Believe it or not, we are at it again. This time number 6.
For part 5 click here.
For part 4 click here.
For part 3 click here.
For part 2 click here.
For the very first page and the initial article click here.
And as always, enjoy and have fun.
April 8, 2007
The Fellowship of Friends Discussion, part 6
Posted by Pavel under Discussion, Fellowship of Friends, Forum[408] Comments
Animam Recro 
April 8, 2007 at 2:10 pm
Correction:
Earlier statement reproduced
on this blog (Jim Jones 5/243):
The True Story Behind
the Largest Mass Murder-Suicide
in History Airs on PBS:
Jonestown:
The Life and Death of Peoples Temple
Airs on PBS: AMERICAN EXPERIENCE
Monday, April 9, 2007
(check local listings)
may need reevaluation in consideration
of the 936 Jewish inhabitants that
committed mass suicide at Masada,
April 16, 73 A.D., rather than face
certain capture or defeat by the Romans.
918 people had died in Guyana as part
of the Peoples Temple events. [Very
different circumstances but mass
suicide nonetheless.] There could
be other incidents of this kind given
the actions people have taken in
religious fervor.
Just wanted to set record straight so that some lawyer might not try to claim anti-semitism due to the error in oversight – but the claim is actually made by the other entity authoring it and was just a reproduction for this local blog for educational purpose. Humble apologies.
Better it should read:
The True Story Behind
the Largest Mass Murder-Suicide
in Modern History Airs on PBS
Monday, April 9, 2007
(check local listings)
More:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/jonestown/index.html
April 8, 2007 at 2:31 pm
Jeanette #384: On my part there was a hugh hesitation before using “deary”. I apologize.
“Oh, my God, don’t refer to any other human being in a quote or otherwise”.. But Rodney Collin spoke about the “Aloha therapy” in one of his books. Of course, in his own ‘fourth way’ style.
Ain’t that right, yessir bubba?
April 8, 2007 at 3:07 pm
It’s not the sex. It’s not the depravity. It’s not the abuse of power. It’s not the spiritual terrorism. It’s not the megalomaniacal behaviour. It’s not the lies, lies, lies. It’s not the…
It is the lack of conscience:
Consciousness and conscience are two sides of the same coin. Without both, developing in parallel, there is no current C. The unbridled pursuit of consciousness, with the exclusion of conscience, is unconscionable. This is the raison d’être (basic reason for existence) of malady and disharmony in the Fellowship of Friends. Community reflects the values. This condition is an abomination to God and Nature. Until that is fixed, with every person in the Fellowship, progress will be stunted, at best, on the spiritual path – the organism will be deformed. Create endless beauty on the surface of life – shock and awe – but what is within cannot be hidden from discerning eye (third eye). There is something rotten in…
I could tell you true stories that happened in FOF that you would not believe. What’s your story?
Foul deeds will rise,
though all the earth overwhelm them,
to men’s eyes.
William Shakespeare
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
Act 1, Scene 2.
I dream’d in a dream I saw a city
invincible to the attacks of the
whole of the rest of the earth,
I dream’d that was the new city of Friends,
Nothing was greater there than
the quality of robust love,
it led the rest,
It was seen every hour
in the actions of the men of that city,
And in all their looks and words.
Walt Whitman
(Does that still apply to FOF?
Remember the days we believed?
What kind of love is this?)
We have met the enemy and he is us.
Pogo
Walt Kelly
Conscience be your guide
April 8, 2007 at 3:56 pm
The weaponry for now, Howard Carter (#364/5), will be spoons & forks of course. And words & more quotations.
What angelic gate keepers do you have in mind? I suppose you refer to the esteemed (now defunct?) 44 (maybe joined by a few cave-men illiterate ‘geniuses’ who left profound messages for us in images of shitting bulls?). If you bother to read with an open mind any of those you may come to the conclusion that they with their creativity and critical thinking, would loath to be in the employ of a cult, used to cloud minds with superstitions & dogmas, and packaged in a school- digest agenda- distorted formats. It may affect even a closed mind like yours. And they would gleefully open wide the doors for the liberators…
Practical (#351): you give me/us a formatory sort of options list, a variation on ‘stay or leave’. Being in the Work in the school was never for me an either/or affair. It often feels absurd or surreal, though lately somewhat nightmarish, which cancels rational of lists. I may take a synthesis of the options. Besides, “…let the unhappiness fester, affecting…”- if poison is administered intelligently without identification and with the intention to fascilitate a cure from a debilitating disease, it is probably a joyful, creative & rewarding experience.
The school is mine as well and I won’t just fade out for your convenience. I’ll wait right here till ‘a few dozen courageous Claras'(and Medusas) will join me to act and maybe storm…
Fence Rider, because the school is also ours and you paid for it for decades with sweat, blood and Being, won’t you fight for what’s rightfully yours? Don’t you sense the fence becoming hot, electrocuted? Gradually turning into the barbed wire sort? Isn’t the vista getting polluted & corrupted? Isn’t it getting too crowded there and it’s about to collapse?
April 8, 2007 at 5:06 pm
I know we have at times tried our hands at “diagnosing” Robert. Narcissistic personality disorder has been mentioned, but has anyone thought about some form of mania? Compulsive shopping is one of the key symptoms of this form of mental illness.
April 8, 2007 at 7:27 pm
It is possible! Here is a true story!
The “World Wide Church of God” gathering almost 70 000 members, is the result of a profound and radical change.
After the death of its founder , W. Amstrong, part of the board (dealing with about 170 000 members at that time) found that the teaching was fals and cultistic.
They renounced it !
The Church could regenarate itself!
They felt “guided” and they view both the process and the result as a “miracle”.
I love this blog!
April 8, 2007 at 8:24 pm
Regarding storming the Bastille: Once, many years ago, while walking with Miles and several other students through the vineyard, I was shocked to hear him say, after someone referred to Robert being on Leonard da Vinci’s ladder, that it seemed more likely that Robert was on Marie Antoinette’s ladder.
April 8, 2007 at 8:49 pm
Howard Carter says: “The angels I’m speaking of invented the other side”.
Could be, but it’s worth remembering that these angels are only concepts in your mind and have no reality other than that. The true reality is the awareness in which all this, including your (and everyone’s) conceptualising, takes place. Of course, there’s no harm in believing in angels, if that’s what you want to do.
Anyway, keep ’em coming Howard. It’s useful to have an example of unconfused, true blue Homo Foficus contributing to this blog.
yrs, RB
April 8, 2007 at 8:49 pm
Dear Practical 5-#351.
You challenged me to consider my practical options.
I would like to look at your challenge from a psychological point of view.
From this point of view, it is not really about changing the school, although that would be a nice by-product. Instead, this special time in the school offers a psychological line of work – being honest and truthful with ourselves.
My first line is about trying to BE and that state, when I have it, makes me want to be simple, honest, unpretentious.
Can I be honest with myself and with other students about what I see regarding the school?”. It is easy to be honest when I know others will support me – it is harder to be honest with those that I expect will lose respect for me if they know what I really think. I find this a wonderful challenge – to be the same person regardless, because it forces me to trust my being and let go of my desire to be respected. It gives me a chance to live the life of a “bad student”. It gives me a chance to listen to honest responses to my honesty and to start to see things in new ways. It makes my work with students more rewarding.
It is not about destroying Robert or the school. Happiness comes when we let go of some of the unnecessary suffering that is perpetuated by illusions about the school. Guilt and self deprecation are not very useful. Why would we not want our friends to also let go of some of their illusions even if it is a little disturbing at first?
I appreciated your note because it had a tone of caring. Sometimes I am discounted as “lost” or negative by those that do not share my views of the school. I try to look inside and see if they might be right. I know there is some resentment towards Robert. I think that most students have some of that. But for the most part I see a student that does care deeply about the FOF, one that is trying to work, experimenting with the sequence etc., and one that really does wish the best for my fellow students. I feel that being on the Fence, unidentified with my status in the FOF, does allow for some perceptions that are difficult to get when there are emotional and instinctive identifications with the FOF and that these perceptions have some value.
Admittedly there is much that we don’t and cannot know, but I think it is OK to study cult behavior and try to see objectively what makes us think the way we do. I truly believe that I cannot go further in my own development without venturing into these areas and learning to trust my observations.
I think it is ok to go to a meeting and while trying to BE, observe also from a detached point of view, recognizing that some of what is going on may not really be useful. I think it is OK to question whether some of Robert’s actions may actually be harmful to students and to the school. I trust the play and I think the play is calling us to have the courage to make observations for ourselves which may not always show Robert in a positive light. My call is simply a call to be honest, courageous, open, reasonable, and to try to see the information that we have as objectively as we can. I believe this is the only way to successfully change the school in a positive way.
Shutting out observations that come from negative halves of centers prevents deep verification. Honest observation is the only way to truly verify what the school really is (and this may on the whole be a positive verification).
We slowly change the school by working on ourselves, studying what the school is and what it is not. But that is not enough. We must also be honest.
After all, we are the school. I believe the school is changing as more and more students question the way it is, and as a result of the blog, feel more comfortable about sharing their observations, and that is why I do not quietly leave.
April 8, 2007 at 9:42 pm
We always said “It’s Robert’s School” …
Some have said over the years “It’s our School” … and the majority thought “how naive”.
So many conversations now that make me think it is no longer naive.
Can the man not be simply retired, and let those of us who have invested for years, continue to invest, continue to reap the benefits of our friendships, the infrastructure, and of a new direction? Are the Board of Directors and The Council capable of seeing what needs to be done – even within the legal definitions of their roles – and get on with it? Is any discussion of this possible??
April 8, 2007 at 10:33 pm
Dear Zorro (#5/381)
I sincerely appreciate your participation in this dialogue.
You say:
Z. Your decision to look after Dorothy is certainly NOT under “feminine dominance”, it is a free choice you made guided by your noble essence.
I say:
E: You’re contradicting your teacher, it was HE who said that what I was doing was “Feminine dominance”. I have been very careful not to disclose the whole letter I sent him so that we don’t shock too many people out of their feet, nor attack the ignorance and unconsciousness of the many students that helped and allowed for something like this to take place, unconcerned, but I will be happy to do that if you press just a little deeper so that we really understand the issues involved.
Z: Nevertheless, your expectation that the FoF should help you in this task is certainly under “feminine dominance”
E: You’re getting back to your teacher’s stand. Would you please explain why you think the FoF should not help someone take care of Dorothy after he or she states that after two years of doing the octave, they cannot continue volunteering? The issue is not “me”, it is the objective responsibilities that we are assuming as a conscious school or community, whatever fits you better. If it is a school who at some point asked students to abandon their biological families and ties to their nation and humanity, should it not assume responsibility for its students, at least?
Or are we playing again with this double morality that the “standards” of the fellowship are way above life standards when it is convenient for the Fellowship and very much aligned with life standards and way below them, when it is convenient for the fellowship?
Are we going back to “A friend’s” statements that since there is no justice in the world why have any of it in the Fellowship?
Or his other statement that says
F: (5/183) What would you like to see in the school? A Father Knows Best community–a Mother Teresa hostel for the poor–or a Camelot with a noble king and loyal subjects, where it only rains at night? It would be nice! Or what we have—thorny and contradictory, reflecting life itself?
E: So are you saying that the cheap brothel disguised in the clothing of a noble king and his subjects, in which Mr. Burton has converted our lives with little bunnies coming to interrupt even our most intimate moments to ask for a little more money for the brothel to survive, are much better than the father knows best community or Teresa’s hostel for the poor? You sound like you’re the answering machine of the brothel and have something to protect. Is it the brothel? Or the fact that you condone the abandonment of your family and friends as soon as they become too ill to continue because you have to continue “work, work, work” so that you don’t have time to look around you and clean any one else’s pain? Or perhaps you just wouldn’t lower yourself to such a ‘third world’ job? The mother Teresa’s and her kind who Mr. Burton actually makes fun of in his meetings, probably jealous of the fact that insignificant as she is, (dressed like Gloria who was asked to never dine with him again), Mother Teresa of Calcutta can actually stand in any country on the globe and stop a war while she gets the children out? If we’re really out to compare things, don’t you find that it is much better to be in Mother Teresa’s shoes than in Mr. Burton’s “Guci” shoes who has to go around the world hiring boats to take his quiet, submissive and understanding adepts for a spiritual stroll?
You continue:
Z: The FoF’s mission is not to provide shelter to ill individuals.
E: Indeed, it seems its mission is to make them sick, irresponsible men number 1,2,3 who depending on their weakness adhere and accommodate to a form that obnubilates them from themselves and the community they live in convinced that they are flying straight into the third state avoiding all their human responsibilities with themselves and the people around them.
Z: Its members don’t pay their monthly donations in exchange of a pension plan or a medical insurance.
E: No, they don’t unfortunately, they’d be much better of. They pay donations so that Mr. Burton can import twenty year old men from all over the world who want to give themselves a chance to make a little more money than they can in their country, work for a more conscious life and live in a conscious school with real people and instead land in the wolf’s mouth, “be” immediately devoured by him with the blessing and applause of everyone around him who are “so happy to pay for it”.
Or maybe you mean they pay donations to build more prytaneiums and theatrons were they can continue submitting to Mr. Burton’s all encompassing subjectivity in his non ending monologue and journeying forth by day in his unlimited lust to “LOOK” at beautiful young men dancing ballet? I think we hadn’t even mentioned the voyeurism of Mr. Burton’s greed or do you think he watched football for years, instead of teaching, because he just enjoyed the ball? Or maybe they pay donations for such deeply spiritual rituals in which nothing but Mr. Burton’s higher and lower centre’s birthdays, school anniversaries, auctions and dinners have no other vision than his tired monologue in which he has to ask Mr. Braverman what he’s talking about? Or is it just that you’re only present to yourself and can’t see beyond yourself as the perfect student who took Mr. Burton word by word just like all the German nation did with we know who? I am not saying this to attack you, just to let you know how common your behavior is, specially in “developed” countries.
Maybe I am confused and you probably mean that students pay donations so that they can support the artists of the Fellowship. Perhaps they get well payed for giving up their talents to such a reduced community for the length of their lives or perhaps they just wonder why they don’t get payed a reasonable sum because they have to give it up to pay life musicians better than they that come to show them what real music is? Real ballet? Because Mr. Burton cannot bring his eyes to “look” at them and can only attend life musician’s performances? There are of course exceptions that make the rule.
Or maybe you just sincerely mean that students pay to support the inner circle. Those young men and women that managed to get Mr. Burton to support their education in Europe, open wineries and olive companies for themselves, small businesses or study a career that would meet the present urge? Or maybe students like Mr. Haven who gave up their life to convince students like me that it was all a conscious effort? And who, as you say, never have or will have “shelter to ill individuals” or “medical insurance” and instead go around begging and asking for loans from other students to pay their medical bills and lend themselves to this double morality of your conscious school so that it looks so human? So that everything gets mixed together and no one knows in the end what exactly they are paying for, Mr. Burton’s mate or Mr. Haven’s fate?
Do we not as members of this foundation not have a right to know exactly where our money is being spent and why, or do you think our king of clubs is not developed enough to understand wether it is really that willing to pay for Mr. Burton’s king of clubs or not?
Z : The only thing that the “teaching payments” can buy is opportunities to be conscious of your own life. What each member then does with this consciousness, how they use it in their daily lives, is totally their own decision, not the FoF’s.
E: I completely agree. Would you please expand on why the Fellowship is not conscious and transparent in its daily life and the decisions it makes so that the students can decide for themselves?
Z: There is possibly a misunderstanding of the term “external consideration” here.
E: The misunderstanding of “external consideration” is Mr. Burton’s who has confused the idea of remembering one’s self with affirming one’s king of clubs and in so doing found it impossible to bring himself or the School to a community reducing it to a very dangerous private club.
Z: Its esoteric meaning is mainly connected to the ability of consciousness to consider a situation externally, from beyond the machine, instead of considering it internally just from one’s own mechanics.
E: I completely agree, this is exactly what Mr. Burton and Mr. Haven were unable to accomplish for themselves as individuals or the school as a whole.
Z: The term is diminished, it becomes exoteric, when it is used merely from the point of view of addressing the needs of others.
E: The term becomes exoteric when external consideration becomes the personal use of Mr. Burton for the privileged few that he happened to like without any objectivity. All those students who supported him because of their monetary or emotional possibilities, by their own weaknesses to be part of a conscious man’s life or by their own strength to innocently believe in the beauty of it all.
It is important to realize that this is what has “happened” to us ALL, including Mr. Burton. I do not believe that any one of us maliciously conceived it or carried it out, it simply kept happening and the few attempts that have been made to stop it where easily payed off and dismissed, the issues were hidden and silenced by those who remained and the school continued to receive honest and innocent people wishing to awake. There are serious responsibilities for those who have kept quiet and continued to promote the same conditions, for too many of us know now and understand the issues involved. There are both karmic responsibilities to account for in the long run and in the short run. Weak as life standards might be, they are still objective enough to put an end to the abuse that one or a few men can impose on a community.
Suing the Fellowship and its administrators is a possibility for all the young men that are still being used as Mr. Burton’s mates and every student who has been deceived to pay for the wrong cause for I do not believe that the founder of a church like ours can have unlimited use of the money involved or that any student doesn’t have a right to look at what is done with what he pays.
I did get my money’s worth but besides my money’s worth I got a lot of pain from each deceit. It is with this pain that I will not let it be.
April 9, 2007 at 1:47 am
In order to help others to leave the FoF it would be better to offer something instead.
Let’s create a community.
We can transfer there a positive side of the FoF.
We’ve learned a lot. We know a lot.
It is possible to find a place for meetings.
It is possible to gather a team to set some simple aims and rules.
The former students has enough being to do it.
It is possible to invite John Wheeler, Adya, Kiran, No person and many others to lead a meetings.
Let’s try.
If RB with all his problems managed it, why we don’t? We will not repeat his mistakes. And we will find former students near 65 centres around the world.
There is nothing to loose really and truly.
Neither revolution nor destruction nor “Storming the Bastille” is needed.
Only positive creation, refinement, regeneration, conscious love.
What do you think?
FA
P.S. Thanks to everybody and Sheik.
April 9, 2007 at 6:07 am
“Come to the North Yuba food and wine festival on April 21 on Saturday.”
Unless things have changed -fat chance- you need to call to “reserve” and its a sure thing ex-students are most unwelcomed. But, hey, “I love you”, “I forgive you”….
April 9, 2007 at 9:29 am
Can we please stop with the “verify” nonsense? Anything that can be known is only more or less relative “truth”. The “truth” of an idea or perception exists only within a context. When the context is changed so is the “truth”. Nothing in the universe is static. There is no absolute “truth” except notions cemented into the mind. I know this will be near impossible for many to see but it is so.
When we say we have “verified” such and such we are really saying now i see clearly what you are trying to convince me of.
It is a frighteningly wonderful world without any “verifications” and the truth is everywhere one looks.
April 9, 2007 at 10:25 am
Regarding the responses to the ending of my post 5/364 to Half Life:
“I’m curious about your desire to “storm the Bastille”. What manner of weaponry does one use when the gate keepers are angels?”
It seemed to draw the ire of several people; who would have thought the mentioning of angels on an “esoteric” discussion board would have riled up so many?
But to be frank no one really answered this non-rhetorical question. Here are some of the replies: Rabbi Burns ( the other RB ) wrote: “Well, if the angels embody the spirit of the FOF, offer them money or sex and they’ll come over to the other side immediately!”
He simply used the question as another opportunity to drag the FOF out to his favorite whipping post.
Cathie, 5/368 answered obliquely: “Lucifer was an angel, the brightest in Heaven.
Even angels can fall from grace.
How do you know your gate keepers are objectively “good”?
Bigger picture: there are no gates on Truth. It is a pathless, borderless land”.
We could infer the following from her thought: “crooked is the wayless, and wide the gateless”.
Isis wide shut, 369 said: “You sound like the Bush administration
and their defense of fighting the war in Iraq. Victory, mission accomplished……wake up, Howard.”
Exlax, 373 quipped: “TRUTH. Get behind me Satan….
PS:What meds are you on, dear?”
Yesri Baba: 388, “Well, you use Jacobs of course. Duh.”
I seem to remember Jacob wrestling with an angel, but I don’t recall him winning. Or maybe Yesri was talking about the French Revolutionist “Jacobite” party.
I sincerely do not see a legitimate answer, but the responses did make me think of Shakespeare and his line from Hamlet – “Methinks the lady doth protest too much”. We all know Shakespeare to be one of the greatest playwrights ever, but few think of him as one of the greatest clinical psychologists, which I would also credit him with being.
When Hamlet implied to his mother that she was implicated in the murder of his father (which she was), she did something very human. She overreacted. That’s what we humans do when a cord/nerve is touched, bringing us too close to a truth we don’t want to, or can’t, deal with. O. J. Simpson said he was “Absolutely not guilty”.
Some people can see where I’m going with this. If it’s true that the gatekeepers of the F0F are angels, what does this imply? Does it imply that every action and reaction in the 38 year run of the FoF has been scripted, not by RB, but by HB, i.e., higher beings?
And what does that imply? Would it render meaningless the entire contents of the Elenas and the ‘I see’, said the blind men, and the Ritas, who think they can “restructure” the school, like some ailing corporation, and reform Robert, as if he is a rogue CEO? It would send a lot of bloggers here scrambling back to square one if they could seriously pose the following question to themselves:
Am I prepared for the possible reality that the FoF is everything it claims to be, and that I have been dead wrong about it?
Don’t misconstrue here; I’m not asking people what they “think” the FoF is or is not. I’m asking people to suspend their beliefs, and ask themselves – what if the FoF is what it says it is? What does that imply for me? There’s a huge difference there. Remember, all former students; if the FoF is indeed a fraud it means you were once dead wrong about it. You went looking for a school and you mistakenly settled for a cult/group. Now that we know you CAN be wrong, ask yourself this? What if I were right to begin with and wrong now?
Most people on this blog – the former students, the current ones who are members in name only but in their hearts have already departed; to all those I would say you are in a high stakes “spiritual” poker game with the FoF, whether you realize it or not. You are sitting across the table from this entity and betting against it; that is, betting it is not what it claims to be, a real school.
What is the first rule of Poker? The first rule is don’t play the game if you can’t afford to lose all you brought with you. Have people on this blog asked themselves these additional questions, related to the ones above? What do I have to lose if I leave, or gain if I stay? Or, what do I have to lose if I stay or gain if I leave?
