, because it is exactly the essential features of being “part of a group” that are making life comfortable and easy. On the contrary many of the tensions that one is exposed to without the protection of a group, one can only endure when one has is awake.
I do not think that ever two people awakened in the same group, O had to leave G, RC had to loose O, RB had to leave AH. Mohamed even had to kill his own brethren and he formed the phrase “The prophet is not valued among his own people.”
So for many of us its time no to leave the nest like the Argonauts or the Apostles and teach not what we learned but what we have become in our own form from our own connection with the gods.
March 2, 2007 at 10:37 am
Regarding FW’s comment: The glib use of the term: “sexual morality” and its immediate dismissal. This usage is yet another abstraction which allows formatory mind not to explore and understand. “I might ask myself, why am I so interested aruing [sic] the point? For much the same reason. We can’t resist observing others because it’s easier thafon[sic] observing ourselves.” Please, you must learn how to think or at least recognise the familiar ring of oft-repeated phrases of FoF doctrine used continually in response to a rather complex and critical situation which actually involves you, a real participating you in a community, as well as ‘those other people’ that you so casually dismiss who are involved more directly. FoF dogma often IS true in one context, while it is entirely inappropriate when applied to others. Sometimes what other people are doing IS our business. Observing others is a very good way to see truth, outside as well as inside one’s self. Not to mention that one may actually become more intelligent (conscious, if you like) by the increase of knowledge.This may also shift the focus off oneself and one’s own self-observation for awhile, (and may give insight into exactly how one is observing oneself and what one is actually seeing) and one may see oneself more clearly and the larger world. It is much easier to self-remember than it is to think. Then one can move on to seeing other things. And in moving on to other things, one doesn’t forget what has happened in the past, but hopefully, integrates it.
Also, it may help to know that just as one instance of RB’s ’sexual morality’ has been to advise a husband always to keep a younger woman on the side, and also to lie to her that he has isn’t engaged in’sexual activity’ with the ‘Teacher’. You see, the ramifications reach out a bit farther than your present consciousness can grasp.
March 2, 2007 at 1:10 pm
Some of the posts here seem to suggest the because they are not directly involved in Burton’s spurious activities it is non of their business (INCONVENIENT TRUTH, Post 280). The fact is, it is our business. By being members of his group you are complicit in and are condoning that behaviour. Of course if your consciences are at peace with that, that’s fine. But don’t start making excuses for him.
In fact I don’t care what lifestyle he chooses, what disturbs me is just who he chooses to share it with. What concerns me most about some of these postings, is not the graphic details which one can encounter in numerous places on the WWW, but the eventual fate of some of the participants. Are these young Russian lads getting any support from friends?
I can assure you from first hand experience it IS a traumatic ordeal, especially when one has entered the group with an open spirit (call it being naive if you wish), but it’s the condition usually required for a genuine desire to work and open oneself to the new ideas.
If it really isn’t an issue, why wasn’t I told at my perspective student meeting that not only will you be asked to make efforts to self remember, verify everything for yourself… oh yes, and as you’re a young, handsome boy you might at some point be requested by the teacher to partake in a little sex with him? At least that way I might have had some forewarning and I would have been able to have a better idea if this “school” was really for me.
As it happened, one day several years down the road I was summoned into Burton’s study, plied with cognac and visions of angels being, only to be unceremoniously debriefed; even if I had the scant consolation of knowing I was serving a higher purpose. Though I now believe that was code for: I had fulfilled my task admirably and was able to rise to the occasion.
Fortunately, I am quite a strong person and I was able to call time on these shenanigans when finally I came to my senses. My only real fear was contracting some kind of disease, especially as I knew a lad who had recently died of aids and I wasn’t sure of his exact relationship to the Burton.
Anyway, back to these Russian boys and any other vulnerable souls for that matter. Seriously is anyone looking out for them? Or have they just be jettisoned back on to the outside to fend for themselves?
INCONVENIENT TRUTH, I thanked you for an absorbing read, however I must agree with INNERNAUT when he states you post is somewhat heartless. Because you are not “involved”, does that excuse any lack of compassion for your fellow students? Or is it really everyone for themselves? Or, it’s your own fault if you don’t watch your back?
Dear VENA, almost everything you say I can relate to. I too was shocked by that post and I can only assume with the rise in FOF service costs over time, what you get for your money has also risen (I seemed to have got off lightly).
But the fact is, however we choose to analyse Burton, the bottom line is we’re not going to change him. We can only change ourselves and our relationship to him and “possibly” point out some inconvenient truths along the way to anyone who has ears to hear.
To inject some scale into proceedings: I’m sure there are hundreds, maybe thousands of people, or forums such as this, with individuals grappling with similar issues where they have found themselves drawn into bizarre – sometimes lurid situations which have in turn had a lasting psychological effect and can in some instances take years to overcome. Indeed there are professionals who earn a living who offer their services to cure people like us. But like all those other individuals who are identified with their genie, we are with ours and every time we rub the bottle, it leaps out at us.
My advice, if I have any to offer, is: put your bottle down occasionally and pick up an inspirational book or poem; listen to a moving piece of music or take a walk in nature. In other words try to keep the faith. It’s difficult I know.
Simon
March 2, 2007 at 3:33 pm
Kid Shelleen (11): What happens to one’s spiritual pursuit when one no longer believes in esoteric knowledge?
I can only answer this question from my own experience. When I no longer believed in esoteric knowledge (or more aptly put, when I gave it little importance) I understood that spirituality is not something you have to pursue. By pursuing spirituality/mysticism/occultism/… I found out what was possible. By leaving the crazed passion behind me and concentrating on life, I started exploring those possibilities.
Gordon (21): I am so sorry for publishing your name without your consent, I deleted your surname from the post as soon as I realised.
Tudorie Vlad (22): Congratulations.
Robert’s Sex Life (23): This board also seems to be promoting neo-Advaita. A quick search on Google shows that there have been plenty of sexual and financial scandals connected to Advaita teachers.
This board does not promote anything. If you talk of this board as me and the Knight, who started the blog and now monitor this discussion, then I can assure you that we do not promote advaita or any other school. Both of us believe in the personal approach.
Some ex-members of the FoF found advaita to be more helpful to their personal growth than the FoF. I find it quite simple to understand why they would seek to spread the word, if they thought that the word was genuine.
Master of bullshit (24): Why focus on the lowest aspect (whether or not these stories are exaggerated) of someone who has successfully devoted his life to bringing out the highest in others?
Why should we not focus on someone who has successfully devoted his life to material and sexual predation in the guise of spiritual teaching?
Devoted Reader (25): After my visit to the FoF in London, I also felt the need to put some time into researching the various cults active today. Osho was one of those that made me truly sick. My partner met a girl on her gap year who was raised and brought up in an Osho commune. She was raped by all the members, including her brother, at the age of 7. When she tried to leave, they attempted to kill her.
Abigail (30): Human drama. I used to think that it kept me from ‘working’ on myself, now I realise that it is the best opportunity to practice what you preach. Maybe if you acted more self-lessly during the dinner then there would have been only 2 pissed off people instead of 3, maybe only 1, maybe none. The argument had nothing to do with you, yet you made it about you.
The two things that I have been practising in my day-to-day life are: 1) being less self-obsessed and 2) thinking/caring about other people.
Suprisingly enough, both of those make me happier than I have ever been. Thinking less about myself and more about others makes me happy in a way I have not previously experienced. Not to mention that some of my relationships have become so much deeper than they ever were. I fall in love with most people I meet.
I believe that the only way to thrive in this world is to find that inner peace in yourself. I live in London so I know what it is to live in an overly aggressive and fast environment. It is so much harder to search for peace and tranquility in here but the results of that search are much more visible/tangible. By the way, what’s stopping you from moving to the countryside or another country?
Kiran (31): Please don’t advertise on this forum a website that sells spiritual products. I will be deleting blatant attempts at self-advertising of personal websites that sell counselling/therapy/products of any kind. I find it hard to believe that you would do this from a wish to help, rather I sense a wish to tap into a potentially lucrative market.
March 2, 2007 at 6:22 pm
Sex, money and evolution
“Let him who has not sinned throw the first stone.”
Older women seduced me when I was young.
I seduced younger girls when I was older.
Injustice, taking- advantage- of or naiveté.
This injustice will not hold in court, but we can blame FOF/RB.
When it comes to sexuality we are al perverts.
My Uncle invested 20% of his income in real estate.
He died at the age of 40 from heart attack (stress).
His children squandered his money.
We can blame FOF/RB for this also.
March 2, 2007 at 6:53 pm
I would like to thank Mr. Sheik and Sir Knight for this contribution to life on planet earth.
In Chinese philosophy it is said that three feet above one’s head is the SPIRIT WORLD. Someone else said that it is no further away than one’s jugular vein.
Somebody else on this blog/thread said that an increase in the search/need for consciousness is growing all over the world, or something to that effect. Tudorie Valad post #22 says he is moved by coincidences which is a valid thought.
I once asked a black soldier from the second world war what he felt like when came back and had to ride in the back of the bus. He replied, “that’s the way it was”. I also asked a mexican what it felt like to see signs on restruant doors proclaiming, “dogs and mexicans
use rear doors”. He also replied that’s the way it was.
Zeitgeist is a German word that means “spirit of the times”. It’s a word that describes Life in the big city. Maybe the spirit of our times is lunacy?
I would like to thank again Mr. Sheik and Sir Knight for posting all my thoughts under anonymous. I will begin using my real name-Arthur.
I would like to say that Sir Knight has made available the new zeigeist for our time. Go to about on the home page, and then click on “confessions of an economic Hitman” by John Perkins. Especially pay attention to the Eagle and Condor prophesy.
March 2, 2007 at 7:24 pm
In relation to some recent posts a few thoughts come to mind that might be worth sharing:
#19 another FW student says that the button of our sexual morality is being pushed and asks why do people have a problem with it, we should observe ourselves instead.
This is an example of a typical argument given in the Fellowship. Talking about the teacher’s private life is gossip, we are told. So we learn to conform and to not talk about it. But to use some fourth way language, gossip consists in the third force behind your actions. Talking about the teacher that is “gossip”, for the sheer enjoyment of scandal, is only a subset of all possible talk about the teacher. The two need not be confused.
The other typical answer to the issue of RB’s sex life is to imply that the asker must have a problem with homosexuality (politically incorrect almost anywhere) and they should observe themselves more in that area.
This is a fallacious argument and is based on misrepresenting the question as something other than it is. Often, even if the question is not aptly expressed (we dance around delicate subjects), the concern is not Robert’s sexual orientation, nor group sex. Rather, the concern is who is doing this, with whom and in what relationship. If he used to tell students that he was celibate, forbade extramarital sex and branded homosexuality as false personality (probably an attitude created by Alex Horn), all the while having sex with young male students, doesn’t that raise questions about his credibility? If a number of young heterosexual men found themselves brought to his bedroom in an attitude of complete trust in his spiritual guidance, having no idea that he was going to pull down their pants next, without any forewarning, and use their body as a sex object, doesn’t that make you ask what his human relationship to these people could be? Did he have any respect for them, or was he capable of relating at all? If, when they felt uncomfortable and tried to object, he would tell them to just let go of their body and that having sex with him is the will of the Gods, isn’t that the ultimate appeal to authority? You wouldn’t want to go against the will of the Gods, and the will of the Gods is what I say is the will of the Gods. Poor guys. I understand Robert was abused by his mother as a child (so they say). Poor Robert.
As for them having no problem with it, so why should we. Well, yes, if you have the attitude that any circumstances you encounter in your life are a tool for learning, and you use this experience to be humiliated and drop your ego and identification with yourself and just observe as the play unfolds – well, good on you. But Robert’s teaching part in this story was at best circumstantial, and more likely he used you for the gratification of his desires with no concern for you as a fellow human. If you are strong enough to emerge from this unscathed, then you probably don’t need Robert to teach you in this way in the first place. But more often, people are naïve, confused, inexperienced, trusting, and get damaged in the process.
This is my take on it, but then again, I’ve never had to have sex with Robert. If any of the guys who have, is reading this, and feels their experience has been different, perhaps personally meaningful, I sure would like to hear from you.
#18 Anonymous says people who have left are still resentful, that’s why they’re hanging around this forum – an indication that they’re still attached to him.
Dear Anonymous, that may be so. It is quite likely that most of us have some soul-searching to do before we are able to not speak about the Fellowship again. You see, it was and is a very large part of our lives. If you had a very important and dear person in your life for example who suddenly died, or who turned out not to be who you thought they were, would you just move on tomorrow and never give it a second thought? Or would you need to go through a process of transformation and trying to integrate the meaning of the whole episode into the story of your life?
I don’t see resentment in this forum or its contributors (for the most part). In fact, it strikes me as one of the most intelligent and thoughtful exchanges I have heard on this topic. Rather than being a place for ex students to rant about their frustrations, this forum serves another useful function: it is a venue for open and plain critical analysis of the Fellowship that has never been so openly available before (to my knowledge). Critical thinking is discouraged in the Fellowship, it is the lower self, you should focus on having no I’s and being present now. So some things just never get evaluated the way they deserve.
#23 Robert’s sex life says this board is promoting neo Advaita. There have been plenty of sexual and financial scandals connected to Advaita teachers.
As the moderator has said, there is no single entity representing this board that is promoting anything. Every opinion is being heard.
As for the sex scandals of Advaita teachers, if I understand the intention of your statement correctly, you seem to be saying that because of this, Advaita teaching is in some way the same as Robert’s teaching because both are connected with sex scandals.
It is good to realize there are two separate things on the table here: one is a teaching or a system of thought, the other is people who are attaching themselves to a name and calling themselves a “teacher of x”. Personal problems of a particular teacher say nothing about the validity or non-validity of a particular tradition. Although I would seriously doubt the ability of a teacher to successfully convey and teach a system if it was plainly apparent that they were having glaring unresolved issues in their own personal life. That goes for Robert as well as any other teacher of any other tradition.
#24 The Master of Bullshit Says why focus on the lowest aspect of someone who has successfully devoted his life to bringing out the highest in others?
By what yardstick will we measure success? By the percentage of students who leave (was it 80%?), not because the school has successfully fulfilled its function and now they no longer need it, but because they’ve become disappointed, disillusioned, or just felt that this wasn’t working out for them? Can you think of one student who left happy, feeling that the school had served its purpose successfully? Well, perhaps the recent departees fall into this category, saying that it took them so long to realize it was all going in the wrong direction, so they were glad to have spent the time in the Fellowship to learn this.
But really, how do we measure “successfully”? This is very subjective. Personally I’ve never been able to relate to the teacher and his way of teaching very well, I kept telling myself there must be something wrong with me because I don’t fall into this trance that people describe he produces at his meetings, and that I must be “brain-dead to not see” the radiant glory of his successes. (For those outside, he has a penchant for declaring every year that this has been the most successful year in the history of the school and has exceeded _our_ expectations.) For me, it’s been the students who have helped to bring out the highest in me, sometimes. We help each other, as often as we forget. I feel it is a matter of your own inner willingness, being ready to choose the higher at the slightest provocation, so to speak. No one can coerce you into acting from what is higher.
Wish you all a pleasant day,
March 2, 2007 at 7:50 pm
#35 “Balancing the Scale” — we’re all perverts? Sorry, I’m not buying that one. It lets the perverts off too easily.
As to some earlier discussion that we are all adults and have the ability to say “no” to RB — well yes, and no. Ideally, yes. But, like it or not, the teacher/student relationship has more than a little in common with the parent/child relationship. Again, ideally this shouldn’t be so, but as humans it is inevitable that some element of this will creep in. So you can’t really say, “you had the ability to say no,” any more than you can say that to a sexually abused child. In one of Gurdjieff’s saner moments he said, all that is needed to begin in the 4th way is a sincere willingness to work and a little bit of trust. That’s TRUST, not “CYA because the teacher is trying to get inside it.”
Also, “let him who has not sinned throw the first stone”? Have you ever thought about what this really means? How convenient for the criminal! By that logic mass murderers should roam free, because we’re all guilty of something, right? Use your brains people!
Anonymous, it sounds from your story like you had a very difficult experience in the fellowship, and I am sorry for that. It seems you were treated unfairly, and that it continues to be painful for you. I sincerely wish you well in moving on after all those years.
March 2, 2007 at 7:53 pm
Dear Abigail,
Thank you for your question.
I came to realize that acceptance (and also lack of judgment and negativity) are NATURAL BYPRODUCTS, that quickly and effortlessly follow the understanding of who you really are. We all try to work on by-products, try to create them, to produce them – no wonder it fails. There is no base for it to stand on. These things are very desirable, so we keep trying, not realising that they are byproducts of a natural state. We have to start with first ingredient – our true identity, and then secondary things will follow by themselves, just like in chemical reaction.
From the present prospective, it appears that most important is to realise our true identity and to disspel the false one, and then things happen naturally. Our judgment and anger mostly is based on a false sence of self, on an imaginary personality that we think we are. It’s “me” who thinks this and that, who is against this and that, who does this and that. It has a long recorded history and story of his life and experiences, all stored in memory and pulled out on every occasion.
Upon direct immediate looking you can actually see – I assure you – that there is no such thing in present moment as a “me”. You can try it right now. It’s truly simple. Don’t listen to all the mind’s “what if’s” and “yes but’s” – just look. Can you find any “person”, any “me” in direct expereince? What can you observe immediately about yourself without going in the mind for an image or reference file? Not much, right? Yes, here “you” are, in the mind only, as a THOUGHT. A story made of the past. A mental file with pictures attached. There seem to be no solid observable “me” present now, there is just this looking out, this alive awareness watching it all, including thoughts. You can’t see yourself without IMAGINING it, correct? So, may be – there is no “me” except in the mind??? May be “me” never had a real life, but only life in the mind? And what lives and exists is just this – WATCHING? I know it’s a little scary for the “me”. He doesn’t want to die. Well, he never was…
That’s the whole point. It clicks when it’s seen. May not happen instantly, may not happen at all. But it’s worth trying, it doesn’t cost much, no need to join or follow anyone. It is so simple – it’s simplier that any teaching, any system. I wouldn’t even label it “advaita” or whatever. It’s just looking, really, without using the mind in a usual way. One can try it right here right now. Don’t listen to your objecting thoughts that it’s not going to work, and keep looking. It could seem hard only because mind viciously objects and rejects it. Mind doesn’t want you to look, because you’ll inevitably see that there is no “me” and conscious awareness that’s been your true nature all along, will suddenly recognise itself. It’s everyone’s birthright to see this, it’s not something special and rare. It’s everyone’s nature, it’s what we all are – whether aware of ot or not. Please don’t listen to your mind stories that tells you otherwise – those are stories you were told or read somewhere. See for yourself, you don’t need a teacher for that. In fact, no one can do the looking for you.
I was amazed that all the desirable stuff – acceptance, kindness, non-judgment, being present – all just followed by itself. I spent year trying not to judge! I used to be so angry at so many things – it all bothered me. And then it all just went away by itself. Slow drivers don’t bother me, credit card fraud doesn’t produce anger, mother-in-law that use to ruin my life is neutrally seen jut as another human being… You see things for what they are, as they are – with no impulse to judge or change, naturally, effortlessly, just like when you were small kid and had no pre-formed judgments.
My advice, if I can offer one – don’t try to work on by-products, look for your identity first, see who (or WHAT) you really are. All the good stuff will naturally follow.
Quite a few people (our friends from FOF) have realised this already and live a transfomed life, it is really not that impossible.
Sincerely wishing you good luck,
malaec@yahoo.com
March 2, 2007 at 8:08 pm
Here is the first Putin like statement fom the FOF Council:
Dear Friends:
In recent weeks, some of you have told us that you received unsolicited e-mail and mailings. Apparently mass-mailings and e-mails have been sent to almost everyone listed in the Fellowship’s private membership directories and on Propylaia. Some emails have pointed to a link appearing to be a Fellowship-sponsored discussion group.
Very strong laws protect the privacy rights of private organizations and their members, especially religious organizations. These laws range from State and Federal laws to the Constitutions of the United States, and California, and international treaties. California has especially strong rights protecting the privacy of members and the organization from unsolicited communications, and the modern version known as “spam.”
We are taking the invasion of your privacy rights very seriously. We are investigating the unauthorized use of Propylaia and the Fellowship’s private membership lists and are reporting these matters to all responsible government agencies.
Even if this invasion of privacy continues, rest assured that we are aware of the situation. Remember that you are free not to become involved.
March 2, 2007 at 8:55 pm
I neglected to mention that the morality of the ‘inner circle’ trickles out into the “School” in other ways. My ex-husband (who dropped me like a hot potato when I announced that I was leaving the FoF) had previously been sexually propositioned by one of the more prominent married male members of the FoF team of what I shall refer to here broadly as ‘health care workers’. My husband had found work during the week and began commuting from what was then still called ‘Apollo’ now ‘Isis’. The kind gentleman mentioned above, had offered to lend his home as an overnighter. He insisted, ever so graciously, that my husband could sleep in his bed (I don’t think he expected that I would be accompanying my husband at any time); he probably would not have left his TV set right next to the bed with a video already inserted into the cassette slot. The subject of the video was gay sex. I felt uneasy, as I began having suspicions that there was an agenda behind his offer, but gave myself or should I say, him, the benefit of the doubt. Like all ‘good students’, I said to myself, “Oh, well, whatever he wants to do in his private life, gay videos or whatever, that’s his business. He probably left the video there by mistake, anyway.”
However, the second time this happened . . . the floodlights came on—and did not go out. I won’t go into the rest of the story. Suffice it to say that this story is not concerned with some abstraction such as ‘sexual activity’ or ‘sexual morality’. Nor does it concern the natural human fact of sex or sexual orientation. This is rather a real story about a real person (you can multiply this many times in the FoF) attempting to take what ‘belongs’ to another (whether the other person consents is another issue–here I’m speaking about the personal responsibility of the active force). This surreptitious (and sometimes not so surreptitious) taking is ‘stealing’, ‘adultery’ or, if you don’t like these ‘uncool’ words, just say, downright selfishness, betrayal and treachery.
So, selfish me, I didn’t like not having been consulted first about any feelings I might have regarding this blatant (and supposedly secret) proposition to my husband. But wait: I should ask myself: should I be consulted at all? I’m just a machine. What do my higher centres care about that? It’s none of MY business, right?? How dare I be so ‘mechanical’, so ‘identified’ as to have an opinion on the matter at all? How coarse and unconscious could I be? Have I learned nothing? How unloving, ungenerous and ‘sexually hung up’ I am. I should be ashamed of my ‘lower self’ and get back to self-remembering . . . and the orgy, at once! Remember, “Keep your eye on the donut and not on the hole.” “Lie back and think of England.” “If self-remembering doesn’t make you happy, nothing else will.” Should these not work, I might further mollify myself (and my fellow students’ consciences–and the perpetrator’s) by keeping my insubordinate jaw from flapping unceremoniously and committing the capital sin of ‘negativity’ and ‘gossip’. I might advise myself, as a previous contributor to this blog would seem to recommend, that I should not observe and judge others, but rather look into myself and see what is wrong with ME.
Supposedly sexually liberated female students: Do you understand that when RB seduces your boyfriend or your husband (even on your honeymoon that you planned to spend together at Apollo/Isis) from you–you who would purport to have ‘the heart and stomach of a king’–with mere material bribes and empty promises of heaven, that aside from the grand ego trip he enjoys for himself–and the emasculation of your supposedly ’strong’ ‘significant other’, that RB does not LOVE you in any way whatsoever, but is in fact displaying the most profound disrespect and disregard for you and your existence? How’s that for women’s liberation? But no, you may think it’s all right. You may bask in it. Or you may push it below where it can’t hurt you. One lovely student I knew, when I had got up enough courage to ask her how she felt about what her husband was doing (he was a long-time traveller with RB), abruptly replied: “We don’t discuss it”. A couple of years later she had a serious nervous breakdown. That’s what keeps it rolling along. Either do not discuss it or convince oneself that it is acceptable, or–much better–that it is noble, beautiful, ‘conscious love’. If that interpretation is what really pleases you, go ahead. But obviously, I don’t recommend it. Nor do I tolerate it.
March 2, 2007 at 9:30 pm
I find this discussion very stimulating… Thanks for your contributions! It arises many questions. Though I would be careful with the answers and conclusions we make. There is a lot of judgment expressed here. I personally still don’t know why RB needs to have this extensive sexual activities and whether or not it proves that he is not a conscious teacher. Maybe he is a pervert – maybe not. Maybe sequence is a nonsense – maybe not… The earlier “comments on sequences” (post 206) were taken out of a context by the way… Let’s do not judge something we don’t understand. Do we need to “save poor russian guys”? Or will they take care of themselves? I can contribute in a fund of rehabilitation for those who are “trapped in a loop” or need to run away. But for what I know those Russian guys are doing OK. I talked to a few of them and they mostly have a good sense of humor and like “to live not a boring life”.
March 2, 2007 at 9:57 pm
Response to Kevin Brown and Linda Tulisso, authors of letter that appears in #40.
I am relieved to hear that the Fellowship Council is concerned at last about the invasion of my privacy!
Does this mean that you will no longer send out spies to collect information about me if I attend Adyashanti meetings in the Bay Area? Does this mean you will not consult third parties about my reading, my plans, my activities? Does this mean you will no longer “research” the sexual activities of my friends, as occurred in some of the posts above?
A dozen years ago, a Fellowship member was sent to REMOVE fliers from mailboxes at the (then) Lincoln Lodge. Am I now to understand that, respecting my privacy, you will now assume that I can sort my own unsolicited mail, and throw away what I do not wish to read?
I receive lots of spam every day, and had no idea that it was illegal. Usually, I just delete my junk mail without reading, and do not need any recourse to the law. We all know that “mailing lists” are regularly bought and sold. I had no idea that this was illegal.
I have read the U.S. Constitution a number of times over the years. Can you please tell me where I am protected from unsolicited mail and spam in it? Not only in the U.S. Constitution, but in “international treaties,” etc.? I am eager to know my rights.
I will sleep easier tonight knowing that the Fellowship Council is ever-vigilant about the invasion of my privacy. Reminding me of what I have a “right” not to become involved with – especially coupled with Yoad’s recent email informing me of how to spend my time, what is wasting it, etc. – I feel deeply guided by a conscious organization with my best interests at heart.
March 2, 2007 at 10:15 pm
When I found the School I knew that I had found the miraculous. Mechanically time speeds up for all of us as we get older and it was speeding up for me in my mid-twenties. Now in my early fifties it is truly miraculous that a week in retrospect really feels like a week and a year like a year, so full of moments are they.
March 2, 2007 at 10:43 pm
#30 (Abigail): As I recall there were a number of responses to Philip’s question. However, I will say that I agree with your statement that some people seem to live in a world (or at least they have written here that they do) that does not reflect the chaos and noise so common in my own world. Sort of a “love and twittering birds and beautiful flowers” kind of place.
A couple of things…some may live a sheltered life of privilege where they can arrange the externals to their liking in this way — sadly, this is not the case for me, though compared to someone in Darfur or Baghdad, things are coming up roses for me, and I have a sincere, daily appreciation for my good fortune that, at least for now, I don’t live amongst such horrors.
Another thing … some people seem able to construct an imaginary world of the mind that filters out the daily nasties. They may do this intentionally, or it may be the result of massive naivete.
Finally, some may genuinely perceive life this way, without self-delusion. This is not something in the realm of my experience. My own deepest experience of what being closest to God, was more in the nature of the Hindu god Kali — holding life in one hand, destruction in the other.
As far as giving this forum more focus, that is purely at the discretion of the site’s moderator, the Esoteric Sheik of Inner Confusion. Personally, I like the wide ranging discussion, and feel that most attempts not to “deviate” in conversation result in a stilted, lifeless talk.
March 2, 2007 at 11:09 pm
Dear all,
At first I thought I would thank you for the “reality show”! Sex/money/addiction(s) of any sort being on stage, entertainement was guaranted!
Then I went through post 41.
I imagined a part that was missing…
A scene in which this student confronted her teacher during one of those very public gatherings:
- “Do you remember doing this ?”
Her pain would then become proper material…
Most writers during WW2 recognised they had to slow down their pen while transfering their experiences knowing that reality was far beyond what imagination could actually “take”.
Very good luck!
March 2, 2007 at 11:19 pm
Sheikh, I see from your blog that you are an admirer of Aleister Crowley. Now, Crowley was a very abusive man–personally abusive of his disciples, sexually abusive, though he also subjected himself to humiliating sexual activities–a heroin addict, probably an alcoholic too. If you are able to appreciate his writings and life despite his personal failings, then perhaps that might help you to understand how students have tolerated Robert’s excesses. Or perhaps not. I’m interested in how you view this.
March 2, 2007 at 11:54 pm
Isiswideshut (40): Lovely choice of name, it made me smile. And thank you for posting that.
Robert’s Sex Life (47): Good point. When I first came across Crowley and his teachings I was blown away by his writing, his wit, and the numerous ‘truths’ that I saw in his work. Few people have understood the reality of modern life as well as him, fewer still have written so well about techniques to free oneself from conditioning and to truly explore what it means to be a human being. Crowley was, and to a great many still is, the guide to freeing your own mind and an example of incerdibly strong will and absolute determination.