First we would have to agree on what does the FoF claim to be? As I understand it, it claims to be an Esoteric School, whose first aim is to create consciousness in its members/participants; to escort/usher them onto “The Way” which, once securely on, will eventually lead to eternal life. It also claims that schools on earth are rare, coming around perhaps once a millennium.
Most of us know what Robert says about people who “lose” a school; let’s just say at best they relegate themselves to the end of a very, very long queue. The implications to me are that if you walk away from a school after having looked for and found it; that is not a good fate. If you attempt and succeed in taking others with you when you leave, that is the worst fate of all. If you are “asked to leave” that is a special category as I see it, and if one is not trying to bring down the school, but has simply fallen victim to a momentary involuntary action, then one has another chance later.
When I ask myself the question “What do you lose by staying? The answer is “nothing”. The school does not stop me from doing anything; I can live where I want, work where I want, marry who I want, etc. The only things I have “lost” in the school were things not good for me to begin with:
I used to have a violent temper before I met the school, which was subdued by school work. I would probably be dead or in prison if not for the school so I count my whole life after joining the school as a gift. I smoked two packs of cigarettes a day before the school, so I could be dead from lung cancer without the school. Could I have stopped on my own? Unlikely, as smoking was my religion; my love for smoking is the only thing I had in common with Stella Wirk. Do I care that Robert has sex with students he is attracted to and cares for, many of whom return the love? No, not if I’m getting what I came for. The school has also taught me tolerance towards the manifestations of others, especially my Teacher. Do I mind spending $400 – $500 a month for teaching payments? No, Influence C gives me the money anyway. If I were in life it would cost that much for my partner and I to buy season tickets to our favorite sports team, or to go hiking in Tibet, or to buy a boat or an RV. Staying in the school does not hurt me in the least, even if I were not fed spiritually. I’ve also asked myself, what do I have to lose by leaving? and my answer is “everything” if the school is what it says it is.
So, to use the poker analogy; that is a safe bet. I lose nothing by staying, and possibly gain everything. One can’t, however, just take up space in a school; there is work to do. The school does ask everyone in it to give up two things: one, their imaginary picture of themselves, and hence, of others/the world. And two, to give up their favorite negative emotion/ unnecessary suffering. And these prove a most difficult thing to give up.
I am quite convinced that all people who leave, do so because they could not or would not give up one or both of these things. Forget about the sex, money, lack of social services, etc. These are merely pretexts, lies perpetrated on one’s Self by one’s lower self. It’s easy to see why the lower self would delude one in such a way; it is easy to justify leaving a group/cult, or a school gone wrong, but how to justify leaving a perfectly healthy school and admitting “I simply did not want to make the necessary efforts”. Who could admit to that? Who would admit to that? And that’s where all the protestations about the FoF originate, with the attempt to hide this one fact.
I have also asked myself “what would I gain by leaving?” A brief freedom of a sort? Freedom from the non-expression of negativity, freedom from the school exercises, freedom from keeping up with the new teachings, freedom from 3rd line, freedom from 2nd and 1st line. These freedoms might last 30 or 40 years and then, in a flash, our lives come to an end. Then what?
April 9, 2007 at 3:39 pm
Vena # 7: That was so funny. I never got to know Miles very well, but what a sense of humour he must have had! Lets hope the students don’t revolt quite as much as the peasants did with Marie Antoinette!
FenceRider # 9 : Admirable approach, you sound like you are being as objective as you can be…unlike…
Howard Carter # 15 : You sound like you are being objective, weighing up what you lose or gain by staying or leaving, but beneath it I sense a tone of self-justification reminiscent of the ‘cognitive dissonance’ concept. Elliot Aronson has done some really interesting work on self-justification, showing that the more hardship people endure, the more they’ll be motivated to justify those hardships by focusing their attention on the most attractive aspects of that group and downplaying the least attractive aspects. You are right, we all joined the school thinking it was an esoteric conscious gift from higher forces, which is exactly why we ‘buffer’ (relieve the cognitive dissonance) the realization that it is not actually, and we have been fools, because this insight is at odds with our imaginary picture of ourselves. He found that people strive to alter their attitudes to conform to their actions, to quote: “Elliot predicted that if people go through a great deal of pain, discomfort, effort, or embarrassment to get something, they will be happier with that “something” than if it came to them easily. The cognition that I am a sensible, competent person is dissonant with the cognition that I went through a painful procedure to achieve something—say, joining a group that turned out to be boring and worthless. Therefore, I would distort my perceptions of the group in a positive direction, trying to find good things about them and ignoring the downside.”
However, as far as I know, RB has not said that Aronson is one of the 44 conscious beings, just a mere ‘Life’ person, so easy to disregard. I am not trying to negate all the good stuff I got from being in the FOF, of which there was plenty, and was probably what was needed at the time, but as the veils are lifted from your eyes, what you see can be shocking, and can rock the foundations of all your beliefs and understandings. Don’t be afraid, this is just another trick of the part of us that wants security, comfort, certainty, when there is none, and never was. When we get here we are approaching deeper understanding and true freedom, not from something, or to do something, but freedom which is seeing and knowing ourselves fully, including everything previously viewed as noble, ignoble, clever, stupid, pleasant, painful etc.
April 9, 2007 at 4:08 pm
Mr Carter – 15 says:
“I lose nothing by staying, and possibly gain everything. One can’t, however, just take up space in a school; there is work to do. The school does ask everyone in it to give up two things: one, their imaginary picture of themselves, and hence, of others/the world. And two, to give up their favorite negative emotion/ unnecessary suffering. And these prove a most difficult thing to give up. ”
Here, one would ask, “Is that true”?
Show me anyone in the FOF who has relinguished either imaginary picture or unnecessary suffering. Take one at a time:
Everyone (maybe except Robert) in the FOF has part of the imagtinary picture of themselves that they are missing something; that they can indeed achieve that something that is missing by being in the school. Many things can be achieved in the school and school experience can greatly alter (perceived) being – here, that is obvious. What one cannot achieve however, is anything that one already has – by definition. The formulation of ‘lacking conciousness’ is a wrongly formed concept and untrue. Machines may lack, but machines exist inside conciousness – in a sense are dreamt – and the mistake in ‘lacking’ formulation lies in the ‘who you are’. As long as there is a formulation that connects you to bodies/minds/emotions (as opposed to observer of same); you lack. Observer cannot so lack and you are that.
One will admit here that the concept just elucidated is one that skips most of us – we notice perhaps that all the great teachings point finally to this – not that or that – but this; and that ‘this’ once learned is the beginning and ending of esoteric teaching. The noticing is seldom internalized though, and we generally continue to seek change so that ‘someday’ we will have what we lack. If truth is once acknowledged and internalized, one is free from lack. Change continues function-wise; indeed, functions seem to align with observer as acknowledged and seen self thereafter – but this type of change is not something sought; seeking is long over with just one true insight into ‘SELF’
And without that insight, suffering must continue. The nature of suffering is lack. Lack is lie to true self. Observer cannot suffer; Self cannot suffer. Suffering can only be observed in those parts (that most believe self) observed.
Love, because naught else is; B
April 9, 2007 at 4:44 pm
Howard Carter says: ‘Am I prepared for the possible reality that the FoF is everything it claims to be, and that I have been dead wrong about it? […] I’m asking people to suspend their beliefs, and ask themselves – what if the FoF is what it says it is? […] Remember, all former students; if the FoF is indeed a fraud it means you were once dead wrong about it. You went looking for a school and you mistakenly settled for a cult/group. Now that we know you CAN be wrong, ask yourself this? What if I were right to begin with and wrong now?’
I would ask everyone to please read this paragraph above again and again and really try to follow the thought that Howard is suggesting. It is such a perfect illustration of Fellowship mindset. If you realize you have broken your brain with the reverse logic and all the what-ifs you are trying to sustain at the same time, and you are feeling confused, you can simply keep ‘turning’ from all the i’s, stay in the FOF forever and just be present now, because you can be sure the gods want that. Or you’d better start paying membership to be allowed to worship the flying spaghetti monster quickly, because what if it is real too? I mean, think of all the faiths out there you need to suspend your judgment about in order to truly understand that they are really real. So many claim they are the only true way! What a quandry. I sure don’t want to go to hell or be relegated to the end of a very long queue by not lending them my devotion.
April 9, 2007 at 5:16 pm
Howard Carter (#15), no matter how much you justify staying in the Fellowship you have given up your soul to do it. The side where your conscience resides. And in reading your blog it’s basically ‘all about you and your life’. I cannot feel any compassion for others in what you say. Do you truly believe that Robert only beds with men he cares for and is attracted to and who return that love? What about the ones who have been psychologically or physically damaged? Do you admit those exist? Is that their fault and their responsibility? I believe you think it is. Then you go on to say, no, you don’t care so long as you get what ‘you’ came for. It sounds to me from reading your blog that you’re fearful that if you leave the school all your bad habits will reappear and you need the structure of the school to stay on top of your game. Again, it’s all about you Howard. Isn’t it lonely in that place of yours where you don’t allow your feelings in?
Then you go on using so many work angles to justify your coldness and unfeeling parts of yourself. Is it just too painful to accept what truly is and always has been happening?
Clara is expressing all kinds of emotions about leaving. This is healthy. This is what it is like to leave for us who were sincere about joining and sincere about leaving. It’s not fun, not safe, but there is such a freedom when one does it. Because for the first time in years their conscience is making the decisions. Conscience and consciousness are synonymous to me. You can’t turn your back on this part of yourself or what happens to you is you become part of that unconscious, unfeeling machine that runs the Fellowship. And if you don’t face it when you leave you will just go look for another place to justify this damaged behavior in yourself. Howard, this is what they call denial. This IS the most painful part of the process of leaving. Each person that does experiences this painful process is healing themselves and forgiving themselves for their unconscienable behavior.
I wish you only the best Howard but you don’t sound like you are ready to face this painful process yet. You are basing your reasons for staying on all the comforts of home, all about you, all about your life and how you benefit. Your blog resounds with me, me, and more me.
The way I feel today is that we have a responsibility as humans to care for one another, no boundaries, in or out. We are the caretakers of this beautiful earth, and this includes everyone. It is our responsibility to help the poor, the less fortunate, the sick however we can. This is where conscience comes in. Howard you justify your reasons to stay in the Fellowship with convenient work angles. In my opinion it’s a sad place to be Howard because in the end you lose.
I am so glad to be out of this denial and selfishness. Try a little selflessness. It feels wonderful.
April 9, 2007 at 5:50 pm
Information has it that Abraham Goldman (the FOF pro bono lawyer) had a meeting of all council members, FOF board and all octave leaders at FOF, who were told ( among many other things) to be very careful who they spoke to and that these are ‘very dangerous times’ for the FOF.
Interesting! If there was nothing to hide, why would it be considered dangerous times??? I wonder what the ‘outside’ threat is? Or is inside threat? Maybe students are starting to open their eyes, ears and hearts and starting to question their ‘beliefs’.
Hmmm. I would say these are interesting times for most, and dangerous for a few.
April 9, 2007 at 5:51 pm
#12 fofanatomy: Brace yourself for an attack, but I support you.
April 9, 2007 at 5:59 pm
H. Carter #15 writes:
“These freedoms might last 30 or 40 years and then, in a flash, our lives come to an end. Then what?”
“Then what” is unknown. “Then what” is a mystery. No one has ever come back to tell us. Unshakable faith in all sorts of superstitious nonsense will get you through the night, it will even make the long day-light hours bearable, but it will not answer “then what.”
Your entire post seems to be about one thing: Fear. It will probably take you years to figure out all the ways in which that is true, but speaking from personal experience, it will eventually show itself for what it is. Or maybe not. After all, what do I know? As you said, I was once dead wrong about Bob and the fof, too. Or was I? Or am I?
Toodles…
April 9, 2007 at 6:45 pm
To Howard Carter #15–this post to me sums up the entire blog discussion. Thank you for taking the time to write so eloquent, but more important, the truth.
I thank you,
The Last Salt Shaker
April 9, 2007 at 6:49 pm
I’m sure there’ll be many responses to Howard’s well argued Post 15. Here’s mine…
Firstly he suggests that I and others who left did so because we didn’t make enough efforts. Actually I made as many efforts and sacrifices as most. The problem was that they didn’t produce much in the way of results, just some changes to personal habits, like Howard describes, and some temporary “higher states”.
My aim was to “awaken”. It didn’t happen to me or anyone else.
In fact, RB is unusually honest about this, from his odd perspective. The best inner circle students are told that they are in their eighth lifetimes, meaning they will wake up in their next lifetime!!!
Think about it, what can this mean? I, Rabbi Burns, come back as, eg, Goethe. I am aware that I exist somehow in Goethe’s body. It’s just too ridiculous!
Howard says the school is a safe bet. For what? Obviously not for awakening in this lifetime, and there for sure is no guarantee of there being another one.
In short, the FOF is a comfortable place for people who have given up on the possibility of awakening. The more honest students with whom I have discussed this have admitted it’s true. They remain in the FOF for their friends and the attendant lifestyle. And that’s OK.
Howard, if you open your eyes and really look at what’s going on clearly, without all the beliefs and conceptualising, you’ll see that the FOF is no longer a path to awakening, let alone the only real school for a thousand years. Then you can make an informed decision as to whether this is how you want to spend the rest of your life.
Personally I chose to continue on my spiritual way.
love, Rabbi
April 9, 2007 at 7:08 pm
Re Howard Carter # 6/15
To quote your post:
“Don’t misconstrue here; I’m not asking people what they “think” the FoF is or is not. I’m asking people to suspend their beliefs, and ask themselves – what if the FoF is what it says it is? What does that imply for me?”
This is where we came from. It is more than having an attitude on the positive side of neutral, it is adopting the attitude that the FOF is what it says it is.
This attitude is a prerequisite to having a positive experience in the school and most of us seem grateful for the experience and would not wish our lives to have been different. There is little recrimination or regret, it is more about what we are to do going forwards.
There are severe limitations to this kind of attitude for a devotee in an institution devoid of integrity that portrays it’s aims as noble. I think many of us were able to give up our will, at least to a certain extent, because of the seemingly objective nature of the 4th Way and the fact that we were not being asked to believe in anything suspect, but were challenged again and again to come back to the moment.
So many different and capable people were able to subscribe to the same form because they valued the opportunity to work on themselves and shared the secret of self-remembering. This allowed a commitment that is pretty rare and much of the suffering is that of essence hurt by betrayal.
Remember we apparently needed a school because we ‘Knew too much’ and ironically we now cannot support the school for the same reason.
You further write:
“I have also asked myself “what would I gain by leaving?” A brief freedom of a sort? Freedom from the non-expression of negativity, freedom from the school exercises, freedom from keeping up with the new teachings, freedom from 3rd line, freedom from 2nd and 1st line. These freedoms might last 30 or 40 years and then, in a flash, our lives come to an end. Then what?
It is hard to know if you are presenting the party line in a complicit way or whether it is through an inability to step back sufficiently and a corresponding lack of understanding of the issues.
One thing I know for sure, I do not want to remain in the school through fear and the fact that I am heavily invested in it. To continue your poker analogy, you would do well to have the will to walk away from a losing hand.
When we joined the school and were prepared to loose everything we did so on the strength of our convictions that the school was a sound bet.
Now that we see that it is a life’s occupation just to stay in the game, funding the pot that is won by the bank every time with no hope of walking away honorably, we come to question the rules and the purpose of the endeavor.
The system works as long as there are students who play the role of the fools who are parted from their money, lives and opportunities. In the light of the ever more noticeable corruption in the school many are questioning whether the Great Game they thought they were engaged in is in fact something altogether different.
This does not alter that fact that you might be able to gain enormous being through submitting to the school in spite of your insights and objections. You might equally be able to derive huge benefit from working for a Japanese corporation that you devote yourself to entirely, thereby eradicating self will. You might find the modest life of a hobo in the Golden Gate park conducive to your work, or might understand the difference between consciousness and functions more readily working as a mercenary in Iraq, prostitute in Miami, yoga student in Nevada City, or concentration camp guard in Nazi Germany.
If we are not defined by what we are part of, then it matters very little what we do. Once you see what you are doing you become accountable. What you belong to is something you constitute part of the body of and it is your actions that enable the working of the whole. If you really consider what you are doing in the Fellowship and are aware of the cost and consciously take responsibility on yourself to make it worthwhile for your work, then that is another story. Maybe this is how Girard is using the school.
The argument you make is vacuous and had no soul. It is the argument of a middle aged woman trying to convince her children to wear warm underwear because it won’t do you any harm and you might be glad of it if the weather turns nasty.
There must be better reasons to stay than those described.
April 9, 2007 at 7:14 pm
To Howard Carter, post 6/15
on gain and loss
Your post is a “mine”… Easy to judge, to react on with fire and what not!.
Too easy actually, almost suspect.
Are you really offering those questions ?
I will use your letter, as a base, to express a question I have for myself and which does not appear in your sequence of thoughts.
What to do with the understanding that my membership gives support to the greed, power and sexual misbehaviour originated by my Teacher himlself?
For years, perhaps since the start, I could put aside disturbing aspects about Robert and the FOF.
For years (1( to be precise), I was content with the purpose of getting for myself what I payed for and forget about the rest.
A deal… clinical, mathematical, objective and very “personal” relation (indeed) with “my” Teacher, Influence C and the School.
This last year I find myself challenged, as I already mentioned in earlier posts.
You may look at me as an “dissident”, an “opponent” perhaps even an “enemy” but I am actually looking for help…
The existence of this blog tels me “I am not alone”. The great gathering of voices includes persons like you: focused, undisturbed, ready for a longer ride in the FOF with no need to sit on a fence.
I am almost jealous!
How do you do that ?
PS: If you get back to me, I hope you will not use the “those are just I’s” angle because you can be sure I have been considering this option closely… Conscience… yes, perhaps my question could be resumed to this unique word: Conscience ?
April 9, 2007 at 7:15 pm
#15 Sounds like you’ve successfully convinced yourself. Congrats.
On the subject of the “love” that’s shared between RB and his boys… I’ve found, from long personal experience, the “boys” usually belong two one of two groups (or a combination of the two). You have the “idiots”, who, because of the cult dynamic of relative unapproachability to RB, and the “essence” act of being “like children” allow their vanity to cloud their judgment and discrimination and unknowingly walk into a situation where they are sexually exploited. Then you have the “whores” who knowingly walk into the situation because they like the gifts, the travel, the exclusivity of having access. Both of which, while the exploitation is occurring, start spouting the “angels” bull shit like a bad case of diarrhea for their own inner justification.
At the same time, it’s how it’s supposed to be, or it wouldn’t happen.
April 9, 2007 at 7:24 pm
Correction: To be precise, I am 15 years in the School.
Sorry for the mistake.
Let me take this opportunity to share a short poem
Yes a quote when I still have a brain!
Out
Of a great need
We are all holding hands
And climbing.
Not loving is a letting go.
Listen,
The terrain around here
Is
Far too
Dangerous
For
That.
Hafiz
April 9, 2007 at 8:31 pm
Howard Carter 6/15:
“…it is easy to justify leaving a group/cult, or a school gone wrong, but how to justify leaving a perfectly healthy school and admitting “I simply did not want to make the necessary efforts”. Who could admit to that? Who would admit to that? ”
Putting aside for the moment your highly questionable characterization of the Fellowship as a perfectly healthy school, I will freely admit that when I left, I had decided that I no longer wished to make the efforts, or the payments, to remain in a group that I viewed as corrupt, under a leader who had violated the trust I had placed in him.
There is no such thing as “necessary efforts,” as it turns out, but as you are a true believer, any attempts to dissuade you of the fallibility of your beliefs is bound to be futile. (However, if you are curious, you might Google “true believer” and see if the shoe fits.)
Your ego, which thinks it can awaken through efforts, is buying water from a magician, when the unpolluted, ungated river flows freely all around you.
Your ego fears death. It asks, “Then what?” The answer is, “Nothing.” Your ego will cease to exist. What is eternal in you, what has always been there, what emerges when efforts and seeking fall away, will continue beyond ego’s death.
The belief that higher forces work only with you and your precious school, and not with all of life, is faulty, but nothing I say will convince you of that. You can only arrive at such an understanding in your own way, in your own time, by your own light.
As any poker player will tell you, luck is a factor. Good luck.
April 9, 2007 at 8:45 pm
For fence ridder:
Look inside our selves, thanks for the tip…There is were change can occur and were the Aloha therapy points at. For my self I am still trying to see where the sexual issue and the abuse of power and the Narcism is in myself (Thanks Innernaut). Fighting…? Use the Marshall way? Wars? Have you seen anybody win ever in a war?
A new community is growing…ask your friends who left 6 months ago…leaving is a process and staying in too. All is good. Who thinks it is easy and we should or could or would…let them talk….Words are not “it” either. There is a organic process going in a new community that is not being done by anybody and yet it is happening, naturally.
The article on conscience touched me…we all have an inner voice that is there. Some friends can not hear it (yet) but it is there and when we are aware of it, our conscience can have it righteous place (again) and will support us in cruising through live.
All is as it is
Thanks Elena for your letter…
I am amazed how you can formulate and get back at HC. Heal my friend , heal, life and love to you.
Suing is not a fun process…you really have to have guts and be able to bear a lot of abuse…Who want to do that with his life for at least a few years….
Dear Exlax 101, the NY food and wine festival is to increase our funds and we love your email address, so we can send you info. Just come to Texas hill road on April 21…Do not worry, enjoy your friends and especially yourself.
Joy, love and fun to all of you. It is a beautiful day
April 9, 2007 at 8:46 pm
Howard Carter/15:
You present yourself as being absolutely sure in your verifications and beliefs that the FOF is a real school and that angels are working directly with members, Burton, etc.
You might ask yourself then, why are you such an active participant in the discussions of this Blog, which, obviously is a forum and tool for those expressing and searching for diverse points of view.
It would appear that you are either actually insecure in your verifications or that you are being intellectually combative in order to reinforce your sense of superiority and status as a good student. Then again, you are repeatedly interacting with former FOF students, which I thought was against Burton’s directives.
You wrote:
“Remember, all former students; if the FoF is indeed a fraud it means you were once dead wrong about it. You went looking for a school and you mistakenly settled for a cult/group. Now that we know you CAN be wrong, ask yourself this? What if I were right to begin with and wrong now?”
I have no regrets about joining the FOF and no regrets about moving on when the time was right for me. I don’t need to put a label on my experience: Cult, school, religious group, fraud. Each living being who has the ability, discerns for themselves what is right and wrong. It is part of the nature of duality. Like the magnetic poles of the earth, those understandings can switch back and forth. Can anyone, in reality ever know what is an absolute truth? Do you think your little mind will survive physical death and you will finally be able to say: “See, I was right and you were wrong”? Will Leonardo give you a high five in the after-life? Maybe so, but no one here will ever know, will they? To use your poker analogy: if everyone in the game but you folds, they don’t get to see your hand. Were you bluffing or did you have 4 Queens?
I choose to view this life I have now as all I will ever know. I can affect change in myself and be present only in this moment. Maybe I was wrong to not accept Jesus into my heart during the Pentacostal meeting I attended when I was 15. Maybe I’m screwed because I am do not pray to Allah or was not born Jewish.
You are starting to sound like the Jehovah’s Witness I mistakenly invited into my home and tried to engage in a discussion about their little pamphlet.
Have you really given up your imaginary picture of yourself, or have you only painted a new one over the years?
Maybe it’s time for you to go back to Egypt and discover another unopened tomb, Howard. Don’t forget about the curse.
Good luck.
April 9, 2007 at 9:01 pm
Dear Howard,
Perhaps we’re not playing with the same deck of cards: the faces on yours look different than mine. The Angels in my deck don’t guard the gates, they swing them wide open. The Trump cards are not created out of fear and greed and arrogance–as if I would ever want to emulate those qualities. In my game, it’s not about winning or losing, it’s about loving what Is. I’m sure some find help doing that in the FoF, others have found they need to move on. What you may lose by sticking to your guns and playing your game is the whole wide world. What I and others who have left lose are some fancy words/ideas that entrap, separate and sedate our knowledge of our true birthright: a wholehearted approach to being human, with 8 billion souls as my brothers and sisters. Do you see how your game devalues all the rest of us, while mine is merely other; moreover, that I am compelled to devalue yours only BECAUSE it devalues mine? Do you see how your game –this is The Way, We are The Chosen People– is at the base of all religious conflict, which, to this day, threatens to destroy humanity? You are right, that is a very high stakes game with a different set of cards–one that, I believe, needs to be discarded along with all the other outdated, limiting ideas of the past.
Humanity is on the verge of a global rise in consciousness. You’re either on the bus or off of the bus. So enjoy the ride….
…and don’t forget to
Dare to Dream
April 9, 2007 at 9:26 pm
It is interesting to note that if the purpose of 6/15 Howard Carter was to give weight to a certain point of view, he/she/they have actually done the opposite and undermined a position that other contributors would have left alone if he/she/they had not presented it as they did.
I suspect that many efforts of the establishment – not suggesting that you are necessarily any more than a private person HC – are likely to backfire. This is surely one of the great things about the WWW, it provides a level playing field and an enormous one at that.
Thanks for making this possible, Sheik.
April 9, 2007 at 10:00 pm
“First we would have to agree on what does the FoF claim to be? As I understand it, it claims to be an Esoteric School, whose first aim is to create consciousness in its members/participants.”
Dear friend, consciousness cannot be created. I am afraid the claim is simply false. Consciousness is ALL there is. Does it ever occurred to you how erroneous this whole claim is: to create consciousness. Who is going to create it and how? Just think for a minute. It’s like a claim to create life – no one can do it. Life already IS. Consciousness already IS.
You are conscious and aware all the time, even if your mind tells you otherwise. So is everyone – alive and conscious. Our very nature is consciousness. Yes, there is a lot of mind concepts and thoughts that are telling various confusing stories, including the “I am not conscious” thought, but it all happens already WITHIN undeniable consciousness, on a permanent background of consciousness. Kind of like changing images on an unchanging screen. Can you notice this?
We take ourselves to be these limited imagined persons, composed of thoughts and stories, and believe that we are separate from consciousness. But it is simply not so. Consciousness is always there, every moment, that’s who we really are and always been, there is no losing, gaining, improving or “creating” it.
We may be mistakingly mixing consciousness and functions, like memory, attention, intentionality etc. and imagining that we don’t “have” consciousness, because we didn’t remember this or didn’t notice that. But consciousness is and was there in the first place, and IN IT appear functions, memory, thoughts, ideas, movements, objects. Consciousness is never “off”, but functions can be “off” every now and then.
It is so simple, so right in our face, not hidden at all – and yet so easily obscured by the mind noise. We habitually look “out there” to figure out who we truly are, but instead how about looking within and suddenly finding ourselves.
Much love and support to all!
April 9, 2007 at 10:10 pm
To Bruce, 6/27,
Thanks for the response. BTW, did you ask yourself any of the questions contained in #15?
Howard.
April 9, 2007 at 10:16 pm
To Rabbi Burns 6/24,
What about “every hair is counted”? Oh ye of little faith!
April 9, 2007 at 10:40 pm
One part of argument “Howard Carter” is reformulation of Pascal’s Wager first told me about Catholicism by Jesuits in 1960s. Later rejected by magnetic center.
Reoccurred here a couple of times in different forms (FOF current thinking?) – but is non-substantive form thinking used by many religions.
Imagine that your formatory “thinking” is persuasive, but sadly just proves the point. Current proof for FOF is lower than magnetic center rejection. With respect.
For more on P’s Wager:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_Wager
April 9, 2007 at 10:44 pm
Howard (15):
You ask us to consider what if the FOF is what it claims to be, and what if it is true that those who find the school and leave it will suffer “not a good fate.” (RB is more explicit, stating that you will lose your chance to awaken forever.) You suggest that one has nothing to lose by staying in, but risks everything if they leave.
By the same logic one also risks everything by staying in the FOF and not joining some other cult which says that THEIR way is the only way. But why believe RB or any other cult leader when they speak such obvious nonsense? Why allow yourself to be ruled by fear? Why not use your native intelligence to see that all these emperors are buck naked, raving lunatics?
Your fear is based entirely on your blind belief in the pronouncements of one man, Robert Burton. This is a man who, according to numerous sources, tells people that if they have sex with him it will benefit their spiritual evolution. Now, maybe you regard his sex life as none of your business. But what does it say about the credibility or “level of being” of someone who would say and do something like that? And why, why, why would you believe for even one second anything about what he has to say about the fate of your soul should you decide to leave the FOF?
Will you please answer those questions for me?
Mark H. (mkhovila@yahoo.com)
Seattle, Washington
FOF member 1973-78
April 9, 2007 at 10:56 pm
Hey Howard, if someone walks up in front of the pews and pulls down their pants, squats and lays a steamy pile in front of everybody, there are likely to be a large number of similar responses. There is no need to get all Freud and Shakespeare to figure that one out.
You seem to be an intelligent guy. You should realize we are all pretty familiar with the party line and the smell evokes a lot of retching and puking. If you would turn your metaphor making mind to the examination of the pile behind you instead of spraying Glade your contributions to the blog might be better received.
April 9, 2007 at 11:09 pm
To Ruddery, 6/17,
“Everyone (maybe except Robert) in the FOF has part of the imaginary picture of themselves that they are missing something; that they can indeed achieve that something that is missing by being in the school.”
To me the school is a means to an end, not the end itself. I just happen to believe the school creates the atmosphere to deal with(expose)imaginary picture. It’s extremely difficult to do it in a school. I’m not claiming its impossible to do it outside, but my reasoning is that it would be even more difficult “for me” to do outside.
“The nature of suffering is lack. Lack is lie to true self.” – I agree.
“Observer cannot suffer;” – This is not my experience.
“Self cannot suffer.” – I agree wholeheartedly.
Howard
April 10, 2007 at 12:07 am
Sorry if it seems like piling on, but Howard’s post #15 has prompted some thoughts. Howard, you said:
“It would send a lot of bloggers here scrambling back to square one if they could seriously pose the following question to themselves: Am I prepared for the possible reality that the FoF is everything it claims to be, and that I have been dead wrong about it?”
I’m afraid you’re revealing your ignorance here — a lack of understanding of the process undergone by those who have left, or even those who have just wrestled with their doubts. Asking this question IS square one, or part of it. Did you really think one could undertake something as momentous as leaving the school without grappling with this question, for days, months or even years?
You also wrote:
“The school does ask everyone in it to give up two things: one, their imaginary picture of themselves … and two, to give up their favorite negative emotion/ unnecessary suffering … I am quite convinced that all people who leave, do so because they could not or would not give up one or both of these things.”
What if your imaginary picture is that of someone working to awaken in a real school? And what if your favorite unnecessary suffering is the inability to accept yourself as you are — to be always clawing your way to an imagined future where you will be somehow different and better?
Perhaps above all, what if your unnecessary suffering is the notion that you must forever be making “the necessary efforts”?
In this case, one leaves not because one is unable or unwilling to give these things up — but because these are the very things one wants to be free of.
April 10, 2007 at 12:29 am
Elena #11
Although I am not in complete agreement with all of the analogies you have made in past posts, I admire your candor, honesty and attempts to correct previous errors in judgement. I have a thought for you in regards to Mother Theresa and your own work with Dorothy.
Tibeten Buddhists talk about the path of “going beyond”. It refers to going beyond what are called the excellent virtues of which they list 10. One of those they refer to as gift or charity. What the doctrine states is that one must go beyond the idea of charity, the intellectual concept of charity, the acting out of the gift through a mental conflict of yes or no. It means we cannot give charity because we think it is the right thing to do, we must do it from a deeper place where the gift happens because it must and there is no thought about it. It must happen from within as an automatic response to the needs of those around us. As such it is a mechanical response to a call from a higher world. Isn’t everything on our level, according to the ray of creation, subject to mechanical laws, even consciousness and conscience? It is when we are able to put ourselves under a higher order of laws that we are able to do good without any sense of reward or accolades. Maybe this is what Nicoll was refering to when he talks about good being higher than truth. Maybe this is why Mother Theresa and others like her exist, to show us what it really means to do good. Ghandi called his path Karma Yoga and it seems to be a parallel path. You are finding truth for yourself and express it magnificently and I hope that you are turning that truth into good for yourself and others. It certainly appears that it happened for you with Dorothy.
Keep on and know you have much support through time and distance from other seekers.
April 10, 2007 at 1:19 am
By my calculator if you earn $18,000 per year or LESS, the minimum annual donations average $542.50/month regular, $429.58 single parent, $466.67 single over 55 with low income or disabled, or $392.50 full time student (hard to believe some of these fit you, but just in case). If you forgot to factor in the spring/fall/December, then the minimum monthly is $405/month Regular. Your $400-$500 is quite paltry if you’re old enough to remember Stella (even if you have a tramp feature). It’s also hard to believe if you’re imagining hikes in Tibet and buying boats and RV’s! Sounds like you’re paying the LEAST possible. Have you been crusing all these years? Why don’t you pay more, maybe $1000/month for the rest of the year and then $1200? It’s ok to use a credit card. Then you would see yourself anew, guaranteed! Payment in advance is a principle and you get what you pay for, isn’t that right? And you could help offset the lost income of maybe one-half-of-one-person who left recently and move a notch closer to the inner circle. Remember inner circle students carry the greatest responsibilities for the good of the whole School because they are the ones with enough being to make such extra efforts; this is your aim isn’t it? You’re here for the real inner work, not the superficial stuff, right? And of course it keeps getting harder, not easier, but you know that too, since you’ve been around a long time.
Better start paying FAST because your custom pile could be loads more than you think and your flashing end may not wait another 30 years. Ohhhhhhhh, to die a layed-back cheat, and cheating the HB’s no less! How will your angels greet you at those gates? Well, …you won’t be the first … Or, if you really are loyal and honest, why didn’t you ask your angels to give you more money so you could give more in service to this great School? That’s how it’s always worked; you have to have a willing attitude and then Work! It’s never too late to start over! What was that about “I simply did not want to make the necessary efforts. Who would admit to that? And that’s where all the protestations about the FoF originate, with the attempt to hide this one fact.”
Now Howard, why not respond with a big fat check to FOF instead of words on this blog… it would be good work against your lower self – BACK! If that’s too hard, how about a check for $10 per word in your next rebuttal? I think I feel the changes happening already. Your king of hearts really wants you to do it! Do it Howard, do it! Remember you said: “One can’t just take up space in a school; there is work to do.”
Be, hold, more (effort), back, more, be.
Be, hold, more (effort), back, more, be.
Be, hold, more (effort), back, more, be.
Be, hold, more (effort), back, more, be.
Be, hold, more (effort), back, more, be.
Be, hold, more (effort), back, more, be.
Now to answer your question: “I’m curious about your desire to “storm the Bastille”. What manner of weaponry does one use when the gate keepers are angels?”
The answer: Effort.
“Don’t protest too much.” Shakespeare
“No one is released for paying more.” RB
You are everything you fear, until you give it up.” HB’s
April 10, 2007 at 1:26 am
“The school does ask everyone in it to give up two things: one, their imaginary picture of themselves, and hence, of others/the world. And two, to give up their favorite negative emotion/ unnecessary suffering. And these prove a most difficult thing to give up. ”
——
Who is going to do these two things? Your steward-a group of I’s concerned with awakening?
What “work” is there to do?
This work would strengthen the steward, a false concept of the self, based on the illusory I’s you are told not to believe in Fourth Way thinking.
Moon Angle
April 10, 2007 at 1:29 am
Oops,
Meant to call myself Moon Angel, not Angle.
“Trust no I’s” even the “Steward”
Moon Angel
April 10, 2007 at 1:29 am
“I did get my money’s worth but besides my money’s worth I got a lot of pain from each deceit. It is with this pain that I will not let it be.”
Dearest Clara:
I must tell you, in all the years I’ve known you, you have never spoken more than a few words. In fact, at first I thought you didn’t speak english!
Now, on this blog, you have ‘spoken’ volumes.
If you did indeed get your money’s worth (not sure what you really mean by this) then it is obvious you have not learned to transform your sufferring but rather suppressed it and allowed it to fester. This is probably what Gurdjiev referred to as being ‘candidate for the looney bin’ because we become double chrystallized. Split-personality. One personality false the other “school personality”. What is true personality probably gets stuck in between.
I have seen this occur with the students I knew who had chosen suicide.
You are an intelligent woman and there is much in what you have expressed but where are we going with this? Do you end up creating a class action suit??
At least you don’t buffer your pain with some worn-out noble quote by some imagined conscious being…
April 10, 2007 at 1:32 am
Dare to Dream (32): Humanity is on the verge of a global rise in consciousness. You’re either on the bus or off of the bus. So enjoy the ride…
Yeah… It’s freaky, isn’t it?
April 10, 2007 at 1:51 am
#35 I’m beginning to believe you, like John, are also not real. And I don’t mean in a metaphorical way. In answer to your question to me. I, in no way, owe anyone else reasons or justifications for my decisions in life, so please… BITE ME.
April 10, 2007 at 2:21 am
Is everyone sitting down? Good. The Fellowship is a “school”. It is invisible and it always has been. It is not invisible until you see it or “verify” it. It is invisible to RB it is invisible to GH it is invisible to Howard Carter, Medusa, Yesri Baba and the blind man. the fof is the “outer circle” of the “school” which can be seen or more correctly sniffed and it reeks to high heaven.
No one enters the “inner circle”. One awakens one day from a long dark night into a wonderland of fairies and elves, of Cheshire cats and scary monsters. One awakens to a curse greater than the one went to bed with the night before. They always said be careful what you ask for you just might get it.
Howard Carter: William Blake said “If a fool would persist in his follies he would become wise”. If this is true you will become the smartest guy on the blog.
This is no joke HC. Some people who know me say i am kind of psychic. Since you have started posting i have “sensed” something about you. I see a revelation coming to you down the road. A kind of reverse St. Paul on the road to Damascus. I hope so.
April 10, 2007 at 2:42 am
Howard Carter (#6/15) point in advancing the Poker strategy to justify his staying in the FOF is obviously reminiscent of Pascal’s wager. Pascal was a brilliant mathematician and scientist who discovered, embraced and ardently defended Catholicism, relatively late in his life. An example of his arguments is as a follows (from wikipedia):
“Therefore, we are faced with the following possibilities:
You believe in God.
If God exists, you go to heaven: your gain is infinite.
If God does not exist, your loss (the investment in your mistaken belief) is finite and therefore negligible.
You do not believe in God.
If God exists, you go to hell: your loss is infinite.
If God does not exist, your gain is finite and therefore negligible.”
The fourth way, FOF-style, is an interesting mix of verification-based knowledge and faith-based information, lots of them brought forth by RB. In addition, it has been suggested that in order to verify certain “things”, one needs to adopt a positive, faithful attitude towards them (as opposed to a skeptical, “negative” one perhaps). Girard Haven has written quite a bit about this. Pure articles of faith (eternal life, life-times, paradise/hell, etc…) and predictions lend themselves to wagers, but do not need to. One can stay relatively pragmatic about them and just acknowledge that there will be many things one does not, and apparently cannot know.
(By the way, one criticism that was given to Howard Carter is that his attitude is too self-centered. Another is that he sees things through his smudged devotee glasses (as in RB/FOF devotee). Is HC too devoted to himself or to RB? I am confused too.)
How do members keep positive attitudes and an open/critical mind (“Isiswideopen”) at the same time, is key. This particular dilemma is one of the dominating threads of this blog? I am not sure one can find completely satisfying universal answers. I wrote before that I did not believe it was incumbent to a 4th-way school to provide a moral compass to its members. I did not mean to say that being in a 4th-way school exonerates members of all morality. It is true, and useful to acknowledge that we all accumulate a moral baggage that only makes our progress slow and plodding. It is also true that certain codes of conduct are given to members by RB (as tasks, individual or community exercises), presumably for the sake of members’ possible evolution, and that of the school as community. A lot that has to do with morality in the FOF is left non codified. Courtesy, human decency is not always spelled out, nor is it discouraged . This idea that RB pushes members to abandon biological children is anachronistic. It may have been true in limited instances in the past, but it is certainly not reflective of current approaches. It is up to each one of the members to live in an honorable way, whatever that may mean for them. The fact that members have to fare for their loved ones and themselves, without being able to rely on the city-state support, is undeniable. Expecting otherwise at this stage is, I think, naïve.
The fact that RB personal life does not meet everyone’s standard of honorable conduct makes it an additional challenge for many members. I am still not enlightened enough to know when the rubber of consciousness should meet the road of morality.
April 10, 2007 at 3:10 am
Rita: Relative to your thoughts on Cells I found this tantalizing little commentary while reading a review on a book:
‘The self assertive behavior of the group is based on the self-transcending behaviors of its members, which often entails sacrifice of personal interests and even of life in the interest of the group. To put is simply: the egotism of the group feeds on the altruism of its members…..the virtuous, self-denying, self-transcending, integrative urges are far more dangerous than the self-assertive ones….to do what’s best for your group is in fact what’s best for you; self surrender is self-preservation. If the body dies, so do all its cells’
If nothing else it made me look at my attitude to the FOF and my life as a participant while it lasted.
Alexis
April 10, 2007 at 4:01 am
Dear Howard and Friends,
The questions you are posing are the questions we are all trying to reflect on and there are as many individual answers as there are individuals but very few answers as a community.
As long as each one of us continues to look at what matters only to himself then any one of us can justify having been in the Fellowship for a lifetime and given up our connections with our family, our friends and society and humanity as a whole.
The tragedy that some of us are trying to confront and change is the one that lead us to make of our lives a very reduced community with subjective human values in which Robert as much as everybody else adapted to misusing each other. We could not and will not be able to “do” better as long as we continue to aim at self remembering and not at developing the full possibilities in the system that include an objective view of second line and external consideration.
We have given up an innumerable number of our rights and responsibilities:
In the first line by understanding the idea of separating from our blood ties literally and not psychologically, working on not identifying with our programming instead of severing our ties with our families investing most of our emotional, intellectual and instinctive resources in the Fellowship.
In the second line by having neglected to develop forms that would carry us from a vision to a reality, from a school to an objective community.
In the third line, by severing ourselves from the rest of the world, objective simple laws and values.
We have supported these things mostly by our ignorance and no matter how much good will we have put into it, identifying with pretty clothes or higher states while avoiding the practical issues of how we live our individual and social lives, will not only not take us closer to consciousness but bring us to a very decadent way of life. We are unfortunately, already there, wether innocent people sincerely trying to work on themselves are allowed to look at the facts or not.
The question is not “what next after we die” but “what next while we are here?” And take care of the first one when it arrives, for it is a fact that the Fellowship today consists of a majority of adult human beings who once hoped for a more conscious life to inherit their children. A very simple and human desire to which we all put great efforts. The fact that a young generation is being trained to go through the same mistakes that the old generation made is tragic, with the added weight that Robert is already old enough to not hold for long and leaving everyone bankrupt not only economically but emotionally and intellectually simply does not make sense. The young generation will simply become more bitter and enraged at our stupidity and we will become more bitter with ourselves.
There comes a time in which an older generation must show the younger generation what it lived for and if it means dying for it, then be not afraid to die because what you lived for will continue to live in the new generation. Indeed, it is not individuals what matter when what is human can survive.
It is no longer a question but a fact that the Fellowship must change. It can do it. We can do it. If we can amass just a third of the being that we developed in three times that much time, we can do it. Nothing will suffer and whatever suffers can be transformed. I sincerely believe that in the depths of Robert’s being he’ll be extremely grateful to see his vision become real even at the cost of a few more men.
April 10, 2007 at 4:58 am
For the fence-sitters:
When many students left the FOF twenty-four years ago (when Sam Sanders stirred the pot a bit), Miles pointed out that people were upset to the extent their vanity was disturbed by the realization that they had invested so much in something that had such a seamy underbelly.
In other words, you got snookered, accept it, and get on with your life.
I never idolized Miles any more than I idolized Robert, but I had a lot more respect for him.
I remember when I first saw a photo of Robert in the 70’s (in those days his identity and appearance were closely guarded), I couldn’t help but feel a bit … disappointed. But of course, I told myself appearances had nothing to do with it, and he did have a far-away look in his eyes (what another student used to call Robert’s “Sphinx look”), so I thought, well, who knows. Then I went to my first meeting at which Robert “taught.” The way the meeting was set up was very, very impressive to me, but Robert’s teaching? I’m sorry, but I didn’t come to the Fellowship from a cabbage patch, and he didn’t have a whole lot to say. Pabulum. But I told myself it was actually quite brilliant. When I first went to Renaissance, and he immediately started coming on to me, I thought “Kind of odd for a teacher, but what do I know?” When he showed me his personal notebook of teaching angles, I thought, “Wow, these are so… simple-minded. But what do I know?” (Not simple; simplistic. Unoriginal, inarticulate. Kinda … dumb.)