Crowley also had some, at that time, peculiar views on morality. He wrote at the same time as Nietzsche and his moral and ethical views closely resembled those of Nietzsche. He believed that morality and ethics were a man-made construct and that people themselves best knew what rules to follow. His most famous quote to this day is: ‘do as thou wilt shall be the whole of the law’. Meaning, a part of you knows what to do and who to be, you just have to find it.
Crowley had a big revival in the 60s when Beatles brought him out and when the hippies followed his teachings of free love. Even today you have bands like the Klaxons who would spread his name.
But as you righly pointed out, Crowley was also an evil man, a pervert, a murderer, a drug addict, a rapist,… It took me a bit longer to fully understand how much of an evil man he truly was, it took some research into his childhood to understand where it was coming from. I believe that RB and Crowley definitely have something in common in this respect.
I also believe that it is important to distinguish between Crowley’s teachings and his life. If I was alive at the time, I would have loved to talk to him. I never would have wanted to become his disciple. I believe that the message he was trying to spread out is important, especially in the modern days, yet the way in which he was spreading it while alive, was incredibly evil and hurtful.
And so I respect Crowley for his incredible will and determination, as well as despising him for the man that he was. His words have been useful to me, and will be to many others, his actions were inexcusable.
And lastly, for those of you who wish that the forum had a clear sense of purpose and a more firm structure. There are only minor ways in which I am prepared to moderate the forum: deleting overly offensive or obscene material or information that could be potentially harmful (ie. revealing names of contributors), as well as moderating anything of a commercial nature, ie. spiritual products. I delete very few posts and never change anything without informing the readers of it. I am a guest at this forum, even though I open my mouth a lot, there are others more suited to fill the screen with text. Therefore, if you feel the need to shift the conversation in a particular direction, make some effort.
March 3, 2007 at 12:26 am
Sheik (#48), I don’t know much about Crowley, but the little I have read may have some relevance here. If others have heard this, please forgive the repetition.
Apparently one of Gurdjieff’s pupils was an admirer of Crowley, and thought it was important that they get together — a kind of meeting of the minds, as it were.
Gurdjieff invited Crowley to dinner at his chateau, where he entertained him with great generosity and politeness. At the very end of their time together, as they said their goodbyes, Gurdjieff said to him, “You are horrible man. Full of filth inside!” Gurdjieff then burst into tears and ran upstairs.
This is the account as I remember reading it, though it was some years ago. I may have read it in James Webb’s “Harmonious Circle.” I think I got the gist of it right.
March 3, 2007 at 12:40 am
I agree with Edward.
When I left FOF few months ago I kept recieving lost of their spam anyway actively offering me to buy their stuff although I officially unsubscribed. What about my privacy? I didn’t want these e-mails delivered to me anymore.
In my understanding spam is a commercial solicitation.
Sharing a link to a forum with others is fine, what’s commercial about it? It is only information, and most of it is actually true. No one forces you to read it.
US Constitution protects the freedom of speech and information. If you don’t want to read then don’t read, click delete.
Commercial spam is what is sent to you by FOF in excess amounts – but this, buy that. You can’t even unsubscribe, I’ve tried many times while being a member.
March 3, 2007 at 12:44 am
Kid Shelleen in post 11 ended with the quote
“You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”
Which reminds me of a line from the Clint Eastwood movie, The Outlaw Josey Whales: “Don’t piss down my back and tell me its raining!” But some “schools” go even a step further and claim they are the only ones selling umbrellas! (The operative word being SELLING.)
March 3, 2007 at 12:48 am
Dear Somebody (post 42),
Most of us are judging “the sequence” from personal experience and have objectively come to the conclusion that it is really dumb! In fact it is well below the intelligence level of a child. It is exactly what has been presented here, nothing more, no hidden understanding that has to be better explained. Try looking at it this way and you too will see the truth.
It really is o.k. to say ” the emperor has no clothes”.
As for the “poor Russian boys”, they are to be pitied. Just the fact that some of them are being hurt is enough. Have you ever been in the middle of one of these orgies? If not ,why don’t you volunteer yourself and then come back here and tell us how “not boring” it makes your life. Seems as if YOU are judging this without first hand experience.
I say all this having been a student for many years who has also enjoyed the positives of the FOF in so many ways. The positive aspects were real but so are/were the negatives. In looking at both sides and having experienced deep emotions regarding this subject, I can honestly say that the positive experience of leaving has been the best. Nothing trumps freedom from fear.
March 3, 2007 at 1:52 am
Hello everyone,
I was just made aware of this blog the other day and so have been catching up on alot of reading. I will post more of my own experiences as an ex-member later but for now I just want to inform those who are interested that I started a Yahoo group ages ago for ex-FOF members, hoping to reconnect with old friends. Well, I have been lax in keeping up with it (there are only a lonely 5 members now), but here is the address http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aftertheFOF
I believe you need to submit a request to become a member. I am looking forward to hearing from some of you posting to this board.
Cheers,
Jeanette
March 3, 2007 at 2:28 am
Things are really heating up in Oregon House.
Someone is sending out CD’s of Adyashanti meetings to FoF members through the local post office.
Others are sending a link to this Blog to all FoF members with e-mail addresses.
The FoF council is sending out warnings to the membership.
Please be careful, the tension is getting very thick.
No doubt this list is being closely monitored by FoF management.
I’m surprised so many have thought to leave at this time of upheaval. Is there no alternative?
This is, in fact, our school. We have built and paid for it. Someone told me today that
this is Robert’s school. Let me ask you, members, who’s school is it?
For the good of the members, the President and Vice-President of the FoF are asked to
resign immediately. The FoF Council are asked to resign immediately. It is under their
watch that such secrecy, depravity and unconscious behavior have been permitted by
our spiritual leader and his circle.
The student body will meet directly with Robert. Let him, explain clearly his position and where he plans
to go, answer the hard questions. Let him choose to lead this community, openly, honestly, or walk
away. We have come a long way, don’t think this is the end. It is but a new beginning.
Shall we meet fate head-on? We must.
March 3, 2007 at 2:47 am
Three days before and three days after. It’s a full moon tonight. Use the energy well.
March 3, 2007 at 3:20 am
Greeting to all living beings!
In response to the statement that I do not have compassion. Perhaps this is true. And yet… I differ.
If I were true heartless, I would NEVER have sent a response. And I would not have said that I was grateful for a site like this.
At the same time. I have spent much time observing people, reading books, and the conclusion that I have come to is that people love thier suffering.
I do not undermine anyones suffering. I have suffered. But what I have a hard time with …. is, as an adult, do I/you have, and do I/you take responsibility for my/your life. If you do, then, you need to verify, check and study anything that you commit yourself to. Otherwise, what can I say, beside I consider that a really scary thing to do. (It scares me that people live that way. But then if you relise how many poisons are in your food, how much puss, and nasty antibiotics are in milk it is verifiable that people just expect the world to be good to them. and then when the world is not they can blame someone else) It is true there is no posters that state hey our teachers gay. But the amount of time it took me to find out what I hadn’t heard before was a month or less.
I guess the way I see it is that, if I found out what was going on. I researched my teacher, and the organization. Much like the host of this site did.
I AM GRATEFUL FOR THIS SITE> NOW WHEN PEOPLE COME TO ME AND SAY …. I DID NOT KNOW ……. i will simply look at them and say …… how could you not ….. it has been sent to every FOF student, and it is all over the internet (and has been for years.
ICT
March 3, 2007 at 3:33 am
To the Sheik of Inner confusion
“There are only minor ways in which I am prepared to moderate the forum: deleting overly offensive or obscene material or information that could be potentially harmful” ????
Now I am getting confused, someone points out the chief feature of an ex student (Phillip, Susa Z), and pages later there are still complaints how insensitive and unethical it is and too personal….meanwhile anyone can post horrific lies like post #294 about Robert Burton, what an easy target.
Let me tell you “Innercircle facts” never was in “Robert Bertons Badroom” and this forum would be a lot more credible without bizarre posts like this, but I guess that’s part of the deal.
Maybe the easiest way to part with something or someone is to throw mud, you know how it gives some people an identity by painting a moustache on to the Mona Lisa…
I hope the student(s) that left the school simply because they wanted to wake up, as they phrased it, can move on rather then harrasing FOF students with silly mp3’s,
If you have found a new direction for new progress great for you have a life and move on…
One ex student only a few months ago tried to convey to me how wonderful Asaf was and how great he felt about the sequence and that I should defenitely go to events with Girard….
Now he is trashing them on this forum, it is exactly these extreme groups of I’s that make these posts a little silly.
I have respect for anyone how says; look this does not work for me anymore, I have to move on…fine move on and explain us about your positive experiences…stop bothering me with your soul saving and frustrations.
Maybe there should be an separate forum for trashing RB and the Fellowship, it would make things simpeler.
Cheers
March 3, 2007 at 4:06 am
Sometimes what is being hurt in us is not to be pitied. Pride (vanity) gets hurt. Naivete gets hurt. We learn on the mistakes (our own and the others’)
Again, about Robert’s sex life I want to stress that I disagree with a common agreement that he is doing it for his PLEASURE or he DESIRES it. I doubt it. That’s all. I don’t think everyday sex like this can be enjoyable. What if he does it for a reason? What if we imagine a monster in the most humble selfless being?
And also if you describe your own personal sex “process” here in details as it was described about Robert’s, I can assure you it will be very shocking.
March 3, 2007 at 4:08 am
Unfortunately, currently sincere FOF students are not even doing “the work”. Battling with “the king clubs” is a form of negative emotion. Not listening to other ideas, or thinking for oneself is formatory. Not feeling free to go against the council, or Robert is feminine dominance. When I recently left the school the ones who became the most negative about my departure were the ones that were most committed to the work. How can someoen say they you love someone, or you are their freind, and then be mean to them or completely neglect them? The circular reasoning and perverted logic of FOF is sad to see once you are on the outside of it.
March 3, 2007 at 4:20 am
Truth comes in many simple packages
In comes as a snow on a palm leaf
In comes as a CD that brings a new life
It comes as a link to offer an option to know
It comes as a smile on a child’s face
it comes as an anger of the Council
It comes as tremendous gut-wrenching fear,
In comes as joy and liberation.
It’s all Truth.
It also comes as a slammed shut door, as a blame,
and angry judgment, and an old dull pain.
It comes as Robert playing his difficult contradictory role,
it comes as distorted teaching of a man who’s got not much to say but really wants to lead.
It’s all Truth.
it keeps coming and coming and pouring in here, hidden after these masks
And we welcome each truth as it comes, thanks to our host.
We enjoy truth’s company
and see that we all – one beautiful Truth.
Thank you Sheik
Love to all of you
March 3, 2007 at 4:52 am
Edward or someone else who is in on this: in the name of freedom of information, would you please post some names of people if there is anyone who you know beyond doubt that they collect information about your activities, interests etc. and report it to the council? Who are these mysterious “wrong people”? No one ever pointed them out to me, or I’m too blind to notice. So I can know who to look out for as long as I don’t want to get kicked out of the school. Thanks.
March 3, 2007 at 5:04 am
Current Member: We were aware of many contradictions in Robert’s lifestyle and teaching; as students. Many great men have strange sexual habits, including Gurdjieff reportedly. Probably many of those on this blog have experimented as far as they could and dared. So Robert’s sex life, insofar as it respects Federal law, is not my concern. I have had sex with him, and he is a great and surreal lover.
I am surprised that the former students and other spiritual seekers on this Forum are expressing negativity. Surely one’s path, in or out of the School would exclude this. I am not trying to pull my friends that have left back into the school, and so far they have not tried too hard to get me out.
Contadictions are the YES/NO conflict Gurdjieff mentions, and are necessary to create a stronger being. Perhaps, then, those that left should face and transform the contradictions of their leaving quietly, as those in the School face and transform theirs.
The school provides wonderful opportunities for those seeking presence. Robert tries hard to be discreet, but as you see, those who leave after having filled their bowl, don’t seem to move on and away from a contradiction.
For the sake of a school that is sincere, it would be best if those that wish something else to look for it sincerely too.
Love to all my friends and peace to Robert,
x
March 3, 2007 at 6:34 am
My understanding is that FOF is a Fourth Way School. I am not a member but I have read books by G and O and I found them to be difficult, challenging and yet, quite engaging. I would think that a forum on FOF would be a place where like-minded people (friends) could chat (fellowship) about how the writings of G and O have affected their thinking and how the writings of RB compare, e.g., does RB add or detract from the knowledge contained in the books of his predecessors? What knowledge has RB advanced that has enabled members to acheive higher states of self-remembering for themselves? In other words, are you getting your money’s worth…literally and figuratively? And if so, in what ways has that made your life different?
If, if fact RB is a criminal, then he should (and most likely will) be dealt with accordingly. However, I am disappointed that this forum, rather than discussing awakening, is instead become a clearing house for individual rants that border on libel at worst and emcompass the realm of self-indulgence to a point where some posters seem to sense they have become omnipotent and thereby capable of rendering final judgement on any and all who express an opinion at best.
So, if this forum is for RB bashing, then I have wasted my time, but if someone wants to submit how their membership has led them to achieve higher states, I am interested.
March 3, 2007 at 7:45 am
Look Street. Nobody is trying to save your soul. You are already going to the city of celestial paradise while we ex-members will all be wailing and gnashing our teeth with a millstone around our neck at the back of the line on our way to the moon along with the other 6 billion sleeping machines!!
Who’s harassing who? Let us have our little conversation and you just stop feeding your lower centers with our heavy hydrogens. Don’t you have any 3rd line work to do?
March 3, 2007 at 8:33 am
As a recent ex-member of FoF, I say “Bravo!” to SAM (Post 54):
I hope this blog IS being “closely monitored by FoF management.”
I hope they are wetting their pants!
What a novel, simple idea!
Why don’t the members who have built this school with their “blood, sweat, toil and tears (Winston Churcill)” assert their power and take back what rightfully belongs to THEM!
What keeps Robert and all his other “authority figures” in power?
Just as a democracy can only exist by the “consent of the governed”, so an organization like the Fellowship can only function if a majority of members actually ACCEPT, and do, what and as they are told.
What if, by some miracle, the members themselves actually called “STOP!”
That would be the ultimate STOP exercise!
Throw the bums, sychophants, yes-men and thought police who have been living off my, your, and countless others’ teaching payments for years out on their authoritarian behinds and maybe you can resurrect FOF into the school you believed and hoped it was when you joined.
And make Robert either “put up or shut up”!
No more “the lower can’t see the higher” and other such self-serving nonsense. The “lower” has seen quite ENOUGH, thank you. Make him answerable to the students! If he HAS the being he says he has, and he IS the being he says he is, this should not be difficult. If not……
And where is the money going to come from if not from his endless multiple-price-tiered breakfasts, dinners, meetings, events and auctions? How about making the Winery a real income-producing business. You have the equipment, the talent, the vineyard and the labor force. Hundreds of small, mom-and-pop wineries are prospering all over California. The main reason it never really got off the ground is because its “world class” reputation was poisoned early on by news of lawsuits that highlighted Robert’s sexual proclivities. But what if every member pitched in knowing they had a real stake in the outcome. What if each received actual shares based on the amount of teaching payments they made? No problem finding “vineyard workers” then.
Just some wild ideas prompted by the moon/lunar eclipse. Maybe “eclipse” might be a meaninful shock to those of you who still believe in such things.
To all my friends still in the FoF and caught up in a dilemma you could never have imagined in your wildest dreams, I hope, for your sake, that “this is not the end, but a new beginning.”
Good luck to all of you.
March 3, 2007 at 10:41 am
Dear No. 46: (You-me-us-they Says:)
Either you have the wrong person, my friend, or you are deliberately falsifying. Because if you think–or even think you remember–that I ever got up in ANY meeting and EVER at any time in the FoF confronted the teacher, or at any dinner, or at any tea, or at any ballet or at any breakfast, or at the Apollo d’Oro, or face-to-face, or at any time or any place in my long career in the FoF, you are gravely mistaken about the identity of Reality Check. However, if you really do know who I am, then I would question your motives for posting absolutely false and misleading information and I would strongly advise you against it. I am very happy to engage with you should you wish to discuss any of this with me privately. I have nothing to hide. Do you?
March 3, 2007 at 10:56 am
Let your Conscience be your guide.
Jiminy may be small, but he’s far from your average cricket. He can turn an umbrella into a parachute and looks great in a top hat and spats, and he carries a mean tune, as well as a nearly inexhaustible supply of home-brewed common sense. It’s no wonder he is chosen by the Blue Fairy to be Pinocchio’s
“official” conscience. Unfortunately for Jiminy, it’s only after he blushingly agrees to his appointment as “Lord High Keeper of the Knowledge of Right and Wrong, Counselor in Moments of Temptation, and Guide along the Straight and Narrow Path,” that he realizes what a job he’s gotten himself into. Like any conscience, Jiminy is occasionally late on the job, and frequently ignored even when he is around. Fortunately, Jiminy is nothing if not persistent, and he eventually succeeds in steering Pinocchio back to the right path.
March 3, 2007 at 11:36 am
Dear Inconvenient Truth,
With reference to your comment (post 56)
“I AM GRATEFUL FOR THIS SITE> NOW WHEN PEOPLE COME TO ME AND SAY …. I DID NOT KNOW ……. i will simply look at them and say …… how could you not ….. it has been sent to every FOF student, and it is all over the internet (and has been for years.”
When I joined the FOF the World Wide Web hadn’t been invented yet. (Tim Berners Lee in 1989) and certainly no student was forthcoming with information (most were in denial – my former wife was and she had been in the group considerably longer.)
But you’re right, these days a little prior research might be a sensible idea. So a forum such as this is probably providing an invaluable service. So tell all your friends about it.
Simon
P.S. I know you have compassion, at least passion. You wouldn’t contribute in this way if you didn’t.
March 3, 2007 at 12:10 pm
Dear No. 46:
Ah. I see upon RE-reading your post that you, as you said,”. . .imagined a part that was missing…[to my story]
“A scene in which this student confronted her teacher during one of those very public gatherings:
- “Do you remember doing this ?””"
So, then, No. 46, your addition to the missing part of my story (which, when I was in charge of telling it was NOT fictional) simply your imaginary addition? You were not ACTUALLY accusing me, then of confronting RB at a meeting? If that is the case, then I withdraw my previous post in which I say that you were either gravely mistaken about my identity–or worse, that you have gravely misled the readers of this forum.
However, if my initial interpretation of your “imaginary” addition was correct, and that you really think I confronted the teacher publically, then by all means, let my previous critique of your post stand, as well as my strong invitation to you to discuss your false proclamations about me personally.
Whatever the case, the lack of clarity and the confusion in your embroidering on my true story (including your insertion of the question which appears to be directed at me: “Do you remember doing this?” can lead to ambiguity. I would ask you please to try to be more clear in your future posts for all our sakes.
It is work (and I don’t mean that so much in the Fourth Way sense) as in the hard labour sense, to read and post on this forum. Personally I do not enjoy it very much, and like others here, I am very busy with other things. At the same time, for the present, anyway, I think I owe something to those people I left behind in the FoF, that is, those who would like to hear my point of view. For the others, they may see my and others’ contributions as simply expressions of negativity or lack of appreciation for the ‘Teacher’ and the ‘School’. That is their prerogative. Best wishes to all.
March 3, 2007 at 12:46 pm
Dear Seeker,
You are never going to get it on a plate. Actually if you look you will find a lot of sincere and useful advice in many of these posts. “Awakening” doesn’t necessarily appear in the form we expect it to. Do you really want to awaken?
Of course it is difficult to see the wood for the trees sometimes, but you must consider that there are a lot of ex-students – students even, who have a lot of pent up emotions and undoubtedly concerns about friends and family still in the group (I confess I am one of them, but I hope you don’t just see rants in my posts).
The fact is until now there has been no available means of expressing our feelings, so they are bound to be many and varied. Believe me a personal diary isn’t quite the same thing.
Of course you could always do a ten year stint in the FOF and come back and tell us observations. Other than that a little patience may be required. I’m sure when the Buton bashing has run it’s course we’ll get on to “discussing” awakening – though I doubt I’ll be around for that.
Go for it Seeker. You haven’t wasted your time.
Regards,
Simon
March 3, 2007 at 2:23 pm
To Seeker post #63: Fourth Way knowledge is in this blog but it’s intermixed with many I’s. Ouspensky, Gurdjieff, Collin and Nicoll all mentioned that the “school” changes form,but the ideas are eternal. The sex mentioned in this blog does not lead Robert to Nirvana or the participant to englightenment.
March 3, 2007 at 5:06 pm
post 58 somebody and 62 find yourself.
In response to post 62 “find yourself”….just because you say many “great” men have strange sex habits doesn’t make it so. WHO and how do you know this? And WHAT specifically were Gurdjieff’s strange sex habits? Your response is typical of someone who is brainwashed and cannot think for oneself. And why are you so desperate to keep us quiet? Perhaps the veil is being lifted and you are frightened by what you might really see. There is nothing negative in observing the truth.
BY THE WAY, it isn’t all about the sex!!
March 3, 2007 at 5:41 pm
Dear all,
Lovely post Jimini!
Pinocchio the well know (?) story of a puppet becoming a human being has a “strange” title
don’t you think ?
In case the meaning of the tiltle is yet not known to some of us:
Italian speakers will understand immediatly if I write “OCCHIO PINEALE”.
Just invert the order in which the words appear.
English translation, “PINEAL EYE”.
Collodi, the author of this precious book, must have known what he was talking about.
Enjoy yourselves.
PS:Dear Reality Check,
It was not about/to/for You but through You.
Your story was poignant and sincere.
I actually do not know you (for what I know!). It is clear, the second reading was best.
“I imagined a scene in which…”
“…pain would then become…”
Thanks for checking!
March 3, 2007 at 6:11 pm
There is nothing that shows up a man better than his attitude towards the work and the teacher after he has left it. Sometimes such tests are arranged intentionally. A man is placed in such a position that he is obliged to leave and he is fully justified in having a grievance either against the teacher or against some other person. And then he is watched to see how he will behave. A decent man will behave decently even if he thinks that he has been treated unjustly or wrongly. But many people in such circumstances show a side of their nature which otherwise they would never show. And at times it is a necessary means for exposing a man’s nature. So long as you are good to a man he is good to you. But what will he be like if you scratch him a little?
But this is not the chief thing; the chief thing is his own personal attitude, his own valuation of the ideas which he receives or has received, and his keeping or losing this valuation. A man may think for a long time and quite sincerely that he wants to work and even make great efforts, and then he may throw up everything and even definitely go against the work; justify himself, invent various fabrications, deliberately ascribe a wrong meaning to what he has heard, and so on.
George Gurdjieff
March 3, 2007 at 6:16 pm
to post 63
it’s mainly the school environment that creates an increased wish to awaken. Without that help I won’t know where to go, simply because I would go one day in one direction and the next in another. The school serves a purpose and for those who don’t need that it does not make sense at all. Many of the posters here have been our friends over years and it is surprising to me how one can relate in such impersonal way to people one was close with. Another good thing about this school is that most people really have a good time. Weather some of the posts are true or not is not the question, or better is not my question. I leave it up to you to weigh the quality of these posts. Nice to hear from someone who has a genuine interest in spiritual development AND gets not distracted by “headlines”.
The best to you and all others
March 3, 2007 at 6:21 pm
Forgive me if this appeals to the lower centers……but first a human relationship before anything more be attempted………
Our relationship to the FOF for many of us long timers is not unlike our relationship to our Parents. They bore us, raised us….provided a safe environment for us to grow and experiment in……but now we have become adults. We see that mother is old, not thinking well and needs our help. She has a little dementia. Dad is not capable of making sound decisions with finances anymore. We worry every time he drives to church or to the store. There comes a time when the children need to take care of the parents. Some of us have left home and have lost contact with the parents. Some remain living close by providing immediate support. All love the parents, despite the faults and idiosyncrasies…. because they are our parents. Going about telling mother or father that it is time to turn over the car keys, the finances and so on, is always a delicate matter. Maybe the time has come for us to take responsibility for the Fellowship.
It will be a brave new world. I think we need to give ourselves a little more credit for what we have become.
March 3, 2007 at 6:53 pm
Nothing shows up people so much as their attitude towards money. They are ready to waste as much as you like on their own personal fantasies but they have no valuation whatever of another person’s labor. I must work for them and give them gratis everything that they vouchsafe to take from me. . . Some people will never pass this barrier. And if they do not pass this one, it means that they will never pass another.
George Gurdjieff
March 3, 2007 at 6:55 pm
re [63] I have been a member for almost three decades. Self-remembering, along with the non-expression of negativity, have been the cornerstones of the teaching since the beginning. All the other tantalizing knowledge about types, center of gravity, alchemy, chief feature, identification pale in comparison to these two with Self-remembering being the greater.
I have used many techniques to try to remember myself and the biggest obstacle has always been imagination. It is very seldom one even remembers to make the effort because of imagination and then the effort is soon squashed by more imagination. This may seem silly but try it and see.
The techniques with which I have had the most success are the looking and listening exercises in conjunction with stopping thoughts. I’ve generally used the listening exercise while at a concert or out in nature where there is pleasant background (white) noise. The effort is to stop thoughts, hear the noise in all its complexity, and be present. The looking exercise can be used almost anytime one is not doing anything in particular and would normally be in prolonged imagination (driving a car, walking on the street, in a waiting room). You would be surprised after doing some analysis how much of one’s time is spent in prolonged imagination. The effort is to stop thoughts and then intentionally look at different objects or the scenery, shifting ones gaze every three seconds or so to thwart any associations with what one is looking at which inevitably send one back into imagination.
Although sincere efforts to remember myself always raises my state at least a little bit, prolonged presence occurs more rarely. But it *DOES* occur sometimes. I can produce a higher state at will at least sometimes and for a little while, and I’m getting better at it.
The form of the teaching started to change a couple of years ago. The emphasis on G and O was diminished, although that system is still used with newer students as that background is still incredibly important. Robert started following clues here and there from the esoteric literature where he was able to consolidate the ideas of the forth way into 30 one syllable work I’s. Each of these work I’s represent a larger idea of the system. So instead of using a phrase “I’m in imagination again, try to do the looking exercise”, one would intone internally the syllable “look”. The one syllable part makes it more clear if you are actually self remembering or just thinking about self remembering. The one syllable helps promote the stopping of thoughts better than a whole thought does. These work I’s do not replace anything. The background with the fourth way knowledge is indispensable.
Robert has finally arrived at the sequence, which has been refined through his and others use over the last several months. In its current iteration, one intones internally six of the thirty in this sequence with a space of about one breath, followed by four wordless breaths for a total of ten:
be,hold,theme,back,theme,BE,*,*,*,*
The theme is selected from a small subset of the thirty, other than the four that are fixed. The idea is to try to do as many sequences as possible in series. One would only use sequences at times when one would normally be in prolonged imagination, usually when alone or with someone you are not talking to but enjoying each others presence instead. This is why the theme comes from just a subset of the thirty. In other situations, such as a conversation, the work I talk (speak with presence) could be used individually to remind one where it would be silly in a situation where one would use a sequence. The theme I use the most is look:
be,hold,look,back,look,BE,*,*,*,*
Of course if you just try to do sequences, nothing will happen. It will not work as has been pointed out. And yet for me, this somewhat superficial reconfiguration of my efforts to remember myself, especially in conjunction with the looking and listening exercises, has been miraculous. My efforts produce more experiences with prolonged presence and I remember to make the effort more often. I can honestly say that the sequence has increased the effectiveness of my efforts by at least a magnitude. Very exciting times!
So, as you have intuitively already figured out, the omnipotent pundants do not actually speak for everyone.
March 3, 2007 at 6:56 pm
Here is something else to think about so the discussion doesn’t have to be ‘all about the sex’:
There are two kinds of spirituality. One is called translative and another is called transformative.
Translative spirituality is one that gives the separate self a sense of meaning and of being connected to something higher, or larger than itself. The self is given a new way to think and feel about reality. It is given a new belief, perhaps more holistic, or centered on forgiveness instead of blame. This spirituality offers practices that allow the self to make sense of and endure the events of life. It consoles the self, fortifies it, defends it and promotes it. The self learns to translate its world in terms of the new paradigm, new belief or new language. These new enchanting translation acts at least temporarily alleviate the terror in the heart of the separate self. As long as the myths are believed, prayers are mouthed and the dogma is embraced, the separate self will be saved – either now, in the glory of being favored by a deity, or in an eternal after-life. This kind of translation is a necessary and crucial function for the greater part of our lives in order to make sense of the world.
At some point, though, translation simply ceases to console. Not a new belief for the self, but the transcendence of the self altogether, is the only path – another kind of spirituality, which is called transformative. This does not console the separate self but rather shatters it, creates a radical transmutation of the seat of consciousness. The separate self is inquired into and transcended. With transformation, the process of translation itself is challenged, witnessed, undermined and eventually dismantled. Transformative spirituality is not a matter of belief but a death of the believer.
So which is at work here in the Fellowship? Maybe both, depending on who you’re talking to, and it’s wonderfully baffling and unformatory.
On the one hand, we have the following dogmas promoted by Robert and some orthodox students:
- The FOF is guided by 44 spirits who have become immortal after their life on earth, including Lincoln, Buddha, Vivaldi, Queen Elizabeth, Marcus Aurelius, Leonardo da Vinci.
- Leonardo da Vinci personally woke up Robert Burton.
- Robert Burton is the only conscious being alive on Earth today (and by extension, salvation comes only through him).
- These spirits tend to hover in rooms where we congregate and personally communicate with Robert Burton, telling him in which direction to guide the school.
- The world was going to end in November 2006 in a nuclear holocaust (this was communicated to RB by the 44 spirits) and FOF members will be the only survivors, left with the task of creating a new human civilization from scratch. (Don’t know of any recent updates to this theory after the non-event.)
- After completing their tasks on Earth, FOF members will be taken to limbo where they will await their next conscious role, after which they will be taken to the celestial city of Paradise with its 30.000 inhabitants to live forever as gods, presumably.
- All the rest of humanity that does not make teaching payments to RB will be eaten by the Moon upon dying unconsciously.
Etc. There are a number of students that have found these kinds of dogmas a little embarrassing (myself included).
So, at first you learn to translate the world into these terms: everyone in the world is mechanical and asleep, except a handful of us who are trying to wake up and making efforts to achieve this goal. I must control my mechanical manifestations and not allow them expression. Your identity is supposed to move from observing I, to deputy steward, to steward… to higher centers? Not sure if I got the order right. Anyway, there is always a controller, some type of super ego, behind the machine.
I found it quite enlightening when No person said something like that in the FOF we work on the side effects of consciousness. We control the expression of negative emotions etc. while remaining a separate self who has to control, battle, defeat something. In this way, presence eludes us, it remains an object to be reached.
Many people have been saying how silly the sequence is. I also don’t buy into all the complications and mythology that Robert surrounds the precious sequence with. But I have tried to use it in good faith. What I’ve observed is that people are not getting anywhere with it because of this separateness, this feeling of here I am, making an effort to DO the sequence, which is something else, to produce a state, which is something third. And we get stuck this way. In fact, a change of state can emerge that approaches the feeling of losing this separate self and simply becoming the sequence, and all is well. Not sure yet how to place that into the big picture of things.
I would appreciate points of view on this translative-transformative distinction, and also on the temporary nature of states that are pursued.
March 3, 2007 at 6:58 pm
Everything connected with sex should be either pleasant or indifferent.
George Gurdjieff
March 3, 2007 at 7:03 pm
To #74.
Curiously enough, I ran across this same passage from Gurdjieff the other day in “In Search of the Miraculous.” It’s so persuasive, but … “A decent man will behave decently even if he thinks that he has been treated unjustly or wrongly.” Well, isn’t that just feminine dominance, in the end? Isn’t it convenient to Gurdjieff to silence dissenters in this way as they leave? Is this just Gurdjieff controlling the sheep in the experiment? Why are we so anxious to be considered “decent men,” anyway? And is that just a synonym for being a patsy?
Is it even true? I would think if a decent man finds he got robbed in some pyramid scheme, he would feel the need to warn others, and not just think of himself. I don’t think a decent man, having barely survived a minefield, feels lucky to have gotten out safely, leaves town, and does nothing to put a sign upor notify others of the danger. Why is that the “decent” thing to do?
All of this has made me question Gurdjieff/Ouspensky all the more. We really don’t know much about Gurdjieff or his aims.
And it’s made me question myself. Why was I so persuaded by this kind of thing, for so many years?
March 3, 2007 at 7:12 pm
(#74) Happy as the day is long —
I’m glad this quote was mentioned, because I have a strong personal relationship with it. In me, there is a kind of unpleasant heaviness around this idea — I’m not sure how to describe it better. We have talked about mind-control techniques employed by cults a bit on this forum, and in this you will find a perfect example if you “scratch it a little.”
Look at the subtext of what is being said — one thing is that any perceived “wrongs” regarding the teacher are, at worst, a contrivance by some kind of strange omnipotent group with the power to spy on us and determine our attitudes to the work and teacher. The assumption is that the teacher can, at heart, do no wrong, and that the ideas must remain right for everyone as well. “A man will then be watched to see how he behaves”? Sorry, I simply can’t process how messed up this is.
Also, what is that bit about “exposing a man’s nature” by “scratching him a little bit”? I think you would be pretty hard-pressed to find a person who would respond well to this kind of treatment.
There is a very pernicious strain of thought that is inherent in this quote, and it is very hard to pin down because it is built on the circular logic that is so effective at keeping a person trapped in any kind of cult-like organization. At its heart is an unquestioned acceptance that the teacher and school are infallible. Sorry, I just can’t buy that anymore.
I could go on but I won’t. You may have guessed that I have a “special” relationship with this passage. When I left the fellowship years ago, this passage kept ringing in my ears. It terrified me, and kept me ever vigilant against “negative attitudes.” But a decade went by, and no secret group came forth and said, “We’ve been watching you, you passed our test, we “scratched” you but you showed your right valuation,” and so on. No, underneath that layer of “right attitude” the repressed material kept growing. And it finally came out in some difficult and ugly physical and mental ways.
Maybe I was never a good candidate for the FOF or the 4th way in general. But it’s my understanding that that determination is one of the responsibilities of the teacher. But Robert never took the time to get to know me, though he was certainly quick to take my money.
One last thing — it’s my understanding that both Robert and Gurdjieff have/had a tendency to show a pretty nasty side when “scratched.” Where does that fit with this quote?
March 3, 2007 at 7:14 pm
Indeed, everyone awakened from his sweet morning slumbers by the blast of my steam whistle must doubtless curse me by everything under the sun — just me, the cause of this infernal din — and thanks to this, there must surely flow from all directions toward my person vibrations of all kinds of malice.
George Gurdjieff – Beelzebub’s Tales
March 3, 2007 at 7:37 pm
Awakening is a tumultuous experience. We are all naive to the requirements of awakening.
Robert Burton
March 3, 2007 at 7:39 pm
When a drowning man is thrown a life-belt, he doesn’t care whether it’s round, triangular or square.
RB
March 3, 2007 at 7:49 pm
There are no “dogmas promoted by Robert and some orthodox students”. One must verify everything — and, more importantly, remember what you verify.
——————-
If you have not by nature a critical mind your staying here is useless
George Gurdjieff
March 3, 2007 at 7:53 pm
Let me end my contribution to this thread with the following: During my time in the Fellowship I traveled a great deal and came to know many Students very closely, many of which had made great personal sacrifices to be in the School. When I finally had to leave I lost access to all my friends with one stroke, it is a high price to pay.
However, all is not lost. One afternoon, in my early years as a Student, I came upon a note that a kind soul had put on the wall in the kitchen of what was then called ‘The Lodge’. It was an excerpt of the Teachings of Zen Master Dogen. What touched me deeply were the final words:
‘The assembly of the Students in this Hall will be your companions on the Way for all time’.
And so it is…
Thank you E.S for starting this thread, you initiated a lively discussion. We may not share the same views about the Fellowship, nevertheless we are fellow travellers on the Way.
Good Bye
Alexis
March 3, 2007 at 7:55 pm
Unlike all of Robert’s predictions, which have sent members hurrying and scurrying in many directions, but which have never come true, I would like to make a prediction — actually, more of a simple observation of something that is already happening.
Robert Burton’s house of cards, from the Jack of Clubs to the Ace of Spades, including all the Jokers huddled together for imagined safety at the top, is being shaken to its very foundations. A psychological tsunami is building off the coast of the ever-approaching present, and those who are not firmly grounded in the reality of their true Selves,
and are still depending on others to save them, will be swept away.
To those of you who have any stake left in the FoF, from the President at the top to the simple laborer digging in the dirt (who, none the less, has cleaner hands than you), I say,
“The Fellowship, YOUR school, is BROKEN. FIX IT!”
Omar Khayyam, one of the “conscious beings”, having probably seen, and forseen, similar dire predicaments, wrote,
Ah, Love, could thou and I with Fate conspire
To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,
Would not we shatter it to bits–and then
Re-mould it nearer to the Heart’s Desire!
March 3, 2007 at 8:01 pm
Happy as the Day is long: Good attempt. I wonder how long you have been preparing that sequence of quotes and how many more are going to come. There is an interesting structure to them. By the way, I am truly happy that you are happy as the day is long, for I am not. Could you maybe elaborate on some of those ideas instead of using quotes and getting it out the easy way?
As to the discussion on how best to react to negativity. Well, pretending that you have not been hurt and that you do not feel pain is a lie, it goes against human nature. A part of you will always feel that you are lying to yourself, however much you try to repress it. On the other hand, accepting the fact that you have been hurt and that you feel pain, makes it possible to awaken to the knowledge of how that pain has affected you on the whole. You may become conscious of why you feel so unhappy, why certain things trigger negative emotions, why some memories keep on repeating, etc. Eventually, you may be able to deal with it and accept fully. In other words, denying that you are human and pretending that you are a robot is a great way to receive some powerful negative manifestations in your physical/mental/spiritual life. Accept and you may get to the point where you stop blaming. Many people on this forum have been perfect examples of how exactly this works. Do not make the mistake of seeing blame where there is pure honesty.
Almost 30 (78): That’s really interesting, thank you for sharing that. I do have to say though that I found those techniques for ‘being present’ on my own, without ever reading a Fourth Way book. Anyway, why would you need a school to learn/practice them? By the way, there is a practice called mindfulness, for which there are numerous easily-available resources. It teaches exactly those and many other exercises to attain higher states. But yes, those higher states are an externality of the transformative process, not the goal.
Traveler (79): I have been arriving at a similar view myself but I never had the clarity of thought and vision to put it into words that made any sense. You did. I would actually quite like to post your theory on the blog as a separate article, if you give me your consent and/or improve upon it. I am not particularly interested in the link to the FoF (as I have already had an adequate supply of that), but the first part is great. I believe that you definitely summed it up, thank you.
Alexis (87): Thank you for you comments, I enjoyed having you around, much more than those who were less honest and straightforward.
March 3, 2007 at 8:06 pm
Question for Happy is the Day is Long.
Do YOU have anything to say?
March 3, 2007 at 8:09 pm
Here’s a thought, and something to be aware of. If Robert does indeed suffer from narcissistic personality disorder, the attention (negative though it be) that he receives regarding his sex life can only feed his grandiose notions of his “larger than life” stature. He has in the past compared himself to Christ, and made reference to “prophets” being persecuted. Perhaps some of his more (allegedly) flagrant behavior is a perverse attempt at a self-fulfilling prophecy in this area. So in a weird way, he wants to be criticized and called out for his actions. It might explain the increasingly (again, allegedly) bizarre and flamboyant nature of what he is doing.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t talk about him — just that it may reinforce his imaginary picture of himself.
Just a thought.
March 3, 2007 at 8:17 pm
Open-mindedness should not be fostered because, as Scripture teaches, Truth is great and will prevail, nor because, as Milton suggests, Truth will always win in a free and open encounter.
It should be fostered for its own sake.
March 3, 2007 at 8:20 pm
Keep in mind that the FOF is exclusively for spiritual development. Has anyone considered the following question–would you all return if the “problems” you have so graphically described are fixed?
March 3, 2007 at 8:23 pm
Every choice, every second, moves us closer to or farther away from something. Where are your choices taking your life, now? What do your behaviors demonstrate that you are saying yes or no to in life? Do you wake up in the morning ready to read the Blog or to read Milton?
March 3, 2007 at 8:53 pm
Happy says: There are no “dogmas promoted by Robert and some orthodox students”. One must verify everything — and, more importantly, remember what you verify.
Dear Happy: there are a number of statements that Robert puts forward that are unverifiable, so students either give him the benefit of the doubt and think of it as a “working theory”, or if they can’t live with themselves in the state of uncertainty, they embrace them as fact because Robert presents them as fact. These latter are the people I call “orthodox students”. Don’t tell me you’ve never met any.
Please tell me, did you personally verify for example the following: “Most students are in their eighth lifetime.” “Mother Theresa is going to the moon.” “There are angels in the room right now.” “Ancient Egyptians meant to leave messages for us so we could decode them into the sequence.” “I am a man number seven.”
And if you have verified any such statements, how did you manage to do it?
Something that might serve as an illustrative example of Robert’s attitude to verification:
One of the many young men got invited to travel with Robert, but not yet to have sex with him. During the travels, Robert approached him and asked: “Do you know who I am? I am a goddess in a man’s body.” (Apparently a famous pick-up line of his.) Our young student, suddenly startled by direct communication with the Teacher, comes up with an answer and tries to answer the first part of Robert’s question – do you know who I am – with: “I hope so.” Oooops. It came out as sounding ‘I hope you really are a goddess that you say you are’. You don’t talk that way to your teacher. Robert replies: “Well you’d BETTER BELIEVE it, because it’s TRUE!”
March 3, 2007 at 9:04 pm
I am a little bit tired by people posting under different names. I know what your IP address is, I don’t have to guess, I see it on my screen. It really is obvious.
You know who you are people. Unless it’s absolutely necessary for your or someone else’s protection, please do use one name and don’t confuse your fellow readers.
March 3, 2007 at 9:04 pm
I never had a clue that the FoF would be so much hard work
March 3, 2007 at 9:10 pm
To happy as the day is long.
You must be very proud of yourself that you can read other peoples quotes and repreat them on this blog.Im’ curious to know how many years in the fellowship it has taken to achieve this great feat.
my self.
March 3, 2007 at 9:25 pm
Dear Simon,
Thank for your question. The quotes are replies to the babel of tongues and the demands that questions be answered. They are used because they are personally verified, remembered, and relevant.
Also repeatedly observed, verified, remembered, and relevant is that if you start out on this way and then stop, you may end up in a worse situation than before you started. A guide in the fourth way undertakes to provide conditions to assist you in your aim to wake up from the sleep of your life. He is under no obligation, and does not undertake under any circumstances, to guide you back to a peaceful sleep free of nightmares if you decide you don’t want to continue.
One can say, without any feeling of pride, vanity or elitism, that the fourth way is for the few. It’s too strong and disruptive for the many and they should use different medicine if they feel ill.
Farewell, dear nascent souls, wherever you are.
Happy as the day is long and wishing all sentient beings the same.
March 3, 2007 at 9:26 pm
Almost 30 (post 78) expresses very well the useful side of the FOF. Approached in the way described, FOF methods can indeed help one spend more time in the present. There have been many posts on this site questioning whether spending time in the present has anything to do with awakening, but surely that is for the individual to decide. Such efforts may or may not lead to long term results, but neither do they do any harm.
The problem lies in the other aspects of the FOF. The sexual abuse, the crazy predictions etc., etc. This has all been described at length already. My point is that unfortunately the two sides of the FOF are intimately connected. If you buy into part of it, you buy into the whole, even if you don’t realise that.
A couple of years ago I would perhaps have written something very similar to Almost 30. I was able to stay in the FOF and sincerely follow the recommended spritual practices by using the psychological method of putting aspects of the FOF which I thought repellent or incomprehensible “on the shelf”. I adopted the attitude that I didn’t understand these things but maybe I would one day, and that for now making efforts to be present was useful. This produced a kind self-induced hypnotism, whereby many questions were simply not admitted. This hypnotism is supported by social life among students, where any questioning of RB or his teachings, or any suggestion that everything might not be perfect, is unacceptable. Eventually about 75% of what I was experiencing fell into the incomprehensible category and the shelf collapsed under the weight, so I started to look elsewhere to see if there are any less compromised spiritual teachings available, and of course discovered that there are.
In reading the posts on this site that are defending the FOF I see exactly the sort of self-hypnosis to which I subjected myself while a member. I would respectfully suggest to Almost 30 and others that they try to consider the FOF as a whole, not just take the bits they like and ignore the rest. When the hypnotism recedes and you really see the FOF as it is, it becomes impossible to remain.
March 3, 2007 at 9:33 pm
Happy as the Day is Long Said:
March 3rd, 2007 at 7:49 pm
There are no “dogmas promoted by Robert and some orthodox students”. One must verify everything — and, more importantly, remember what you verify.
————–
The 30 Work Is have been quite helpful to me, the sequence has some potential but is very difficult for me to use. But they were invented by Robert and Asaf. I have never seen any quote that convinces me that the ancient writer used 30 or 6 to refer to the work ‘I’s. And the interpretation of the keys keeps changing to accommodate the sequence and work Is. But the dogma now states that the earlier schools all used this technique. And now the cavemen did it too. This is dogma, and Robert believes it (Asaf too from what I can see) and they want us to believe it. I have seen Asaf become angry when his interpretation is questioned. Girard gives us some balance, because he doesn’t believe that these writers meant what Robert and Asaf are claiming, but he still uses the work Is and sequence, and he treats the keys as a Robert’s new work language, not as historical truth. But he is very careful not to be too outspoken about his lack of belief in Robert’s claims about the earlier schools. And he has been edged out of the picture at Isis to an extent. Robert’s claims about the schools and the interpretation of passages are dogma. And it’s easy in many cases to verify that they don’t refer to the work Is or the sequence.
March 3, 2007 at 9:53 pm
I have always found the idea of “seniority” in the fellowship interesting. You will note post #78 — the writer’s screen name is given as “Almost 30.” Then the first sentence is “I have been a member for almost 3 decades.” What is behind this impulse, I wonder?
Is it some kind of vanity? Is it meant to convey a sense of authority?
I ask this because when I was a member, I always had a very keen sense of where I stood in the “pecking order.” I checked off the years, and yearned for the designation, “Older student.”
I re-read post #78, and I honestly see no connection between your many years in the school and your message.
It’s a very human kind of impulse to want to include this information, I suppose. I guess I’m wondering if you had given any thought as to why you did it. Thanks.
March 3, 2007 at 9:56 pm
Thank you “Anonymous Happy is the Day is Long” (post 99)
You have told me all I need to know. I shall sleep in peace tonight – after watching the total lunar eclipse…
Simon
March 3, 2007 at 9:59 pm
Simon, Arthur — I appreciate your responses to my post (63). Thank you.
It seems that the tone of several subsequent posts have changed (for the better).
If I may so bold as to quote from O’s “The Fourth Way” — “If you can stop the expression of negative emotions, you will save energy and never feel the lack of it.” … “It is necessary to realize that there is not a single useful negative emotion, useful in any sense. Negative emotions are all a sign of weakness. Next, we must realize that we can struggle with them; they can be conquered and destroyed, because there is no real centre for them.”
I wish everyone here well.
March 3, 2007 at 10:48 pm
Dear “Happy as the Day is Long” #74,
Perhaps we could also consider the possibility that “nothing shows up a teacher better than his attitude towards the students who choose to move on.” I always wondered why Robert does not wish people well when they choose a different path instead of vilifying them. He shows a side of his nature “when he is scratched” that is dark and ugly.
I would also like to suggest that no real teacher would want to keep his students dependent on him for decades and forbid them to read material or take advantage of other information. In fact, I have wondered why he never took advantage of other contemporary teachers. There are many now who are pointing the way. It would have been more useful for his students if he had, for example, invited Eckhardt Tolle or Thich Nhat Hanh instead of the silly ballet dancers.
March 3, 2007 at 10:54 pm
Hello E. Sheik:
How interesting that you should post your prohibition against using different names. I was wondering myself last night and today what the protocol in such matters would/should be. I am new to the entire blog phenomenon. I changed my name recently from “Former Long-Time Student” to “Reality Check” for two reasons. One is that there was another person posting as “Another Former Student”, which I thought could lead to confusion (I flatter my blog identity that anyone would really care); the other was that I thought “Reality Check” was an appropriate title for me to express my personal take on many of the subjects under discussion. In any case, I’d like to take this moment to applaud your monitoring of this blog; you’ve been consistently even-handed, open-minded, firm and fair.
-TO: ‘the imaginer’/embellisher of my story: Thank you very much for clarifying. Best wishes to you.
And to those people who call the bluff of those who continually drop quotations of authority figures onto our heads like anvils in order to crush all vigorous thought and being out of us, Bravo.
I wonder if those who post such material understand that most (perhaps all?) ex-students who have spent considerable time in the FoF, were highly aware of, perhaps once awed (and cowed) by such ideas, and have subsequently worked through them themselves to come out on the other side with their own understanding. And there is certainly strong evidence in Gurdjieff’s thinking and in stories told about him, that he was an authoritarian. It is not at all surprising that he would take the absolutist point of view with regard to ex-students.
On another note: I am glad that the Fourth Way and the FoF experience is also being re-examined, and gradually deconstructed as people begin to make sense of what they have learned as they continue to evolve. (Of course, the prejudiced view of the FoF orthodox would be that ex-students such as myself are simply IMAGINING that we’re evolving.) What would you expect them to think? They believe what they are told. I know from my own experience that it certainly does make one feel virtuous and holier-than-thou. And, as always, they are entitled to their point of view, however wrong it is. I am just glad that they are not the arbiters of my universe.
March 3, 2007 at 11:26 pm
#99 Anonymous (or “Happy as the day is long” — I’m not sure I understand who is who here) — if the bliss of absolute certainty is what you wish, I hope you continue to find it. I have myself experienced it, and it is indeed comforting, even intoxicating. In my experience, though, it bears little relation to reality. And it becomes ever more difficult to sustain as reality seeks to intrude upon it. However, dismissing the mass of humanity as the unworthy “many” is one of the best tools for sustaining the illusion.
Verification has many levels, and can be very deceptive. I’m not sure which quotes you were refering to as having verified, but if they are the ones I think, you might want to examine your standards when it comes to verification.
March 4, 2007 at 12:14 am
the Esoteric Sheik of Inner Confusion Says:
March 3rd, 2007 at 9:04 pm
I never had a clue that the FoF would be so much hard work
Yes, Sheik, getting closer to School Work generate hard work: and this is only the post bla-bla-bla!
School Work is a great labor that never ends and is payment, but you can minimize much of this bla-bla just by charging one cent per word to the writers, just for your time.
Anyway Leonardo Da Vinci said about the proper use of a lifetime: ‘Occupy yourself with what will not die with you’. So you are beginning to be on the good track….
With observation
March 4, 2007 at 1:50 am
Ah yes, the truth will out… of all of us, eventually. I was in as a near-child (16), in and out (twice) through the “grace” of higher forces– so said Robert the second time I joined (he saw a license plate with that word on it when my mother called him to ask if I could rejoin and took as a green light for my “lost soul”). So much to say about all of it—which I guess means there’s still room for healing, growing, connecting …with all of you, in or out. Timothy Leary said the internet was the hallucinogen of the 21st Century and I think that’s part of why a forum like this is so energized. At best, we are connecting, almost magically between the ones and zeros, and turning each other on (in the highest sense) through shared expression –and that’s a fine thing. I’ll try to check back in and offer support where I can—for having left (twice) I know the pain of that and the courage required. And having my dear sweet mother on the inside, I know the joy and strength she gets from remaining. I would never wish to take that away from her and I am grateful for her spiritual commitment, however much I sometimes worry where the FOF will ultimately take her. Still, I have faith that C-influence is not, as a student once told me, lost when one leaves the school. The god-spark is always and everywhere in all of us and what joy to keep finding it, here and there, buried and distorted as it may be by the dirty messes we make along the way. So dig in, let’s get dirty and see what fertile soil there is for growing a community here, in cyber space, in inner space, which truly feeds the soul (and not the ego) as we are all so very hungry for that kind of light. Here’s a poem I wrote while on the inside and getting out last time in 1995 (it’s a little outdated, I’m sure, but I pass it along for the hell of it):
The Spiritual Master
He speaks of Angels, Armageddon, love divine,
While from his eyes heav’nly light appears to shine.
To his students’ questions he is prone to sigh,
“It is not up to us, let the Gods decide.”
The Gods decide what brand of suit he wears—
The price of enlightenment which we all share—
While from young men, his acolytes, he sucks
The precious fluids of their cocks and ducks
The unfair accusations, the embarrassing court cases;
He knows other worlds, he owns finer places.
Then in his Miata from the desert condo he speeds
To his lake-front home and –guileless— pleads
His love for us, his tender-gotten sheep,
While from our backs, our souls he quietly reaps.
* * *
And then again, it’s what you make of it and no one but you knows what you are making of it, moment by moment. Onwards and inwards, then, to love and to the full moon eclipse starting now in New York City.
March 4, 2007 at 2:02 am
To Moonfood (post 64)
Wow… mature reaction moonfood…
Soulsaving ? who’s harrassing who?
Well for starters I went to my po box this morning and found an Adyashanti promotion CD in my mail, of course the sender is anonymous…did I ask for this CD ?, did I ask for mp3’s from Charlie nothing and friends in my email ?( thanx but no thanx Angela), did I ask to get a link to this blog in my email?.
Good luck
March 4, 2007 at 2:52 am
Dear Almost 30, you said: “I can produce a higher state at will at least sometimes and for a little while, and I’m getting better at it.”
My question – are you sure? At will? You mean, you have will, and you produce higher states at will. That’s really awesome. You must be an Absolute.
And how do you know that you are getting better at it? What is the measurement tool you are using?
Once a friend of mine was absolutely sure which hydrogen enters his body, (he used 3 digit numbers), then he was absolutely aware how this 3-digit hydrogen gets transformed in his body, with all the notes, lateral octaves etc. He was SURE, he “verified” it. It was popular back then, hydrogens etc. There was no arguing with him about it. I asked him the same question – which gauge is he using for measurements of hydrogens? Must have been some built-in gadget… Like clicker or something…
We persuade ourselves in stuff that makes no sence. We talk about things that are not true but believed by us to be true. What happened to the system idea that “we cannot do”? What happened to the idea that there is no “free will”? What happened to “Observe, observe, observe”? Were they all dismissed, these ideas, and now everyone can do and choose at their own will?
Well, if so – do you know your next thought, can you predict your next move? Can you choose your thoughts? If yes – why to choose bad ones? Things happen, and thoughts occur. According to a play, not to a “person’s will.”
Which choices or doings are you talking about?
“My efforts produce more experiences with prolonged presence and I remember to make the effort more often. I can honestly say that the sequence has increased the effectiveness of my efforts by at least a magnitude.”
I guess, all I can say – congratulations, please keep going, push harder. Almost 30 years – and such progress, now the state can stay “a little while”. Another 30 or so years – it may stay even little longer.
Just wondering, why are you hunting for states in the first place? Isnt’ it pretty obvious that we are NOT the states? After 30 years…
March 4, 2007 at 3:12 am
So much wrong work create such abundant candidates for looney tunes.
When crime is made public, organization tells people ‘we will protect you’.
Amazing such a blog. First website for masturbation devoid of photos.
I too have better use of time. Adieu, I leave you in a fine mess
March 4, 2007 at 3:24 am
To #80 “Sex without love is a neutral experience, but as far as neutral experiences go, it’s one of the best.” (Woody Allen)
March 4, 2007 at 3:45 am
Hello friends,
I am an older student and this is my first letter to the BLOG.
I’d like to thank those students that massively distributed the address for this forum. I believe this is the natural result of 35 years with no alternative means of expression available to us.
We all know that any writing we’d like to share with our friends in the group is first subject to inspection and censorship before a decision is taken as to it’s publication. If the text contains any ideas that do not correspond to the Official Interpretation of the World and of Internal Work, it will be rejected.
If it contains any questions related to finances or the use of our funds it will not be published. If it contains any comments about Robert’s daily behavior it will also be rejected. We’ve lived for many years with this situation and have become accustomed to it. We consider it normal – but it is not.
History shows us that man can so easily be fooled and can live for a long time under various types of domination. But history also shows that from time to time, gradually or suddenly, something awakens that allows us to look for a way out of the situation.
When there is a high degree of alienation, a man may be completely unable to see the situation he lives in, and he may even believe that his circumstance is in his best interests. Until recently this seems to have been the case for us.
Yet help has arrived from without, and I doubt we would have though to start this forum ourselves.
I appreciate the inspiration that came through the Sheik, who made possible an open dialog without distinguishing between students, ex-students, and non-students.
I think only now do many of us realize that that we’ve lived under a very strong and unnecessary pressure, almost unaware of it.
The Council reacts and threatens, acting like any other repressive organism within a totalitarian society, using apparent great power and fear.
But the movement in a new direction has already started, and cannot be stopped. It is a natural movement.
The School is entering a new phase that will change the course of it’s history. We recognize the taste of something we’d forgotten many years ago, and I believe the time is near wherein we will start to express ourselves more freely, supported firmly by our own common sense and in our own understandings.
Even if in some cases this manifests by our leaving the School – it is about our selves and our lives.
Courage my friends,
From my heart,
Tommy
March 4, 2007 at 4:35 am
It’s just occurred to me that NOBODY on this blog writes under their full true names. Why??
I can understand those who are still members, but there are many who have left, so WHY to hide? What is your fear? I wonder if you still hold the possibility of rejoining? WHY?
March 4, 2007 at 5:18 am
#112. Why do you have to tell us you are leaving? Why don’t you … just … leave?
March 4, 2007 at 5:22 am
Hi Sheik, Traveler, and all:
The distinction “translative vs transformative spirituality,” was posited by Ken Wilbur. So, if you’re going to reprint, you probably need to give the correct attribution. He was sort of riffing on thoughts put forth by linguist Noam Chomsky back in the 1960s/70s, who wrote a lot about “deep” vs “surface” structures in language. Where Wilbur went with that stuff was nicely sketched in Traveler’s post #79.