When I saw him push people into spending what little money they had to buy him shiney trinkets, I thought, “I didn’t think teachers would be so attached to baubles, but it’s probably not how it seems. It’s to help me not identify.” When a friend of mine got completely freaked out after Robert had propositioned him, I thought “Poor guy. He doesn’t understand. I guess he doesn’t have what it takes.” When he got around to propositioning me, I thought, “Whoa. But I won’t fail this test and lose the School.” When at dinner I listened to Robert say, “The Jews finally paid for the crucifixion of Christ through the Holocaust,” I thought, “Not so sure I agree, but, um, the lower cannot see the higher.”
I learned, little by little, that some things really are the way they seem. Robert is just what he seems: a very intriguing con man. The same as any con man? No, not the same. But very similar to quite a few others, some of whom actually have done it a little better. Check it out for yourself:
Robert has a certain talent, but in twenty years he’ll be nothing; no one will even bother to make a cheesy docudrama about him. He isn’t even that significant. My vanity wishes it weren’t so.
Does this mean that one can’t learn a great deal in the FOF? That it’s a waste of time, and the basic teachings are wrong? That all the wonderful things students feel about the FOF are baloney? Of course not, and don’t kid yourself that those of us who left just somehow missed what you see so clearly. I was there for years, and believe it or not, you aren’t the first to see all those wonderful things. Or the second. Sure, I know it’s speculation, but I’ll wager stronger, more perceptive students than you have seen it all, and more, before walking away. Miles was just one of those. I knew a lot of amazing people in the Fellowship. It’s not any condemnation of you for me to suggest that you might not yet have fully recognized something that others eventually did.
So, regarding all the hand-wringing on this blog, all the byzantine angles, and counter-angles, and counter-counter-angles, in an effort to justify staying, or to appear to be one sort of student, or to be another sort of student, invoking this principle of awakening, or that one: At a certain point, you really have to cut the crap. You have to, sooner or later, stop kidding yourself.
Don’t want to do that just now? Fine. Don’t. There, relax. Wait until you’re older, until you just can’t stand it any more, the hypocrisy, the holier-than-thou, the sad, ludicrous pretense of being a member of an elite. Until it’s your son, your friend–you– who has been treated so shabbily that you finally have the simple humility to accept that you’ve been conned. Until your parents have died while you were in a cult and had cut them out of your life as not useful to your evolution. It’s OK–Robert didn’t talk to his mommy on her death bed. (Mehere Baba didn’t talk for decades, yet somehow he managed to avoid being despised as a silly old chickenhawk.)
April 10, 2007 at 6:35 am
Dearest All,
Happy 6th Anniversary,
Dear Practical # 351, I’ve asked my self all of those same questions, I still have them debating in my head every single day…and sometimes at night too.
Thank you for trying to find THE solution with us, the “practically confused” ones!
Your suggestion of writing a “sincere letter “ to RB though, tells me a few things:
You’re either very young, or very naïve, or a very new member, or very inexperienced or all of the above .
Let me add then to your list of vanished illusions about our “School”, the fact that RB DOES NOT read our letters, not even those that include life changing, determining questions;
get it into your head , my dear, our voices, very much alike our gesticulations, are an annoyance to him .
It is Mr D. & Mr A who read, discard, decide, declare.
The only letters that are read to RB are the “happy-happy-thank-you-oh-the-sequence-changed-my-life-happy-thank-you-the-impossible-is-now-a-reality-oh-such-a-prolonged-presence-oh-how-great-and-perfect-everything-is-you-are-a-true-God-and-Mr.A-too-without-you-I-am-a-useless-but-happy-worm…” ones.
Hear the stories of those who wrote letters (with proper quotations included), you’ll understand even better.
I‘m not sure what is our best option when it comes to the level of a change of the external circumstances;
I don’t believe there is any “smooth” one at the moment.
This process has to take its course, and it has different timing, intensity, pace and final destination for everyone.
I’ve been only momentarily enchanted by the romantic idea of conquering “our” School back, but in reality such a School ceased to exist quite a while ago.
The post from FenceRider #9 is almost a blue-print of my own thoughts, but to tell you the truth, I’m beginning to feel my butt falling asleep on this damn fence!
I’m beginning to see that we are probably at the point where our aim has been internalized enough to become independent from the external form.
We are literally weaning ourselves from the structure of that form;
Brutally so.
“They” did that to us by stripping off the Emperor of his Armani conscious new clothes,
by flooding the whole Empire with contradictions and corruption, and by depleting the people of any sense of freedom, self-worth, human decency and mere consideration.
Yes, I still wonder, what is “out there”? will I endure it ? will I be able to do “it” on my own ?
Truth is that I personally don’t know, and I don’t like the challenge presented by the “not knowing” part , at all .
And it scares me still, especially after seeing so many on this blog who stick around for decades , not only for the legitimate need of intelligent conversations with like minded people, but some simply because they still hold the grudge with RB, FoF and related.
I don’t know any good “after FoF successfully moving on and still working on themselves without major set backs and eternal accounts” kind of stories that I could relate to and get relief from,
but …it actually doesn’t matter anymore.
Yes, Honesty is needed now, and so is Courage.
SAM.1,
This is the moment to actually USE the venues that we already have and instead of all looking as hypnotized as everyone else, why don’t we try to be more open to unexplored communication and maybe spread some good sense too ?
It will be rejected by the majority, but perhaps it will help a few.
Dear Practical ,
I have shared my every day successes along with my many failures with so many friends,
I’m not going to leave quietly,
I’ll make a bit of noise,
I’ll share my struggle until it keeps on hurting,
because it’s valuable to me, because my tears are genuine and when it will stop hurting,
I’ll go .
Quietly.
Perhaps the options are not that important now, they are in the future and frankly I barely know what to do with “today”.
I’ll attempt to intermingle as much as I can with the inmates and mess up a bit with the diplomacy that has kept us repressed for so long.
We don’t need to speak with those who agree with us any longer , rather plant the seed in the others.
Is there any power left in giving photographs?
It used to shed light and increase awareness on blind spots, whether the source was righteous or not, or the time was accurate.
I urge you to do the same thing.
Talk to all of your friends as openly as you do on this blog, but without masks of conformed acceptable conduct and speak about all of the truly important topics;
Taboos included.
Not only to those who share your “from the Fence” point of view, but specifically to those who don’t even acknowledge the possible existence of another side.
Your list of friends is going to be drastically reduced anyway, so in fact you don’t have anything to loose at this point.
Indeed, I would love to “storm the Bastille” if I could, but I’d make sure to leave all of the pigs dressed in Angels clothes behind.
And poor El Zorro…
Elena was very generous in offering you the possibility to broaden your narrow little mind by giving you such a detailed explanation of the reality existing outside of your tiny bubble of ignorance, but, as you probably know already, I’m not as kind as her .
So all I can do is to wish you to find yourself, one day, after have spent # of years in emotional investment in the F of Phonies, alone, in the same hopeless position as hers and surrounded by only a whole bunch of Zorros and a few Howard Carters to take care of you.
Let’s see how you understand it then.
Have a great day. Sweet Medusa
P.S. To Mole #349, don’t worry,as you can see my snakes are only shedding skin …
April 10, 2007 at 6:55 am
Dear Exlax,(46)
Were I dear to you, you would not be writing to me and would be concentrating on the issues but I am not fooled by your attempt to deviate us from the issues by writing to undermine me.
You’ll have to find another candidate for suicide. I already tread that path and survived.
The crystallized, split-personality is all over your note pretending to be kind. Watch that it is not you who ends up in the looney bin.
As for where we are going with this, I don’t know where you want to go but as Robert signalled to a lady wanting to stop the elevator, “We’re going up!”
April 10, 2007 at 7:09 am
To Dare to Dream (32).
What a beautiful expression.
That sense of elitism is so dangerous, alluring, frightening.
I teach a variety of different types of people and feel that it has been a gift to open myself to them with an openness and curiousity.
Especially when they are not conventionally educated or particularly and typically “sophisticated”, they are fascinating because they offer such unusual perspectives. Everyone is rich and interesting.
When I was in the school, there was an distinct encouragement to clearly perceive that something was very wrong with anyone outside of the school. They weren’t “lucky”, chosen, etc. That, indeed, we were on the bus to somewhere and they weren’t. What an old-fashioned, Catholic notion!
It made me feel physically agonized to actually attempt to believe that.
Every atom in my body knows that no one is better than another.
My misguided wish to believe that I, I, I, I, I had a head start on 8 billion people toward some vague heavenish thingy was powerful enough for me to put on a skirt and relieve myself of all sense of humor and critical thinking skills.
Now I clearly realize that any justifications that simply overlooked the utter fact that the Fellowship of Friends is a very typical cult, are hilarious. The guilt. The truth twisting. The elitism. The wine which makes one so sleepy! The fact that one man claims to be above all. The clear evidence that he is as flawed as any.
O my. It is all so obvious. How can any be oblivious?
I wish to be gentle in my comments, but I feel true rage at the audacity.
Peace
April 10, 2007 at 7:14 am
Exlax 101: dont know what happened to the first posting, the devil must have got into it…..
First:
Not everyone is a eloquent and a silvery tongued snake** such as you are Joe, some people are better at expressing themselves through the anonymity of the written word instead of a face to face encounter. Many good writers are lost for words when in conversation with others. Beside, you probably know nothing of Claras’ personal history, her inhibitions or cause of them, if any
Secondly, you seem scathing of anyone using quotes of ‘conscious beings’. If you reread your books and some of your posts carefully, you will find that you have the same habit, we all cling to people who we think have greater being or insights than we have, they may not necessarily be used as buffers for our pain but as road markings to help us see where we are, that others have been there and that we are not alone in this.
Thirdly, you cannot know what Gurdjieff really meant by the saying ‘candidate for the madhouse’ (one of your own statements used this in quotes – are you buffering your own suffering?) because you weren’t there when he said it and you have no way of knowing what his intention was.
Joe, a man like you, what are you trying to do? Whip Clara into agreeing with you? Where is the ’I am sorry – I love you?’ Such beauty, compassion and hope in those words, some possibility of healing, some small hope that perhaps, just maybe we can change things. You are doing yourself an injustice. I have read some of your blogs, you too suffered pain, nobody asked you if you had transformed it or if not why not.
Alexis (Rooster***)
**snake (as in Chinese Zodiac
*** Maximum attraction to Snake – Ideal couple
April 10, 2007 at 7:29 am
Re: ‘ I see’ said the blind man, #33
I’m not really disappointed with the responses to #15; quite the contrary actually. Validation comes in many forms.
I don’t remember so many decidedly pointed responses to one posting since “A friend”, 5/97 and 5/184. And those were two of the most reasonable and truthful, in my opinion, on the entire blog. So, my fellow bloggers have unwittingly placed me in the company of the contributor whose company I would most want to be associated with.
Ultimately the responses serve as a confirmation of the Shakespeare/ Hamlet quote, delivered more swiftly than I would have imagined.
April 10, 2007 at 7:39 am
Dear All,
Tonight was a night of coincidences that make it hard believe angels are not here, wafting breezes of conscious recognition into my life….Allow me to share a personal story:
I spent the evening with my “soul sister” (we decided to call each other that tonight) and her mother. Sophie is 17 and unbelievably beautiful, life is bubbling up in her with so many possibilities. She’s a painter and an epicure and a warm, loving young woman who I took care of from just four months till when she was four years old in Los Angeles. Her mother is an older mom who is married to a screenwriter in LA whose career is failing, despite a few early hits. In the course of our dinner, Karin, the Swedish mom, told me about a man who had Alzheimer’s who lived in their Santa Monica neighborhood. This was a man who had survived the holocaust, who through an extraordinary capacity to understand human psychology and to “seize the moment” (as Karin told me she had deduced), he had managed to escape the clutches of that fascist nightmare, more than once….only, alas, to find his own family dismissive of him in his later years. Apparently, he had had an affair which made his family judge, reject, and ultimately refuse to care for him (the irony of this story was coming on strong by this time). But in his final years, an ad-hoc community had rallied around him and took him in, cared for him, unearthed his stories, built bridges from this terrible disease into his tender, heroic heart, which still had so much to give. Karin talked about what a gift it was to know and care for this man, and though he had died last year, how much he had given to the community and to her own daughter. In fact, Karin said, she was gearing up to volunteer as an Ombudsman for seniors (after Sophie went away to college), to take some of what she learned and develop it into what she hoped could become a new way of helping people as they age—she wanted to give older folks the chance to experience “the joy of growing older” she said. Her own father had had Alzheimer’s and in the course of his demise, she discovered that though he could not speak, he understood things on an emotional level. When she told him what a good father he had been, for example, he became a little shy and humble, taking in the compliment. She knew there was someone behind the disease who could still be loved. Someone who loved her. All this was so poignant and powerful to hear…. Oh and earlier, an artist I met at the Met— whose paintings are in the Smithsonian—talked about how producing art was a conscious engagement with limitless creation, requiring us to go beyond the mental contraptions of who we thought we were, or what anyone else told us we should be ….It was such a wonderful night I wanted to share it with you all, my sweet cyberfriends. To let you know that I carry you with me, these hard lessons and words and decisions, I carry them with me and the gods seemed tonight, to have given me some surprising alternatives, mirroring magically some of what we’re learning here. The topper was: the coat check lady gave me a 10 of hearts card to claim our coats. By then I had to laugh out loud. And so I pass along this little tale, to share the light and the laughter and though I want to assure you, I’m probably just a queen of spades or clubs—but the card was for all of us here. And for all those people around the world who want to do good and who are doing it, with heart and mind and soul, for the benefit of all.
with love,
J.
April 10, 2007 at 8:25 am
to whom it may concern,
you are not alone
the universe is all around
it gives off life and light
and recieves life and light
your view is unique
the love, the light , the passion
they are the same
we love you
we understand
be open to us
we will surround you
pigs with wings
April 10, 2007 at 9:11 am
Just watched the true story of “JONESTOWN” on tv tonight.
Similar
Comparable
Parallel
Resemblance
Brainwash
Cult
Saddless
Rape
Enraged
April 10, 2007 at 9:52 am
to Howard Carter 6\15:
I will use your Pocker analogy on the next prospective students meeting. In the end I will say: “You will spend all your money anyway, why not to give 20% of them to FOF and maybe next lifetime if you’ll be lucky – you’ll awake.”
You mistakenly believe that FOF is “Esoteric School, whose first aim is to create consciousness in its members”. It’s not true because there is no ‘fruits’. Miles and GH are ‘fruits’ due to ‘policy’ only. Miles was ‘wrong policy’, GH is ‘right policy’.
And about “Then what?” – this is King of Clubs’ question. Use work ‘i’s BACK and NOW. And did you forget RB’s suggestion “No gamble”?
April 10, 2007 at 10:14 am
Shortly after sending in my post under the penname of the last salt shaker, i was dining in a restaurant with a fellow student, and on the table, the salt shaker had written on it: “The Last Salt Shaker.”
Later today I have been truly amazed at the sheer number of negative reactions to Howard Carter’s insightful posts. It may well be that after the thousands of posts on the Blog, he of all current members, managed to shine some light on the Farao’s treasures, all but ignored by so many many others…
When I read Howard Carter’s posts they seem filled with emotion, as did Mr. Ouspensky’s writings–why approach this from the lowest possible denominator, the sarcasm, the wit, the disbelief, the easy and glib accusations? Why not add his name to the list of No Person, Kiran, etc. to teach a meeting or two to the new “group to be formed”–of course I doubt there will be real interest in this by HC–he has found what he was looking for–why begrudge this, why the ridicule?
In the final analysis, it seems that most of the voices on this blog are perhaps a little too happy to be discontent. Misery loves company, so I guess there is a space for this blog only for those who approach matters from the negative parts? is that not a shame? I think so. It would be probably too much to ask the ourselfs, bloggers, to reconsider or be truly open to consider that someone may really be a student in the best and full sense of the word? Is that not what we came here for?
I will leave it to Howard himself to continue to painstakingly turn over every rock as long as his mission allows here on this blog. Remember every expedition comes to an end.
Friends, in and out, be grateful for someone who has taken the time to tirelessly, honestly and meaningfully respond to each of the issues raised.
I have some shaking to do myself, so bid you all an affectionate farewell…
The Last Salt Shaker…
April 10, 2007 at 12:53 pm
“Humanity is on the verge of a global rise in consciousness” #32 and Sheik.
Humanity, that’s all of us. The mind and heart coupled . Rising above like the Eagle and Condor.
The rapture?
April 10, 2007 at 2:22 pm
FenceRider (#9) thinks “…it’s ok to go to a meeting and while trying to BE, observe…”. FenceRider, not everybody can or should be an agent for change but nothing will change if you go to meetings and continue to fund and endorse the monster of the status quo.
Howard Caretr of post #15 seems to have complete faith in the medieval reasoning of the most outlandish claims of RB’s doctrines and repeats the primitive salvation dogma
“…eventually lead to eternal life.” He is convinced that his bet is absolutely the right one, and does not doubt the truth and the objectivity of it all; no sign of cognitive dissonance here. The school is the greatest thing in a thousand years and those who leave are as good as doomed ( relegated to the end of the queue).
The Howard Carter of post #40 is meek; no inner-circle aura and angelic gate keepers at your service anymore?: “I just happen to believe the school creates the atmosphere to deal with (expose) imaginary picture”, and “I’m not claiming it’s impossible to do it outside”? So ex-students do not automatically lose their souls? And “it would be difficult ‘for me’ to do outside”? So now it’s not the only objective, exclusive way to salvation?
Are you confused, schizophrenic or even you got a sudden jolt of our much talked about ‘cognitive dissonance’?
April 10, 2007 at 3:27 pm
Is it really so hard to believe that the Fellowship of Friends is not the real deal?
There are so many people who will willingly join spiritual groups, believing that there is a shortcut to the divine, that only they will be saved.
There are also many (and the numbers are going up) who simply got there. If you believe that the Fellowship of Friends (or any other group, including any and all religions) is the only source of real awakening, then you are cutting yourself of from a very tangible and real supply of enlightenment here on Earth, one that so many others are tapping into.
You see, no one really cares whether you take advantage of what is on offer, but don’t lie to yourself that what you are getting now is all that is available.
See you around the corner.
April 10, 2007 at 3:30 pm
Howard responds to my words with his agreements or opposites – three following I’s:
“The nature of suffering is lack. Lack is lie to true self.” – I agree.
“Observer cannot suffer;” – This is not my experience.
“Self cannot suffer.” – I agree wholeheartedly.
OK, agreement or not cannot change truth of any of anything and I have little wish to oppose your thoughts. There is a questioning here though: how can you not agree with my second statement “Observer cannot suffer”; yet agree with statement “Self cannot suffer”.
Is this well thought out? Are you saying that you disagree that Observer is self? That consciousness is Self? If that be true, one would say here that you also disagree with basic 4th way premise and indeed premise behind all the ways. One would also say here that if indeed, your experience is that Observer CAN suffer – then you are experiencing deputy steward or steward’s frustration at not achieving aims of ‘producing’ consciousness or emotional center’s (mis)understandings or other function’s suffering. Functions can indeed suffer – or at least seem to…
One would further say here that producing consciousness is impossibility; consciousness cannot be produced, though functions can register I’s about Self’s connectiveness to those self-same functions in a given moment. Look, all (most?) FOFers and ex-FOFers have had similar experiences connected to function’s efforts to BE based on ‘divided attention’, ‘sequence’, etc. And one will admit here, it CAN SEEM like function’s efforts produce affect – where affect is conciousness. CAN SEEM.
Yet also, one can recognise/verify self’s nature as presence/conciousness/unboundedness/God/whatever-word-represents-that-which-is-and-cannot-change. And in that recognition, all else is quite suddenly recognised differently than before. Functions cannot produce conciousness, THAT is always present. Functions can and do (tend to) work more reliably/consistently within Self’s recognition of Self
Each of us is ‘experiencing a dream’ within self; indeed producing that dream. That statement is lie because there is no ‘each of us’ there is only I or YOU or God or Self. And that statement is lie because all statements lie in that truth cannot be expressed. Words lie, but can point to Truths. And this post is already much to long for its own good, so
April 10, 2007 at 5:45 pm
Howard Carter (#58) wrote:
“Ultimately the responses serve as a confirmation of the Shakespeare/ Hamlet quote, delivered more swiftly than I would have imagined.”
This is no way to determine whether your statements are correct or not. Yes, a rapid, heated response can be a sign that you have hit a nerve of truth. But there can be more to it than that.
When I’ve been in arguments with my wife, I have used her angry response to something I said as “proof” that I’d hit the truth. It’s kind of a cheap shot, hitting below the belt as it were. Because by the logic of your “Hamlet” analogy, the very fact that anyone disagrees proves the correctness of your own point. I hope you can see the obvious fallacy in this kind of thinking.
There’s also at least two other possibilities that I don’t think you’ve considered. One is that most people who responded thought and believed as you did once. It took a lot of work to reach the new understandings articulated in their posts adddressing your #15. Your post was like a pitch thrown straight down the center, and it begged to be hit out of the park for those who have “been there, done that,” and then moved on. It was a chance to articulate and clarify once more the process of disentangling ourselves from the stranglehold of an oppressive belief system.
The other possibility is this: Not every “protestation” shows that a nerve of truth has been struck. Quite the contrary. Ouspensky wrote somthing like “irritation is the machine’s response to another’s mechanical behavior.”
I personally think most of the responses have come from irritation rather than from striking a nerve. This would also explain the observations of The Last Salt Shaker (#63) — though I found most of the responses to Howard’s post to be civil, with the sarcastic ones in the minority.
My 2 grains of salt.
April 10, 2007 at 6:23 pm
Hey Howard Carter #5/364, the ‘angel gate-keeper thing’ – that was very good. Too good.
I began to suspect that you were ‘unreal’, but this… the sophistication and blunt-subtlety(?) of it –it blew me away.
You created a character that epitomises a FoF true believer from around 10 years back. The anachronism should have been clue enough.
You designed ‘Howard Carter’ to convince ex-students that they had made the right decision in leaving, and to scare away any potential candidates.
Brilliant.
I knew nobody could be so…so… Sooo Howard Carter!
You are my hero.
Will you be my teacher?
You are so clever that you can ignore – or dismiss – my comment and continue to post – in character – and it will remain as effective.
You devious old thing.
You devil. You angel.
Angels…as gatekeepers…for the FoF.
LOL
Very LOUD
🙂
Heresay
p.s. Bloody brilliant!