I won’t tread onto the topic of whether the FOF ‘is’ more the one than the other, or is an even mix, or totally extreme to one end. But accepting Wilbur’s categories for the moment, I would say that the 4th Way is potentially very much at either end. Ouspensky himself stated that in the initial phases of learning/working with the system, most of the knowledge is likely to fall on formatory parts and be worked with in a formatory way. A new vocabulary is learned, things are studied in new categories, phenomena are labeled and related to accordingly. And certainly this could go on indefinitely, with the individual becoming little more than an expert ‘talking-head’ of the 4th Way. The claim, however, is that the new categories of thought are in genuine alignment with an objective understanding of man, his conscious possibilities, and with the direct-knowing/experience of “higher centers.” Also that, because of this alignment, they correctly calculate how to lead the practitioner beyond the feeble and slow process of ordinary mind he started out from. I would say, in a best case scenario, some incredibly powerful awakenings can occur. Disruptive and deeply transformative. Now, where Wilbur talks about the goal of transformative religion to ‘deconstruct’ the self, the 4th way offers: dismantling imaginary ‘I’, with all the buffers, wrong thinking and identifications that support and proceed from it, etc. The process of ‘divided-attention’ in particular, is seen as the main engine or trigger of the big, deep-structure assault.
But, failing the best-case scenario, there’s just the usual nonsense of any ’system of thought,’ embraced passionately and with all one’s identification and false personality, which readily feed off the fancy and exclusive knowledge. I would point out that non-dual formulations are quite prone to the same fate. The spiritual consequences of any approach to awakening (even if it’s formulated as a ‘non-approach’!), have overwhelmingly to do with where one is really coming from inside. Maybe sincerity is the biggest work word of all.
BBB
March 4, 2007 at 5:46 am
tb45 (#112) — Your thoughts are so confused I’m not even sure what you are saying, except that the game isn’t going your way, so you’re taking your toys and going home.
Personally, I’ll take a real, live, fine mess over a sanitized, artificial environment any day.
March 4, 2007 at 11:43 am
See my Robert Burton & Fellowship of Friends stuff on the net:
http://www.geocities.com/stella_wirk/index2.html
http://www.4thway.com/stella/
http://www.4thway.com/stella/aboutme.htm
March 4, 2007 at 11:51 am
Inner Jewel (Post 109) what a fantastic poem. How a few lines of verse are able to capture pages of prose and distill a situation infusing it with truth and meaning.
And to all those who say we had a choice, you have never been hypnotised by the promise of states divine, or felt the wrath and awe of a God that is neither his nor mine.
Inner Jewel, I too wrote a poem many years ago following such an encounter. Upon re-reading it now, I feel it captures precisely the sense of bewilderment and confusion I felt at the time.
False Love
You said you loved me it was a lie
I refused your desire you said goodbye
Your eyes blazed as if on fire
I’m sorry it’s more than I can bear
Probably it’s fear – you told me this
But I was not of mind but feeling
In this time of pain I ask for healing
Take my hand – maybe place a kiss
So faith can flow back in
This is my greatest wish
Simon
March 4, 2007 at 2:19 pm
Grateful for this blog.
Dear No person: its a joy to read your lines.
March 4, 2007 at 3:06 pm
To the Seeker #63: Another work idea is this, “I have undeveloped being in the use of computers, two of my centers have not been educated with computer knowledge” What does refresh the page mean?
To Inner Jewels #109: That poem was GREAT!
To Tommy and all those others who have a fear of leaving: The following quote from Rodney Collin sustained me for years and still does. He is talking about ‘higher school’. “There are people who have attended meetings for ten years who have not become incorporated in it; THERE ARE OTHERS IN SOME ISOLATED PLACE WHO DO NOT PERSONALLY KNOW A SINGLE COMPANION, YET WHO ARE COMPLETELY INTEGRATED”.
Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean deep singing, “oh my, where am I’ Eureka to all.
March 4, 2007 at 3:12 pm
An answer to the question: whether we would return to FoF if the problems that are being discussed on this forum would be overcome:
First of all, this is a purely speculative question, since things stand as they are. However, I think it is still a good question. I can only answer for myself here.
No, I most definitely would not return. There is some truth in FoF teaching, but with far too great an admixture of error. Equally compelling is the fact that I lead a much fuller and more interesting life outside the FoF.
I apologise for singling you out Kiran; merely intend to refer to one of your postings as pertinent to the point I want to make here. Whoever wants to read this, forget the person named and consider the post in which that author appears to accept, without question, that we do not have free will, that we are incapable of understanding or even interpreting what happens in our lives without having a ‘conscious teacher’ or gods to do it for us, as well as accepting as ‘fact’ that ‘the gods’ do (and are supposed to do) horrible and inexplicable things to us for our BENEFIT. Inherited ideas such as that ‘God works in mysterious ways’ and that ‘wisdom is gained through suffering’ have been distorted by RB. The religious idea taken too far of human dependence upon a higher power has resulted in a anti-intellectual, irrational passivity that is detrimental to both understanding, and to basic human functionality in the world, including the world of human relationships. This is another reason I would not return to the FoF, as this is a core truth of RB’s teaching (influenced heavily by Fourth Way ideas, and RB’s early conflation of C-Influence with the arbitrary and sometimes malicious gods of ancient Greece and Rome). Thus, to attempt to persuade anyone who is not ready to be persuaded that they do have free will, that they can remember themselves, that they CAN make heads or tails of reality without the help of RB and these so-called gods, would be like attempting to perform a reverse lobotomy. It is not that some Fourth Way ideas are not interesting, valuable and even useful to a certain extent and for a certain time, but I have found in many years of having worked seriously with them, that they do not contain the quantity or quality of truth that I originally thought them to contain, and that goes perhaps even double for the teaching specific to RB.
I would recommend to all, those who are having doubts about RB and the FoF, and especially to those who don’t have any whatsoever, to do a little study of the subject of religion itself—and the psychology and anthropology of religion, as well as do some reading on cults; this could expand your world view (and in the FoF, it is very small). Get educated. Don’t believe RB that “Life universities are factories”, for instance. They only are if you are a ‘product’, a ‘machine’ or an automaton incapable of learning and making what you learn your own.
With more knowledge, it will become evident that the FoF is also a religion, among many others, and maybe not one of the better ones. One of the characteristics of religious fundamentalism is that one’s own religion is always the best; it is the one, true religion. All other religions (although lip-service to their legitimacy may be given by the more generous-hearted and open-minded), are ultimately made out to be inferior. The same attitude (and lip service) is expressed in this idea from RB’s teaching: “We are not better than other people, we are just luckier”. Some Christians, when faced with the uncomfortable reality of other ‘righteous’ people, that is spiritually advanced people who are non-Christians, or who are Christians of other denominations, explain this unsettling fact away by this (unconscious) tactic: “Well, those people only look righteous’; but they are actually only ‘righteous in their own eyes’. Does this sound familiar? That’s why, in the FoF, Mozart, Einstein, Mother Theresa, and a slew of others who have distinguished themselves either by artistic talent, intellect, or goodness or generosity can easily be dismissed as inferior—on the basis of the idea that, their outstanding merits notwithstanding, they still don’t know how to self-remember,like we know how to. Thus Robert said that Mozart was just a ‘decoration’ for the earth—but the REAL ‘cognoscenti’, that is, only RB’s students who are the ‘lucky but not better’, are fortunate enough to have been given the real inside scoop: they have privileged knowledge, knowledge of which everyone else on the planet has been deprived, including the venerable Mozart himself. The secret: Mozart, unlike we lucky students, was to become food for the moon. But we lucky ones are compassionate, aren’t we? Tsk, tsk. My, the great ones fall hard, don’t they? For the genius musician has found his eternal resting place in the vulgar lunar grave of humanity, along with those FoF ex-students. May they rest in peace. Thus, has RB has taught us well: ‘The gods’ created “Life”, that is the 6.5 billion sleeping unworthies, including all ex-students who do not recant and return to the FoF, as ‘humus for the school’. We will grow fat and feed off their mistakes. Can you not see how really absurd and pig-headedly arrogant this is? I could not return to such absurdity and other associated absurdities contained in the theology of the FoF. I repeat here: it is easier to self-remember than it is to think. But if one continues to use The Sequence, especially in conversations with other people, there is no chance of that.
Returning to expanding of one’s horizons. Take a look at the history of religion. This could be eye-opening. What one takes to be special about one’s own group is characteristic of many other groups. What one thinks one is doing or not doing, following or abandoning, may surprise you. Check the web for the Mormon religion, as just one examploe; you will find there some startling doctrinal, psychological and sociological similarities to FoF, even though the form and the sacred ’scriptures’ differ. If you ask a Mormon, it isn’t RB’s students who are going to become immortal, far from it.
For me, another significant problem with FoF teaching and why I would never return to it, is the rather shoddy cannibalising of quotations and ideas from many world religions over different periods of history. That is, extracting teachings or sayings out of their contexts, and presenting them as eternal verities, interpreted authentically only by RB, of course. It is impossible in this way to gain any depth of understanding (remember that old Fourth Way idea of the mean between ‘knowledge’ and ‘being’, which in RB’s teaching has disappeared altogether to become ‘just I’s from the intellectual centre’).
Just one example of the ignorant and arrogant misuse of quotations of an authoritative personage are those of St Augustine. If RB or anyone of his students had ever actually read St. Augustine properly, they could not help but know what his main preoccupation was: it was to justify Catholic Christianity, not just Christianity, but Catholic Christianity and that also means Jesus Christ as the one and only saviour, which would automatically rule out Robert Burton. And it wasn’t because he didn’t know about other religions. He was a teacher of Greek and Latin thought and literature, including dualistic Neoplatonist thought, and a convert from Manichaeism, a dualistic, ‘gnostic’ type religion (that is, an ‘esoteric’ sect, which had hidden teachings with its own spiritual Elect, whose job by the way, was to release the imprisoned light from all material objects since materiality itself was an evil, therefore the body was evil, and therefore one was continually needing to withdraw from the physical world and all in it: a similar thrust to the Fourth Way’s ‘states versus I’s’ paradigm (though Gurdjieff did not emphasise this split to the extent that RB has). In any case, Augustine spent a good portion of his ‘Confessions’ denouncing such ‘absurd’ and dangerous teaching, explaining in depth the intellectual, psychological, and spiritual process he underwent in coming to this understanding.
Therefore, based upon my own observation while in the FoF, I believe that many, many students have very little idea of the authentic messages their beloved Conscious Beings were trying to put across. That is one reason why these CB’s can be easily killed off, i.e., made irrelevant, as easily as they can be resurrected or added to, whensoever RB finds reason to do so. In such a state of ignorance, it is much easier also to belive that RB has some special conduit to ancient teaching which ignores all of its own history.
So, I would recommend also to those who would be interested, to read some philosophy, especially the philosophy of religion, in which such issues as free will and determinism have been and still are being discussed and debated by some of the finest minds and hearts on the planet (unless you believe, of course, that human minds and hearts are essentially worthless and are destined for the moonheap and so that anything they would have to say or teach would iself be worthless). This would require, of course, that one do a little hard work in the head and heart oneself (if one still believes one’s heart and head are worth engaging in this illusory material world), and also that one not be afraid of the contaminating nature of ‘B’ Influence. It would also require a more open desire to understand things from a larger point of view than the one which one currently holds, an approach of ‘relativity’, that is, of understanding a subject from varied angles, which, theoretically at least, should not be anathema to those who claim any affiliation at all with the Fourth Way.
In closing, I reiterate. I would definitely not return to the FoF even if RB’s behaviour was a ‘white as snow’ and if there were no outrageous, and they are outrageous, teaching payments. And I would not return there for the beautiful ballets and the exquisite dinners, all the fine impressions, nor the fine friends there, although I have never ceased to remain open to their friendship, though I certainly have been completely shunned by nearly all of them.
I simply could not return to something that occupied me during a previous stage of my understanding. Like all students within and without the FoF, I learned some things; however, I now know that I could have learned those things elsewhere and I could have learned better things. And let’s face it, we human beings, if we are capable of learning at all, will learn much wherever we are (including in a prison), that is, if we do not believe it when somebody else tells us that we can’t learn. Yes, I CAN remember myself at will; lots of people can, but personally, it is not important to me anymore. I find more fulfilment in other pursuits. I have found that self-remembering and states are of really little importance in proportion to living a full life as a human being. I do not reject higher states. I have them, I enjoy them. I simply do not reject all other pursuits FOR higher states, most especially, the truth. Since we are all so found of quoting. I leave you with this: Ouspensky, in response to a student who said to him that no one could do the work by themselves: “Who told you that? If anyone tells you that, run from him as fast as you can.”
March 4, 2007 at 4:11 pm
Formerly almost 30 in response to post 102: The post 78 on the sequence was in response to the post 63 where the question: “if someone wants to submit how their membership has led them to achieve higher states, I am interested”. This is an important question. Yes, I did want to convey a sense of authority by including the length of time in the school, although I would not have put it that way and tried to avoid any authoritarian tone. I wanted to make clear that I was not only sincere, as are most of the posts to this list, but that I actually might know what I am talking about. It seemed to me the contextual background would add to that. I also wanted to fortify the post as much as possible against the “pot shots” that are inevitable. To that end I exceeded my expectations (so far):
89: could have saved myself a lot of trouble if I had known about mindfulness
100: many people question the that being in the present has anything to do with awakening (absurd)
102: the participants in the school still have human weaknesses, one of which in particular you personally found distasteful
111: I must be the absolute to have created any will at all and what a pathetic amount of will to have been created in so many years
Not too bad. The ‘almost 30′ bit came without any thought. I needed to put something in the box and there was the first sentence of the post. Because you had a problem with it, I’m sure the Sheik will forgive me this one change of name. Now there will probably be some speculation on why I felt this “overpowering need to defend myself”. I’m still wondering about that myself
)
March 4, 2007 at 4:42 pm
Re Post 104
Battling and destroying negative emotions would seem to be a negative emotion.
March 4, 2007 at 4:45 pm
Re post 105
R expressively forbid students from reading Tolle and emails were sent to the students from the council. The logic was that by reading it you would lose the work.
March 4, 2007 at 5:36 pm
Dear Sheik,
have you never considered that Robert Burton might be a real teacher? At least as part of trying to be objective. Are you aware of what kind of role you are playing? The fellowship has over 2000 members, many normal people who believe in Robert Burton and the school. Maybe for you it is just another interesting activity, but in fact you try to destroy an existing organisation and the current life(style) of hundreds of students and families. Both links you offer about inside information about the FOF are from people (Rick Ross and Steven Hassan)who are rated as false cult experts from http://www.parishioners.org . (www.parishioners.org/religious-experts/false-experts/
Please have some more tolerance. If you read this posts carefully (as you probably do)you won’t find any real first hand experiences that are intolerable. Most stuff comes from hearsay (we know how this things get inflated) or from anonymous web sources.
May you become the Sheik of Inner Clarity
March 4, 2007 at 5:57 pm
This is my final posting, as I now see that I am merely an amateur of bullshit compared to you people.
bjnewland@yahoo.com
March 4, 2007 at 6:20 pm
Arthur (122): If you are refering to your e-mail query and my answer then ‘refreshing the page’ means reloading the page, ie. pressing a button on your internet browser marked as ‘refresh’ or ‘reload’. Should be in between the ‘left’, ‘right’ arrows and the ’stop’ button on top of your browser.
Reality Check (123): Comments such as yours make this discussion wortwhile. Thank you.
One Student of 2200 (127): Dear student, I don’t think that you are aware of how things truly stand. A year ago I wrote an article on my visit to the FoF lecture in London, which was nothing more than an interesting activity.
Half a year later, hundreds of people started using my blog as a neutral ground for discussing the FoF, the Fourth Way, and Robert Burton. I had no hand in this, they came without invitation, and I simply let them talk. If allowing people their freedom of speech was a form of intolerance, I may have been guilty. Otherwise…
Anyway, why do you feel so threatened? Am I right to believe that the only way for the FoF to survive is to stay unchallenged? Is repression and dominance the only way by which the FoF keeps its members on a leash?
If words can destroy the organisation then it isn’t built on very strong foundations. If words can destroy the current life styles of hundreds of students then their lives were not based on anything solid. Could you please elaborate on how many lives I have destroyed and how this destruction came about? Is leaving the FoF the destruction that you talk of?
And one last question, have you ever considered that Robert Burton is not a real teacher?
I can assure you that my dislike of the FoF has very little to do with Robet Burton. I simply hate anything that seeks to take away our freedom, whether it is a political institution, or a religious organisation. Nothing and nobody on this planet has the right to take away the freedom that we are born with. Even if we are manipulated to believe that we are giving it away out of free choice.
Thank you for your wish.
March 4, 2007 at 6:31 pm
123 Reality Check: enjoyed your posting. Compassion towards others is possible where there’s no sense of big difference between myself and any other human being.
There’s a nice video clip which a friend sent me to illustrate the point:
http://www.freehugscampaign.org
March 4, 2007 at 8:01 pm
Dear Sheik, thank you for the knowledge on post #129. A few posts before gave warnings about evil things happening to this blog and I not knowing computers (how to right them) wondered if my problem was an act of evil.
I would like to also say that when I was in FOF I tried to bring a person in. He attended an introduction meeting with his girlfriend and the only thing that came out of was his glee of watching his girlfriend out debating everybody.I didnt know what he meant, but the disappointment was so bad that he and split company until I left FOF. We have since reestablished ourselves but do not speak of those days. Unfortunately Last year I gave another friend an FOF telephone number and telling him it was a REAL SCHOOL.
I’ve been using a computer for two months and read bits and pieces elsewhere about FOF. I read post#109 and searched there. I went hook, line and sinker, and I feel lucky that my two friends did not bite the bait. Now I have to make sure one is not dangling as a sucker fish
thanks to me.
March 4, 2007 at 8:09 pm
The former Almost 30 quotes me as saying:
100: many people question that being in the present has anything to do with awakening
and he adds the comment “absurd”.
Maybe it’s not clear, but what I meant was that if you really look you can see that we are always in the present and can’t get out of it even if we want to. Even imagination occurs in the present. So making efforts to be present is pointless, unless all you want is the occasional “higher state”. In other words, efforts to be present pruduce no permanent results. Which is why noone in the entire history of the FOF has awakened.(Admittedly it may be possible that that there have been some secret awakenings, but there’s no evidence of it.)
Anyway, dear A30, I wasn’t taking a “potshot”, honest, just suggesting an alternative possibilty.
March 4, 2007 at 8:59 pm
There is only one word to adequately describe Post 123 by Reality Check:
Thoughtful
Insightful
Informative
Thought-provoking
Illuminating
Revealing
Enlightening
EXCELLENT!
And to those who noticed the contradiction in the above sentence and are not smiling already,
I say, “Ooops! Made you think!”
And that is what this forum is all about.
Hear any alarm bells going off yet, One Student of 2200?
My sincerest thanks to Sheik, Reality Check, and all those brave souls — yes, ‘brave’ — who deem it worthwhile to take the time and make the effort to share their personal views (which, to the person holding them, are ALWAYS VALID)
on a topic which has become a major factor in our experience.
One parting thought:
A chess master, and probably “higher mind”, is thinking any number of moves ahead. I keep that in mind when evaluating seemingly simple statements of higher wisdom that are really “functioning on multiple levels and in multiple dimensions” (quote from a great scene in the movie CONTACT) and have subtle aftereffects on my “view of reality” that are not immediately apparent. Ironically, this could also be true of false statements, half-truths and misinformation, intentional or not.
Be alert and stay sharp!
March 4, 2007 at 9:03 pm
Dear Street(whoever you are, post #110)
As far as I remember I sent the mp3′ version of the Forth Way Blues, to a few of people which used to be my friends. The idea was to share a moment of music and fun,(as we can’t share words because of the RULE!!!). Did you loose your sense of humor, together with your name?
Try to get them back before is too late.
Good luck to you!
ANGELA
March 4, 2007 at 9:23 pm
Thank you Charlie, so well said.
Amazingly, it turns out that the condition of human “sleep” is exactly that: THINKING and believing that you are “not present”, not here. Well, because in reality you are present, always. It just can’t be otherwise. You ARE, here, now. Your thoughts can tell you that you are not here, but are you – the thoughts? YOU are always here and now.
Human’s state of “sleep” is beeing unaware of the solid undeniable fact that we are always here and now, and there is no past and future., there is only present. If we can acknowledge this simple fact, and stop using ideas as our blinders, then certain clarity occurs, certain relaxation and natural acceptance of what IS happens. But the seekers mind imagines that this is too simple, it can’t be so, there is a desperate need to “get” somewhere, making things complicated and entangled: not only you deny the simple obvious, but in the same time an imaginary Path is created in the mind, leading you nowhere, from past to future bypassing the truth which is right in front of us, here and now. It makes mind very involved, very busy and excited- and that what mind wants – to be put to work, be given rein, to explain things, to divide and label.
Funny, we were told that we need to GET to the present moment. And believed it too! We are told that we are asleep and need to wake up through efforts and paths that will lead us to present. If anything is “absurd” – this is it.
There is only recognising that we are always present, always here and now. There is no getting out of the present! Ever. “Awakening” (if we want to use such a word) means STOP. Stop believing your mental noise and see what’s going on. You are always present, even when imagination occur. No need to panic and try to “get back” – you haven’t left, haven’t disappear, you are right here, relax. Thought come and go like clouds in the sky, no need to attach your identity to any passing thought or imagination – let them pass and they will pass. You are what watches each thought, undisturbed, right here right now, never departed from the Now… “Sleep” is – mentally denying the obvious.
Thank you again, Charlie, and thanks again, Sheik for letting it all be expressed.
March 4, 2007 at 9:53 pm
To “The Esoteric Sheik of Inner Confusion” (the moderator of this blog):
Let’s start from the beginning. You opened this discussion about the Fellowship of Friends telling us about your experience at an introductory meeting with some members of the group in London. You claim that you are impartial, but you started the discussion saying:
“You might have gathered on your own that the Fellowship is a bit of a cult. Just how bad it is can be gathered from here:
http://www.freedomofmind.com/resourcecenter/groups/f/fellowship/
http://www.rickross.com/groups/fof.html
The leader is quite definitely insane, a paedophile, brainwasher and manipulator.”
The statement abovedoesn’t seem impartial to me. You never met Burton, and you based your accusations of “insane, paedophile, brainwasher and manipulator” not on your own verifications but on 2 web sites that you found. Well, I did the homework that you didn’t do and checked your sources. This is what I found about one of them, Rick Ross:
Rick Ross
Although Rick Ross promotes himself as a professional “cult expert”, a review of his educational background shows that quite apart from being anti-Christian (he refers to Christians as “Bible bangers”) has no religious educational credentials whatsoever. To the contrary, his only formal education is a high school diploma. Self-aggrandizement and personal financial reward seem to be Ross’ primary motive for his attacks on Christians and members of other faiths.
As documented herein, an unbiased review of Ross’ activities overwhelmingly supports the conclusion that Ross systematically engages in anti-social and often illegal activity and disguises this in the name of “help.” “Deprogramming,” which appears to be his main source of income, is such an activity.
Ross specializes in garnering media attention to create fear and suspicion in the family members of individuals in minority religious groups. He then exploits this fear to get them to pay him thousands of dollars in fees to coerce people out of their chosen religious affiliation. Close scrutiny of Ross’ “successful” deprogrammings very often finds broken families and dehumanized individuals who were coerced, lied to, brainwashed and degraded by deprogrammers into renouncing their religious beliefs.
Public records reveal that Ross has been the subject of at least three arrests, including an attempted burglary, embezzlement of $100,000 worth of jewelry from a jewelry store, and kidnapping. Two of these arrests resulted in convictions. In the third, Ross’ co-conspirators plead guilty to lesser charges while Ross evaded being found guilty. Ross was sued civilly by the victim in the same kidnapping incident and was punished by the jury for over $3 million in compensatory and punitive damages.
Although Ross claims in media interviews that his criminal activity ceased with the 1975 jewelry heist, which he brushes off as an act of his youth for which he has taken responsibility, Ross has continued his pattern and practice of criminal activity against others.
For example, in the above mentioned civil kidnapping case, the verdict issued by the jury stated that Ross had:
“acted recklessly in a way that is so outrageous in character and so extreme as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency and to be regarded as atrocious and utterly intolerable in a civilized community.”
As a further note on Ross’ predisposition to criminal behavior and violation of the rights of others, when Ross challenged the finding in the civil kidnapping case, the Court upheld the punitive damages award and observed:
“A large award of punitive damages is also necessary under the recidivism and mitigation aspects of the factors cited in Haslip. Specifically, the Court notes that Mr. Ross himself testified that he had acted similarly in the past and would continue to conduct ‘deprogrammings’ in the future.”
Ross’ criminal activity in this kidnapping case single-handedly brought about the demise of the Cult Awareness Network, which was exposed to be a criminal referral network for kidnappers. The jury also issued a finding against CAN for $1.8 million, which bankrupted the group.
Rick Ross’ character was further demonstrated when he filed for personal bankruptcy in the face of the $3 million judgment against him. As part of the bankruptcy, Ross discharged a $17,500 debt to his elderly mother.
Despite these arrests and censure from the courts, Ross has not reformed and has continued to commit criminal and anti-social acts. For example he blatantly admits on his web site that he has committed over a dozen involuntary deprogrammings (kidnappings) on adult individuals, mainly Christians, and at least that many more on minors. Ross neatly omits these matters when establishing himself with media and instead focuses only on the 1975 arrests which he attempts to dismiss as “his youth” although he was 22 years old.
The Ross Institute is Ross’ latest money scam. The “Institute” is actually a mail drop just across the street from Ross’ apartment in Jersey City, which he shares with a Haryonto Soedarpo. Though Ross and Soedarpo have shared the same apartment since at least 1998 in New Jersey and earlier in Phoenix, Soedarpo’s role in the Ross Institute is nebulous. Soedarpo, like Ross, has no degree in religious studies or counseling. While Ross promotes the “Institute” as a tax-exempt, non-profit organization and solicits donations from the public, the “Institute” is clearly a front and promotional arm for Ross’ deprogramming business.
You can read the full article at:
http://www.religiousfreedomwatch.org/religious-experts/false-experts/rick-ross/
How can I respect your judgement when believe everything you read on the internet (and this blog is a prove of that).
Of course, you as the moderator can delete this post and nobody will see it. That will prove to me that besides not checking your sources you have no conscience.
March 4, 2007 at 10:08 pm
#79 Dear Traveler,
I am thankful for this description of a “dogma”. I want to hear some more on this subject. What’s wrong with it? Many Christians still believe in Jesus Christ and Paradise-Hell. How do we know? What if it IS true?
March 5, 2007 at 12:41 am
Seeker #104 wrote:
“we must realize that we can struggle with them (negative emotions); they can be conquered and destroyed, because there is no real centre for them.”
Sorry, Seeker, I’m not picking on you, but this does raise an important point for me.
This is a perfect illustration of a concept I took on faith and simply assumed to be true — after all, how does one verify an idea like this? Yet it is at the core of the 4th way teachings.
If anything, I feel I have verified the opposite — that is, negative emotions are very real. This really occurred to me when my first child was born. Kids don’t come out wreathed in smiles in their beautiful state of pure essence. They come out screaming their heads off, angry and fearful. Smiling comes later.
This is just one example of how something so obvious and common sense could be thrown out the window. So many things like this creep in, become part of the accepted conventional wisdom, with no verification made or even possible in this case. (How do you verify there is no real “centre” for negative emotions?)
I do remember having these questions early on in the FOF. I also remember very quickly learning that there was a lot of pressure not to have these kinds of thoughts.
Reality Check #123 — a tour de force piece of writing. All I can say is — Me too!
#119 from Stella Wirk — she died 5 or 10 years ago. Guess she’s posting from the Great Beyond, having woken up!
Shiek, you asked of One Student of 2200 (#127): “Am I right to believe that the only way for the FoF to survive is to stay unchallenged? Is repression and dominance the only way by which the FoF keeps its members on a leash?” The answer, I’m afraid, is “Yes” on both counts.
In spite of some very negative naysayers (tsk-tsk, negativity), I continue to enjoy the high level of many of the posts. Thanks again, Sheik.
March 5, 2007 at 1:38 am
A School is under the same laws as everything else in this world.
A School is the physical body of a Teaching. When the Teaching dies, the body dies.
The School as we knew it and loved it is dead.
Then the schism: some follows the man and what’s left of his teaching in religious fashion, some follow what they have verified and what they know best; both trying to be true to what they believe. Nobody, no living person has seen the afterlife, but we become so fascinated with it and with whoever claims that he can live forever, and that he will take us there. It’s already a miracle that someone has really seen this life for what it is.
It will take a real “Esoteric Medical Miracle” to bring the School back to life; a real ‘Divine Intervention” because RB is not the only one gone Cu-Cu, a lot of people have turned into their own “Madame Tussaud” doubles.
I realize that every given week I have less and less friends to talk to, to whom I can speak from my heart. Students are falling like flies. They are turning into wax.
Many people on this blog are very confident that they have gained the truth trying to convince the others… Feminine Dominance does not have one single shape that one can be free from. Once you have created the belief that you have escaped from it, you are doing nothing else but crafting another form of it and living under its laws.
I sincerely hope that you and I will stop creating new, better and improved prisons for ourselves.
I apologize, but I feel tired now, I am leaving.
Thank you Sheik for playing your ‘part’ graciously, to all of you out there also thank you, good luck, and don’t forget to have fun.
March 5, 2007 at 3:10 am
Buddhapest (136): I am a little bit tired of defending myself as this discussion is not about me. Yet, not reacting may give you the wrong message.
First, read my previous post (129), it may answer some of your questions, that is if you are seeking answers and not simply trying to make a point.
Second, my opinions are not impartial. I do not like the FoF, how many times do I have to tell you?
Yet, believe it or not, this discussion is as impartial as I can make it. I allow all comments (including those that make more upset than you would believe) and make sure that all opinions are represented. I try very hard to moderate this discussion impartially, while my comments are of course not so impartial. This is all I am going to say on the issue, I have said this before and am rather tired of repeating myself.
Otherwise, the claims that RB is a sexual predator, a manipulator, and a money crazy loonie have been proven beyond any doubt throughout the discussion, you may have to read all the 500 comments to come to the same conclusion, but it may be worth the effort. I may have overblown the initial statement that I wrote in my article but that’s how outraged I felt at the time. I have purposefully not changed a single word of that article since its writing. So, yes, you are right, my article is not impartial, but I never claimed it was.
By the way, religious freedom watch is a very smartly constructed website, I applaud whoever created it. I am sure that it serves well groups such as the FoF. Sadly enough, Rick Ross is not the only one who thinks that the FoF is a cult. I have little to prove if your only argument is an attack on the credibility of the claimer, rather than the claim itself.
How can I respect your judgement when believe everything you read on the internet (and this blog is a prove of that).
Do you respect your own judgement if your addition to the discussion is a link to a different internet resource? You seem to believe things you find on the internet as much as I do, aren’t you being a bit hypocritical?
Anyway, enough of this. I really liked the name that you chose for yourself.
March 5, 2007 at 3:18 am
“Now I will you to be a bold swimmer,
To jump off in the midst of the sea, rise again, nod to me, shout, and laughingly dash with you hair.”
The Fellowship inntroduced me to Walt Whitman. For that I’m grateful.
Someone said “it’s a solo struggle.” Be brave, and be happy. Whatever path you choose.
Tim Campion
Santa Rosa, CA
timtraveler@msn.com
March 5, 2007 at 3:19 am
#136
I see…
March 5, 2007 at 3:21 am
#136 Buddhapest — I think you are confusing two separate issues. Yes, the Sheik came to the conclusion that the fellowship is a destructive cult, based partially on the Rick Ross material. And he has made some comments that reflect that conclusion.
However, Sheik has been extremely even-handed when it comes to moderating the discussion, and has let all viewpoints be represented, from the ardent FOF supporters to the negative detractors, and everything in between.
Sheik is playing two separate roles — contributor and moderator — and I think he is handling both of them extremely well.
March 5, 2007 at 5:48 am
Several people posting have questioned the veracity of post #294 (previous page), posted by “Inner Circle Facts,” detailing the sexual activities that are rampant in the Galleria. I have heard similar things from a number of sources I would consider reliable.
A number of people have asked, “Why don’t they don’t just say no?” “Why don’t they just leave?” From what I understand, the answer seems to be twisted up with a lot of strands involving the upbringing and programming in the poorer nations of the world. Some of this is involved with the economics of international prostitution, as described in #238 (previous page) by Rabbi Burns.
Unless you have spent some time in Eastern Europe, particularly in Russia, you may not understand the post-Soviet fear of authority. You don’t go to the police unless you want your problems to escalate exponentially. You don’t go to the government agency unless you want more trouble – a lot more trouble. English-speakers may also not know the barriers that exist for those who don’t speak English – after all, everywhere we go we can find someone who speaks English. It’s not the same if you speak Russian, or Ukrainian, or Romanian.
I recently spoke with a young foreign woman who described how the young men from Eastern Europe, and now around Robert, often don’t have fathers, or had abusive or alcoholic fathers. Sex, authority, and dad gets mixed up into one package in the Fellowship.
She later wrote me: “I actually know personally the poor Russian kid who performed the ‘fisting.’ He was used because of his miniature fists, poor thing. He left the school.”
She wrote: “These guys ARE looking for an escape, they just don’t know how, and there are too many inner contradictions and entanglements. The fact is, these guys are asking other friends whether they could
provide them shelter or help them to find work if they dare to run away. People who are voluntarily engaging in sex will not be so messed up, confused and looking for an escape.”
She was afraid to post online. I am posting for her. Her letter:
“There is something I wanted to say, certain facts that may be we should not buffer. First of all, any one’s behavior, sexual or whatever, is just their behavior, and not to be judged. As some one said here, no one is a saint, we all are quirky in some ways or another.
There is a line however, when others get emotionally and physically hurt or even damaged by one’s destructive behavior. Again, we all get offended and hurt here and there by someone’s cruel words or actions. But sometimes there is long-term harm, corruption and infliction of large amounts of pain deliberately and repeatedly done to innocent others out of selfish sexual desires, and that’s where the line for me is drawn. That’s when buffering stops. I will not look at another “sheep” being killed and tell comfortable stories to myself why it is not my business. These are my friends, I care.
Some of them I love dearly. We came to this school with a desire to awaken and not to be controlled and told whom to date, and not to turn into indifferent zombies who simply don’t care when our friends are hurt or abused.
I used to date a young man who was a “R’s boy” at that time. He told me in all-too-graphic details how he was seduced, and how he didn’t want it but succumbed under heavy pressure. He wasn’t gay and it was incredibly uncomfortable for him to be handled by an older gay man. He told me how he was covering his face and closing his eyes and the only thought flashing in his mind was, “He is sucking me! He is sucking me!” I was very, very shocked at that time. That doesn’t seem to me like an act of love and compassion. There is just something very wrong with the picture. Later this young man developed a buffer why he allowed such abuse, he even came up with an explanation that it was an “exchange of a sacred sexual energy” and that he was getting it from R. and then transferring it to me. I too soon learned to buffer things, and every time another piece of disturbing news would come, I simply say: “It’s not my business. I came here to work on myself.”
Another young man, a friend of mine, another “R-boy”, confessed that he hates doing this, and he hates going “on duty.” It is like a bitter punishment. He said that the nights he is “off” he feels so happy and relieved. I asked, “Is it like this for most of you?” And his reply was that mostly they all hate it, but the pressure to do it is so high that they comply.
It is difficult and uncomfortable, against his nature, and he has to buffer it every time he has to go “on duty.” I asked, “Why do you go then, why not say ‘No’?” He said he feels totally obligated, because the visa was made for him by FOF, the tickets were bought for him, everything he eats is paid for, everything he wears is paid for, he is given jewelry and expensive gifts and he even doesn’t have to work at all… He owes everything to R. at this point. His whole life is paid for by him. I said: “Run then, escape!” He replied that he will not be able to run far since he has a religious visa and no legal means to support himself. He is completely, totally screwed, poor soul. This was a confused, scared, very unhappy nervous young man to whom I felt so much pity and compassion. Some desperate guys did run away in the past, as I’ve heard, and later most of them had to return. Basically, to me it looks like this young man was “bought” to perform sexual things he hates and that are unnatural for him… He tried to start a relationship with a lady which was brutally terminated by R., leaving both him and the lady heartbroken. He is made dependent legally and financially, so he cannot flee or object in any way. Does this seem right to you? Does this seem OK with you? Do you feel anything towards this guy or guys like him? Oh yes, by the way, he developed buffers, too. He thinks he is being “helped” or “saved”. He thinks he would never had made it in life, anyway. In fact, he says he is almost happy! Well, his body’s nervous movements and his eyes scream opposite. He can’t hide what he really feels… Poor, poor man.
And ladies, how many of you were told to terminate your love relationship, because the object of your love (even if the feeling was totally mutual) was R.’s boy? Wasn’t it an area of long pain and tears for so many of us? How can anyone decide for someone whom to love, whom to be with, why do we think it’s OK to let anyone no matter how conscious to ruin our relationship? When I was in a relationship with a “boy”, he told me how he was asked many times by R. not to trade a love of a conscious teacher to a dirty meaningless sex with an asleep woman, a machine, his girlfriend. Women are nothing but
competitors and trouble. So my boy would stay with the conscious, telling the asleep one that she’ll be home alone this night. That was not good news to hear. How many relationships were destroyed by this? Does this seem right, does this seem compassionate and externally considerate, is this OK with you too? This is an intrusion on your lives, this destructive cruel acts are based on selfish interests only. This person teaches us compassion and external consideration, he speaks of presence and love. Where is it in his
own actions?
Please don’t buffer what I’m saying with “this is all negativity”. These are just plain facts, nothing negative in it. They are uncomfortable, true. But not negative. Please bear it.
I guess one may say it doesn’t matter. After all, what does it have to do with “My Work”?
Yes, very good question to ask oneself indeed.”
March 5, 2007 at 8:03 am
To the Esoteric Sheik of Inner Confusion:
Before you were “a little bit tired” of people posting under different names; now you are “a little bit tired” of defending yourself. I myself am “a little bit tired” of your pedantic tone. Why don’t you simply recognize that you assumed that the Fellowship was a cult and that Burton was “insane, paedophile, brainwasher and manipulator” before you had any solid information except an introductory meeting and 2 negative web sites? Sure, you attracted some negative posts from a few former members, so what? Start a blog on any esoteric group (or broken marriages, for that effect) and see which kind of posts you attract.
Tell me, why do you spend long hours moderating and contributing to a blog that has the level of a trash magazine? Do you think that you are serving a noble purpose? All this talk about the Fellowship and Burton is just a façade – you just want your ego massage.
OK, Innernaut, now is your turn to defend the Sheik.
March 5, 2007 at 8:15 am
‘only following orders,’ followed by,
‘be,hold,read,back,read,BE!’
March 5, 2007 at 8:29 am
To Buddhapest:
I am speculating from your clever blog name that you may have some affiliation to that great city, or even be Hungarian yourself. In which case you might appreciate, and may even have heard, an old Hungarian joke my dad once told me. The original has a cadence and rhythm to the words, unfortunately lost in translation, that adds to the humor. In English, and as far as I can remember, it goes something like this:
A blind man, a deaf man and a bald man were walking down a country road.
(From the scenario, maybe they were casualties from a recent battle.)
The first one says,”I heard a shot!”
The other says, “I saw the smoke!”
The last one says, “Let’s run like hell so we feel the wind blowing through our hair!”
Who said what? Were they hanging out together so each could make up for the others’ shortcomings? Were they, each and all, in “imagination”? Why wasn’t there one among them who had all his senses, and his hair, intact? Could this be such a valid metaphor of human psychology that we find it much easier to laugh at the obvious absurdity, rather than examine it’s deeper implications? Doesn’t look so obvious anymore, does it? Sounds more like a riddle than a simple joke.
I have found that my preconceived ideas and unquestioned assumptions, more than any outside influences, are my greatest obstacles to discovering the truth.
March 5, 2007 at 9:16 am
Dear Sheik, thank you for responding.
you wrote;”One Student of 2200 (127): Dear student, I don’t think that you are aware of how things truly stand.”
But do You know how things truly stand? It’s time to close the blog…
Good By, good luck
March 5, 2007 at 9:32 am
Walking in Melbourne this morning I saw a new bestselling book in one of the stores “The delusion of God” which triggered me to respond to “Reality check’s” interpretation (post 123) of my post 31.
As one can already see from your handle, you believe in a “common reality” that anyone can check, if he is interested in doing so.
Now this is an old and common illusion that there exists a common Reality that is accessible to anyone independent of their level of being.
Since the dramatic events 16 month ago my “Reality” has changed and I experience the gods, as you hopefully experience your human friends, as doubtless reality, and I believe for RB it is the same. As a result I attract followers and also a lot of money.
Do I need either of them? NO, because my world has been filled with a certainty and satisfaction that I can only call divine in lack of a better world. Do I think somebody should follow me? Yes, I think I have been given a connection, that has the purpose of bringing guidance to some people who do not follow the most common illusion that they can find THE way on their own.
Now the difference I hope, I am given to make, to the style that RB was teaching, is in that I will always put attention to the fact that people should not follow “like sheep”. I will make clear that “Only because I think it is right, that should not be the only reason that it has to be followed”. Do I think I will be able to avoid that some will do it that way ? No because it is the nature of certain levels of being that this will happen no matter how much a teacher has the skills to make this difficult to happen.
The fourth way and Advaita have the most important principle in common “One cannot do” and the moment you leave either of these ways this is the first thing people forget. Like most here on this site and they return to the illusion that they can “take their own life into their own hands”. Of course the basic contradiction is that “One cannot do but something one has to do at any moment in time”. There is no way out of this contradiction but to raise above the illusion “That one is doing”. Once this attitude has become deeply enough implanted in a persons being, which takes many incarnations, one is ready that the gods take you by their hands and lead you to another level of existence. If this would happen before this point, these beings would be a danger to the ray of creation because now they had real powers without the necessary humility not to misuse them.
Mr. “Reality Check” is a good representative of the common American illusion : “We are all born equal” and “You can do it yourself” and of course, he will have many followers. Would be nice if you had at least the courage to reveal your real name Mr Reality Check so we can check who you really are.
For those who are not so much interested in words you might enjoy pictures from my last few weeks of travels
http://www.flickr.com/photos/Iloveyou2/show
To the Sheik: “I am not promoting nor selling spiritual products on my website nor do I think I can find many buyers by promoting on your blog for a healing system that costs over 10 thousand Dollars a piece, so don’t worry, but I hope you are so open to also post this message even so it is quite contrary to the general tone of this site. But believe me I had to pay for this understanding with more suffering than most of you can even imagine”.
March 5, 2007 at 10:40 am
And somesoul keep observing his machinery watching, understanding more and making profit also from all this from quiet place while listening to some great Bach music.
With observance.
March 5, 2007 at 11:57 am
Bedouin (117): Well said.
Somebody (137) Says: ‘Dear Traveler, I am thankful for this description of a “dogma”. I want to hear some more on this subject. What’s wrong with it? Many Christians still believe in Jesus Christ and Paradise-Hell. How do we know? What if it IS true?’
Dear Somebody, I hope you are kidding. But to give you the benefit of the doubt, I will assume this was a serious and sincere question and you really want an answer.
I didn’t actually define dogma in my previous post, so let’s do it now: dogma: a doctrine or code of beliefs accepted as authoritative and true without proof.
As human beings, we have been given the gift of reasoning and critical thinking. For some strange reason in this modern day we feel that employing thinking and reasoning is just not spiritual (this can be a dogma in itself!). This is because we seem to believe that reason and spirit are in fundamental conflict and can’t exist alongside one another, so we make the illogical conclusion that rational judgment is to be abandoned in spiritual pursuits. We become humble sheep in the name of following a shepherd who knows better, and claims that what he says is true, although many of the things he says can’t be verified. Robert Burton specifically solves that dilemma by just stating claims as if they had been verified by all, and speaking on everybody else’s behalf, so people start repeating it and voila, before you know it, they think they really verified it.
“Somebody” asks – how do we know, maybe there is a paradise and hell, what if it is all true? What’s wrong with dogma? Somebody, what if I claimed to be a spiritual authority, a guru, and I told you about the supreme Flying Spaghetti Monster (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster). Since there is no way of proving the non-existence of an invisible and undetectable Flying Spaghetti Monster who created the universe (neither is there an absolutely conclusive way to prove the non-existence of anything), I just might be right. And if you don’t start praying to the Flying Spaghetti Monster right now, you’ll go to hell. Oh wait – but you better start praying to Allah, appeasing Zeus and worshipping Ahura Mazda as well, because any of these religions could be right. Right?
Please, good people, trust yourselves sometimes and turn on your bullshit meters. You do have a spiritual compass even if you are not a completely realized being. A rule of thumb is to turn away when you see a person who believes that his truth is the only true truth in the world and nobody else has a clue. Most of the outlandish claims Robert makes are accepted on the basis of another belief that we try hard to convince ourselves into: that he is a conscious being with insight into higher worlds. Sometimes it’s useful to ask yourself what is the origin of a belief.
The following information is collected from another site.
In 1971, Teacher and a student were riding in a relatively new Dodge Dart along Highway 1 near Carmel. Teacher was 32 years old at the time. They were listening to a baseball game on the car radio. As the odometer of the car hit the mileage number “1954″, they passed a mailbox which had the name Thompson on it. Teacher indicated that this was a shock, as in 1954, Bobby Thompson of the New York Giants had hit a famous home run in a playoff game (which Teacher had apparently heard on the radio). 44 miles later as the odometer hit 1998, the mailbox on the side of the road showed the number 41211. Teacher indicated that THIS was also a shock which meant that California was going to fall into the Pacific Ocean in 1998 on April 12th at 11 am.”
Burton believed that the oil company that used the advertising logo “UNION ‘76″ was a sign from C Influence that he, Burton, would “crystallize into a man number six” in 1976.
And this trend continues with ancient Egyptians also leaving messages for him to decode.
OK now, RB may be consciously communicating with gods in this way, but, if you didn’t already know ahead of time that he was conscious, and these interpretations were coming from the guy next door, wouldn’t they strike you as kind of… well… delusional and grandiose?
I have an open question for our readers. Advanced students have always told me that they had verified Robert was conscious. I never quite understood what that meant. And the best explanation I could come up with was that he was so weird and different from other people you knew, that it must have meant he was conscious. That’s my understanding, but I was never close to Robert. So I’d like to hear some others how they understand “verifying that Robert was conscious”.
The gift of critical thinking is generally neglected in the Fellowship. That is, there is plenty of self-observation and examining one’s individual unconscious attitudes, replacing them with more useful attitudes (translative spirituality). However, when it comes to the institution as a whole, it seems to have no external realistic perspective on itself and it instead basks in its self-promotion.
The scary thing is, we don’t even realize the slow and gradual process of embracing a dogma is happening within ourselves through social reinforcement. Well, some part notices, but other parts prefer not to know. For example, most of us feel an unease or fear at the thought that one of our friends might leave the school. This I think is because we have tacitly come to accept the proposition promoted by Robert that when you leave the Fellowship you are as good as dead and your lower self will destroy you. There is no life outside the FOF, we believe subconsciously. And that’s what’s wrong with dogma.
March 5, 2007 at 1:16 pm
Linda T. (147): That’s insane. I especially like the finishing quote: When one sees how difficult it is to practice the sequence, one realizes how right it is. Robert. I love the twisted logic.
RicquiRoz (145): This discussion attracts about 1,500 people a day. From that number of people, I would expect to receive a fairly accurate picture of how things stand in the FoF. So far, it seems that what I wrote in my initial article is true.
If you dislike my pedantic tone, why are you taking part in the discussion? I can assure you that I am a little bit tired of you too, yet I still let you talk. Can the same be said of the FoF?
One Student of 2200 (148): The blog is not closing. This discussion is just a part of the blog, one of the 170 articles that the Knight and me have written. This discussion is not closing either, neither will it be closing in the future.
Anyway, if you wish to throw some more garbage on my head, or throw insults at the blog, would you please first react to my two posts (129, 140) where I explain my position on the issue. Good luck.
March 5, 2007 at 5:02 pm
Re: post 151
Bobby Thomson hit that home run in 1951, no wonder RB’s timetable for predictions is so skewed!
Re: post 123
This sums up my view also. Thanks for the clearly written thoughts.
March 5, 2007 at 6:26 pm
I have hesitated to write because it seemed I could only repeat what others have said. So many extraordinary, sincere and brilliant posts here – enough to entirely overshadow the flamers and proselytizers, both in and out of the FOF. It has been the freshest air I have experienced in a very long time.
There is one aspect that has been touched on by a few people but not deeply enough, I think. It would be a fairly straightforward, if not easy, process to sort out the experience of the FOF if RB were simply a demented, power and sex-crazed fool, tormented by a childhood of sexual abuse by his mother and sister (these are his words, not hearsay) abused further physically and emotionally by Alex Horn (see http://www.davearcher.com/alex.html for a general picture of the barbarity that helped form the foundation of the FOF) and crystallized in a hopeless pathological narcissism. While this may present an accurate picture on one level, the reality is much more complex than that. Whether one is in the FOF and trying to sort out their own personal highest experiences within that framework and trying to harmonize those with the jarring dissonances of RB’s behaviour, or whether one has left and is still asking “wtf happened to me there?”, I think little real progress will be made without admitting yet another disturbing reality: Robert Burton is an extraordinary person of quite uncommon presence and spiritual attainment. There are no grounds for self-recrimination about why one “fell for it”. RB is, in many ways, the real deal. As was Rajneesh, as is Adi Da. And all of them seem to be, as Susan put it, “looney tunes”. All my info about Rajneesh and Adi Da is second hand, so if you have/had direct personal experiences with these people, feel free to write me off as a posturing idiot – what I can find in written and video material concerning them seems to indicate it imao.
As others have pointed out, the need to deify your guru is not noble, but merely a sign of emotional immaturity. “Kill the Buddha” has been mentioned so often as to have become a cliché, but remains an important piece of advice for any aspirant on the path. Krishnamurti spent most of his life beating admirers off, almost literally, with a stick, relentlessly poking pins into the balloons of adoring delusion people brought to him in the hope they could rise to his level by holding onto. People continued to do so nonetheless. He came to maturity in the deconstructivist age, and reflected those attitudes in his mode of teaching. Other teachers have decided that is was silly to keep refusing the money, adulation and sex people desperately wanted to thrust upon them, and discovered themselves snared by those not-yet-transcended traps (e.g. Rajneesh, RB). Others, like Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, seem to have been snared for a period and get past it (though his delusions of grandeur continued). Still others, like Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche seem to have been able to flirt with this teaching tool – a moderate amount of sex, drugs and rock and roll to throw off the people who thought enlightenment was about celibacy and ochre robes – without becoming trapped in it. And of course Gurdjieff did everything he could to offend people in order to avoid having to look into the vacant cow-eyed stare of those acolytes devoid of a sense of self-responsibility.
Part of a healthy adolescence is emotionally integrating the reality that your parents are just people like you, doing what they can with what they have, and confused most of the time. If your parents were abusive, that integration is a lot more challenging, but it is still possible, even necessary, to spare some love for them, in order to come to a deeper understanding of your own life and relationships. Robert Burton has some very dark corners of his being which can make being a student of his very confusing to say the least and, for many of you posting here, ultimately impossible. Yet before you “Mommy Dearest” away a central experience of your life, ask yourself a few questions:
Did RB and the FOF expand your horizons, give your life and spiritual pursuits a focus and direction they lacked, arrange a nearly continuous and surreal shifting of internal scenery which shook and seriously weakened, if not entirely obliterated, your tiny, constrained self-centered view on the world and what you took to be real, arrange a forge in which a handful of words in a few books became reality – the very fabric of your being?
Did he teach and guide almost ceaselessly in the first 10 years of the school and then again for the last 6, displaying an intensity, energy and consistency of purpose that few, if any, of his students could match?
Most FOF students (not all, of course), if they are honest, would have to answer yes.
There are enough voices here which describe his failings and critical pathologies, so I need not. RB is the most intense and exceptional person I have ever experienced, and, seemingly, the most violently self-conflicted.
But I have not come to praise or bury him. There is no revolution in the FOF – it has endured worse storms than the current one in the past and come out stronger each time. Studies of other closed groups with “prophetic” leaders have shown that failed prophesies and internal controversies inevitably, after the dust settles, resulted in greater coherence and loyalty among the remaining adherents. Be glad that being kicked out of the school is the worst that can happen to you for discussing the leader’s failings. Malcolm X paid with his life just for revealing that his teacher was pulling down his follower’s pants.
It is not important to understand how much greatness is mixed up with the madness for RB’s sake but for yours. Current or former student, you need to understand that the essential spiritual experiences you had in the FOF, stripped of the fairy cake trappings, were valid, were real, were and are, priceless.
When a student once asked Robert about people who left the school and wondered how they could go against what they had verified, Robert replied “C-Influence took away their verifications”. Once you strip away the absurd image of Hafiz and Benjamin Franklin zapping former students like seraphic Men in Black so they forget all the “higher secrets” of the school, you have the concept of people, who understood certain things deeply, who paid for them with years of struggles, experiments, sacrifice and search, suddenly just forgetting them. This idea always scared the b’jesus out of me. How does one simply forget the most powerful and deep realizations of one’s life? There are probably many ways, but one common way I have seen is that people forget them because they need to, just as they needed to quash their uneasiness about their teacher’s failings in order to keep having the kind of spiritual experiences they sought. They need to because convincing themselves it was all a mistake, that RB never had the keys to anything but his Miata, that all those years were wasted, that they are victims, as painful and depressing as that is, is still more comfortable than to come to terms with the fact that a person could go so far, understand so much and still be hopelessly trapped in self-destructive obsessions.
True transformative experience and practice, as “another former student” (#43 part 1) wrote, “is a psychological minefield”. A true teacher will try to help you avoid loosing a leg, but they cannot void the treacherous nature of the process. So, fellow wooden-legged Bosnians, I hope, as we limp off into the sunset, that we do not forget that which we paid for in much more than money.
March 5, 2007 at 6:30 pm
I was just informed that the link given by Linda T. (146) doesn’t function. I had a look at it earlier (when it was still working), it was a flier from the FoF advertising its events for the next week. Among those events was an auction, numerous dinners and a lecture. I am afraid that I didn’t save it so I can’t repost it.
March 5, 2007 at 6:51 pm
Dear Rickquiroz (Post 145)
I can’t speak for the Sheik, but I am most offended by your post. Have you read anything on this forum or just skimmed the post honing in on “trashy” words?
I, like many here, have spent a considerable amount of time composing posts which I felt might be useful to those who were either stuggling with their inner demons, or were looking for some clarification about certain aspect which don’t appear to be forthcoming in their currently sheltered environment.
In many cases I have had to bare my soul in the process, so to degrade it to the level of a trashy magazine, I find highly insulting.
Simon
March 5, 2007 at 7:34 pm
I wanted to elaborate a little on a subject of “can do – cannot do”, and on our true identity. This 2 things go together, and it make sence only if we look at them together.
It appears that once you clearly saw what you truly are – there is no going back or forgetting. It is as if another “organ” of perception opens within, and you see who you truly are unmistakingly, although I cannot really detect any specific “organ”, it just feels this way, as if the focus of perception shifts. So from this prospective one understands that there is nothing they can ever do or choose as a human form, because the form itself has no power on its own. When it is seen – a relaxation occurs, acceptance and a flexible joyful obedience to whatever comes out of Consciousness. There is no more distinct “personal” desire to do. One gratefully eats what falls in his cup.
It’s like a glove and a hand. Human form is like a glove – has no power to do anything until there is a hand in it. In itself it is flat and lifeless. And the hand – consciousness – can move the glove, make it alive, make the glove go here and there and experience this and that. Consciousness and the human form ARE ONE, fused together, when the hand is in the glove. Consciousness (hand) “uses” the glove to express itself, to do things. The glove (human form) vainly imagines that it is doing it all by it’s own will, oblivious to the hand it thinks it makes choices what to do, where to move etc.
One day glove suddenly realizes that it’s true nature – what truly makes it alive – is not the glove form itself, not the imaginary “person in charge”. The life in the glove is the hand, consciousness. That’s the true essence of things. Then a glove becomes naturally humble and calm, quiet and flexible. Hand can move freely in such glove. They move together as ONE.
What we are – is a hand AND a glove at once, a hand in essence and a glove in manifestation. By simple mistake, we humans keep thinking we are just a glove and overlook our great true nature as a hand. Human form ignorant of it’s nature is selfish, loud and rigid, full of intellectual inflexible dogmas and ideas. It’s like a crusty unusable stiff glove that is hard to wear.
This example still lacks something because it makes it appear that consciousness and human form are 2 different things. They are only seem so on the level of the form, but in essence – all is one, there are no forms that are not a reflection of the same consciousness. But I though it clarifies a little the human situation, how we think “we can do” on our own, and how ridiculous it is when you see who (what) you really are.
From this prospective I am not sure if any beings could be a danger to anything, simply because all forms around us are such “gloves” moved by conscious hand. If consciousness wants them to do what we call “harm” – it will do it according to a divine plan. Again, no one can “do”. Consciousness does it all, beautifully. It gives us our thoughts, it moves our bodies where it wants them. It arranges everything. “We” don’t choose a damn thing. It’s a common illusion that every glove has, it makes it feel real and independent. If we (human form) are lucky to see it and recognize it – all we can “do” is completely relax and allow for a free movement of consciousness through us. Watch the show, be at complete service. Consciousness knows better. When we as form are in-tuned with our true nature as consciousness, things flow naturally, beautifully and we feel at peace. Not much doubt, anger, fear or anxiety. What needs to be – is allowed to be. That what appears as a “lack of personality” or feeling no “personal interest”. You just realize that you are not a “person” with will and choices, and completely relax and accept whatever comes. It doesn’t mean that you turn into some kind of passive mush. Natural activity continues, it just becomes impersonal and unobstructed. It feels good and peaceful, too.