April 10, 2007 at 7:10 pm
Hey Howard,
I’d be interested to know if you yourself actually believe you are on a path to awakening of some kind, and if so how it works for you. If you could answer from your own experience rather than by quoting FOF or 4th Way sources it would be more helpful.
hopefully, The Other RB
April 10, 2007 at 7:21 pm
A part of our association with the Fellowship that has received less attention is the beginning – joining the school. Many of us look back to this as our best days, when we were learning the most and were happiest. This happiness was often due to seeing ourselves more honestly, being more in essence, experiencing higher states together and feeling that we had found a home. These times were for many of us the most powerful experiences in our lives and questioning the school beyond a certain point or leaving it would throw into question something that is holy to us.
I don’t mean to make this look like a thorough study, there are omissions and things could be expressed better, but I hope it is useful as an attempt to externalize our romance with the school so we can understand it better.
There is a certain mythology connected with school and there are teacher’s tools that are means of deceiving us for our own benefit. This is a list of some of the things that we buy into immediately, some even from the first prospective meeting.
• Within mechanical life there is a necessary tiny counter movement that goes against the mass of life and its existence justifies and gives meaning to the existence of everything else.
• Outside of the school the law of accident prevails, within it fate and conscious influence.
• The school is incredibly rare. The suggestion is that it is the only school in the universe.
• Finding the school is incredibly rare and we are immensely fortunate.
• Magnetic center’s purpose is to find C influence after which it must die to allow the proper connection with C influence.
• A correctly formed magnetic center will recognize a real C influence school.
• The value of our past and family is only that it has prepared us for meeting the school.
• Once you join the school your connection with influence C is through the school.
• We are not better than anybody, just luckier than everybody.
• We must fit our lives into the school not the school into our lives.
• The ‘plays’ of our lives as students are organized directly by C influence.
• For us influence C is the direct intervention in our lives of the 44 conscious beings whose job it is to work with our school.
• All those who are not included in influence C’s program for evolution are doomed to go to the moon.
• If you loose the school you are put right at the end of the line for salvation.
• The instinctive center will try to take you out of the school.
• The school is run intelligently in line with higher principles according to the aims of C influence.
• The school is on a par with Christ’s school and RB’s role is second only to Christ’s.
• Ascending souls have 9 lives and in the school we are mainly on our 7th and 8th lifetimes. In other words, we are already very advanced souls many of whom can expect our next life to be a conscious role.
• There will be 7 conscious beings created within our school over an undefined time.
• The purpose of student’s lives is to create a permanent tendency to evolve. This does not include any prospect of leaving the school.
• When we die we go into a neutral state called limbo from which C influence take us and place us in a new ascending soul role.
• When we get to the celestial city of paradise RB will be the second one to greet us after our guardian angel.
• RB is a man number 7. This means he has become permanent on a pretty large scale
• RB and his students constitute a tiny evolutionary minority on Earth.
• RB is on personal terms with C influence. They appear to him and communicate with him directly and also indirectly through omens which he interprets.
• RB knows the will of C influence.
• RB does the will of C influence.
• RB is one of them and one of us.
• We are somehow engaged on the great work of influence C, building an Ark, surviving Armageddon, being the seed of a new civilization, keying all the work of previous schools, etc.
• What RB asks of us should be taken as a demand from influence C.
• We must unreservedly give up our will to the teacher and to influence C.
The process of accepting these new truths, and of course the truths of the 4th way system, on which most school work was based until more recently, is a destructive process. There is huge power in lies as well as truths when they have a timely utility. They break down aspects of your psychology that were holding you back, they allow powerful insights and you feel you are moving very quickly and changing profoundly. It is invigorating and if you are in a phase of being receptive, disillusioned, idealistic, in a period of transition, having studied esoteric things, in need help, lonely, suffering from some mental problems, suffering from trauma, etc. you are vulnerable to the spell.
Is this bad? No, not in itself. It is a valid life experience and should be enriching. However, do these truths and lies that break you down build you up in the long run? By developing a true personality, you are in fact building something up but its primary purpose is to allow you to submit to being broken down more and more until you hope to come to the final indivisible experience of the present that is your self. Not following the process through to the bitter end is termed partial awakening and is seen as a failure.
Can this process of destruction actually get you to consciousness? I certainly do not presume to have the answer, but I know that I cannot be transformed by exclusively using the tool of separating from nonsense and the ‘I’s that see that things are wrong. The destructive process is not enough on its own; I also need to be inspired and find peace in the beauty of life.
Separating from negative ‘I’s is not enough to transcend your self. Submission to the will of the teacher might work, but then it is because of our submission, not of his will and this seems more like the way of a man 2 1/2 – ie a stupid monk with a strong instinctive element.
Anyway, I have this question. Did we join the school because it is a real school?
What vanity to think that we could recognize a real school. And to think that this vanity was encouraged to lock us in by older students and that we have done the same in our turn. Looking back it seems so criminal. Like any pyramid system (I mean this in the sense of a deceptive commercial system in which a few benefit at the expense of the many by promising what is unrealistic) the school needs to have a steady influx of new blood in order to allow internal movement. This is one of the contributing factors to the school’s current crisis, not enough new students and old students with nothing useful to do.
Did we join the school because of the school or because of us? I think undoubtedly because of us. Because of what we needed, because of what we imagined, wanted and were able to recognize. If you had found a different group or teacher at that time, could you have joined them instead? For me the answer is yes. I had previously avoided groups as I was suspicious and felt that it was a big thing to become part of something like that, not to be taken lightly. Then I felt I needed to be part of something as I discovered the limitations of trying to work on my own. A good analogy is falling in love. The biggest factor in falling in love is timing – you have to be ready for it rather than the person you fall in love with has to be the ‘one’. Being ready for it covers all sorts of things, from being on the rebound, spring being in the air, reading love sonnets to needing someone to support your features. I believe that the same is true of the mechanics of finding the school, we could have joined something else equally well.
If we accept that ‘we joined the Fellowship because we recognized a ‘C’ influence school’ as an interpretation of what happened in the same way that we might justify how we met the partner we were married to for 30 years, it is really not a description of what happened at all.
The interpretation is part of the ‘Grand Deception’ of the school. To explain briefly, in Plato’s Republic he states that his Utopia is based on the idea of inequality. That there are men of gold, copper, iron and lead. The guardians rule and the family of your birth dictates your ‘alchemy’ and place you inhabit in society. This, Plato states, is an intentional lie. It is, however, necessary in order to create the conditions for a just society, which is his aim. In the first generation the guardians will be privy to the deceit, but after that even they will believe the ‘Grand Deception’ or ‘Great Lie’. As an aside it is interesting to note that the constitution of United States is based on the opposite deception, that all men are equal and that this lie has facilitated the development of this country in a way impossible without it.
Maybe we are just little beings who joined for our own little reasons and not inheritors of the conscious fate of humanity who by our existence justify the vast, wasteful ray of creation. Maybe the ‘lie’ was necessary to allow the Fellowship to grow and function – no blame. Maybe we now know more than we did then and have grown beyond the confines of the ‘lie’. Maybe this is part of evolution, transformation and profound change.
April 10, 2007 at 7:57 pm
I went on a video tour “Google Video”, “You Tube” and searched for “Cult”.
Power/control, sex, drugs (including alchool) all over the places.
Followers, ex-followers (included dead ones) all over the places.
All under the mane of God!
And you know what ? Among horrors, so many valuable massages are delivered! This is where it gets confusing, challenging and dangerous!
In search for sanity…
April 10, 2007 at 8:54 pm
Re: #40 – Howard Carter Says:
“Observer cannot suffer;” – This is not my experience.
“Self cannot suffer.” – I agree wholeheartedly.
Howard, what do you see to be the difference between the Self and the Observer?
Robert Burton says, “You are not the I’s, you are what observes the I’s”. Is what observes different from the Self? If we changed the word from observer to awareness does it make more sense (that is, “Awareness cannot suffer”)?
If you follow that, you’re starting to dip your toes into the waters of non-duality. Not so different, really, in some respects.
There was a post from someone a ways back that included a comment from John Wheeler saying that Fellowship students were well prepared. Robert prepared us well with angles such as the one above, and others such as the one from St. Francis “What you are looking for is what is looking”.
I have a lot to be thankful for, but I wish my teacher would have done more than just wade in the tidal pools of duality with us.
I’m going for a swim.
April 10, 2007 at 11:13 pm
A PS to Howard’s #15. You asked us to consider:
“Am I prepared for the possible reality that the FoF is everything it claims to be, and that I have been dead wrong about it?”
When I left, it had nothing to do with whether I thought the school was “real” or not. In fact, at that time, I still believed that it was what it claimed to be. I left because I had determined that the school was not right FOR ME. I knew something about Robert’s behavior, but like you, I thought that it didn’t have anything to do with my reasons for being there.
At the risk of protesting too much, I’ll repeat: my leaving was based solely on my understanding that the FOF was not the right way for me. It was only much, much later — more than 10 years later — that I came to see that the FOF was not what it claimed to be. To be more specific, I began to learn how my mind and emotions were still being held captive by the cult-like thought-control techniques of the FOF, and how that was causing a great deal of anguish and turmoil. Not that Robert set out to create a cult. I suspect that no group does. But the result is the same. And if it walks like a cult, and quacks like a cult …
Though I have no actual proof of it, these days I don’t believe there is such a thing as a “real school.” I think there are only real people who manage to make something real for themselves — mostly in spite of the leader and the heirarchy.
After working in various companies for 25 years, I have seen the so-called “Peter Principle” at work — employees rising to their level of incompetence. In other words, the people nearer the bottom are most often more closely aligned with their true skills and talents, while the higher you go, the more you’ll find individuals who have been promoted up and out of their level of competency, and into jobs for which they have no ability.
I saw this to some extent in the FOF. Nearly all of what I learned was from my peers. And I will be the first to admit that there were some remarkable people who joined.
Otherwise, there wouldn’t be so many interesting voices on this blog, now would there?
April 10, 2007 at 11:48 pm
Living the contradiction 2
— The nightmare for the FOF King of Hearts
The summary of all the experiences in the last 18 month I can put very simply: “One evolves to the degree one allows contradictions to exist in ones live, without resenting it.”
and
“If one is not experiencing contradictions anymore one is dead”.
Of course seeing live and its value from this point of view one can see that most people do everything to get rid of contradictions in their live and most are close to killing themselves this way.
In older age people know exactly what to allow into their mind in order not to experience any contradiction, they know with whom to be friends, where to go and what to eat in order not to need to face any contradiction. If it were not for some things that they do not like, but that are biological necessities, like going to the bathroom or paying bills their lives would be complete harmony and they were dead.
This to me is the essence of what it means “to sleep” or on the opposite to “be awake” if one does nothing any longer to avoid “contradictions” as live provides them plentifully, if one is not constantly on the run or closing one’s eyes, but instead lives them without resentment.
Of course living live this way it does not get easier, but more confusing and often quite strenuous. That is why it is amazing to me that there are so many seekers, because taken awakening this way its quite a tough job at times. But usually it is the innocence of people only at the beginning of their search and then again the enormous pull to get contradictions out of ones live gets the upper hand and the way is gradually deviated, as even Gurdjieff showed graphically it is eventually turned into the opposite direction.
We can see that this happened in monastic live at some point when seekers could not face anymore ordinary live while following their faith. This was simply too big a contradiction so they went into the solitude, the dessert, the mountain the cave the monastery.
Religion people, also suffer from the contradictions that seeing other religions creates in them so they either close their eyes, have some mental tapes, like “There are different ways for different people” or even worse “Others are enemies of the true way”.
Seen from this point of view the FOF is not different when Girard basically recommends not to waste one’s time on things like reading the Blog, without even telling us what’s the proper way of using time according to him. The understanding that is missing here, is that facing contradictions, and not getting them out of the way by following one or the other side but silently enduring the pain that they create, is THE way to evolve.
Two month after the accident and 6 weeks after coming out of the coma I was invited by Girard and then Clara for a dinner at their house which was the New Years dinner 2005/2007. This was one of the most unmemorable dinners in my life. It would have been natural for anyone to ask a question in relation to the event in Egypt. For example it would have been easy to give some depth to the conversation by maybe asking “How the experience of death has changed my view of the work” or something related. However there was no mentioning of it and instead we talked I think about dogs (Clare please remind me if I forgot something that had more weight).
In the FOF we have learned over the years a behavior, like in any other sector of life, that would cut out the possibility to experience contradictions and Girard’s advice in respect to the Blog only follow this principle. For most of us, the main thing that attracted us to the fourth way was “That the 4th way occurs in ordinary life”, but Girard and the other ordinary forces in the FOF try to get the contradictions out of the picture and limit it to “The money for the 4th way is made in ordinary life”. Of course another contradiction, at least for those who could look a little deeper, was the fact that Girard was even declared a man no 5.
The same principle of Contradiction-avoidance is the basic and common reason behind so many other things we do although usually we are very clever in finding reasons to justify it. For example if people would use their real names when posting their messages they would usually feel a lot of contradictions and not only from people who know them but also internally. There is the person who is writing who has all this Grief, Anger, Good advice, Compassion and what not, but by using a fictitious name he has found a way to keep those things out of one’s life. The many Is and the compartments that make it impossible to see each other!
These mechanisms in our thinking and acting that get contradictions out of the way are usually praised and valued by all of life that is determined to sleep. In the FOF most of these tactics were ascribed to the King of Hearts and so be sanctified and protected from any questioning. By coincidence, which has become the guiding light on my way, on the desktop of the public computer I am writing this right now, there is a picture of a “King of Heart’s” torn apart by a bullet.
I experience that actually being present comes from a different level, than all this reasoning, but it is this reasoning that makes you understand the purpose of contradiction, not to avoid it and by that to be catapulted into the eternal NOW.
Speaking with Walt Whitman’s words “Older, without my wife, my family and many friends, I thank thee.”
Kisses from Mexico
Kiran
Broken King of Hearts
April 11, 2007 at 12:02 am
I hope everyone watches the YouTube videos linked in post #53 by Not His Real Name — particularly the third link, a report from the Today Show. The parallels are remarkable, not only regarding the allegations against the leader, but in the way the true believers defend their faith.
April 11, 2007 at 12:56 am
Howard Carter:
Robert once asked a Student whether he had verified Influence C. The student replied “ I am afraid I have’. Whether this actually happened or was made up makes no difference, it prompted me to think why that particular reply? Why so ominous? Is the verification not supposed to be a illuminating experience, a experience of bliss?
This quote was turning in my mind one evening after driving home from a meeting. It had been a difficult evening for me, difficult in a sense that I had made efforts ‘to patiently endure the unpleasant manifestations’ of some Jackass who thought he knew it all (no, it wasn’t me, honest!)
By the time I arrived at home and pulled into the garage any notions of whether C-Influence existed/didn’t exist, were real/not real had been stripped out of me permanently and the reality of their existence was implanted in such a way that I would never ever forget. What happened was a physical impossibility and yet nevertheless it happened. I have shared the details with only two other students and I would like for it to stay that way. Let us just say it ‘happened’ – ‘es ist passiert’ . Action at a distance, invisible manifesting in the visible… I have no answer.
That is all I really know for sure, this is the only certainty I have. As for the rest, I have no idea – Consciousness – Awakening – is the Fellowship a Real School – is Burton Conscious –what is or is not enlightenment?
If you are correct in saying that whoever leaves the school is placed at the end of a long line, then so be it. I am sure I will meet some interesting individuals there, maybe even some devils?. Although I am not a Buddhist I would like to think myself as subscribing to the emphatic statement of a Zen Master who said many hundreds of years ago: ‘I – and all Sentient Beings –TOGETHER, will be Liberated’. How could I do otherwise….. how could I leave my friends behind?
If you can read between the lines then you will know what I mean. It is unfortunate that you are receiving all this flak, your mind is not broken, damaged or twisted, when really looked at, it has little to do with mind, or thinking, or right or wrong, good/bad.. it goes much deeper than that. You have verified something important to your own being, and nobody can take that away from you. It is a matter of the heart.
We shall not be broken on the Wheel of reason..
I wish you well
Alexis
April 11, 2007 at 2:13 am
Dear #53, ‘not his real name’
Wow! Thanks for the link to the Cult video.
I will wager a guess that if any ‘FoF’ members had the guts to click on the link, their immeadiate reaction would be ‘oh yeah, that’s a cult, but the FOF and RB is different’. I even said it myself for years. The only difference between the FoF and the Baba FreeJohn followers is that the FOFers get dressed up and look into RB’s left eye (or is the right- I never really got the hang of it!)And RB has a preference for young men, and lots of them. Sounds like the bedroom scenes are similar though.
All of these cults are products of the early 70’s and most have died a peaceful death. Isn’t it time the children of the 70’s grew up and started acting like adults. Yeah, so your self esteem will be a little bruised, but much better than one more day spent in a cult.
Here is a song from the Eagles (70’s) which maybe could become the national anthem for the FOF:
On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair,
Warm smell of colitas rising up through the air,
Up ahead in the distance I saw a shimmering light
My head grew heavy and sight grew dim, I had to stop for the night
There he stood in the doorway, I heard the mission bell
I was thinking to myself, “this could be heaven, or this could be hell”
Then he lit up a candle and he showed me the way-
There were voices down the corridor, I thought I heard them say
“Welcome to the Hotel California, such a lovely place, such a lovely face. Plenty of room at the Hotel California- any time of year, you can find it here”
His mind is tiffany twisted, he’s got the Mercedes Benz
He’s got a lot of pretty boys that he calls friends
How they dance in the courtyard, sweet summer sweat
Some dance to remember, some dance to forget.
So I called up the captain, “please bring me my wine”
He said “we haven’t had that spirit here since nineteen sixty nine”
And still those voices are calling from far away
Wake you up in the middle of the night , just to hear them say
“Welcome to the Hotel California , such a lovely place….”
Mirrors on the ceiling, pink champagne on ice, and he said , “we are all just prisoners here of our own device”
And in the masters chambers, they gathered for his feast
They stab him with their steely knives, but they just can’t kill the beast
Last thing I remember, I was running for the door
I had to find the passage back to the place I was before
“RELAX, said the nightman,” We are programmed to receive, You can check out anytime you want, but YOU CAN NEVER LEAVE”
“Welcome to the Hotel California, what a lovely place, what a lovely face. Living it up at the Hotel California, what a nice surprise, what a nice surprise, bring your alibis”.
I am sure Don Henley of the Eagles will forgive the 3 small ammendments that I made to his great hit.
My advise, stop the words, stop the confusion, just get out while you can. Go live your life. Unless you KNOW otherwise, this is it!
April 11, 2007 at 2:32 am
“The crystallized, split-personality is all over your note pretending to be kind. Watch that it is not you who ends up in the looney bin.”
Dearest Clara:
I guess its true,you have not learned to either transform your suffering nor stop expressing negative emotions.
I do not pretend to be kind, only truthful. I’d rather be a truthful friend and tell you what I think rather than pretend to be kind which is what you have been doing while in the FOF, the good student act.
As to your identification to lack of second line from RB, you identify with it so strongly because you lack it so deeply.
Sorry, you make yourself out to be the poor, repressed Mrs. Haven and care person for Dorothy, but you are really a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Most Lunar’s are, so you are not to blame.
What is your point? Trying to reform the FOF, RB, the non-existent “community”? Reform yourself. Heal thyself (First line comes first)
Alexis:
Too bad your second post didn’t get lost as well…
“Candidate for the looney bin” was meant to warn those who enter into this “experiment” lightly, as it can easily cause psychological disturbances in those who are either unprepared or are working with someone not connected to his work.
As to my past connection to Mr.G, it is more connected than you realize, Joe.
Sorry to disappoint, I am a Rabbit. Otherwise we are a match made in heaven.
April 11, 2007 at 2:39 am
This is a video on how to start a cult…
Does it remind you of anything?
April 11, 2007 at 2:42 am
The saying goes something like: If you wrestle in the mud with a pig long enough you will come to realize you can never win because the pig is enjoying it. So it is with your vanity Howard Carter.
As far as i know there is no punishment for complicity in spiritual crime except ones own conscience and perhaps continued incarnation. The Caligulas, the Hitlers, the Pol Pots, the Robert Burtons, the Jim Joneses, the Rajneeshes and their petty, fearful minions are an endless parade which will continue to arise forever and we will continue to rise to oppose them.
In the end you are right Howard Carter. If the Absolute is an esoteric, exclusive and vengeful God only allowing ass kissers into heaven you win. If it is a loving, forgiving God you will have an eternity of lifetimes to grow weary of yourself and the stench rising from beneath your lips. Again you win.
In reality the framework is wrong. The truth is there is only you Howard Carter so you lose.
April 11, 2007 at 2:43 am
Elena:
Most of what you have written in your latest posts centers around the concept of obligations and various forms of perceived duty, either to oneself or to ones friends parents and family. They are noble thoughts no doubt, written very eloquently and persuasively, but at James Webb writes in his ‘Harmonious Circle’ the Fourth way is renown for its brutal methods.
The Work is an inner process, and you and others can blame all and sundry for your misery, pain, suffering and the deception if you like. It is not just the Fourth Way, from my experience most Ways – if you want to call it that, entail similar forms of destruction. They all, in one form or another speak of the time when you will be torn apart, internally, torn between your duties and obligation and between your search for the Truth. And your duties and obligations are valid, just, and are demanded of you, and quite rightly so.. there is no cut and dried answer, either way you lose – ‘If I stay who goes – If I go who stays?’ It will go against everything that you think you stand for, challenge all your ideas, concepts, conclusions, summaries. What you do is up to you, you can act either one way or another. If you really think you ‘can do’ well then……..
But our knees buckle, and Mephisto sneers as Faust is on his knees in remorse, guilt and despair:: Fly, will you?! You who are apt to get giddy?’
What is torn apart is your imaginary picture of who you think you are, who you perceive yourself to be, or where you are. You pass a gateway, and once passed your life is no longer your own. Sweet talk of Oneness – and Life IS – talk of self-inquiry – in most cases is just that – sweet talk – candy for the mind..
Do you not think that if you had followed Christ as a disciple, you would not have been broken at some stage, or do you really believe in the ‘Sweet Saccharine Jesus’ that is so popular with the Religious masses?
All your arguments are valid, have substance.. and I am sympathetic to your feelings, there is nothing ‘wrong’ with them. But you will be challenged.
(I guess now some fool out there will accuse me of backing Burton or condone the workings of the Fellowship…)
Alexis
April 11, 2007 at 2:55 am
Question for Kiran:
Since your thoughts and your general, and specific, perception of the life/work in the FoF seem to be pretty consistent even going in retrospective through your memories of experiences as a member…
How long would you have waited before leaving, and why, if Robert had not ask you to ?
What was keeping you from taking that step on your own , if you were already so fed up and so very ready to take off ?
(don’t get me wrong, this is the part that I can easily relate to)
I just wonder why people such as yourself
( and there were others that had similar circumstances),
with no financial obstacles, with abundance of brain power, resources, and with such a clear and definite understanding of their inner Work, needs, direction and potential, wouldn’t go much earlier…
… just trying to figure out things.
Thank you for your time.
April 11, 2007 at 3:10 am
This was a double post, I will not delete it as to keep the order of the posts intact.
ES
April 11, 2007 at 3:11 am
(#63) “It would be probably too much to ask the ourselfs [sic], bloggers, to reconsider or be truly open to consider that someone may really be a student in the best and full sense of the word?”
I don’t want to jump on the bandwagon of critiquing Howard Carter’s posts per se. Mr. Carter evidently is content with his world view. Those who no longer hold that world view have likely all been there, for better or worse. Regardless, there’s no point making any of this personal; it isn’t about Mr. Carter.
Here’s my take on the general question, though. One either will either filter it through FOF programming, or personal experience. I know the first reasonably well. That programming suggests that a “student” is one who tries to be present to everything and continues to contribute to and support the FOF in the manner requested. The model assumes that “consciousness” is free from moral assessments; perfection consists of freedom from inner and outer constraints. While one might posit that one who is “awake” has acquired his or her own, higher morality, which cannot be assessed by one who is not, in practice all evidence suggests that the operating assumption is that consciousness is free of any and all morality, which is merely a form of subjective conditioning imposed by others. At least, I have never been able to perceive any code of conduct modeled with any consistency by FOF leadership, or even taught, however hypocritically, that overlaps with any form of morality taught anywhere in the world, or by any of the beings, western or eastern, claimed to have been “conscious.”
My own experience has suggested to me that consciousness is not without emotional content connected to value judgments. Quite the contrary; it has compelled me to feel that the force, or consciousness, that created, permeates, sustains, and in fact is identical to, the universe, is entirely benevolent. It is, among other qualities, pure love.
Kabir said: “Kabir saw that for fifteen seconds and it made him a servant for life.”
A servant to what? His teacher? His school? A doctrine? His evolution?
I don’t think so:
“Kabir will tell you the truth:
this is what love is like:
suppose you had to cut your head off
and give it to someone else,
what difference would it make?”
Jesus modeled this realization.
Must all, then, cut their own heads off to demonstrate they are “a student in the best and full sense of the word?” I don’t think so. But neither do I believe that Kabir, or Jesus, was merely following the “way of the monk,” and we may follow a completely inconsistent path in the confidence that we know something critically important that eluded them.
I would suggest that, though I may be present, if I have no love, I’m not “a student in the best and full sense of the word.” “Love” that eliminates anything or anyone from consideration does not fit my own experience of consciousness.
Gurdjieff supposedly mocked those who criticized his students by saying “they have no love.” I’d prefer to rely on my own experience over something someone supposedly said about what someone else said in some situation of which I know next to nothing. Nor am I suggesting that FOF students have no love; such generalizations are pointless. I’m just suggesting one ask oneself whether one’s work, in or out of the FOF, appears to have increased, decreased, or left unaffected one’s ability to love, without constraint.
April 11, 2007 at 5:38 am
I was wondering if any one of you has taken the time to outline all the parallels between RB’s teaching and regular exoteric Christianity. I might do it at some point, but would appreciate it if any one of you has already studied it and formulated the striking similarities.
April 11, 2007 at 6:56 am
Dear Salt Shaker (6/63):
I was quite puzzled by your characterizations of the responses to Howard Carter’s posts as being negative, sarcastic and accusatory (“I have been truly amazed at the sheer number of negative reactions to Howard Carter’s insightful posts . . . .
[W]hy approach this from the lowest possible denominator, the sarcasm, the wit, the disbelief, the easy and glib accusations?”)
Your comment made me wonder if we’re reading the same blog.
On first reading, I was quite impressed by the tone and content of the many responses to Howard’s recent post no. 15. After reading your characterization, I looked back through them, and I have to say that my first impressions were more than confirmed; almost without exception, these posts address Howard’s points seriously and respectfully, in a forthright and non-sarcastic manner. (To be specific, I’m talking about posts nos. 16, 17, 18, 19, 22, 24, 25, 26, 29, 31, 32, 34, 37, 38, 41, 44, 50, 52 and 62.)
People took the time and trouble to respond to Howard as best they could from their own experience, which is notable because much of what Howard wrote may well seem like sheer fantasy to these writers.
Perhaps the truths written in these posts make you uncomfortable, which understandably may be a negative experience for you. But it would be a mistake to confuse your own internal reactions with the intent of the writers.
April 11, 2007 at 7:47 am
To: Sheik, 6/66,
“Is it really so hard to believe that the Fellowship of Friends is not the real deal?”
It’s an interestingly worded comment whose meaning can be taken in more ways than one. I won’t attempt to read anything into it however. But it did conjure up a thought or two of my own.
The responses to my recent posts lead me to think the majority have steadfastly rejected only one idea/concept put forward on the blog; that being the notion that the FoF “works”, is a “real school”. This, as you are probably aware, is the central theme to several of my posts and each time I touch upon this idea a number of regulars point out to me that its just not possible.
They all seem to know why I mistakenly think the school works; reasons ranging from the passe “brainwashed”, to the more vogue “fearfully devout”. But the notion that it simply works, period, taken at face value, does not seem to be admissible as a possibility.
Another interesting phenomenon is this; several former FoF members have expressed their displeasure on this blog at what they call an elitist attitude in the FoF, that it’s the only place one can awaken (which you allude to in #66).
But what I have observed is a very prevalent “reverse” elitism that not only considers it impossible to awaken in the FoF, but actually considers it possible to awaken anywhere BUT the FoF.
Maybe if this blog stays around for any length of time it might really become an “open” discussion about the FoF, where people really want to know why it works for another, and then can actually accept it on face value.
April 11, 2007 at 9:45 am
To Innernaut,6/68,
“Because by the logic of your “Hamlet” analogy, the very fact that anyone disagrees proves the correctness of your own point.”
I think the key words in the Hamlet quote are – protests “too much”; where the degree of protesting does not fit the stimulus. For me this phenomenon is observable and valid.
I agree with your wife analogy though. What I have seen is that there are two things that irritate us, one – when people act the same as we do, and two – when they act different than we do. (To paraphrase Oscar Wilde?)
“I found most of the responses to Howard’s post to be civil, with the sarcastic ones in the minority.”
Let’s agree to disagree on the meaning of “civil”
April 11, 2007 at 1:06 pm
Howard Carter (88): Great reply. I really really like you, I think that you are a nice guy and I enjoy reading what you have to say.
I do not question that the FoF works – it may very well work for a small number of members, perhaps you among them.
I find the notion that the FoF is the only place that works as ludicrous as believing that the FoF will not ever work for anyone. It will, and perhaps it has. If you are willing to consciously put up with all those little blemishes (manipulation, brain washing, indoctrination, cult of personality), then the FoF can facilitate growth as much as anything else.
Sadly enough, there are hundreds of groups similar to the FoF (yes, really, hundreds), thousands of teachers and gurus (many of them not unlike RB), millions of people looking for the same answers with just as much passion and vigour as you are (many of them not unlike you)…
So it’s not a question of whether the FoF is a real school or not (that is a subjective question, not an objective one) – it is a question of whether the majority of the 2,000 members aren’t wasting their time. There are thousands of places to look, limiting your choices in such a way as to stay in the group for 20+ years seems a bit wasteful to me. Stagnation and passivity, succumbing to the fear of change, will get you nowhere. Wouldn’t you agree?
April 11, 2007 at 2:10 pm
I thought Robert Burton was closing shop when the student population reached 10,000? When did/does the count start?
April 11, 2007 at 2:18 pm
One more thing, for those who believe that the FoF doctrine is unique, or for those who see nothing ‘cult-like’ about the FoF.
Watch this:
Somebody (80) dug up a real gem here. Thanks a lot.
April 11, 2007 at 4:31 pm
To: Innernaut, 6/74
“Though I have no actual proof of it, these days I don’t believe there is such a thing as a “real school.” I think there are only real people who manage to make something real for themselves — mostly in spite of the leader and the hierarchy.”
I respect your decision to leave as it is your right. It may have been a “right of passage” for you but still: someone joined the same week (maybe the same day ) that you left and the school started to work for them, and maybe is still working for them. Just because it stopped working for you doesn’t mean it stopped working.
The school is hell for some heaven for others. For me, the leader and the hierarchy are part of the “form of the school”. In particular the leader who, while not in a conventional mold, is part of the solution rather than the problem.
April 11, 2007 at 4:37 pm
Flying Free – 78 posts the words to the Eagles’ “Hotel California” with the suggestion that maybe it should be the anthem for FOF. Thank You, Free Flyer. A short experience:
I first heard “Hotel C” at the exact moment that I was crossing the border into California from Nevada. Two weeks prior I had had the most significant spiritual experience of my life – that event had caused me to quit a great job/career and begin a search which ended nearly two years later by joining FOF. Forever after, the words of “Hotel C” seemed somehow ‘true’ in my psychology – which is not to say that I know even now what they mean.
Thus just a thanks, Flying, for connecting again (Hotel and FOF) what has always been connected for me…
April 11, 2007 at 4:42 pm
To: Julie: 6/59
“Tonight was a night of coincidences that make it hard believe angels are not here, wafting breezes of conscious recognition into my life…”
It’s nice to know you are still receiving “calling cards” from Influence C, nicer to know you are still accepting them.
April 11, 2007 at 5:12 pm
Morals are subjective depending on where you are in the world and what culture you find yourself in.
Pure, unconditional love is consciousness. Harming another, who is really part of yourself, is not a moral issue; it’s a ‘consciousness’ issue and morals have nothing to do with it.
April 11, 2007 at 5:35 pm
To: Sheik, 6/90
“Sadly enough, there are hundreds of groups similar to the FoF (yes, really, hundreds), thousands of teachers and gurus (many of them not unlike RB), millions of people looking for the same answers with just as much passion and vigour as you are (many of them not unlike you)…”
I’m not saying the FoF is the only place to be working. I also know its not for everyone. But for the ones it is for, it’s a godsend.
I don’t know anything about the hundreds of groups you mention. I do know that I don’t need to see every painting in existence to know that Rembrandt is a master. I don’t need to eat the whole pie to know if it taste good or not. One bite will tell me that.
April 11, 2007 at 5:45 pm
HOW TO BECOME A CULT LEADER:
ESTABLISH FRONT GROUPS: (prospective student meetings)
“We are Bible study group, we are meditation group, we are personal development center” (We are Gurgieff – Ouspensky school)
OFFER SOMETHING, PROMISE TO FULFILL THEIR DREAMS:
“Don’t you want a world of unconditional love and brotherhood? We have the secrets to self-improvement” (we have living Gods working with us called influence C. Fellowship of Friends. Conscious Love)
TELL THEM THIS IS THEIR ONLY CHANCE AND THEY HAVE NO TIME: (The last civilization is coming to an end. We are the only Real school on the planet Earth)
PUT DEMANDS:
Nothing in this world has value unless relates to the leader or the ultimate purpose (sleeping machines)
CONTROL BEHAVIOR:
Keep them active and with a little sleep as possible, low protein diet (put them on salary or demand the teaching payments. Dress code)
CONTROL THOUGHTS:
Let our doctrine think for you
CONTROL EMOTIONS:
Induce guilt: “You are not living up to your potential”
Fear (you will be eaten by the moon or die like a dog)
Block out the info which is critical for the group (blog!)
Encourage to spy and tell on one another (call Linda)
IF THEY FREAK OUT:
“When I was meditating I felt an infinite emptiness it was terrifying” – ” No, this is good, you are transforming, do it more, You are reaching God! You are being re-born! You are become one with the Universe, one with our Family.”
“I don’t know who I am anymore” – “Good, now you are free. In fact there was no you there to begin with!”
MAKE THEM PARANOID ABOUT THEIR THOUGHT PROCESS:
“You battling your sinful nature, your body is detoxifying. Your ego is a source of all your problems” (Lower self King of Clubs etc)
CLAIM THE AUTHORITY:
“Your Bible clearly states that I am the Messiah”
SPECIAL KNOWLEDGE:
“I am the enlightened master of the universe. I invented air.” (gathering the keys)
MAKE UP STORIES ABOUT YOURSELF TO BOOST YOUR IMPORTANCE:
“I have a special access to the aliens”. (I am one of Them and one of you. Leonardo Da Vinci gives me shocks every 3 seconds)
USE STOPPING THOUGHTS TECHNIQUE WHICH PUTS THEM IN THE TRANS STATES AND SELF-HYPNOSES. IN THIS TRANS STATES THEY ARE MORE RECEPTIVE AND SUGGESTIBLE, REVERT THEM TO THE CHILDHOOD BEHAVIOR AND MINDLESS OBIDIENCE.
ENCOURAGE SEPARATION FROM THEIR FAMILY
“Your friends and family probably won’t understand maybe you should stay away from them. It’s unhealthy for you to be around unenlightened people anyway! If you can’t recruit your friends – cut off from them Stop wasting time with non-believers.”
ENCOURAGE DEPENDENCY AND CONFORMITY AND DISCOURAGE AUTONOMY AND INDIVIDUALITY
“The whole purpose must be the focus, the self-purpose must be subordinated”
HAVE CONFESSIONALS WHERE PEOPLE DEMONIZE THEIR LIVES IN THE PAST AND ONLY PRAISE THEIR LIFE IN THE GROUP:
“Before I came to emerge I was a bad person I was greedy, misguided, self-centered, and lost. My life is wonderful now. I hate my old life.” (applouds) “Before coming to emerge I was always in my ego. My toxic mind was running my life. I was a sinful negative looser. Thanks to the leader – every day I am a winner.”
ISOLATE THEM FROM THE REST OF THE WORLD.
Make them feel part of a special elite group with an important mission.
TEACH THAT CRITICAL THOUGHTS ARE CRIMES AGAINST THE GROUP
“I think I want to leave” – “You must be insane!”
Make them feel guilty – “We are doing important work here! Do you expect saving the world is easy? We are all called upon to make some sacrifices for the cause. Just when things get tough you want to gave up. You are weak! Do you want to move on to the enlightenment or do you want to fall back to you old dirty ways? What’s more important – our mission, eternal salvation or your petty grievances? You are being negative! Ignorant! Selfish! And sinful! Our leader is flawless. The doctrine is flawless. There must be something wrong with you!”
INDOCTRINATE WITH FEAR
Tell them that they can be possessed by evil spirits, or if they ever leave – something bad could happen to them:
“I am just warning you that without us your life is going to get to a bad accident, get sick or even die. If you leave you just going to be reincarnated into a lower life form.” (you will go back to the end of the queue)
THE SONG: “We love the leader, the leader is Love, when I am not with Him I feel like a shlab”
April 11, 2007 at 5:59 pm
“to stay in the group for 20+ years seems a bit wasteful to me. Stagnation and passivity, succumbing to the fear of change, will get you nowhere. Wouldn’t you agree?”
Sheik, this demonstrate that you are here talking while knowing nothing of nothing of nothing of the subject you are talking about!!! Please just keep moderating. Thank you.
Golb
http://possiblevolution.blogspot.com/
April 11, 2007 at 6:09 pm
This is an invitation to those interested to a meeting on “Building a Vital Community in Oregon House” on April 18th from 2 – 4. We will be exploring ways that we can enhance our lives in Oregon House with concerts and other cultural events, community service opportunities, gatherings of various sorts, etc. To do this we may need some sort of infrastructure.
This meeting is pro-community, not against the FOF.
If you’re interested please contact amyrobertson22@yahoo.com for details.
April 11, 2007 at 6:13 pm
A very interesting aside from the blind man in a powerfully measured post (71): “the constitution of United States is based on the opposite deception, that all men are equal and that this lie has facilitated the development of this country in a way impossible without it.” No wonder I’m a secret patriot.
The apparent contradiction of Alexis embracing ALL SENTIENT beings as an integral part of his/her (?) liberation and telling HC that he’s verified something important, is an interesting one. Isn’t this the contradiction that so irks us exers about HC’s position? I would say, fine, cherish your secret epiphanies or shoot the King Of Hearts— it’s up to each one of us to make our own verifications— but when someone says it’s my way or the highway it’s understandable that it provokes an angry response, some of which we’re seeing here. I agree with Don Juanito, however; most of it is pretty civil—colorful sometimes, but generally kind. Let not the hard thorns here and there discount all the real attempts to bridge and understand our differences.
(Sheik, that video is strong but I think it should contain a warning for FOFers— it’s going to seem pretty harsh. A student once told me that he would kill for the teacher. It was a shocking revelation and one that he was proud of and at the same time, I think, a little surprised to have come to, even for himself. I guess if you take Hegel’s master/slave dialectic and apply it here, you can imagine the draw: how much more empowered is the slave when he internalizes the will of a “conscious” master?!)
I feel compassion for you Howard, and I too wish you well. I don’t want to pull you out of the school or squash your verifications anymore than I would my own sweet mother. I know the FOF offers plenty of magical food to eat and I think you’re wrong—people on this blog aren’t merely saying that the FOF doesn’t “work.” That’s the reason so many of us stayed so long (or came and went and came and went). Of course you can awaken there! You can awaken anywhere. The thousands that have been attracted to the FOF are not just simple minded fools, nor simply conned. It’s possible, however, that the problems or shortcomings, if you like, with the FOF may not be fully seen or realized until you leave. Maybe that’s one of the contradictions we’re willing to live with “out here” and you’re not willing to live with as a good student. For you, it seems the whole RB story has to be bought, hook, line and sinker. For me, the story has stopped making sense but I don’t deny the possibility for the school to work. I don’t think you have truly read the responses to your post with an open mind. Just because we don’t buy into your terminology of “real school” doesn’t mean that we’ve denied all the good in the FOF, including that it works for some people, some of the time. It’s primarily, I think, that we don’t like the hell and damnation part of it if, god forbid, you leave or don’t have the “incredible fortune” to have met it in the first place. Why can’t you understand that?
And dear Alexis (I mean that without a hint of sarcasm, I really enjoy your posts), this is not a case of the wheel of reason destroying the verifications of the heart— it’s (at best) the spirit of love, inclusiveness, freedom, wishing to heal what is cut off from the bigger bliss. We are all part of an incredible adventure: life on p. Earth. Confronting elitism, spiritual/religious arrogance and the misuse of power is crucial to the survival of the planet. The gods I dance to are secretly conspiring for ALL of us to be liberated. And from our own small minds, first of all.
Love,
Jules
PS My prayers feel the fullest when I include the whole of humanity in them, and even then it’s utterly mysterious… I like not knowing exactly what I am “doing” when I pray— it keeps it fascinating and keeps me coming back.
April 11, 2007 at 7:07 pm
Howie wrote: “The responses to my recent posts lead me to think the majority have steadfastly rejected only one idea/concept put forward on the blog; that being the notion that the FoF “works”, is a “real school”.
Once again, you don’t explain how the school works for YOU, you merely make another general pronouncement. Come on Howie, please try to explain how the FOF helps you on your spiritual path. I’d really like to know!
It’s a puzzle for many of us, both in and out. Does anyone have any indication from their own experience that the FOF “works”, other than changing superficial aspects of personal behaviour and maybe making us appear a bit more civilised?
I was under the impression that a real school would lead to a permanent change in the level of its students’ consciousness. Am I missing the point?
RB
April 11, 2007 at 9:50 pm
(#88) “real schools,” “the FOF works,” etc.
How about we accept that one who wants to awaken, and has the necessary tools and makes the necessary efforts, and sometimes even those who don’t, may do so in any situation? Is there really anyone reading this who seriously believes that one may awaken only as a dues-paying member of the FOF, or that, if one is, one cannot? I don’t believe we need to expose the absurdity of either proposition.
Whether the FOF, or some other situation, facilitates awakening for a particular individual, impedes it, or has no effect on it at a particular point in one’s life is another matter. That’s a function of what one brings to the situation. I’ll wager being in Auschwitz was a powerful consciousness-producing experience for at least some, inmates and wardens alike (and despite the phrase over the main gate at Auschwitz (Arbeit Macht Frei), I’m not trying to draw any direct comaprisons here).
Almost everyone reading this has thought, at some point, that the FOF had a net positive effect on them, notwithstanding any negative ones. Many came to feel the balance ultimately shifted; some may feel their earlier assumption was mistaken, and maybe for them, it was. I learned a great deal in the FOF that has stayed with me throughout my life. It was an extraordinary experience. Was (or is) it a “real school”? Go ask Robert. Does it “work”? I do know that I worked, and I got a lot out of it.
Some of the many things I happened to get out of it was the eventual ability to trust myself, to release my need for a father substitute, to stop angle-izing everything, to recognize the extent to which the FOF had appealed to my vanity, and to take responsibility for my life. Do I suppose that the FOF, through its benevolence, taught me these things, because it is a “real school”? A formatory question has no meaningful answer. I think I just grew up.
April 11, 2007 at 10:31 pm
I don’t want to slaughter anyone’s sacred cow but… The last salt shaker saw the last salt shaker. Kiran saw the king of hearts bite a bullet and who the hell knows what Alexis saw but whatever it was is created by the mind. This stuff happens to everybody and when it is carried past the precise moment it becomes superstition. There may be ufos, ghosts, angels, bigfoots (bigfeet?) i have not the slightest idea.
I think what Kiran was saying about contradiction is very important. Contradictions are life’s innumerable koans. Contradictions short circuit the mind and force one into humility and a silent beholding of the raw data of the moment. That is what is irritating about systems of thought. The mind is always going to have one but it needs to be seen as what it is, a way of navigating through life but not life itself. That whole list of stuff the blind man wrote is mind stuff. No matter how profound the thoughts if they dampen the contradictions they weaken the soul. There may be invisible guidance but it will always remain unseen, always. If it is not leading to deeper and deeper contradiction it is not guiding at all.
I am sure everyone takes what i write with a grain of salt. I would wish it to be the whole shaker. If i rail at anyone it is only at myself because that is all there is.
April 11, 2007 at 10:46 pm
To Post #90 ‘Shiek of Inner Confusion’
Just in case you haven’t been updated recently, I sincerely doubt there are 2000 members in the FOF currently. There appears to be an FOF exodus occuring all around the world. Yes, many of us ‘long lifers’ (myself included of over 20 years in the FOF) , grew up, matured, woke up,(whatever) and finally left the cult.