Sorry for such a long post guys. I know it hurts sometimes to read very long posts.
Sheik, thank you again.
March 5, 2007 at 7:57 pm
Re: post 154
“I think little real progress will be made without admitting yet another disturbing reality: Robert Burton is an extraordinary person of quite uncommon presence and spiritual attainment. There are no grounds for self-recrimination about why one “fell for it”. RB is, in many ways, the real deal.”
Charisma is charisma. We see what we wish to see. At one time, I too thought Robert was an extraordinary man. I’ve now come to view that time from a Jungian point of view: I was projecting my own spiritual aspirations onto someone who was expert at collecting them. I’m now in the process of recollecting them for myself. I often wonder how many people come to the FoF or the fourth way with unresolved Father issues.
Here’s a quick anecdote:
Once, after dinner at the lodge, my wife (who was not a member) and I were sitting around drinking a glass of wine when Robert strolled through with his entourage. Everyone looked and smiled and nodded their heads as he passed. As I had only had dinner with Robert once at this time, the event felt quite electrifying to me. On the way back to our B&B, I asked my wife what she had experienced. She said that he seemed a charismatic figure, but she was uncertain whether she had experience anything herself or had just been affected by a roomful of people who had all turned and acknowledged a mutual fascination. Quite an observation.
March 5, 2007 at 8:00 pm
(#154) Joe Average: wrote “you have the concept of people, who understood certain things deeply, who paid for them with years of struggles, experiments, sacrifice and search, suddenly just forgetting them. This idea always scared the b’jesus out of me.”
Yes, it terrified me too. Until it gradually dawned on me that fear is one of the most potent and effective tools in keeping one stuck in the same place.
Look at what you wrote. You quote Robert saying something that cannot possibly be verified, you believed it, and then you acknowledge that this idea is cemented in your psychology with fear.
Robert’s ideas and the 4th Way ideas look very different when you allow yourself to examine them without belief. And weren’t we supposed to verify everything?
March 5, 2007 at 8:43 pm
And there it was…the image of a prehistoric drawing of a man penetrating a woman from behind, she is on her hands and knees; Robert comments; “…and here we have the steward (the man) working together with the 9 of hearts (the woman) to complete a successful sequence…
Please, my dear friends, have some respect for you own intelligence, use it, defend it, nourish it….
I’m happy for whoever finds himself happily living and embracing the abuse, this blog is NOT for them, at this point, just stay OUT of it and finish your many successful sequences on hands and knees, if you like ;
this window is for those who are recognizing and suffering the misery and looking for a cure …
There are so many feeling sick.You know them , you see them struggling, you used to call them friends….
What the hell happened to us ????
Keep your intelligence, nourish your spirits with fine food, reject the abuse, reject the insult, you are entitled, you owe it to your self…
March 5, 2007 at 8:50 pm
Dear Average Joe (#154),
Maybe it’s time, then, to reconsider our devotion to “states” and our notions of what a “higher being” is. Certainly the people you have described have created amazing “states” for the participants in their groups, no doubt about it. Clearly they had some intense powers, of a kind we usually call “spiritual.” But we really don’t know much about these realms, and maybe there are “spiritual” ways that lead only deeper into the darkness, although they do undoubtedly provide their kicks and good times.
Our generation has been into kicks, whether via LSD or New Age religions. Maybe this is just a kind of spiritual greed, and an arrogance that we can do better than our ancestors, who followed more humble and time-tested routes to God.
Maybe it’s because of this greed that we, and our “teachers”, have left a trail of lies, crimes, ruined lives, and madness as our legacy.
Read the Sermon on the Mount recently (Matt. 5-7, can be found in any hotel room)? In one fell swoop, it refutes the Fourth Way/FOF teaching. That is, if you read it as if it were trying its best to communicate simply and clearly. If you don’t look at it as a set of hidden codes to deceive the unwary, that must be interpreted and spun by a guru.
The contradiction between that and what we’ve been doing will split you in two.
March 5, 2007 at 8:53 pm
#155.
Sheick, that was violation of privacy for many honest, serious, and professional people mentioned in the copyrighted document on a private site . Allowing that, and such private material, to come through without checking it out may create a real problem for this site. I observed somebody could have been sued for or five times may be.
Did you observed that also?
March 5, 2007 at 8:58 pm
To Joe Average (#154):
One “verification” that may make your life and your quest easier is to see through and release
a false assumption you have picked up along “the Way”:
That one can “forget” a verification – MAKES NO DIFFERENCE WHETHER YOU DO OR NOT!
The intensity and relevance of the verification itself transforms it from mere knowledge into BEING.
or have you forgotten, or misunderstood, this fundamental work idea. Can you forget what you saw when you first penetrated the secret of an optical illusion like the faces/vase paradox? The simple fact is that you don’t have to REMEMBER it anymore, its is PART OF YOU. You don’t have to remember to lift your hand off a hot stove, either. And from what I have read in this blog, and I have read all of them, very few will be liesurely resting their hand on a hot stove anytime soon!
Gurdjieff may have said you can lose your verifications. Robert Burton may say “C-Influence took away their verifications”. I say these verifications now ARE YOU, an cannot be taken away. But, when it comes to the fundamental principle of verificaton itself, WHAT THEY, I, OR ANYONE ELSE SAYS, IS IRRELEVANT. What do YOU say? Verification is about YOU. Have YOU forgotten ANY of your hard-won verifications? Will you EVER?
I think that, far from being a limping psychological casualty, you are a stronger, more robust individual that has had a taste of freedom and KNOWS that there is no going back; and that, although what you HAVE may possibly be taken away from you, what you ARE, CANNOT.
March 5, 2007 at 9:22 pm
To Linda T. who in # 146 Says:
‘only following orders’
If this is who I think it is, and from the portrait linked to your name, it seems to be, and if you were quoted correctly:
It is tragically ironic that you have chosen just that phrase, from all the words available in the English language; which, if memory serves, was the same rationalle used during the Nuremberg trials by those who ran the Nazi concentration camps.
I am truly sorry.
March 5, 2007 at 9:22 pm
What Observe (162):
What’s next?
Oh, and be a darling, read the Terms of Service.
March 5, 2007 at 9:46 pm
Dear Sheik,
First of all I would like to thank you for the effort you are making in moderating this blog and keeping it open. It is the first time there has been an opportunity for members (former and especially current) to share their experiences and express their doubts. It is just not allowed in the FOF. One could be subject to censure, shunning, fines or dismissal.
You have been very fair and even handed in letting all, even the nasty and insulting, have a say.
Vena
March 5, 2007 at 10:11 pm
The Sheik comes into shape….
March 5, 2007 at 10:15 pm
To Kiran: As I believe others have said on this blog: Courage has nothing to do with whether or not I reveal my real name. Discretion does.
As far as your categorisation of me as an American who has been brainwashed into thinking that we are all equal . . . I have no comment, because it does not deserve one.
As far as the advaitic teaching on non-dualism: it is a particular religious view of human nature and consciousness that conflicts with the one that I hold, which integrates both the physical and the metaphysical. Our differing points of view simply do not mesh well, as is patently evident, and I do not see any point in attempting to reconcile two irreconcilables.
As far as your experience of the gods: The point I was making was not about your own personal experience, but about the assumptions underlying that experience; chiefly, that we cannot do. You have pointed this out in your post. My response: as above, because of our different views of human potentiality (I allow the human being more dignity than you do), we will simply not be able to agree on this.
And yes, you are well beyond my level of being, and you certainly attract more followers (I don’t have any and am not looking for any). Enjoy the influx of money and the attention. I was much impressed by the magnitude of your qualifications to godhood, and especially overwhelmed by the fact that you condescended from the heights to reveal them to us. I am afraid I am just too common and earthbound to be at the level even to consider the possibility of becoming one of your followers. Perhaps in another lifetime? Until then, may you live forever and prosper in the pantheon.
Signed, MS. (not Mr.) Reality Check
To: Joe Average: Yes, we know that there is NEVER any good reason to leave the School. You have learned your lessons very well indeed and have made them a permanent part of your being. And we all know, don’t we, that it is good when students leave the school. It cleans it, yes?
I congratulate you on the self-satisfaction you experience every day knowing that you, at least, have not made the ‘fatal’ mistake, and I hope that you continue to remain as one of the Elect, as it is plain for all to see that C-Influence has chosen you for heavenly glory because of your ultimate worthiness and loyalty. There is no human answer commensurate with your divine rebuke. We can only stand mute and chastised.
I see also that nothing can deter you from your sanctimonious belief that you are saved, while we have simply lost all our verifications. I think that this handy ‘explanation’ of why students move on will suffice you well in the future, as it has so reliably in the past. There is nothing I nor others could do to persuade you otherwise–nothing, absolutely nothing at all. For I would wring your heart if it were “made of penetrable stuff”.
To E. Sheik: Thank you very, very much for the opportunity you continue to provide to those both in and out of the FoF to discuss their experiences. Personally, I must take a break. Keep up the good work all.
March 5, 2007 at 10:42 pm
It just occurred to me that that my chosen name Artichoke might be connected with the folks who grow artichokes at Isis. It’s just a random nickname, and I hope that the thought police don’t start interrogating the sweet people who grow the artichokes.
Joe Average (154) puts it all very well. To me, his/her approach is the ideal approach to the FOF. There are so many intelligent people on this blog! It says a lot for the quality of FOF members, both current and former.
Neo-Advaita people: your teaching obviously has its dogmas and constructs too. “IT is not a state” and “states aren’t IT” is an obvious dogma. When FOF students refer to higher states, they don’t mean drunkeness, hallucinations or bliss, they refer to a state that is founded on being aware of oneself and the outside world. Your feeling of oneness, or whatever it is that you experience, IS a state of consciousness. It’s just that your teachers and teaching tell you that it isn’t. For a nondualistic philosophy, neo-Advaita seems remarkably dualistic. Robert’s Fourth Way teaching says that the state of self-remembering is the only real state, though it has degrees. Other states are explained as being a product of the lower centers, particularly the instinctive center–I guess that Robert would say that the Advaita experience belongs to the instinctive center. Neo-Advaita says that IT (whatever you call it) isn’t a state, and that states are illusory. So both systems are quite similar in promoting a single variety of experience and rejecting other experiences.
It should properly be called neo-Advaita because it has become divorced from its historical, cultural context. I’m always surprised when I see the faces of some of these neo-Advaita teachers. I imagined Adyashanti as looking like Krishnamurti and Gangaji as Mrs Gandhi, but it turns out that both are as American as apple pie.
I’m still not sure whether the Master of BS was being a devil’s advocate or whether he intended his comments to be taken seriously. Have a G & T on me, BS. Likewise, I can’t tell whether those naive poems about Adya CDs are intended as spoofs or are sincere.
Sheikh: You might want to investigate the legal situation of your blog. Any legal challenge from the FOF is likely to be saber-rattling, but they might succeed in having your blog removed. If you set up mirrors of the discussion group in non-US countries, it would be very difficult for the FOF to remove all of them, should they decide to pursue the matter.
Also on the subject of privacy, browsers can be set up to use proxy servers so that your real IP address is not revealed. A free email account that is set up using a proxy server, or set up using a PC at an Internet cafe. and only accessed under those conditions, is much more anonymous.
Anonymous (144) your comments do help to explain why the current batch of Robert’s boys go along with it all. They’re not all doe-eyed little princes, some of them look like boxers. You could contact the immigration authorities…
Finally, and sadly: Kiran, you have been thru a lot and I wish you well, but you desperately need to pay more attention to the opinions of other people.
March 5, 2007 at 11:00 pm
Dear All – I’ve been reading the Blog for some time now and taking in much of the rationale from those who still maintain RB has “something special” and others who have declared that he’s charismatic but that’s about all. For myself, a recent ex-student, I see a great deal of pain suffering and the need to rationalize experiences which were and are still painful. I cannot say I never had any painful experiences whilst being a member of FoF but I must say that any attempt I make to understand the process I went through in the 18 years I was a member or my recent realizations which led to my parting with FoF lead me to only one conclusion ‘I don’t know.” I don’t know who Robert Burton is and frankly I no longer care. More to the point I don’t know who I am – when the question ‘Who am I” is asked internally there is a great resounding silence. Further I realize I no longer know many things, I don’t know if I will survive to-morrow, I don’t know if my job will work out, I don’t know if my wife whom I love and adore beyond any words I can conjure will stay with me. For me “I don’t know” resounds supreme and rocks my being to it’s very center. This has meant for me a revealing of humanness, being human is the miracle, all the experiences we are able to have and those we have no apprehension of is the miracle “and some” and the inexorability of the inner mystery that drives us. All this brings me to my emotional and physical reactions to RB’s treatment of his students over the years. Finally without the need for rationale, or to compartmentalize, I feel deeply hurt that so many people who I have so much affection for have been so painfully treated. Great deep tears of pain and compassion for all those people, is there anything I can do? I cannot relieve their pain and I cannot, and have no wish to replace current buffers with new ones. It seems to me a great deal of healing needs to take place for many and I think the balm cannot come from the source of the pain it must come from elsewhere. Perhaps this elsewhere has come to FoF. Perhaps some will find the Truth rather than a higher state. I stated quite a few postings ago I would gladly have tea with anyone who wishes it at my house – the offer still stands. I would not break a confidence should it be required and I certainly would not judge as I am just like you. You all know where I live and my phone number – my name Stephen Simmonds.
March 5, 2007 at 11:23 pm
Everything is a Lie just one thing is True….Presence!
March 5, 2007 at 11:32 pm
Traveler #151 wrote: “Advanced students have always told me that they had verified Robert was conscious. I never quite understood what that meant. And the best explanation I could come up with was that he was so weird and different from other people you knew, that it must have meant he was conscious. That’s my understanding, but I was never close to Robert. So I’d like to hear some others how they understand ‘verifying that Robert was conscious.’”
I never verified that he was conscious, but here’s a story one of the earliest members of the school told me. She said that when she first met Robert, he was acting so strangely she thought he was “retarded.”
And don’t ask me why she joined, because I don’t know.
March 6, 2007 at 12:01 am
Wow…thank you “in” and “out” students for taking the time to post your thoughts and thank you A for sending it to me.
The fellowship gave me so much in the few years that I belonged. I was a tomboy taught to wear dresses and appreciate art, music, food (the 3rd bite or is it the 4th?) and wine. I loved how it felt to drift about in the higher emotional states after a dinner with smart and interesting people. I learned that I could choose which i’s to pay attention to and which to let go, about associative thinking and even listening! I learning about octaves and how to bridge them (m&m’s still work for me). I got into pretty good householder and hid my bathroom garbage bin to make the place look nicer. I learned how to transform suffering (well, sort of), about body types, centers of gravity, Hafiz, Walt, Buddha etc. and love with a capital L. After paying $666 dollars for a dinner (or was it $888?) money is not that big a deal any more. Being present and dividing attention (depth, duration and … my counter is still here somewhere) sure beats complaining about traffic.
It was a little lonely when I first left the fellowship. I felt guilty and I imagined what terrible things students were saying about me – ie that I was asleep. I was no longer attending fabulous greek symposiums and no one was giving me exercises to help me to be present (no media, don’t say the word “so” etc). I missed (and still do) the fellowship with my friends the most.
There is a spiritual life beyond the fof. There are many ways to reach that place inside us. For me, at this stage of life, it is slowing down, meditating, spending time in nature, doing yoga, reading (just finished eat,love,pray and it resonated with me) and using the tools that I learned to be present.
I guess we all have our own paths, some of you have more invested in the fof than I did so I don’t mean to belittle your struggle.
Warm wishes,
Kathy still a tomboy D.
March 6, 2007 at 12:09 am
There have been some interesting posts recently from current members of the FoF that recount how the FoF and Robert’s teaching works for them — they are in my opinion a welcome addition to the discussion. I don’t intend to discuss in any way RB’s personal life, and if or what influence that has on the FoF or his teaching. I think this post is mostly intended to hopefully engage some of those who feel they are benefitting from the current teaching.
In 4th way terms I am in an interval in my 1st and 3rd lines, and I will concentrate here on a discussion of the 1st. Other posts have outlined how our work in the FoF focusses on making efforts in the moment to be more intentional, placing our ‘identity’ in the deputy steward/steward, endeavoring to establish a connection with higher centers/higher states of consciousness (at which point the steward is no longer needed). This is not a permanent state for man #4, and therefore the efforts need to be repeated again and again. With enough effort and the grace of higher forces, the connection with higher centers can be made permanent, at which point a man has created something that can withstand the shock of death.
What I found occurred for me over the past few years is that I began questioning many of the statements above, to see if I had really verified any of them. The reason, I believe, that I started doing this is that I began to feel that I wasn’t making any progress, really. Remember the clickers? That episode began to put things into perspective for me. After that, I could no longer feel in any way special about my ability to remember myself, or of the strength and maturity of my steward (I could scarcely remember to use it at all!). I had no choice but to admit that, after several decades in the school of reasonably sincere effort, I hadn’t really gotten anywhere, and I certainly didn’t feel closer to graduation (why shouldn’t this School be like any other?)
So, I began to deconstruct what had been built up in the past ~20 years in my mind. It began with two fundamental premises of the 4th way as presented by G and O: The “I” is not real (or the I’s are not real), and verify everything.
I haven’t made it much further than that! If the “I” is not real, then what is the basis of all the stuff outlined above? Who is the deputy steward, steward, magnetic center, etc. How can something that doesn’t exist create something or do anything? Well the logical answer to that question is that it cannot, and I think we all recognize that this is not a question that can or ought to be answered by the logical mind. But here the second part of my project comes into play: Verify Everything. And so, my work these days consists of verifying if I can find an “I”. All the rest seems to me to be putting the cart before the horse.
Cheers.
March 6, 2007 at 1:06 am
#165
At the best we will observe it together!
Part of the error was that an internal site page could be linked freely from outside. This probably will not happen anymore.
Nothing bad in that page in itself: the dirty attached to it could only come from the mess of unverified many ‘i’s any asleep character is seeming to believe around here.
Not Your fault.
Keeping observance.
March 6, 2007 at 1:39 am
Stephen: Thank you, I missed your posts.
Reality Check: Thank you for all your words, every single one of them. From all the amazing people I have had the fortune of meeting here, you have inspired me the most.
Artichoke (169): Thanks for the advice. As I said before, I keep copies of all my work on the internet, including this discussion. If it was to be removed, I would simply repost it at 5 other locations, which would take me roughly 20 minutes.
As to the identities of people posting here. No one will ever be able to find out who you are unless you post your real name. Your IP address is given to you randomly by your provider every time you go on the internet. It can’t be used to trace you, the FoF would have to be in agreement with your internet provider, which is highly unlikely, actually, it never happens. The only thing you have to be careful about, if other people have access to your personal computer, is the trace that you leave behind you, ie. cookies or browsing history. These can be deleted using your internet browser menu. If no one else has access to your computer then you are safe.
Don’t be afraid of the big bad wolf, wolves are usually bullies and do very little outside of the pack.
March 6, 2007 at 2:57 am
Stephen (#170) — Confronting the mystery of the self and having the courage and honesty to say “I don’t know” — sounds like you’re on the right track to me. I had a similar experience after I left the FOF (though it took considerably longer for me to get there).
David (#174) — for what it’s worth, I think you’re heading in a good direction. I would be interested to hear what this line of work results in.
March 6, 2007 at 3:29 am
Dear readers and posters,
There is a Greek idea that is expressed as:
Don’t kill the messenger because of the message.
That’s where a 3rd party may be conveying message between 2 people and the recipient does not like message. And, for various reasons, the recipient lashes out at the innocent messenger that has nothing to do with the message. Do not fault posters and this blog medium because you do not care for what’s here – besides, messenger is really you – you are reading it. Do not kill yourself over it.
A more recent take on this idea could be:
Don’t kill message because of messenger.
That’s where you depreciate the value of message because of who is delivering it. FOF and teacher have message, as do posters to this blog, and message is best held separate from character of
messenger. Do not fault teaching because of teacher.
I hope you find these two ideas have some truth to them.
Wouldn’t you like to know
March 6, 2007 at 4:16 am
Dearest Kathy! I can’t believe my eyes. Welcome, so nice to have you here, you tomboy!
Stephen, dear friend, I so resonate with your posting. “I don’t know” is the only thing can be said for certain, isn’t it? There is freedom in it too, in a way it’s liberating. It’s this “resting in the unknown”, and being OK with it. I miss you guys so much, I wish I lived closer to you… I so resonate with your compassionate words about witnessing the pain and being unable to do anything about it. It hurts to see people being hurt, and to see people hurting themselves, so unnecessarily… Is there anything that can be done? – I don’t know.
About Advaita or Neo-Advaita – frankly, I don’t even know what this teaching exactly is. I didn’t study it, and don’t follow any advaita teacher, except couple meetings, mostly out of curiosity. There are few people here who talk of our nature as one consciousness. I am one of them.
Sorry if my posts sound like some kind of promotion – honestly I didn’t mean it like that, must be my English and natural high energy and enthusiasm. (We call it queens.)
John Wheeler’s brief writings did something really amazing to the way I relate to things now- that’s it. I am being very honest about it. I don’t even consider him “a teacher”, and he actually doesn’t consider himself as such. He is just pointing at something very simple within us, and I was lucky to see it, together with quite a few other friends.
There is something beyond ideas, beyond states and experiences – and this something became very obvious through his pointers. It kind of “dawned” on me… You may read them and say – What BS! And it’s fine if it goes like this, it may be complete BS for you. There are no universal recepies.
This realisation – or whatever the heck it is called- made such a noticeable positive changes. So there is an excitement about sharing it with others, who I know are looking for similar things. 12 years of school efforts didn’t create for me what these simple pointers did. Sequence didn’t do it for me either. You’ll probably not trust me if I say I don’t get identified anymore, or imagination is not a problem anymore, or presence is a natural state. I know it sounds impossible. Well, I thought so too, for a long, long time. I am happy to be wrong about it.
It’s not about labels or promotion, it’s sincere sharing of what actually worked.
You are invited to come to East Coast Tea and esoteric conversation with mostly FOF friends and John Wheeler on April 7-8 in a private residence (our house that is). E-mail for details. (There will be no FOF spies here, promise – no place to hide for them, really, so don’t be afraid please. We’ll throw rocks at them
malaec@yahoo.com
March 6, 2007 at 4:55 am
There’s a strand in this discussion that popped its head up a while ago but was not pursued: why don’t current FOF students take matters into their own hands and try to improve things?
Some background would be useful:
The FOF is a religious charity, and so donations are not subject to tax. This tax status has the collary that donations cannot be used to benefit individual members. Robert Burton as the head teacher is entitled to a reasonable income but no more.
The FOF has a Board (legal matters), a Council (spiritual matters) and a President (day to day running). Currently everyone in these bodies is 100% subservient to Robert Burton. His statements and wishes cannot be questioned.
The result is that this religious charity is run as Burton’s own personal feif. A very large percentage of donations goes to his travelling, buying gifts for the boys etc.
So here is a rather wild fantasy, but a wonderful one:
The current members of the Board and Council and the President resign.
Democratic elections are held to choose their replacements.
The new officers decide to make the FOF both legally compliant and more open spiritually:
1. They tell Burton that his sexual abuse of students must stop and they make sure that it does.
2. Religious visas are currently primarily awarded to students with whom Burton wants to have sex. The INS requires that they are actually awarded to students from abroad who will be trained as “ministers” of the school. The former would stop; the latter would start.
3. Students “on salary” would be paid the legal minimum wage, rather than the much reduced amount they currently receive.
4. The school would continue to be a center for the teaching of Burton’s spiritual message, but other teachers would be invited too, to give a more balanced picture. Isis could become a real center for spiritual learning.
5. The income of the school would be used primarily to promote spiritual teaching rather than to support Burton’s peculiar personal habits.
Of course this seems improbable in the current repressive environment, but isn’t it likely that the only alternative is a continuation into more extreme insanity and eventual implosion, like Rajneesh’s school?
How to start? Maybe if a large group of students refused to pay the $775 spring donation we would see some results?
Yours hopefully, probably naively,
RB
March 6, 2007 at 7:03 am
It occurred to me that Kiran (149) may be providing us with a unique insight into the history of our own school. It must not have been too dissimilar from this, how it all began for Robert Burton.
March 6, 2007 at 8:08 am
There is a deep not knowing that leads to a deep understanding that that not knowing is what I am. What I am is not explainable to myself or anyone else. It is a mystery. Total emptiness that is aware. As it was said the Tao that can be told is not the Tao. If you too have verified this then you too know what you are; you know that you don’t know and that not knowing is what you are. On that subject I have nothing more to add.
March 6, 2007 at 8:15 am
Greetings Sheik
Well done on keeping a steady hand on this at-times rolicking thread, which I stumbled across by accident while reading about the Fourth Way. Having read your remarks here as well as some of your other articles posted on the blog, I’d like to ask you a few questions, since you seem to be an open-minded, articulate fellow not given to rigid thinking patterns.
First of all, setting aside the FOF for a moment, I’m curious to know what originally motivated you to attend the introductory lecture at the London center last year. You said in your original entry that you hadn’t read any works by Gurdjieff or his student Ouspensky, but given the wide diffusion of Gurdjieff’s ideas, it’s likely you came across them while reading other esoteric materials. If so, I wonder which of them, if any, made a strong impression on you? If on the other hand you attended the presentation on a lark knowing nothing about the fourth way, which of the ideas you heard that day drew your attention the most. Finally, what do you make of the whole fourth way teaching/system/cosmology (again, ignoring Burton and the FOF if that’s possible)?
In my case, the idea that struck me most from what I’ve read of G and O is that man is an uncompleted being. That is to say, nature develops a person only up to a certain point, with further “evolution” ( i.e., spiritual/psychological development) possible by the application of certain methods and efforts. This is in contrast to conventional thinking that takes man as a finished product, a done deal, except for learning how to hold chopsticks, drive a car, etc.
Although I have no interest in contacting the FOF (even though it has a branch in my city. They’re everywhere it seems!), I have entertained the idea of seeking out a fourth way group of some kind just to see what they get up to. As someone else mentioned on this thread, another key “Work” concept is that outside help of some kind is necessary . In one of his books, Ouspensky compares man’s situation to escaping from a prison, whereby neither one nor all can escape, but a small group can. Thus the stated need to belong to a group/school. Not sure if that’s true, but I have observed that many intense efforts I’ve make come to a standstill after a while.
I wish my blog had this many hits.
March 6, 2007 at 8:22 am
The “real” Linda T (Kaplan/Rockwood, etc. – a deeply enmeshed FOF “lifer”) probably would not post here. The link to the caricature of her (drawn by Harold Wirk) indicates to me the spurious/trickster nature of the post. The posting of the FOF pdf was almost certainly unauthorized, which is why the link no longer functions.
I was in FOF from 1978-1985. In my opinion RB abuses his position of power, the group is cult, the members are hypnotized, and I do not regret my time in it. I formed sincere friendships that endure to this day, I learned a great deal and was exposed to literature, poetry, art, music, and “food” that nourished me on many levels. I feel for people who want to leave but for many practical reasons, cannot.
I agree that Adyashanti is a charismatic and moving teacher. I have experienced profound openings of awareness listening to him. But, I would remind recent FOF departees to beware of guru-izing him or making too much of the blissed-out state you might experience at his satsangs. Such states can and do pass. Hopefully your experience in the FOF immunized you against falling into the trap of such dependency again. Do not confuse the truth with the speaker. The truth resides in your own Being.
March 6, 2007 at 8:24 am
Thank you Esoteric Sheik and Monochromatic Knight for hosting this discussion.
I joined the Fellowship when I was about 22 and stayed there for 8 years. I can’t even imagine what I would have done if I had not joined the FOF…there I learned how to work grapevines, drive tractor (fun!), bake. I travelled, met hundreds of amazing people, “acted” in a couple plays, learned to love Opera (not ballet), and met my best friend, D.D.
Looking back I’m sure I learned more from the many sincere students there than I ever did from Robert. I barely had any connection to him at all. Credit must be given to him for somehow pulling all of these people together and keeping this incredible community in one piece for so long. I also have to say I don’t feel personally damaged as a result of my experiences there, however, one cannot live in Apollo (my era) and fail to see the results Roberts power has had over some peoples lives.
One old friend was and probably still is a “Bobby Boy”. Introduced to Robert at a very young age, of course, he has been in the entourage ever since. With support coming from Robert for so many years I have doubts that he will ever allow himself to become a Man. He had a chance once, a choice, to break away but wound up going back into the fold where he was protected from the big, bad world.
I met a wide-eyed, innocent, optimistic youth in one of my travels. He spoke of his desire to visit Apollo in the near future. I regret the smile and wink attitude I had about Roberts relationship to these young men…”Oh, Robert will like you”. Now he is wise to Roberts ways first hand and is cynical enough to trade Galleria favors for sexual ones. I am so sorry…I should have been more honest with you and with myself.
An extremely disappointing moment, and one of the things that drove me out was in connection to the death of a fellow student. I do not want to diminish PB’s death in any way, he deserved a beautiful funeral in recognition for his service and friendship and work. But, where was the big gathering at the town hall for Joseph M.? He had a rough life, served his school, was a friend to other students, yet hardly a mention of his death…and a barely announced service on a weekday afternoon during working hours. Did he not deserve as much as PB? Were his efforts worth less?