There are only a few that post on the blog, but a whole bunch are reading it and starting to finally ask themselves some ‘reality’ questions. I have further suspicions that after the hefty April 1 additional ‘involuntary’ donation of $750,(in addition to the 10% monthly donation) and the 3 1/2 month period following – if you didn’t make the donation, we will see even a greater falling out of members by mid June or earlier.
Stay tuned! Students both current members and ex-students are opening up, talking, questioning and generally starting to think for themselves (indeed a very dangerous time for the FOF).
Thanks Sheik for making this Blog possible, and helping many realize that in their confusion, doubts, sleepless nights, and stressed days , that they are not alone, and many current and former FOF students experienced the same process. It is normal when leaving a cult that instills fear,loss of friends, damnation, and a lost opportunity for the afterlife, that excessive confusion and withdrawal symptoms will be experienced.
April 11, 2007 at 10:57 pm
Dear Medusa,
Re question 83
The environment of FOF- the beautiful, intelligent people, non-stop parties, arts, breathtaking scenery, gardens, adventure, perverse sense of freedom by following the teaching, a touch of the mysterious and esoteric keeps people in the school.
Moon angel.
April 11, 2007 at 10:57 pm
Just to clarify, I’m a patriot who is more than chaffed by the contradictions between what this country set out to do, and what it’s doing now. And, no I don’t ascribe to The Rapture index, Arthur. Do you?
Here’s someone who’s got his finger on the kind of pulse I like to take (Rob Brezny):
WELCOME HOME
Let me remind you who you really are: You’re an immortal freedom fighter in service to divine love. You have temporarily taken on the form of a human being, suffering amnesia about your true origins, in order to liberate all sentient creatures from suffering and help them claim the ecstatic awareness that is their birthright. You will accept nothing less than the miracle of bringing heaven all the way down to earth.
Your task may look impossible. Ignorance and inertia, partially
camouflaged as time-honored morality, seem to surround you. Pessimism is enshrined as a hallmark of worldliness. Compulsive skepticism masquerades as perceptiveness. Mean-spirited irony is chic. Stories about treachery and degradation provoke a visceral thrill in millions of people who think of themselves as reasonable and smart. Beautiful truths are suspect and ugly truths are readily believed.
To grapple against these odds, you have to be both a wrathful
insurrectionary and an exuberant lover of life. You’ve got to cultivate cheerful buoyancy even as you resist the temptation to swallow thousands of delusions that have been carefully crafted and seductively packaged by very self-important people who act as if they know what they’re doing. You have to learn how to stay in a good mood as you overthrow the sour, puckered hallucination that is mistakenly referred to as reality.
What can we do to help each other in this work?
First, we can create safe houses to shelter everyone who’s devoted to the slow-motion awakening. These sanctuaries might take the form of temporary autonomous zones like festivals and parties and workshops, where we can ritually potentiate the evolving mysteries of pronoia. Or they might be more enduring autonomous zones like homes and cafes and businesses where we can get regular practice in freeing ourselves from the slavery of hatred in all of its many guises.
What else can we do to help each other? We can conspire together to carry out the agenda that futurist Barbara Marx Hubbard names: to hospice what’s dying and midwife what’s being born. We need the trigger of each other’s rebel glee as we kill off every reflex within us that resonates in harmony with the putrefaction. We need each other’s dauntless cunning as we goad and foment the blooming life forces within us that thrive on the New World’s incandescent questions.
Here’s a third way we can collaborate: We can inspire each other to perpetrate healing mischief, friendly shocks, compassionate tricks, blasphemous reverence, holy pranks, and crazy wisdom.
To read the rest of “WELCOME HOME,” excerpted from
PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia,
go here: http://tinyurl.com/22ptga
April 11, 2007 at 11:48 pm
Kiran #75, I never knew you in the FOF but I find your posts rather irritating, and up till now I have not expressed it. Dont ask me why I am today, perhaps something to do with being in a different (contrary) mood, mind set, whatever. Not that you are totally off the mark with the contradictions thing, did you read the stuff about cognitive dissonance?. Somehow you seem to be preaching, have you taken a few tips from the youtube (#80 & #92) and hope to attract a following with your “new work terms” and “insights”? You sure are full of contradictions, making sweeping negative statements about old people being asleep and then giving a noble quote by Walt Whitman in older age at the end of your post! ‘Intelligence’ or ‘wisdom, like many other things, are not related to chronological age. Many of us bloggers have been discussing the issue of seeing the contradictory I’s, cognitive dissonance, whatever you want to call it for a while, so you are not coming up with any new revalations!
Regarding using a pseudonym rather than one’s given name; apart from the fact that some of us have roles that may be compromised by revealing our names (I am talking about employment here, not fear of being found blogging while in the FOF!), posting under a pseudonym gives one the freedom to express various thoughts and explore ones own understanding, using your own name tends to limit the extent to which you can explore ideas, because overtly or covertly, we tend to present a puffed up identity to the world and to ourselves. There are no fewer contradictions when posting anonymously, I too am full of them, and many other anonymous postings contradict themselves, but there maybe less self importance…and what’s with all the holiday snaps in white clothes with bleached hair??? I assume you must have been something ‘big’ in the FOF if you have money and thus had connections with the top nobs, but, please, give us a break!
April 12, 2007 at 12:00 am
Glad the Sheik came around somewhat and now no longer doubts that the Fellowship works, (post #90)–and as long as it serves those who it does, and as long as those who feel it does not work, or works no longer, are free to leave, there can be little argument against it.
Yes we are putting up with a few blemishes, both in ourselves, in others and in the school. Maybe this is the reason some of us need a school more than others, or realize it more.
I totally agree there are elements on this blog or anywhere else for that matter that can really benefit the Fellowship, if it is open to learn from them… And as long as we consider the School “ours” we should indeed do so–this is why this blog is just another tool that can help with this process.
Little mentioned on this blog is that the Fellowship has changed in many ways over the years, and continues to do so, both in form and in substance. The example of “giving up ones family” is such an old idea, many families are now in the FOF, I know personally of quite a few where parents or children join many years apart and reunite in the work–quite a beautiful experience for them.
Down to the Last Salt Shaker
April 12, 2007 at 12:15 am
Dear Alexis (82), Exlax (79) and friends,
(I know it is a book and not an e mail what I am writing, I excuse you from having to read it).
I thank you for challenging me. I was ready to sit down, cry and walk around as recurrence brings the measure of its weight but instead you’ve kept me going.
Both of your perceptions limit my understanding to my personal play and are not willing to move beyond it or yours into the idea of objective external consideration not only as the small kindnesses that we may mutually have for each other but as structures that can hold our interactions. We each hear only what our identifications allow and break each other’s boundaries with brutality or love. I do not expect you to be less brutal to me than I’ve been to others and also thank those that have been loving. Above both, this freedom to communicate brutally or lovingly is what is not possible in the FoF. If it were, Robert and the rest would not have crystalized in a form that supports the same life forms outside. The fact that it is not possible to talk or question the establishment or the individuals inside the Fellowship is what is so extremely dangerous about it. Were we able to be as brutal to Robert or Girard and most in the inner circle and as loving to all those in the outer circle we would keep a moving dynamic that would not have allowed the school to crystallize as it did. (I’m sorry if I still speak as if I were one of you inside when I’m really so far in the middle that I’m not even one of those outside. Is it not said that a man will not find anywhere to rest its head? That is all right for the head after the heart has found where to stay.)
It still seems to me that by asking students to give up their children, the school deviated from the fourth way. It justified doing so because it was building an arc to save humanity. So while it built humanity it abandoned humanity. Similarly, by condoning the right of any individual to live out his/her personal sexuality it allowed for sexuality to go unquestioned and porno and infra sex were given free reigns.
After having given up their children or condoning the act of having done so, and leaving personal weaknesses in the individuals sexuality unquestioned, those who remained had to attach themselves to Robert’s “divinity,” more and more, blow it up more and more, to justify themselves. The rest of us who joined in the interim tried to “live” with it. That is, to live with 1) the divinity of a very passionate human being who would not address himself directly to you but hide behind a well thought show, 2) the conviction of a man (the promised to ‘be’ the second conscious being on the planet) that “come rain or thunder” stood by Robert at the cost of his wives, children and friends for there are no wives, children or friends but “adepts” in Girards life, just as Robert has no lovers or friends but sex mates and “adepts,” (Just as I have no family, friends or adepts but humans with whom I share, brutally and lovingly). 3) A group of students struggling with the effects of having abandoned their life parents, friends and biological children 4) A group of students that were innocently trying to awaken knowing that even if California didn’t fall an arc was needed for their personal lives as much as for the life of life. 5) A group of students who abandoned no one but kept a middle ground and used more common sense, many of whom are the strongest supporters of the Fellowship as it is today and continue watching it fall down as they watched it rise up. Good house holders who think “living and letting others live” is enough for an individual without being able to move beyond themselves into the realm of society, community or humanity. These are the many who are happy with their few friends in the Fellowship, have learnt some about different cultures and art, worked and acquired some perceptions of unity, and continue to strictly hold to their class and nationality identified with themselves as upper, middle or lower class, developed or undeveloped, for they all form one of the most attractive aspects of the Fellowship making it a very interesting human experiment.
I do not find, Alex, that Robert has been brutal in his teaching. I think it was simply a brutality to ask students to abandon their children and their families to create a human arc. The contradiction “fell” by its own weight: Those that went ahead with it have spent their lifetime not ‘awakening’ but having to come to terms with it. They are those in the fellowship that having given up the possibility of developing love without conditions to their children have been unable to give love to anyone but the teacher. They have strong positions and hide behind the strong individuality who will not make concessions to anything or anyone but Robert. Many of them have crystallized in their unnecessary suffering without being able to transform the actual suffering that came from giving up their personal lives to an illusion, the illusion of a world that would collapse and fall in their arms to care for.
Other students did not abandon their children they simply didn’t have any. They adopt students, like pets and if the students question them, send them stray. They made a life of building the arc, planting the vineyard, the olives etc, so that they would be ready to feed the Fellowship when the world collapsed and in the meantime learnt to live on “both sides now”. They committed more to the idea than to the people in the fellowship, again not being able to go beyond themselves. They kept the same distance of class and nationality with others, dwelled on their good luck and were unable to develop simple human contact with students arriving or develop the second line of work between themselves or anybody else. Mildred was one of the best examples of this kind of student with a lot more immediate commitment to Robert than to the arc, running around during her duties without compassion for anyone or herself and died imploring for the growth of the second line……unheard. She delighted us with her eternal creations of beauty in her flower arrangements and left, with a bitter taste.
Amongst these students, many had the opportunity to lead a meeting when there were meetings to lead and you could hear in their approach the consistent affirmation of their “chosen” position adopting the same old class or nationality stand that people in life are so addicted to, specially the middle class who having no class of their own have to dress more excessively than the upper class and fight for it with institutionalized crime. What I would have personally hoped for was that in the last conscious school on the planet in the process of building the arc, these “stands” were looked at and worked against as objective first and second line. Loosing the identifications with class or nationality or rank (artist, businessman or maid) that separate people in life would have allowed the development of friendship amongst us. Class and nationality were on the contrary, affirmed in the Fellowship with the justification of the “chosen” ones. The “chosen” artists, the “chosen” “to be” conscious leader, the chosen businessmen to feed the flock and the chosen third world consistent and needy students to work in the gardens and construction, with of course, exceptions that confirm the rule. I met Juancito in Food for less last saturday who told me he’d left in december. He said: I joined the Fellowship when I was nineteen, worked planting palms for twenty one years and left.” Just another latin in the “States”.
Isn’t it wonderful and truly amazing how no matter how far away we want to run from “life” we carry it within us and project it out of us exactly as it is? This is one of the wonders about the game of dualities. The idea of opposites in duality is only the first step in formatory thinking. Seeing it go forward and backwards is the second step in a little less formatory thinking.
So here we are in this interesting mixture of people playing out their shadows and around us move invisibly the actual conditions of our encounters: Students come and go without having ever stated where they came from, why they stayed or why they are going. No one really wants to listen to anyone else’s case, they are happy that the school is so objective that no subjectivities are allowed. The ten thousand idiots leave quietly to talk were no one can hear them behind the “other” bars of life and the two thousand chosen ones continue untouched by who comes or goes. “Names with no names”, just as the blog proves.
The “divinity” is not questioned even lovingly but allowed to brutally abuse his position condoned by the master of consciousness without functions and functions without consciousness, and equally brutally and lovingly supported by the chosen artists, good householders and people of every class and nationality. It is a blessing that there are only two thousand chosen ones and that at least twelve thousand have fled. It says something for the degree of our stupidity.
Those that did not leave quietly “spoke” and sued the Fellowship. If I had been shown any of the sues that have been published against the fellowship on this blog, I would not have joined and the Fellowship would have freed itself from my presence which has already so honerously cost it.
The students that hide these facts hide them because they need to keep holding to the illusion that they are awakening no matter at whose cost. They are not a hair different to anyone in life trying to make money, at no matter whose cost. By not being able to question their illusion which shattered from the start, they have continued to support indefinite unnecessary suffering and moved back on their old self. Robert and Girard as much as everybody else. The same patterns of behaviour are demanded that life institutions demand. No institutionalized channels of communication so that students don’t share their questions, the language is reduced to exclusive subjects that go from Robert’s divinity to Robert’s humanity and madness, but no one is to talk about themselves. And still they say think it is about awakening! The Prime Minister and all the set, hold the post and the adepts stick to theirs but you can immediately tell that they are not friends, just associates holding the “smelly” bag.
There is no question that each one of us has had to make a life of our own independent of the Fellowship for the fellowship does not allow us a life of our own. A ‘poor’ life in most cases that we take and wiggle in the Fellowship in the hope that someone will look at us for what we’re worth but someone will quickly tell us that we’re “wiggling” too much, like a worm. Singing too much, expecting too much, loving your life boyfriend too much, your children or parents too much but Robert? Never in excess.
After five, ten or thirty years of wiggling their non existent lives, some students know that they don’t have enough of a life to wiggle anywhere else and that they might as well stay, without it even occurring to them that they might change it, it was never theirs no matter how many lifetimes they put in it; Others leave absolutely depressed to wiggle some other little cause outside and some, stand and claim their right to talk and be heard.
It is true Exlax that you never saw me develop the second line and walked around like nothing but a mortified lunar. I was nothing more that and I am much more like a wolf in sheep clothing than a sheep in wolf clothing. While suing the fellowship is not the answer I am looking for, who says it could not be a solution? After all these years who cares about a few more? When I said at the beginning that suing was not an alternative for crime for this is not a “criminal” case I did not mean that it is not a “civil” case for uncivilized behavior.
If I’ve learnt anything in the Fellowship, it is that you can put a price on anything, consciousness or pain. Isn’t Alexis saying that we pay for pain? While people volunteer to pay for consciousness, courts have to make them pay for pain. Maybe because they are the “chosen” ones they think they don’t have to pay for pain and just like them you’re asking me to transform this unexamined and silenced deceiving on my own without using the objective rights not given to me as a member of the Fellowship but as a standard, “dead” human being. They wouldn’t be afraid of the dead would they? Why are you?
What matters is not the blame one puts on people but the responsibility people are willing or made to take. The only difference in my case to Mr. Sanders,’ whose ladder I would have no shame to be on, is that, were I to go ahead with my claim I would not accept to be payed ahead and allow The Fellowship to continue undisturbed.
Isn’t it funny how in this double morality game, the abuses the Fellowship makes are easily condoned and yet one is brutally questioned when one seriously questions them?
Exlax, might you be a little uncomfortable with a woman arguing with you? You think I should be sitting, crying and suiciding, don’t you? Or back to my mortified self? But after being a guest for this many years (for which woman is nothing but a guest in the Fellowship, with the gays first, the half men second and the women third?) I am happy to be the Sheik’s guest. By your second mail it is even more clear how non dear I am to you and these nasty encounters between us are much better than the silent acceptance in the fellowship that gives no growth and allows us, to let anybody go. Brothers and sisters come closer after years of nasty encounters. With right parameters we would have gone a great deal further in the pursuit of consciousness.
I would appreciate though, that we allow those who get entangled in nasty encounters to solve them on their own or at least be more objective about the photograph. While I thank those that ‘defend’ me, because it is a little less discouraging, we are all old enough to solve these nasty encounters without a court and allowing them to duplicate or triplicate requires transforming much unnecessary suffering.
Thank you for the talk.
April 12, 2007 at 1:43 am
“The Caligulas, the Hitlers, the Pol Pots, the Robert Burtons, the Jim Joneses, the Rajneeshes and their petty, fearful minions are an endless parade which will continue to arise forever and we will continue to rise to oppose them.”
Having been with Rajneesh (Osho)for many years as a therapist, as have many cutting-edge psychologists and bio-energetic people (Abe Maslow, etc) have been,it is doubtful YOU have ever been, as you would not have made such an ignorant statement.
April 12, 2007 at 2:24 am
Someone asked about how one might “diagnose” the possible personality disorders on display in the person of Robert Burton.
Back in 1994, a couple of books on cults were making the rounds in the Fellowship (“The Guru Papers” by Kramer and Alstad, and “Captive Hearts, Captive Minds” by Tobias and Lalich) (OK, the rounds of some in the Fellowship). The writers of the latter book suggested that many cult leaders could properly be described as “psychopaths,” and provided a fifteen-point profile of a psychopath.
I remember being shocked at how closely the description of the psychopath fit; everything from self-serving manipulation based upon charm, to a grandiose sense of self and feelings of entitlement, to a complete lack of remorse, shame or guilt, to an incapacity for true love or empathy, to indifference to the harm they inflict on others . . . and on and on. If you haven’t seen it, check it out for yourself; it’s quite remarkable. I’ve quoted it below (parts of the book are available on the web).
What I’ve always found fascinating is that the qualities of seeming “strength” that many people are attracted to in a leader, whether of a cult or a nation, may merely be the pathological absence of normal human capacities for love, empathy, remorse, and concern for others. It is easy to manipulate someone who seeks relief from his own insecurities and uncertainties in the leader’s absolute lack of doubt in himself or his actions.
Anyway, here goes.
+———————————-+
From “Captive Hearts, Captive Minds,” by Madeline Landau Tobias and Janja Lalich, pp. 67-79
The Cult Leader as Psychopath
Cultic groups and relationships are formed primarily to meet specific emotional needs of the leader, many of whom suffer from one or another emotional or character disorder. Few, if any, cult leaders subject themselves to the psychological tests or prolonged clinical interviews that allow for an accurate diagnosis. However, researchers and clinicians who have observed these individuals describe them variously as neurotic, psychotic, on a spectrum exhibiting neurotic, sociopathic, and psychotic characteristics, or suffering from a diagnosed personality disorder.
It is not our intent here to make an overarching diagnosis, nor do we intend to imply that all cult leaders or the leaders of any of the groups mentioned here are psychopaths. In reviewing the data, however, we can surmise that there is significant psychological dysfunctioning in some cult leaders and that their behavior demonstrates features rather consistent with the disorder known as psychopathy.
Dr. Robert Hare, one of the world’s foremost experts in the field, estimates that there are at least two million psychopaths in North America. He writes, “Psychopaths are social predators who charm, manipulate, and ruthlessly plow their way through life, leaving a broad trail of broken hearts, shattered expectations, and empty wallets. Completely lacking in conscience and in feelings for others, they selfishly take what they want and do as they please, violating social norms and expectations without the slightest sense of guilt or regret.”
. . . . .
The Profile of a Psychopath
In reading the profile, bear in mind the three characteristics that Robert Lifton sees as common to a cultic situation:
1. A charismatic leader who…increasingly becomes the object of worship
2. A series of processes that can be associated with “coercive persuasion” or “thought reform”
3. The tendency toward manipulation from above … with exploitation — economic, sexual, or other — of often genuine seekers who bring idealism from below
Based on the psychopathy checklists of Hervey Cleckley and Robert Hare, we now explore certain traits that are particularly pertinent to cult leaders. The fifteen characteristics outlined below list features commonly found in those who become perpetrators of psychological and physical abuse. In the discussion we use the nomenclature “psychopath” and “cult leader” interchangeably. . . .
We are not suggesting that all cult leaders are psychopaths but rather that they may exhibit many of the behavioral characteristics of one. We are also not proposing that you use this checklist to make a diagnosis, which is something only a trained professional can do. We present the checklist as a tool to help you label and demystify traits you may have noticed in your leader.
1. Glibness/Superficial charm
Glibness is a hallmark of psychopaths. They are able to use language effortlessly to beguile, confuse, and convince. They are captivating storytellers. They exude self-confidence and are able to spin a web that intrigues others and pulls them into the psychopath’s life. Most of all, they are persuasive. Frequently they have the capacity to destroy their critics verbally or disarm them emotionally.
2. Manipulative and Conning
Cult leaders do not recognize the individuality or rights of others, which makes all self-serving behaviors permissible. The hallmark of the psychopath is the psychopathic maneuver; which is essentially interpersonal manipulation “based on charm. The manipulator appears to be helpful, charming, even ingratiating or seductive, but is covertly hostile, domineering….[The victim] is perceived as an aggressor, competitor, or merely as an instrument to be used….The manipulation inevitably becomes the end-all and is no longer qualified by the reality principle.” In other words, there are no checks on the psychopath’s behavior–anything goes. The Psychopath divides the world into suckers, sinners, and himself. He discharges powerful feelings of terror and rage by dominating and humiliating his victims. He is particularly successful when, through an overlay of charm, he makes an ally of his victim–a process sometimes described as emotional vampirism or emotional terrorism. Examples of this type of manipulation are plentiful in the literature of Jonestown and other cultic groups. It is especially prevalent in the one-on-one cultic relationship, where there is direct involvement with the manipulator.
3. Grandiose Sense of Self
The cult leader enjoys tremendous feelings of entitlement. He believes everything is owed to him as a right. Preoccupied with his own fantasies, he must always be the center of attention. He presents himself as the “Ultimate One” enlightened, a vehicle of God, a genius, the leader of humankind, and sometimes even the most humble of humble. He has an insatiable need for adulation and attendance. His grandiosity may also be a defense against inner emptiness, depression, and a sense of insignificance. Paranoia often accompanies the grandiosity, reinforcing the isolation of the group and the need for protection against a perceived hostile environment. In this way, he creates an us-versus-them mentality.
4. Pathological Lying
Psychopaths lie coolly and easily, even when it is obvious they are being untruthful. It is almost impossible for them to be consistently truthful about either a major or minor issue. They lie for no apparent reason, even when it would seem easier and safer to tell the truth. This is sometimes called “crazy lying.” Confronting their lies may provoke an unpredictably incense rage or simply a Buddha-like smile.