There is a husband there who believes it’s his right to be unfaithful…he is given license to do so. His wife suffers this, makes herself believe it’s OK. It really isn’t, if you read this and feel humiliated it’s because you also know it isn’t
These are just some of the more subtle ways people are manipulated, it’s not all cocks and fisting, BJ’s and cum.
As to the friendships…I did lose most of my friends when I left but to be fair we just sort of disappeared. Those students we have seen are generally awkward because they know they shouldn’t be talking with us. I think we are awkward as well because WE know they know they shouldn’t be talking with us. I know there are many people I miss and would like to talk to again, I know the fault lies on both sides.
For those who choose to stay remember to get what you pay for. For those who have taken the plunge and left, congratulations. For those who want to leave, yes it is scary, yes you will lose most of your friends, yes there will be a gaping hole where the Fellowship used to be…but it will all be fine. Ultimately we must be able to stand alone, has the Fellowship taught you how to do that?
Jeanette
March 6, 2007 at 3:03 pm
Gather ‘round kiddies! It’s quotes time!
As soon as possible this teacher [should dismiss] the disciple, who becomes his own man of wisdom, and then he continues his self-work.
False masters in Sufism, as everywhere else, have not been few. So the Sufis are left with the strange situation that whereas the false teacher may appear to be genuine (because he takes pains to appear what the disciple wants him to be), the true Sufi is often not like what the undiscriminating and untrained Seeker thinks a Sufi should be like.
… The false teacher will pay great attention to appearance, and will know how to make the Seeker think that he is a great man, that he understands him, that he has great secrets to reveal.
… Sufism is something that happens to a person, not something which is given to him. The false teacher will keep his followers around him all the time, will not tell them that they are being given a training which must end as soon as possible, [and will not give them the opportunity to] taste their development themselves and carry on as fulfilled people.
Idries Shah, The Sufis
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Nearing the time I left The Group, a young man, (one who had endured seventeen major operations in his youth and who lived in a body that was literally wired together inside), was held in a room all night against his will and beaten by other men, and I mean beaten in a way that because of his condition could have resulted in his death. Alex was by then turning much of his teaching over to favored students and things were degenerating fast.
At a full group meeting one week later the victim displayed uncommon courage in standing to denounce his beating. He said he was leaving The Group, yet he wanted to thank us. Just a few words into his sentence a cacophony of jeers drowned him out. I shrank in shame. He walked out. The room fell silent as we listened to the sound of his steps in the stairwell, then the sound of the door opening below and finally clicking shut. All eyes moved toward our teacher. Finally, in a voice filled with concern, someone nearly whispered, “What will happen to him?”
“He’ll die like a dog,” Alex answered, flatly, matter-of-factly, then immediately returned to his lesson.
–From “Supping with Alex” by Dave Archer, recollections of a student of Alex Horn
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
“Influence-C is eternally grateful to Alex Horn”
Robert Burton on his teacher.
“It’s the most beautiful part of my life”
Robert Burton, publicly commenting on his sexual exploitation of his students for the first (and last?) time.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
At the time he was sexually assaulting children, Randazzo said, he believed he was doing good. “I thought it was educational for them,” he said. “I was dysfunctional.”
The Randazzos were leaders of a group called the Spiral of Friends, a Christianity- based cult whose five or six dozen members believed that James Randazzo had reached the “highest level of spirituality since Jesus Christ,” according to testimony.
- news article about James Randazzo, founder of the Spiral of Friends, formerly one of Robert Burton’s boys.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The rationale seemed to be, “in a higher state, you are much more sensitive to the needs of the instinctive function.” Or, “if you don’t take care of your machine, it will become negative and eat you when in a higher state.” The teachers exemplified this behavior. They received massages and sexual favors from the innermost core of students, took considerable time each day in a hot tub, and spent hours each night laying in a bed with about 15 pillows watching a $3000 wide-screen TV.
- article about the leaders of the New American Wing, former students of James Randazzo
Quite a legacy Alex left the world.
March 6, 2007 at 3:17 pm
On the subject of verifications:
If the truth is ’set in stone’, we can call it a dogma. But the fact is that truth is alive and is expressed and perceived in ever changing ways.
So what was true to me 10 years ago is still that – I don’t have to deny myself the memory of the experience. But it’s only a memory. That’s why it is: ‘Remember your verifications’ – and move on. I change and everything else changes endlessly. What’s true is always true in the moment of life. No need to cling to verifications, there’s an abundance of new ones if one is open.
March 6, 2007 at 5:48 pm
Hello all and thanks for being and doing your contribution.
The day starts and Please let it be
If somebody wants to be anonymous, there is a reason to it
Allowing it.. can we call this respect?
Respect for let it be what we are..
For all there is a reason
In this season
We do not see the whole picture
This blog is helping to realize, digest and hopefully accept.
I try to see where all these facts are in myself,
Katie Byron says,
Is it true
Is it really true
What are you without the story
Turn it around (Where is this in me?)
A handfull process to live through
Step by step, moment by moment
The past is gone
The future will take care of its own
Now, here …
My question is how, in this matter conscioussness and conscience are related…
If we are more consciouss is conscience also increasing…
Many writers who have no children will see things very different then parents…
I can not live with the fact what will my children say if they discover all this and that I did not inform them….that I stayed with it.
There is a sign when entering Marysville saying..
When things go wrong do not go with them..
What about the fact that I did things in the past that my conscience, my inner voice said “do not” and I did because I was not wiser….I know the past is the past…
A question to live
Digest, live, love and thanks again for all of you.
Sorry i have no spelling check here
March 6, 2007 at 6:20 pm
Post 180 is worth reading, even for those who are skimming over longer posts these days.
My Questions are?
How legal is the FOF’s way of doing business as a non-profit organization?
Is the rule of not associating with ex-members a form of discrimination?
Why is everyone just accepting this at face value?
March 6, 2007 at 6:33 pm
I can’t believe that every time I go to check the “news” here, I find myself in the same frame of mind, which is “is it over yet?” Waking up in the morning with the same hope that it was just a
dream and now everything will go back to “normal”. But this forum does not let me go back to “normal”.
The visas are made for the lovers and not for the ministers, the $700 spring donations are due soon, the salary is below the minimal legal wage, the teacher’s sexual abuse of the students… Oh my god…
It keeps shaking my believes and my life. My friends tell me I am being poisoned by criminal I’s and I am loosing the school, myself and them! What is going to happen? How troublesome…
March 6, 2007 at 6:51 pm
Pardon my momentary lapse into wishful thinking.
I think if Rabbi Burn’s scenario ever came about I would consider returning…. provided that the vineyard eventually be brought back into full production. I watched the slow demise of the vineyard ater it peaked in the 80’s. I felt that every newly planted palm tree was another nail driven into the vineyard coffin. The vineyard had great promise and still does. The marketing failed in a large part because the distributors did not want a product that had so much “baggage” in the form of Robert’s shenanigans that leaked out to press from time to time. Maybe it is has been good that some of the slopes have been fallow in recent years. With a reasonable business plan the vineyard could become a real income source for the Fellowship.
Ideas such as Rabbi Burn’s have circulated in the past whenever the internal turmoil reached a boiling point. Then it surprised me to see well-respected older students saying things like: “how can we cut off Robert’s access to the money??” Nothing ever came of it though. All positions of power were pretty much locked down by Robert’s loyalists. Those who spoke out in public were given immediate leaves of absence.
Jeannette, your thoughts on the deaths of PB and Joseph resonate with me also. I chose to stay up on slope 17 the afternoon of Joseph’s funeral, working alone as I watched the funeral proceedings play out below me. I was lost in my troubled thoughts up there on the slope. Didn’t have the courage to go down to join the funeral proceedings. I had a great respect for PB but was put off by the “religiosity” that surrounded his death.
Ralph (formerly “another former student”)
March 6, 2007 at 8:26 pm
The FOF blog went live in mid-April, 2006 with Sheik’s article. The first comment appeared about two months later, followed, in a month, by post No.2. Six months after that, when I first stumbled into the party, there were still under 50 posts. That was exactly one month ago. By tonight, there will be 500+. Is there a mathematician in the house who could graph the acceleration curve, please? Sheik, can you afford to quit your day job?
In any case, compliments to everyone for this evolving conversation. It has been, for all the diversity and dissonance of views, an incredible gathering. Perhaps we are all here together as thoughts in the mind of the Absolute, who paces back and forth in his study, trying to work out some tough little problem.
BBB
March 6, 2007 at 8:35 pm
Boy am I glad I was in the school for many years or I would think from these postings that it was closer to a concentration camp than a place of spiritual work!
I left the school several years back, but I never experienced what many of the posters are describing. Whatever happened between Robert and his lovers, the general atmosphere of Renaissance-Apollo (now Isis) was one of depth, intentionality, sincerity, and efforts. There was a great emphasis on beauty and on the arts, on events and meetings, on friendship and creating higher states, and for a long time I found it a magical place to be and work. I never had the intention of staying all my life – it seems like a strange idea – I couldn’t even stay in college for four years – but I am grateful to the students I met and to Robert for the time I was there. The sincerity of the teacher and many of the students was beyond question. His methods were very unorthodox, but I have to admit that is part of what attracted me. They seemed original, bold, and completely out of the box. From the first moment of meeting him (having no preconceptions), I never had any doubt that he was a “conscious being” and someone of a different order. Although I never thought that the Fellowship was the only place to work, I felt it was a very valid place for me.
So I am a little embarrassed by the rantings and ravings of so many former students. I know some of them and they had a great time just as I did. What is the sense now of spending so much energy on justification and outrage and demoralizing those who are still there? No one twisted our arms to stay. In fact, we paid dearly both financially and otherwise to remain. We traveled around the world, met so many extraordinary people, had such deep and powerful experiences we wouldn’t have had, how can we now just turn around and demonize it? If we didn’t want to, we didn’t have to believe a single word Robert said.
As for myself, I never believed: the Fellowship was the only school, Robert was the only conscious teacher, California was going to fall, that we would lose the “Gods” if we left the school, that there were 44 angels in the room (well, maybe I did believe that one for a while. It sure felt like it!) It was possible to work and stay without getting into any of that. I was mostly interested in Robert’s ideas about how to remember myself, something he could very clearly do, and this is what I focused on. All we had to do to stay was make our monthly payment. If we stopped paying, we left the school. Other than that there were no exercises or suggestions we had to follow, no events we had to participate in, no ideas we had to believe if we did not want to. It was not 100% fair or perfect, but what is? I did not feel like a victim while I was in the Fellowship, and I don’t feel like one now, despite the crybaby letters. This is my life and I am responsible for it.
So why did I leave? Because the magic went out for me, not only from the school, but for the whole concept of awakening. I just stopped wanting to devote myself so singlemindedly to this one aim. Maybe I’m lazy, maybe I’m old, maybe I’m not what was called “school material.” Sure I would like to live in the present, but I would like a lot of other things too. I definitely am not looking for another teacher. What could he or she tell me that is new? What I read here in these postings, and in the latest books, are just different, less practical, and less precise reworkings of the same ideas we worked with in the fourth way. I am the same person I have always been, with the same problems as I’ve always had, and no one else can give me the will to do the work. I guess I don’t seem to have too much of it.
Anyway, I’m no more or less happy than I was in the school, and my life is interesting and full, partially because of all I learned during my time in the Fellowship, and I do not regret one moment I spent there, nor all the wonderful people whom I met.
March 6, 2007 at 8:38 pm
In response to Quadratic (183): you were asking the Shiek for his opinion about the Gudjieff/Ouspensky idea man is an incomplete being who cannot evolve without work, efforts, and outside help.
Respectfully, if I may butt in and offer my opinion, having “worked” with such ideas for a long time, and finally discarded them, I would say they are quite simply a distraction. They fall into the category of many such notions that the mind takes hold of, inflates and expands, confounds and complicates with exercises, associations, the joining of esoteric groups and cults, etcetera and etcetera, and that ultimately end up causing much confusion and suffering.
That being said, it may be necessary for some (and I was one such person) to go through the process of “working” with such notions, in order to realize their ultimate uselessness, and to be liberated from them. Thus, paradoxically, they are both useful and useless.
Rilke:
“Take your practiced powers and stretch them out
until they span the chasm between two contradictions…
For the god wants to know himself in you.”
March 6, 2007 at 8:45 pm
Dear Friends,
What is to be said can only be heard through your heart. Please try to listen from that part. For a long time we have been part of a criminal process which has hurt many individuals. Some of these individuals have been sacrificed because we have chosen not to listen to our conscience.
Robert has over the years pursued and sodomized young men. He has used his position to seduce these young men with the promise of immortality. His actions are simply that of a degenerate being no matter how refined. We in our blindness have allowed some dear individuals to be defiled and damaged by his appetites. Our ommission, and it is one in the strictest sense, is allowing it to continue.
Some of these young men have become seriously psychologically impaired through this process. Yet we go on minimizing it because it is safer not to know. These acts are a violation of Robert’s position. If we excuse this by saying that it is his priviledge or his private weakness we are both accomplice and victim. If it is allowed to continue, the karma which we attract will bring down our school and leave very heavy stains on our being. It is simply not worth the contamination wrought.
There may be much discomfort which comes from these words. But please try to think of the anguish some of these young men have been subject to in the name of evolution; and ask yourself whether you would knowingly, as a higher being, conduct your life in this way.
Can you truly accept that one can enter higher worlds by such actions? Would you wish to enter these worlds by such acts? This reasoning leads to one final not-so-profound conclusion; the Emperor is indeed very naked and we sadly provide his mantle.
Robert is a victim also. The highest that one can extend him is compassion and help. If one becomes angered at him or oneself or me the cycle continues. He is and will be confused and hurt by these actions. Yet firmness and equanimity are what is needed. We do great harm to our school and our being should we choose not to act.
We have talked and preached an ethic of love and acting for the higher right. Now is the time to be the words. It would also be a solemn and humane act for us to help the young men who have been hurt and damaged by Robert. It would be a proper legacy to pass on to the next generation.
If you find in your solitude that fear and or the wish to defend has kept you from hearing what has been said, you lose a very dear friend. You lose yourself!
In friendship,
Samuel L. S.
March 4, 1984
March 6, 2007 at 9:36 pm
with the Eyes:
Lot of Lower Self-Pity around here.
Schools Cups are presented through the shrinking looking glass of half-emptyness.
Only alternative would be the ‘perfect’ real school were all the ‘I’s can say what they want.
The machine lower self is what just want to be caressed.
Unobsessioned.
March 7, 2007 at 12:04 am
“…Only one person in a million becomes enlightened without a teacher’s help. If, though, by the conjunction of conditions, someone understands what the Buddha meant, that person doesn’t need a teacher. Such a person has a natural
awareness superior to anything taught. But unless you’re so blessed, study hard, and by means of instruction you’ll understand.” Bodhidharma
All I have to say is that this quote might be few centuries old. Things seem to shift now for the reasons unknown, and there rate “1 in a million” – although it doesn’t seem too bad – may not apply anymore.
It’s been recently noticed by quite a few modern realized beings that there is a big wave of understanding and awakening happening on Earth now for whatever cosmic reasons. It looks like many more are blessed this days, not just selected few… It’s truly an amazing time. Ekhart Tolle, Tony Parsons and other prominent spiritual writers/teachers noticed it and mentioned it few times in their writings. They mention that the cosmic “game” may be changing, and awakening these days starting to occur in a very simple ordinary way without the need to follow any guru or system. Sometimes it happens in a amazingly simple new way – like a talk between friends. It is starting to happen through technology (e-mail, website, phone, written text) when before it seem to be only transmitted from teacher to student directly, in words, in person, often in a special place. They also noticed that this doesn’t seem to be reserved for very few anymore, like it used to be historically for so many centuries…
Why? I don’t know. Nobody seem to know why… It is true? I hope it’s true, because it is good news for many seekers. But -I don’t know…
March 7, 2007 at 1:52 am
#194 attracted #192 which was not there when #194 was posted.
How observable!
Of course there is no order on the Wheel of Misfortune.
All Single Eye.
March 7, 2007 at 4:21 am
Some things to seriously consider about Robert Burton’s health. Those with training in psychology, please comment. The following are descriptions from a website, all this material is widely available:
Delusional disorder is a psychiatric diagnosis denoting a psychotic mental illness that involves holding one or more non-bizarre delusions in the absence of any other significant psychopathology (signs or symptoms of mental illness). In particular a person with delusional disorder has never met any other criteria for schizophrenia and does not have any marked hallucinations, although tactile (touch) or olfactory (smell) hallucinations may be present if they are related to the theme of the delusion.
A person with delusional disorder can be quite functional and does not tend to show any odd or bizarre behaviour except as a direct result of the delusional belief.
Delusion of reference: The person falsely believes that insignificant remarks, events, or objects in one’s environment have personal meaning or significance. For instance, a person may believe that he or she is receiving special messages from the news anchorperson on television. Usually the meaning assigned to these events is negative, but the “messages” can also have a grandiose quality.
Grandiose delusion: An individual exaggerates his or her sense of self-importance and is convinced that he or she has special powers, talents, or abilities. Sometimes, the individual may actually believe that he or she is a famous person (for example, a rock star or Christ). More commonly, a person with this delusion believes he or she has accomplished some great achievement for which they have not received sufficient recognition. He may believe he can speak to supernatural beings or that he is a supernatural being himself. This is one of three of the strong signs that help determine whether a person is psychopathic, along with superficial charm and egocentriscm.
Religious delusion: Any delusion with a religious or spiritual content. These may be combined with other delusions, such as grandiose delusions (the belief that the affected person was chosen by God, for example), delusions of control, or delusions of guilt. Beliefs that would be considered normal for an individual’s religious or cultural background are not delusions.
This is not a joke.
March 7, 2007 at 5:02 am
#195 wrote “it’s been recently noticed by quite a few modern realized beings that there is a big wave of understanding and awaking happening on earth…”.
Rodney Collin spoke of such a time in the 1940’s.
Mr. Knight or the Monochromatic Knight has another blog(?) and I don’t know how to get there from here, but he (Mr. Knight) has reviewed a book titled, “Confessions of a Economic Hitman” The author John Perkins also writes about this TIME of our LIVES.
The book as I understand it is about economics
but the author interjects the mystical for our TIME.
March 7, 2007 at 7:07 am
Two of my messages have been censored in the last few days. I posted them because I thought I might get some guidance before my final desicion to join or not to join the FOF.
That’s fine.
John
March 7, 2007 at 7:13 am
Thank you, Stephen, for your letter. It is so true! We don’t know. I also appreciated when someone earlier said it’s a good idea to just open our minds and educate ourselves about religion and other teachings. Just to be open. Learn.
There were so many wonderful thoughts I came across from reading your letters, coming from real experience. There are arguments too – I too fall into arguing even if it doesn’t make it on the blog. Well, here we are. But I thank you all saying and sharing what you learned, being open to others and being truthful to what you resonate with. We can resonate with each other’s unique reality even if it is not exactly like ours. This afternoon, I was just listening to Pema Chodron, a Buddhist teacher, who was saying that each moment, or being more precise, the reality of each moment is unique. I resonated with that.
Thoughts and ideas become dogma when the dogma rules and one’s unique experience is denied. It takes away the only thing that is important: to have trust in being open to whatever the moment offers. When we become frightened, threatened by what others say – it is a sign of that we live under a dogma, that we don’t want to let go, that we are afraid.
No one can loose anything by examining one’s thoughts, the ideas (and ideals) one lives by – no one can loose by examining what is, or what seems, real. You can hold on to what others say, what you read, what your teacher said – because it brings comfort. You have been living in it, surrounded by it. It gave you purpose, a sense of who you are … but it is worth to examine, what is it within you that agrees or disagrees? What pulls and pushes you? What are the threads that move us, that jerk us? No one else can do this job for us.
Although we can come up with words, clever or clumsy, our words might be just reactions, reactions of fear. Aristotle said, “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” We, truly, don’t have to accept any thought. There is no real reason to be frightened by what others say or write, but we can examine what it means for us, personally. We might arrive to realizing that we don’t know, which ultimately is the answer, but even if we don’t know, we might “feel” an answer or the direction we need to take. By being open to what is, including our reactions, we can learn a great deal.
We often conceptualize things, even our feelings and thoughts not just the world out there. We put them into neat little boxes to prevent reality sneaking into our little world. It helps us to avoid pain. When another person hurts, suffers, our reaction is often just saying to ourselves, “they are just identified.” Have you thought that before? I don’t have to feel what they feel, they are just becoming negative, but I don’t want that. So we “separate.” That is so tricky! We actually prevent ourselves from being compassionate beings. It would be natural, we have the apparatus to feel, but we avoid it. It’s easier to “transcend” all and disassociate. For me, transcendence has a place for the inner world. The so-called outer world needs us to participate in it as long as we are in it, to love it, to help it, to mix with it, to learn form it. “Separation” could lead psychological problems.
By throwing rocks on each other and saying “you are advertising,” “these new teachers are just Americans,” or whatever the claim is, we don’t get to anything real. What is amazing that we all can know or at least feel what’s going on! No matter how we can express it or ramble about it. It is the perception of before-thought, before-reaction that matters. What is immediate. The reaction is also useful, it shows that there is an inner contradiction. One of my favorite reads these days, Chogyam Trungpa, calls this the “basic goodness.” Sometimes the fellowship and the fourth way in general seem to indicate “basic badness.” I don’t see that. I see people who have something beautiful to offer. We fight, we don’t understand each other, nevertheless, we all have something inherently good. I see it, and as the days and years go by, I see it more and more.
Some of the posts were attacking on both sides if there are sides at all – surely in our minds. The attack tells that we are afraid. When we are afraid we lash out, we attack because our identity is in danger. What if the comfort of believing in something is taken away? What then? Who are we? Nobody? A fool? But as far as I can see, it’s fine to be a fool. It doesn’t really matter, what matter is that we dig deeper and deeper within. It’s liberating to throw away an old costume. It had its life, but now it is being seen through. It is painful – but even that pain is just a hue among many other colors. The problem is if we cling and don’t want to let go. That hurts more. We fight, we try to prove, we attack. But it’s our own dream we are fighting with. Perhaps we are not ready, but if we are, all that it takes is a jump. The fall will be the end of something and the beginning of something else. That happens all the time even if we don’t acknowledge it.
Have you seen before how we solidify our experiences? A very good example is how our senses work. We see something, a tree for example, and we think this is a tree. But the tree is infinitely more than that – down to its molecular structure. The way it lives, it breathes, how it is born, and how it dies or rather becomes something else. We perceive a part, a section, a version of it but not the whole. The same goes for spiritual thought but spiritual thoughts or ideas are much more subtle, and it is much easier to hold on to our beliefs because it seems to be our “true identity” – as if that could be put into anything. Everything is much more fluid. What is real within that fluidity, change, birth and death, is what we are.
Our picture of who we are, the ego, always prefers to stay in a cozy world, in something that can provide security and safety: “that’s how things are.” It’s scary to look outside of that box and question what we believe in. But those who arrived to anything made that step. When I left, I went through – like everyone else – the pain, hurt, anger, judgment, emptiness, missing friends, having withdrawal of experiences I was addicted to, and and and … And so far my experience has been that although I learned a lot about being present in the fof, the underlying “reality” of what is going on behind the doors, invisibly and slowly poisoned that “work.” Something was off.
We are all inter-connected even physics knows that. We look like a solid form but we – and everything else – is far from that. Our physical and even subtle manifestation, as a body-mind web, is a fluid and ever-changing vibration. We all are affected – whether something is hidden or out there. A thought can tell otherwise – but it’s just a thought. Does it bring true relief and freedom? For years, I also fell into the mistake of thinking it’s ok. I did calm my conscience with ideas and “intentionally” not listening to that strange feeling, thinking it is just “me.” But who was that made the decision not to listen? It’s not about creating a revolution but coming into terms with our sense of truth, even if it is relative. It is our life. Yes, this world will end, this body will die – but there is a story provided for us to learn something.
It’s never late, even if we die with holding on. Somehow, the universe, eternity, is very gracious and generous. It (at least seems to me) is created in a way that pushes us to move somewhere: forward or backward. Even if this life we cannot face something, what is eternal within will be eternal and it will keep coming back to find itself whether through this form called me or something else. So there is no reason to worry, there is no reason to be afraid. And exactly because it is not such a frightful game, why not be open? Why not look and see for yourself what makes sense for you? Maybe what makes sense for you is where you are, and then I am truly glad, I mean it. There is a heroic part of us that can survive and live wherever we are.
I am sorry though that we can be so distrustful towards ourselves as to dismiss our body, mind, and feelings. They are not it, they are not eternal, of course, but they are part of the web called “this world” and it has something to teach us. As we heard it many times before, “that’s why we are here.” Very true.
March 7, 2007 at 7:13 am
Thank you, Stephen, for your letter. It is so true! We don’t know. I also appreciated when someone earlier said it’s a good idea to just open our minds and educate ourselves about religion and other teachings. Just to be open. Learn.
There were so many wonderful thoughts I came across from reading your letters, coming from real experience. There are arguments too – I too fall into arguing even if it doesn’t make it on the blog. Well, here we are. But I thank you all saying and sharing what you learned, being open to others and being truthful to what you resonate with. We can resonate with each other’s unique reality even if it is not exactly like ours. This afternoon, I was just listening to Pema Chodron, a Buddhist teacher, who was saying that each moment, or being more precise, the reality of each moment is unique. I resonated with that.
Thoughts and ideas become dogma when the dogma rules and one’s unique experience is denied. It takes away the only thing that is important: to have trust in being open to whatever the moment offers. When we become frightened, threatened by what others say – it is a sign of that we live under a dogma, that we don’t want to let go, that we are afraid.
No one can loose anything by examining one’s thoughts, the ideas (and ideals) one lives by – no one can loose by examining what is, or what seems, real. You can hold on to what others say, what you read, what your teacher said – because it brings comfort. You have been living in it, surrounded by it. It gave you purpose, a sense of who you are … but it is worth to examine, what is it within you that agrees or disagrees? What pulls and pushes you? What are the threads that move us, that jerk us? No one else can do this job for us.
Although we can come up with words, clever or clumsy, our words might be just reactions, reactions of fear. Aristotle said, “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” We, truly, don’t have to accept any thought. There is no real reason to be frightened by what others say or write, but we can examine what it means for us, personally. We might arrive to realizing that we don’t know, which ultimately is the answer, but even if we don’t know, we might “feel” an answer or the direction we need to take. By being open to what is, including our reactions, we can learn a great deal.
We often conceptualize things, even our feelings and thoughts not just the world out there. We put them into neat little boxes to prevent reality sneaking into our little world. It helps us to avoid pain. When another person hurts, suffers, our reaction is often just saying to ourselves, “they are just identified.” Have you thought that before? I don’t have to feel what they feel, they are just becoming negative, but I don’t want that. So we “separate.” That is so tricky! We actually prevent ourselves from being compassionate beings. It would be natural, we have the apparatus to feel, but we avoid it. It’s easier to “transcend” all and disassociate. For me, transcendence has a place for the inner world. The so-called outer world needs us to participate in it as long as we are in it, to love it, to help it, to mix with it, to learn form it. “Separation” could lead psychological problems.
By throwing rocks on each other and saying “you are advertising,” “these new teachers are just Americans,” or whatever the claim is, we don’t get to anything real. What is amazing that we all can know or at least feel what’s going on! No matter how we can express it or ramble about it. It is the perception of before-thought, before-reaction that matters. What is immediate. The reaction is also useful, it shows that there is an inner contradiction. One of my favorite reads these days, Chogyam Trungpa, calls this the “basic goodness.” Sometimes the fellowship and the fourth way in general seem to indicate “basic badness.” I don’t see that. I see people who have something beautiful to offer. We fight, we don’t understand each other, nevertheless, we all have something inherently good. I see it, and as the days and years go by, I see it more and more.
Some of the posts were attacking on both sides if there are sides at all – surely in our minds. The attack tells that we are afraid. When we are afraid we lash out, we attack because our identity is in danger. What if the comfort of believing in something is taken away? What then? Who are we? Nobody? A fool? But as far as I can see, it’s fine to be a fool. It doesn’t really matter, what matter is that we dig deeper and deeper within. It’s liberating to throw away an old costume. It had its life, but now it is being seen through. It is painful – but even that pain is just a hue among many other colors. The problem is if we cling and don’t want to let go. That hurts more. We fight, we try to prove, we attack. But it’s our own dream we are fighting with. Perhaps we are not ready, but if we are, all that it takes is a jump. The fall will be the end of something and the beginning of something else. That happens all the time even if we don’t acknowledge it.
Have you seen before how we solidify our experiences? A very good example is how our senses work. We see something, a tree for example, and we think this is a tree. But the tree is infinitely more than that – down to its molecular structure. The way it lives, it breathes, how it is born, and how it dies or rather becomes something else. We perceive a part, a section, a version of it but not the whole. The same goes for spiritual thought but spiritual thoughts or ideas are much more subtle, and it is much easier to hold on to our beliefs because it seems to be our “true identity” – as if that could be put into anything. Everything is much more fluid. What is real within that fluidity, change, birth and death, is what we are.
Our picture of who we are, the ego, always prefers to stay in a cozy world, in something that can provide security and safety: “that’s how things are.” It’s scary to look outside of that box and question what we believe in. But those who arrived to anything made that step. When I left, I went through – like everyone else – the pain, hurt, anger, judgment, emptiness, missing friends, having withdrawal of experiences I was addicted to, and and and … And so far my experience has been that although I learned a lot about being present in the fof, the underlying “reality” of what is going on behind the doors, invisibly and slowly poisoned that “work.” Something was off.
We are all inter-connected even physics knows that. We look like a solid form but we – and everything else – is far from that. Our physical and even subtle manifestation, as a body-mind web, is a fluid and ever-changing vibration. We all are affected – whether something is hidden or out there. A thought can tell otherwise – but it’s just a thought. Does it bring true relief and freedom? For years, I also fell into the mistake of thinking it’s ok. I did calm my conscience with ideas and “intentionally” not listening to that strange feeling, thinking it is just “me.” But who was that made the decision not to listen? It’s not about creating a revolution but coming into terms with our sense of truth, even if it is relative. It is our life. Yes, this world will end, this body will die – but there is a story provided for us to learn something.
It’s never late, even if we die with holding on. Somehow, the universe, eternity, is very gracious and generous. It (at least seems to me) is created in a way that pushes us to move somewhere: forward or backward. Even if this life we cannot face something, what is eternal within will be eternal and it will keep coming back to find itself whether through this form called me or something else. So there is no reason to worry, there is no reason to be afraid. And exactly because it is not such a frightful game, why not be open? Why not look and see for yourself what makes sense for you? Maybe what makes sense for you is where you are, and then I am truly glad, I mean it. There is a heroic part of us that can survive and live wherever we are.
I am sorry though that we can be so distrustful towards ourselves as to dismiss our body, mind, and feelings. They are not it, they are not eternal, of course, but they are part of the web called “this world” and it has something to teach us. As we heard it many times before, “that’s why we are here.” Very true.
March 7, 2007 at 7:21 am
Who’s afraid of the big bad blog:
Dear Friends:
Thank you for the many supportive responses to our recent message about invasion of our rights of privacy.
At this time, when the most powerful teachings from Influence C are being revealed and shared, there are a number of anonymous people who use the Internet to harass the Teacher, the School and its members.
The people involved in these activities use false names, stolen identities, copyright violations, defamation, and tactics of negativity. Among other instances, Asaf’s name has been misappropriated and used for false e-mails containing vulgar profanities. Yesterday Linda Tulisso’s name and picture were falsely used to cast her and Fellowship Management in a negative, false light and to provide a link for unauthorized access to copyrighted materials on Propylaia. It is currently known that this has now gone beyond students with visible roles, such as Asaf and Linda. It now includes stealing names of other students for use in false cyber communications because of their national origin so as to falsely deceive friends in other countries into thinking that one of their fellow student countrymen, be it from Japan, Russia, etc., is actually sponsoring negative attacks against the Teacher and the School.
As with other recent privacy rights violations, the Fellowship takes these matters seriously and reports all such matters to governmental agencies at State and Federal levels as well as in other countries and the European Community for investigation and prosecution. In recent years, the U.S. government, every State, and country have passed strong criminal laws against cyber tactics of identity theft, false representation, and anonymous annoyances and harassment of private individuals and organizations. Law enforcement agencies can trace anonymous or false messages to its source.
If you wish to help, you may forward to the Fellowship’s office any such e-mails, web pages, blogs, CDs or MP3 files you have received, either directly or indirectly, electronically, or by regular mail. Please include a brief factual description including your name, address where it was received, the date of receipt of the communication, and the source, if known. If you have received communications via mail, we would appreciate your including the envelope and/or packaging when you forward this to the Fellowship’s office.
These laws exist to protect all people in all countries. The people involved in the current harassment have openly stated their intent to violate these laws to destroy the School, to injure students and the Teacher. These invasive tactics are not innocent nor can they remain hidden.
The School and our Teacher and friends have been attacked before but we have become stronger and deeper through the transformation of this friction. It is therefore before us to address these matters with presence and with vigilance.
All students should feel free to discuss any of these matters or concerns with their center directors, regional coordinators, the Council, Fellowship Ministers, and Fellowship management.
Thank you for your help, diligence, and presence.
Kevin Brown
Council Dean
Linda Tulisso
Fellowship President
March 7, 2007 at 9:04 am
Do you know yourself?
Do you know wich part of you is talking?
Almost every thing writed here is only feeding the lower self.
But is natural that the most of the people can not to understand the Work.
Regardings to the Real Students Who Really are Working over themselves rather than to talk about others
March 7, 2007 at 9:07 am
THANK YOU SHEIK FOR POSTING THIS IN ORDER TO FULLY AND REALLY BALANCE THIS BLOG–AFTER ALL THE TRUTH MUST BE SAID, UNPLEASANT THOUGH IT MUST BE TO HEAR.
I agree with post #192–we are all ultimately responsible for our own lives. As Robert often said: “Your life is what you make of it, and you have to work very hard to make it beautiful.”
Wow, quite a responsibility! Can you take this on? Take this challenge and you will never seek to blame others for your misfortune. Why not? Because life is short, and there is no time to waste.
I am apalled by the winers, complainers and crybabies that are doing the blogging here, the poetry writing Simons, the Charleys Angels, the Stevenseses, the Medusas, the Philips (proving that it is not the 70+ hours of volunteering per week that ultimately count) and the loving transforming Cheryls and all the other poor victims out there. My love to all of you….NOT.
There is seemingly no end in sight to the barf that on this blog is escalating daily into more and more nonsensical postings. Not one of you have probably inspired anyone to a single action in your life (and it is not going to happen from this blog that is 100% guaranteed or your money back!) Just admit it! You are nothing but losers. As Sufi Master, Sheik Yerbouti, said a long time ago–”Broken hearts are for Assholes”
I had no idea all this time that these “students” when they were IN the FOF were just faking the work, secretly harboring all this resentment against their chosen teacher and the FOF, at least not working with it.
They prove beyond a doubt they have no character, no loyalty, no backbone. These former students now bask in the warm sunlight of mutually self-congratulatory feel-good speaches to each other for doing what is most mechanical–leaving a school-what can be easier!
They deserve what they get–a blog–and nothing else! Hey, they were not asking for much (e.g. such as awakening–so they got exactly what they asked for–mountains of rotten selfrighteous indignation and cancerous resentments.)
After all, it should be time to review why you did not figure it out many years earlier, why you were allowing yourself to be exploited, or why you did not get what you came here for, AWAKENING?! (note, not one of the bloggers admits that they did not make enough of the right efforts to awaken. Reason: because they did not. truth is really that simple–facing up to this would hurt too much).
If you are in, be really IN the school, do not complain, do not critize, and do not find fault with anyone else (this includes yourself at some point), especially not your own teacher’s private life—. This is not why you joined (or if it was you are really twisted), nor is it the reason you left–this is just an excuse. (the Proof: if it was not, you would stay IN and help the poor hapless teacher and his victims–but you did not–proving again you are nothing but pathetic cowards!)
Thus, leaving the FOF is just the easy way out–all it proves is you do not want to WORK any longer on yourself, especially when you make up reasons for leaving that are not yours, but are about someone’s private life that really does not concern you.
The grotesque (and likely false) descriptions of someone’s intimate life are not your business anyway (if you really wanted to make it your business, you would have talked to some, tried to make changes if you felt it warranted, but you did not–you stood by too afraid to mention it to anyone but bottled it up inside and resented it instead).
But of course nothing is easier to accuse, someone who is “getting it” more often than you do–again this shows you are nothing but now also jealous losers! more negative crap–deal with it.
Do you know anyone who has been forced to do anything against their will? There is no victim here. These “poor Russians” are engineers, architects, mathematicians, KGB agents, etc, you name it, not the “hapless victims” they are claimed to be on this smearsite (btw i 100% agree with prior postings that this site does not show the real FOF–it is a thinly disguised, pedantic freakshow of postings, many so false its only function is now to weed out the phony members..).
In any event, did you help them when you were IN? of course not, and you know it–you smiled at them at the reception, and waved at Robert, you hypocrites, and got drunk on some more vino (by the way, Kiran, are you just always drunk on your pictures on your website, or does it just look like this?–if so that may explain why you are now qualified, read deluded, to start your own teaching, at least in your own mind).
No, You were letting them to their own devises, and as cowards do, not once did you ask them about their inner work, their problems, their reasons for being here, etc., their hopes and fears–I bet you do not even know their names. Why now shed “big tears” over “tea” about this? Give me a break–but please have some cucumber sandwiches with your tea…QUestion to Stephen, how many of the 1,500 daily bloggers have come to your tea so far?
Robert however is managing to have events (including teas) on an almost daily basis with dozens if not hundreds of students regularly attending, paying good money (as has been amply highlighted on this blog already!), listening, gaining and learning. Has anyone really disputed on this blog that he is the REAL THING, just like Alex Horn was? NO ONE HAS.
If you are OUT, good riddance-XOX0XO (see you at the Satsang–yeah right! you will not see any REAL students there–sighing about the long lost 20 years with a “former teacher”…send some more CD’s when you have a chance though–very informative)–What nonsense, is the work somehow different there? Does it get easier to be present somewhere else? You should know better!
Yes, this is for sure, the FOF is already a better place without you losers–truly glad to see you all gone–although I miss a few of you, (yes I have an emotional center too–sometimes)!
The air is already cleaner. (I here include and should thank the BSrs that never even joined, such as our kind and noble host, the sheik blog master and his alter ego, no doubt thinking he provides a useful service-what a great way to fool yourself)–and all the others who never made any impression on anyone–trust me, you will be rapidly forgotten by all that remain in the Work, but are content now with snozing, snoring, sleeping, and yes, being blogging crybabies (oh yes, I forgot, and some of you now poets), you have nothing but yourself to blame for not making things better when you were here (if you ever were really IN), good riddance for your pathetic cowardice never daring to confront anyone in the FOF, never once while you were IN sending an open letter, addressing this in a meeting, but being a sheep-type follower, never confronting of course the teacher himself, or asking for an explanation, oh no, you were but waiting for a good moment to leave–then from a safe distance–scream as loud as possible! if no one reacts, scream louder!
Now you are OUT–great–and it only takes 15 minutes to know all you ever needed to know about awakening anyway? Great! Sure! Who are you fooling? It took someone on this blog almost 30 years to figure that out? What keen insight and intelligence are you trying to show us, or more accurately, what incredible fooling of yourself.
Who is leaving with you, your following, perhaps yourself and perhaps the one person (your spouse for example) you manage to convince of your position. In your heart you know you are just weak, only cowardly and a real loser, and one who has now also lost the opportunity to get real! Because you did not take it when it was offered…
But it is perhaps not too late for some of you losers to admit some real “brutal facts” to yourself–how about the fact that you did not ever had or now have the guts to go for total awakening–100% 0r 150% or MORE–all of you experts on the art of awakening, how much does it take?
Not one of you had the guts to admit this on this blog…sure it must be nice to be “seekers” again and go for something more palatable, some esoteric junk food, or the emotional healing of leaving? get real. easy does it, after all you were awake all along, even in imagination, weren’t you? Fools! Are you so asleep that you really can believe this?
Again, good riddance to all of you, I for one will not miss you, but hope you all get what you are looking for–and as Alex Horn would say (see post #186) dying in the gutter, like a dog.
Yes, Alex Horn was right all along! Gladly Robert is not cowing to the lowest common denominator (i.e, the losers on this blog) and he for one does not waste his time trying to keep the losers in. now that is real courage.. real strength, and wisdom, knowing that if it takes you 15-20-25-30 years to leave in the way you folks are doing, you were not worthy of a second of anyone’s attention…after all you did not consider yourself worthy enough to go for awakening but choose to focus on lower self instead (and not even your own lower self, someone else’s!).
Go ahead, criticize this posting all you want—-you all know that this is all 100% true–no, not for all the other bloggers out there, but for YOU.
YES YOU–this message was written just for YOU!
Sick of Cry Babies
March 7, 2007 at 9:22 am
Is Time to start to make something important with our Lives Rather than only to spend a lot of time talking about sombody else.
We need to look first to oneself. This is our only work.
To Be or not to Be
If you are not trying to engage Presence, you are the Lower self.
In one Side is The Steward Who wants to make efforts, and in the other side are like Haffiz called the “Ten Thousand Idiots” The King of Clubs the I´s that are not interesting in to promote presence
and the last thing: The parts of centers are naïve to the fact that they are being used by the
king of clubs to displace presence.
March 7, 2007 at 9:35 am
To the Students:
Please Do not give the pearls to the pigs.
Do not explain to much about the sequence and the work because anyway they can not understand.
They are governed by the Lower self.
And some of us are working for to be more and more in the beautifull state of presence.
March 7, 2007 at 9:49 am
privacy rights violations, the Fellowship takes these matters seriously and reports all such matters to governmental agencies at State and Federal levels as well as in other countries and the European Community for investigation and prosecution. In recent years, the U.S. government, every State, and country have passed strong criminal laws against cyber tactics of identity theft, false representation, and anonymous annoyances and harassment of private individuals and organizations. Law enforcement agencies can trace anonymous or false messages to its source.
Don´t be afraid inner confusion-Lower self. but we must be responsibles of our Acts.
March 7, 2007 at 11:27 am
Here is a copy of the letter that the Council emailed out to FOF members.
Dear Friends: Thank you for the many supportive responses to our recent message about invasion of our rights of privacy. At this time, when the most powerful teachings from Influence C are being revealed and shared, there are a number of anonymous people who use the Internet to harass the Teacher, the School and its members. The people involved in these activities use false names, stolen identities, copyright violations, defamation, and tactics of negativity. Among other instances, Asaf’s name has been misappropriated and used for false e-mails containing vulgar profanities. Yesterday Linda Tulisso’s name and picture were falsely used to cast her and Fellowship Management in a negative, false light and to provide a link for unauthorized access to copyrighted materials on Propylaia. It is currently known that this has now gone beyond students with visible roles, such as Asaf and Linda. It now includes stealing names of other students for use in false cyber communications because of their national origin so as to falsely deceive friends in other countries into thinking that one of their fellow student countrymen, be it from Japan, Russia, etc., is actually sponsoring negative attacks against the Teacher and the School.
As with other recent privacy rights violations, the Fellowship takes these matters seriously and reports all such matters to governmental agencies at State and Federal levels as well as in other countries and the European Community for investigation and prosecution. In recent years, the U.S. government, every State, and country have passed strong criminal laws against cyber tactics of identity theft, false representation, and anonymous annoyances and harassment of private individuals and organizations. Law enforcement agencies can trace anonymous or false messages to its source.
If you wish to help, you may forward to the Fellowship’s office any such e-mails, web pages, blogs, CDs or MP3 files you have received, either directly or indirectly, electronically, or by regular mail. Please include a brief factual description including your name, address where it was received, the date of receipt of the communication, and the source, if known. If you have received communications via mail, we would appreciate your including the envelope and/or packaging when you forward this to the Fellowship’s office. These laws exist to protect all people in all countries. The people involved in the current harassment have openly stated their intent to violate these laws to destroy the School, to injure students and the Teacher. These invasive tactics are not innocent nor can they remain hidden.
The School and our Teacher and friends have been attacked before but we have become stronger and deeper through the transformation of this friction. It is therefore before us to address these matters with presence and with vigilance.
All students should feel free to discuss any of these matters or concerns with their center directors, regional coordinators, the Council, Fellowship Ministers, and Fellowship management.
Thank you for your help, diligence, and presence.
Council Dean
Fellowship President
March 7, 2007 at 11:28 am
Hey, Another Former Student (No. 192)
You write: “From the first moment of meeting him (having no preconceptions), I never had any doubt that he was a “conscious being” and someone of a different order.”
You also say that self-remembering was “something that he could very clearly do.”
Did it ever occur to you that Robert is merely an actor, aided by the inflated expectations of his audience, who have all been conditioned to expect to see a “conscious being”? And even if it is true that he was a “conscious being” and “remembering himself,” how would an unconscious being such as yourself (assuming you regarded yourself as such) be able to recognize it?
The reason I ask is that you seem to view your experience in the FOF in rather positive terms (especially considering that Robert and the FOF consider you a lost soul), and maybe that’s because you haven’t come to grips with the fact that you fell for a con job. I felt the same way too, for the first couple of years after I left (1978). Maybe once you are able to admit this to yourself you will have a little more compassion for those folks who have been harmed by this wacko and his enablers.
Mark H
Seattle, WA
rawvegguy@yahoo.com
March 7, 2007 at 2:40 pm
Quadratic Zhang (183):
Hello Zhang.
My visit to the FoF was motivated by two things in particular. First, I was looking for some like-minded people. I was quite new to spirituality but flying high on esoteric teachings, non-ordinary states of consciousness (what in here in my opinion is incorrectly labelled as higher states) and newly found focus. At the time, most people who knew me thought I was going mad, and in a way I was. In order to meet like-minded people I thought had to seek out people with similar interests, hence visiting the FoF. At the time I knew nothing of the FoF as the flier that advertised their meeting only refered to the Fourth Way and made no reference to the FoF (why would that be?
). Second, my partner banged her head into a pole while walking from her apartment and the first thing she saw was the above-mentioned flier. As she knew I was interested in these things, she took the flier with her and gave it to me. At the time I had a strong trust in synchronicity, ie. meaningful coincidences, so I decided to visit.
As you rightly pointed out, I haven’t read anything from Gurdjieff or Ouspensky (still), but given the wonders that Internet provides, I have researched them briefly using wikipedia and other sources. At the time of my visit to the FoF, I was blown away by the same things as you – the idea of the incompleteness of humanity and the need to work on oneself to reach fulfillment. Funnily enough, if these are the things you are interested in, there are other places to go in search of the ideas. ‘Being present’ is a teaching primarily Buddhist and Sufi and they, I believe, have as much to offer (if not more) in teaching how to reach it. It also seems to me, that their way is permanent, while the Fourth/FoF way is temporary (higher states). I still have to find anyone who has achieved a permanent higher state, and whether he is someone worth of respect.
Even more so, if you are interested in ‘working on yourself’, there are hundreds of traditions, ways, schools, all of them with their dogmas, traditions, and beliefs. Yet, their practical teachings, practices, and ways to ‘awaken’ are strangely similar. I found that the best way to go about self-searching and working on yourself is to strip the teaching of its beliefs, tradition, and to disbelieve it, and question it extensively, while following the actual practices. The only thing that’s necessary is to follow the practices. Rather than buying in into a philosophy, and then explaining your experiences using that preconception, it’s easier to have the experiences and then search for the answers, finding as many as you can before reaching any conclusions, if reaching any conclusions at all.
There are actual manuals on working on yourself, whether it’s meditation, yoga, mindfulness, reaching of higher states, mysticism, occultism,… or whatever that you are interested in. As far as I am concerned, the practicalities are all that matters, screw the rest. Philosophy is fallible and prone to misinterpretation, especially religious/mystical philosophy. The trickiest part is that a philosophy is supposed to be based on valid logical/empirical arguments, while mystical philosophies are primarily based on subjective experiences, holy writings, and authority.
Everything is subjective, and I beware those who say otherwise. Experiencing things yourself and being able to make sense of what they mean is where the fun begins. Books, teachings, and teachers, serve as pointers, you are the one who has to do the work, including the questioning and verification.
At the end of the day a mad, passionate search for truth and self-improvement, interesting while it lasted, didn’t make me happy. It taught me a lot of things and it taught me ways of controlling myself that I previously wasn’t capable of, eg. non-ordinary states, basic understanding of my own psychology, intensifying my senses, working with my memory,… But to be honest, I wasn’t happy throughout it, no no no. And I lost some friendships, made my partner miserable and paid everyday for not being compassionate and loving, qualitites that are so important in spirituality that their lack can destroy you (a form of destruction all too visible in some of the people I have met here). I also found that self-obsession and selfishness do not create any positivity in my life or the lives of other people.
At the end of the day, all I needed was a healthy balance. I also found a lot more and gained much more once I stopped ’searching’. Keeping myself open to new experiences, people, and places and striving to be a good man have done much more for me than running after self-change. Yes, even spiritually.
One of the things I now think incorrect in the Fourth Way teachings is the idea of being incomplete. I believe that me, you, and everyone else are actually complete, right here, right now, but few of us are paying attention. Working on yourself teaches you how to pay attention to you being here (where else would you be?). It’s about focus. I believe that it’s impossible to build something out of nothing as the Fourth Way teaches, why would you anyway, if it’s already there. The way to learn how to pay attention and be focused, is equally about control and the complete loss of it. I am at the very beginning of that road but on this blog there are people who are farther down.
I would be careful about seeking teachers or schools, but then again I am a little bit paranoid when it comes to these things. I only ever listened to those who claimed that they weren’t teachers (let alone Teachers) and that they had nothing to teach. On the other hand, the need to find like-minded people, people you can really connect with, is an integral part of what makes us human. We need to communicate, and that is the one thing that the FoF has provided for so many of its (ex)members, and that is the one thing they all remember with smiles on their faces. If you seek out a group for this particular reason, make sure that it is not to the detriment of your values, your ethical standars, beliefs, or your personal freedom. Let this discussion be a lesson to you as to how oppressive spiritual/mystical groups can be.
I have observed that many intense efforts I’ve make come to a standstill after a while.
Maybe Fourth Way isn’t for you then. Find something that works for you. I found meditation (breathing exercises, mindfulness) to be exceptionally potent and I have received a lot of gifts from it. I would say that it is the safest and most revealing start for anyone wishing to find more about themselves, it gives you the strength to follow more dangerous routes, if you so choose. And if even that doesn’t work, you still have a whole life to experiment and play with, and to find something that works for you. Good luck.
By the way, feel free to contact me on my e-mail address: recroanima@gmail.com
March 7, 2007 at 2:54 pm
Cry baby: Wow! Your fire reminds me of that of Savonarola!
“…someone’s intimate life are not your business anyway (if you really wanted to make it your business, you would have talked to some, tried to make changes if you felt it warranted, but you did not–you stood by too afraid to mention it to anyone…”
I would like to see anybody who would dare to speak to you openly, since:
“If you are in, be really IN the school, do not complain, do not critize, and do not find fault with anyone else”
A bit contradictory?
But Sheik is right: there’s no reason to fight, it’s an opportunity to excersize compassion!
March 7, 2007 at 4:30 pm
#215
Anything to do with Outside Enemies?
There are no Outside Enemies!
With Observance.
March 7, 2007 at 4:32 pm
Re: post #206
I’d like to personally thank Girard for taking the time to post in such an eloquent and heartfelt manner.
But seriously folks, who among us has not had that voice of fear shreiking in his/her head at one time or another. It kept us in the school at one point. It kept us from speaking our own truth at another point. Takes a while to turn it off, doesn’t it?
Oh, and nice Sufi-master Zappa quote.
March 7, 2007 at 7:42 pm
So, I calmed down a bit.
There was a temporary issue with some people being unable to comment, including myself. It’s sorted now and should not pose any problems in the future.
If anyone runs into the same problem (and it is quite possible that some comments that you have posted in the last 1-2 days have been lost), please repost them. I sincerely apologize.
As to the Fellowship e-mail:
These laws exist to protect all people in all countries. The people involved in the current harassment have openly stated their intent to violate these laws to destroy the School, to injure students and the Teacher. These invasive tactics are not innocent nor can they remain hidden.
In the previous version of this post I answered rather vulgarly. I don’t think there is any need for that and sorry I burst out. Who is being harassed anyway? No one has been manipulated, or harassed to come take part in the discussion. People come of their own free will.
In recent years, the U.S. government, every State, and country have passed strong criminal laws against cyber tactics of identity theft, false representation, and anonymous annoyances and harassment of private individuals and organizations.
Are you serious? Identity theft? Do you even know the definition of those two words? Identity theft is a different issue to using someone’s name on the internet, you dummie. Anonymous annoyances and harassment? Yes, I have been on the receiving end for some time, as have numerous other posters. Still here though, and I am sure that I am taking a lot more of your time than you are taking of mine.
John (201): Sorry, post them again.
Cry baby (206): You are delusional but funny. By the way, my alter ego (Knight, right?) is a different person. Anyway, too much bitterness coming from you for my liking. People, please, do not fall for the trap, don’t start swapping insults with flamers. It’s not worth it. I can’t believe how dark and bitter some of these people get. And, by writing those 500-1000 words, you have just nicely undermined your claim that the blog, and the people who comment on it, are unimportant to you. You accuse others of hypocrisy, yet show it in such abundance.
It all started as an open discussion between FoF, ex-FoF, and non-FoF, but it seems to be degenerating a little bit. Why? Doesn’t everyone have the same opportunity to join the discussion? Why try to close it down (and/or hunt down those who participate in it) when all it does is to let people speak. Lets rather than prohibits. To me, this discussion serves as a beautiful case study into the inner workings of the FoF, I hope that it will serve the same purpose to others.
March 7, 2007 at 7:44 pm
Shock and awe.
It took some time for the forces of freedom to arrive (as presented in posts by Cry Baby and Laughing). It is now safe to speak freely.
In the school, I often heard the expression “as above, so below.” But, “as without, so within?” This “damage control” indeed sounds much like the Bush Administration’s all-encompassing “War on Terror”.
Intimidation can muzzle conscience, but it does not necessarily stop it.
“All students should feel free to discuss any of these matters or concerns with their center directors, regional coordinators, the Council, Fellowship Ministers, and Fellowship management.”
If you should NOT feel free, then this extraordinary forum, might offer an alternate means of expression.
Thanks, Sheik, for your moderation.
Tim Campion
Santa Rosa, CA
timtraveler@msn.com
March 7, 2007 at 8:03 pm
How sad and confusing! I see the lie:
“The people involved in these activities use false names” (it is anonymous! dha!)
“stolen identities” (what?)
“copyright violations” (like for example?)
“Among other instances, Asaf’s name has been misappropriated and used for false e-mails containing vulgar profanities.” (I did not receive any)
“Yesterday Linda Tulisso ’s name and picture (picture?) were falsely used to cast her and Fellowship Management in a negative, false light and to provide a link for unauthorized access to copyrighted materials on Propylaia.” OK, FOLKS, SOMEONE DID USE LINDA T NAME AND IT IS NOT NICE.
“It is currently known that this has now gone beyond students with visible roles, such as Asaf and Linda . It now includes stealing names of other students for use in false cyber communications because of their national origin so as to falsely deceive friends in other countries into thinking that one of their fellow student countrymen, be it from Japan, Russia, etc., is actually sponsoring negative attacks against the Teacher and the School” (Hei, Linda, take it easy, work on your queen of hearts!)
“The people involved in the current harassment have openly stated their intent to violate these laws to destroy the School, to injure students and the Teacher.” OMG! IJURE STUDENTS AND THE TEACHER! It reminds me a cartoon “Beauty and the Beast” she must also mention “will eat our children”
March 7, 2007 at 8:09 pm
Crybaby’s rant (#206, unless the number has changed!) would be funny if it weren’t so sad.
Taking it at face value (i.e. assuming it is not a complete put-on) here is a person who is filled with negativity and contempt, expressing it without reservation, under the protective shield of internet anonymity. What a fine testament to the efficacy of “work on oneself” in a “conscious school”!
It has been observed that the FOF attracts its share of lost souls, broken hearts, and mentally unstable persons. I hope that at least for some of them, and for Crybaby, their time there produces some sort of healing.
Unfortunately, the opposite is often observed: they become more deeply troubled, tormented and conflicted than before! The healing begins only when they leave.
March 7, 2007 at 8:24 pm
To Cry Baby #206:
I feel really bad for you. Honestly. I am very sorry that you got so angry. Yours is one of the angriest posts here… What happened? Did you suddenly lose it?
Your post may have done more damage to FOF reputation than posts of “losers”, because here you are – the student- and look at you…You showed your true condition so full of judgment, negativity, rage – and to what? To a blog? Please, these are just letters on a screen… Where is your level of being, what happened to your own work? Where is the love, compassion, consciousness?
The things you said are not worth commenting to – they are way too angry and contradictory.
I wish you all the best, cheer up, take it easy, go for awakening, 150 percent, good luck.
I wish I could give you a real warm hug. Well, here is a virtual hug.
March 7, 2007 at 8:27 pm
My goodness! There have been some quite insidous posts of late. Spot on, Sheik, let’s not go that way…
I am reminded of part of a poem (sorry poetry loathers) by William Blake: The Poison Tree. As we are celebrating the 250th anniversary of his birth it might be appropriate to quote it.
I was angry with my friend.
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe.
I told it not, my wrath did grow.
The poet’s advice: If you are angry, share the problem and in the process of solving it, your anger will disappear.
The alternative is to sit on your anger and watch it grow. The reward is you will become bitter, cynical and sarcastic.
Only remember, the effort has to come from a sincere part, that is, if my memory serves me, not from “false personality”.
To the essence or sharing,
Yours, Simon
March 7, 2007 at 10:28 pm
I agree wholeheartedly with Tim Campion, Post 217.
Thanks to the Sheik, and ALL the contributors, this truly IS an extraordinary forum and more than a few people are starting to pay attention.
So much so that even Cry Baby (post #206) felt co