Another form of lying common among cult leaders is known as pseudologica fantastica, an extension of pathological lying. Leaders tend to create a complex belief system, often about their own powers and abilities, in which they themselves sometimes get caught up. “It is often difficult to determine whether the lies are an actual delusional distortion of reality or are expressed with the conscious or unconscious intent to deceive. These manipulators are rarely original thinkers. Plagiarists and thieves, they seldom credit the true originators of ideas, often co-opting authorship. They are extremely convincing, forceful in the expression of their views, and talented at passing lie detector tests. For them, objective truth does not exist. The only “truth” is whatever will best achieve the outcome that meets their needs. This type of opportunism is very difficult to understand for those who are not psychopaths. For this reason, followers are more apt to invent or go along with all kinds of explanations and rationales for apparent inconsistencies in behavior “I know my guru must have had a good reason for doing this.” “He did it because he loves me even though it hurts.”
5. Lack of Remorse, Shame, or Guilt
At the core of the psychopath is a deep-seated rage which is split off (i.e, psychologically separated from the rest of the self) and repressed. Some researchers theorize that this is caused by feeling abandoned in infancy or early childhood. Whatever the emotional or psychological source, psychopaths see those around them as objects, targets, or opportunities, not as people. They do not have friends, they have victims and accomplices-and the latter frequently end as victims. For psychopaths, the ends always justify the means. Thus there is no place for feelings of remorse, shame, or guilt. Cult leaders feel justified in all their actions since they consider themselves the ultimate moral arbiter. Nothing gets in their way.
6. Shallow Emotions
While they may display outbursts of emotion, more often than not they are putting on a calculated response to obtain a certain result. They rarely reveal a range of emotions, and what is seen is superficial at best, pretended at worst. Positive feelings of warmth, joy, love, and compassion are more feigned than experienced. They are unmoved by things that would upset the normal person, while outraged by insignificant matters. They are bystanders to the emotional life of others, perhaps envious and scornful of feelings they cannot have or understand. In the end, psychopaths are cold, with shallow emotions, living in a dark world of their own.
Hiding behind the “mask of sanity,” the cult leader exposes feelings only insofar as they serve an ulterior motive. He can witness or order acts of utter brutality without experiencing a shred of emotion. He casts himself in a role of total control, which he plays to the hilt. What is most promised in cults–peace, joy, enlightenment, love, and security are goals that are forever out of reach of the leader, and thus also the followers. Since the leader is not genuine, neither are his promises.
7. Incapacity for Love
As the “living embodiment of God’s love,” the leader is tragically flawed in being unable to either give or receive love. Love substitutes are given instead. A typical example might be the guru’s claim that his illness or misfortune (otherwise inconsistent with his enlightened state) is caused by the depth of his compassion for his followers, whereby he takes on their negative karma. Not only are devotees supposed to accept this as proof of his love but also are expected to feel guilt for their failings! It becomes impossible for members to disprove this claim once they have accepted the beliefs of the group.
The leader’s tremendous need to be loved is accompanyied by an equally strong disbelief in the love offered him by his followers; hence, the often unspeakably cruel and harsh testing of his devotees. Unconditional surrender is an absolute requirement. In one cult, for example, the mother of two small children was made to tell them nightly that she loved her leader more than them. Later, as a test of her devotion, she was asked to give up custody of her children in order to be allowed to stay with her leader. The guru’s love is never tested; it must be accepted at face value.
8. Need for Stimulation
Thrill-seeking behaviors, often skirting the letter or spirit of the law, are common among psychopaths. Such behavior is sometimes justified as preparation for martyrdom “I know I don’t have long to live; therefore my time on this earth must be lived to the fullest.” “Surely even I am entitled to have fun or sin a little.” This type of behavior becomes more frequent as the leader deteriorates emotionally and psychologically–a common occurrence.
Cult leaders live on the edge, constantly testing the beliefs of their followers, often with increasingly bizarre behaviors, punishments, and rules. Other mechanisms of stimulation come in the form of unexpected, seemingly spontaneous outbursts, which usually take the form of verbal abuse and sometimes physical punishment. The psychopath has a cool indifference to things around him, yet his icy coldness can quicky turn into rage, vented on those around him.
9. Callousness/lack of empathy
Psychopaths readily take advantage of others, expressing utter contempt for anyone else’s feelings. Someone in distress is not important to them. Although intelligent, perceptive, and quite good at sizing people up, they make no real connections with others. They use their “people skills” to exploit, abuse, and wield power.
Psychopaths are unable to empathize with the pain of their victims. Meanwhile, part of the victims’ denial system is the inability to believe that someone they love so much could consciously and callously hurt them. It therefore becomes easier to rationalize the leader’s behavior as necessary for the general or individual “good.” The alternative for the devotee would be to face the sudden and overwhelming awareness of being victimized, deceived, used. Such a realization would wound the person’s deepest sense of self, so as a means of self-protection the person denies the abuse. When and if the devotee becomes aware of the exploitation, it feels as though a tremendous evil has been done, a spiritual rape.
10. Poor Behavioral Controls/Impulsive Nature
Like small children, many psychopaths have difficulty regulating their emotions. Adults who have temper tantrums are frightening to be around. Rage and abuse, alternating with token expressions of love and approval, produce an addictive cycle for both abuser and abused, as well as create a sense of hopelessness in the latter. This dynamic has also been recognized in relation to domestic abuse and the battering of women. The cult leader acts out with some regularity–often privately, sometimes publicly–usually to the embarrassment and dismay of his followers and other observers. He may act out sexually, aggressively, or criminally, frequently with rage. Who could possibly control someone who believes himself to be all-powerful, all-knowing, and entitled to every wish, someone who has no sense of personal boundaries, no concern for the impact on those around him? Generally this aberrant behavior is a well-kept secret, known only to a few disciples. The others only see perfection. These tendencies are related to the psychopath’s need for stimulation and inability to tolerate frustration, anxiety, and depression. Often a leader’s inconsistent behavior needs to be rationalized by either the leader or the follower in order to maintain internal consistency. It is often regarded as divinely inspired and further separates the empowered from the powerless.
11. Early Behavior Problems/juvenile delinquency
Psychopaths frequently have a history of behavioral and academic difficulties. They often “get by” academically, conning other students and teachers. Encounters with juvenile authorities are frequent. Equally prevalent are difficulties in peer relationships and developing and keeping friends, marked control problems, and other aberrant behaviors such as stealing, fire setting, and cruelty to others.
12. Irresponsibility/Unreliability
Not concerned about the consequences of their behavior, psychopaths leave behind them the wreckage of others’ lives and dreams. They may be totally oblivious or indifferent to the devastation they inflict on others, something which they regard as neither their problem nor their responsibility.
Psychopaths rarely accept blame for their failures or mistakes. Scape goating is common, blaming followers, those outside the group, a member’s family, the government, Satan–anyone and everyone but the leader. The blaming may follow a ritualized procedure such as a trial, “hot seat” denunciation, or public confession (either one-on-one or in front of the group). Blame is a powerful reinforcer of passivity and obedience, producing guilt, shame, terror, and conformity in the followers.
13. Promiscuous Sexual behavior/infidelity
Promiscuity, child sexual abuse, polygamy, rape, and sexual acting out of all sorts are frequently practiced by cult leaders. Conversely, there is often stringent sexual control of the followers through such tactics as enforced celibacy, arranged marriages, forced breakups and divorces, removal of children from their parents, forced abortions or mandated births. For psychopaths, sex is primarily a control and power issue.
Along with this behavior comes vast irresponsibility not only for the followers’ emotions but also for their lives. In one cult, for example, multiple sexual relations were encouraged even while one of the top leaders was known to be HIV positive. This kind of negligence toward others is not uncommon in the psychopath’s world.
Marital fidelity is rare in the psychopath’s life. There are usually countless reports of extramarital affairs and sexual predation upon adult and child members of both sexes. The sexual behavior of the leader may be kept hidden from all but the inner circle or may be part of accepted group sexual practices. In any case, due to the power imbalance between leader and followers, sexual contact is never truly consensual and is likely to have damaging consequences for the follower.
14. Lack of realistic life plan/parasitic lifestyle
The psychopath tends to move around a lot, making countless efforts at “starting over while seeking out Fertile new ground to exploit. One day he may appear as a rock musician, the next a messiah; one day a used car salesman, the next the founder of a mass self-transformation program; one day a college professor, the next the new “Lenin” bringing revolution to America.
The flip side of this erratic life planning is the all-encompassing promise for the future that the cult leader makes to his followers. Many groups claim as their goal world domination or salvation at the Apocalypse. The leader is the first to proclaim the utopian nature of the group, which is usually simply another justification for irrational behavior and stringent controls.
The leader’s sense of entitlement is often demonstrated by the contrast between his luxurious lifestyle and the impoverishment of his followers. Most cult leaders arc supported by gifts and donations from their followers, who may be pressured to turn over much of their income and worldly possessions to the group. Slavery, enforced prostitution, and a variety of illegal acts for the benefit of the leader are common in a cult milieu. This type of exploitation aptly demonstrates Lifton’s third point of idealization from below and exploitation from above.
Psychopaths also tend to be preoccupied with their own health while remaining totally indifferent to the suffering of others. They may complain of being “burned out” due to the burden of “caring for” their followers, sometimes stating they do not have long to live, instilling fear and guilt in their devotees and encouraging further servitude. they are highly sensitive to their own pain and tend to be hypochondriacs, which often conflicts with their public image of superhuman self-control and healing abilities.
According to them, the illnesses they don’t get are due to their powers, while the ones they do get are caused by their “compassion” in taking on their disciples’ karma or solving the group’s problems. This of course is another guru trick.
15. Criminal or entrepreneurial versatility
Cult leaders change their image and that of the group as needed to avoid prosecution and litigation, to increase income, and to recruit a range of members. Cult leaders have an innate ability to attract followers who have the skills and connections that the leaders lack. The longevity of the group is dependent on the willingness of leadership to adapt as needed and preserve the group. Frequently, when illegal or immoral activities are exposed to the public, the cult leader will relocate, sometimes taking followers with him. He will keep a low profile, only to resurface later with a new name, a new front group, and perhaps a new twist on the scam.
April 12, 2007 at 2:30 am
GOlb (99): How about giving me an argument instead of telling me that I don’t know what I am talking about. I want to hear the why, I don’t give a damn about your statements. Proof, my friend. BTW, the FoF propaganda is so lame, really. Cheap shots.
Howard Carter: Man, you would have benefitted the same anywhere else, it’s not the group – it’s you. You are the godsend you muppet.
April 12, 2007 at 2:33 am
Lust for Life Says:
April 11th, 2007 at 11:48 pm
Kiran #75, I never knew you in the FOF but I find your posts rather irritating, and up till now I have not expressed it.
==
Dear Lust for Life. You obviously were not an FOF student. Kiran was one of the most well known, charasmatic and popular students in the school and it doubtful that anyone in the school would not know him unless they never participated in anything and lived under a rock. Stop pretending.
April 12, 2007 at 4:17 am
Howard, I’m finding your angles have the same effect on me as ipecac. I have no problem with your beliefs (and it wouldn’t matter if I did), but please ease off on the flowery, syrupy bullshit for the sake of others.
April 12, 2007 at 5:13 am
Apologies in advance to many of you who have made it clear that you would prefer creative thought expressed and written here on the blog versus quotes, poetry and/or paragraphs taken directly from those whom we had so affectionately referred to as “The 44” Conscious Beings…who were thought to have been working with “The School”. “i” have always passionately loved language and words and all of our (often in vain) attempts to communicate with other beings.
“my” career involved worldwide travel and so often non-verbal means of relating were our only resource in our attempts to connect! OK…enough of a preface!!!
For those of you who knew our “Beloved” Peter Bishop, the following quote was printed on the finest papyrus using his hand-letter press with a bright red T in “caps” to begin. The remainder of the speech is in simple black text…May it inspire some of you as it has always inspired me.
“i” actually think it applies to all of us now, both individually and collectively…Enjoy!!
‘The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at best knows in the end the triumphs of high achievement; and who at the worst, if he fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.’
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1936
Final Campaign Speech
April 12, 2007 at 6:24 am
Inner jewel – 6-101
That bit about a student saying that he would kill the teacher. If you are talking about a Peruvian from Seattle, what he said is that he would kill the teacher if he found out that the teacher was not conscious. He was a king of clubs and the statement was rhethoric, but as the teacher said, `It`s not what goes into your mouth that you need to worry about, it`s what comes out of it.` That also applies to the gossip, in or out.
April 12, 2007 at 7:06 am
To: Alexis, 6/77
“Robert once asked a Student whether he had verified Influence C. The student replied “ I am afraid I have’. Whether this actually happened or was made up makes no difference, it prompted me to think why that particular reply? Why so ominous? Is the verification not supposed to be an illuminating experience, an experience of bliss?”
Another quote that completes the thought above is from a student, who said “The school is more real than I ever wanted it to be.”
Verification of Influence C has its elements of bliss undoubtedly, but with it comes more responsibility. We are not free to engage in the same old activities we did prior to the realization. As Walt Whitman said, “It knocked the silliness out of me.”
I may have had a similar experience as the one you allude to many years ago. I mentioned it to Robert and asked if I was imagining things or if C Influence would actually break physical laws. He replied “they will do anything they deem necessary to wake us up”.
April 12, 2007 at 10:34 am
To Sheik, re: #113
It may well be that an obviously intelligent, observant, talented, person as Howard Carter would have benefitted the same in some other group, but that is exactly where the idea that life is a play comes in…
if you keep looking for the perfect group, you may spend your life looking. The idea is to find, i.e., engage real work on oneself.
Once that has commenced there is not a single moment to lose and it really becomes a matter of life and death–our moment to moment struggle.
Thus, while you may be right, it is even more important and absolutely incumbent on HC and all other sincere students not to waste time.
Just my two grains of salt
April 12, 2007 at 11:06 am
#88 Howard Carter: ‘But the notion that it simply works, period, taken at face value, does not seem to be admissible as a possibility’.
Dear Howard,
I admit, that ‘it works’. It does.
But keep in mind that it might work not the way you think it does or should. It might easily be the opposite of what you expect.
Have you noticed that when reality comes, it turns everything upside down?
We all come to the point of giving up identifications with ‘my teacher’, ‘my
school’, and most of all ‘my evolution’. And everyone sooner or later realizes that those things are illusionary, as all of our mind concepts, as all of the visible world.
Fellowship is a great place to support all this illusionary concepts of ‘my evolution’ (which of course includes developing of a steward/a seeker of enlightment) and so far quite successfully works to help people to elaborate on them that much, so the concepts become completely worn out and useless. And then you wouldn’t miss this – to ask yourself ‘Whom this whole thing is for?’ “Am I chasing awakening?’ ‘Who am I really?’
There are many people down this blog for whom ‘it worked’; in a very strange unexpected way of finding the truth not because your teacher put it into your mouth, but almost in spite of him. (And even if they try to deny that the FOF had nothing to do with their awakening to the reality, facts are, that we are coming to the truth of our being, and Fellowship takes its place it this process).
To the cult analysis:
As it looks to me today, many of FOF students have left the cult already, while still remaining in the structure.
Much love to all.
April 12, 2007 at 11:45 am
Oshite #111
I will give you the ignorance jab. Please reference the bottom of my post #104.
The first three were of a different scale than the latter but none could exist without their minions (am i to assume you are one of them?)
Of the latter three i think Jim Jones is a different category with the same power dynamic. I think we could agree those like him should be opposed. My theory on RB who i had direct experience with is that he developed quite a bit along one or two lines but did not do any work on his “shadow” and this darkness followed him up these other lines and is infused with the same power. Of Osho i only have anecdotal knowledge. I enjoyed his books and it seems he was quite “enlightened” yet i sense the same occured with him. I would be interested to hear what Mr. Maslow would have to say about him. As to the opposition it has nothing to do with their level of development. Please reference Post #112. It has only to do with their abuse of power and the purely human level cruelty of indifference to others. While i am at it i quite regreted leaving out George W. Bush another despot who, while believing in god, is working his way to the heights of the first three mentioned.
Hey, have you read the book “A Hundred Years of Psychotherapy and the World is Getting Worse” by James Hillman?
April 12, 2007 at 2:33 pm
Little susy says:
“Pure, unconditional love is consciousness. Harming another, who is really part of yourself, is not a moral issue; it’s a ‘consciousness’ issue and morals have nothing to do with it.”
Not to pick a point (but I will) – One would say here: That the oneness you are pointing to cannot be harmed. If ‘another is harmed’ – this is a body/mind/heart that is supposedly harmed and all that lies in the mixed up and inconsistent world of issues and morals. Conciousness, that true you, merely observes and is not involved in the ‘harm’.
April 12, 2007 at 4:19 pm
Re Howard Carter 6/88. Thanks for putting an important point economically and pardon the lack of brevity in my response.
I think most posters have expressed gratitude for having been part of the FOF as well as gratitude for having left, if they have left. Speaking for myself, I can list a number of ways being part of the Fellowship has changed me in ways that are pretty unusual: One of the most dynamic things was to be able to do things that I would not have been able to do as quickly outside the school, from leading meetings and serving at lovely dinners to operating heavy equipment and clearing land, the school offers great opportunities to do stuff quickly. It is pretty fortunate that no one has been killed as we are pretty amateurish, but it is great fun and makes you feel like you are taking a short cut.
Another great thing is the discipline of being subject to the rules of the school, the tasks, exercises and suggestions. Working incredibly hard and knowing what it means not to have the energy to be in imagination, having an emotional dinner with other harvesters and then doing the same thing again the next day. Having to go against your inclinations and expectations without resentment is definitely a way to develop something in yourself. Stopping smoking – which you mentioned HC and generally becoming a better householder. Then there is the sheer intellectual and emotional consistency of Ouspensky’s 4th Way and the respect for other students who were making this their own. Living in foreign countries with the school as your focus, in places you would be unlikely to have visited otherwise. Working with new students in foreign centers, feeling your understanding of the system as something separate that was able to address difficult questions and find the right actions to help others see themselves better. Making friends that you feel you could not have made with out both of you having been students. Being with others who understood what you were talking about and who you could listen to. Having a benevolent paternal teacher figure who nevertheless could do anything and was not to be taken for granted. Of course a culture centered around being present to the moment is an amazing thing and makes up for many of the otherwise unacceptable faults.
I could go on; there is a lot that the Fellowship has facilitated, created the conditions for or caused in my life for which I am grateful. These things have molded me and given me more understanding than I would have had if I had conformed to my parent’s expectations of me and lived a safe and bland life.
If we came to the school to have our being changed then I think the Fellowship does work and we can leave it different from when we joined and more aware of ourselves, general laws and human psychology and consider the years well spent.
However, let me introduce 2 economic terms, the law of diminishing returns and opportunity cost. There comes a time when you are realize that more time spent in the school does not give you more of what you got before. This is a very important point. Also, like mole putting on another coat of whitewash in his burrow, we may say “ Oh, bother spring cleaning” because outside there are fields and forests and rivers. It is hard to qualify this cost as we do not know what is out there that we are missing as a result of staying. I do not mean physically, as we can live anywhere and do most things whilst staying in the school, I mean in terms of your primary alliance. As a student who follows Robert’s teaching you are limited in what you can be aware of and yet remain positive and obedient. It is not possible to have too many com-possibles, some things just cannot coexist together without significant psychological cost, ie building new buffers and actively, knowingly allowing oneself to lie to preserve ones connection.
Are we capable of judging when we have got the most out of the school, probably not, it is unlikely that we will leave when our stock is at its peak and we can be expected to sell our stock on the way down, not on the way up – which is a pretty good description of the position we ‘doubters’ find ourselves in. I would also use the analogy of a failing relationship, there comes a time when you know it is over and your efforts to ‘make it work’ are almost staged. This is like a reverse honeymoon, a time for a protracted farewell, a painful embrace from which you are loath to depart. It often takes something relatively small to act as the catalyst needed to sever a tie like this. Much of what is happening now is not by itself the reason students see leaving as necessary for them; it is the means to asserting their wish to change their being, to continue on their way.
Does the fact that you no longer can stay with a woman/man mean that they are of no value? Of course not, and yet it can be over.
An answer to this kind of reasoning is of course ‘Of course, that is what it is all about, these are the many ‘I’s that you need to separate from in order to pursue your aim to awaken. Remember your verifications and you will become stronger through passing through this time of identification’
Is this enough? Not for me. It might be for you and it might be enough for you because you are more advanced than me, HC. However, I choose a different kind of determination than remaining in the school will give me. I cannot subscribe to the school as it is now and cannot suspend my conscience and reason in order to stay as the cost is too great.
As far as being able to use the school goes, you need to have a positive attitude and just like in a relationship you need trust. Once that goes, it is very hard to win it back.
The fact that the school works and the fact that it is time to leave are not exclusive. We are not all at the same point, there are posters who describe the lesson some of us are learning now as ones they learnt it a decade or more ago. Maybe the school works in a more profound way than you suspect and people do move on.
April 12, 2007 at 5:25 pm
If there is, in your pyschology, something, anything, that is not perfect as is – your psychology is temporarily blocked; the lense is not clear. Which is not to say that the machine, functions, will like/accept/redo that something. The universal background is profoundly intelligent; or at least it appears so from over here.
April 12, 2007 at 5:35 pm
To Post 114 (Anonymous),
I’m not sure what you’re trying to say when you criticize Lust for Life with the following comments: “You obviously were not an FOF student. Kiran was one of the most well known, charasmatic and popular students in the school and it doubtful that anyone in the school would not know him unless they never participated in anything and lived under a rock. Stop pretending.”
Are you saying Lust for Life’s status as student or non-student or “active” student somehow makes his/her comments more or less valid? Are you saying that Kiran’s status as “charismatic and popular” within the FOF somehow makes his statements more valid?
It’s not uncommon for people to make such evaluations when someone stands up at a Fellowship meeting, or city council meeting, or at a company meeting, or wherever. When “angles” were still being given at meetings in the FOF, you’d often see people crane their necks when they heard a new voice. Nothing wrong with that, but it’s usually all about identifying the status of the speaker, and then filtering one’s opinion about the “angle” through that supposed status. “Oh, that’s just Joe Blow from the Winery Construction crew,” or “I’ve never heard of this person. Never mind.”
Personally, I find many of Kiran’s comments interesting. When I heard about the accident, I knew him well enough that I sensed something would change in him profoundly, and I felt relatively sure the Fellowship couldn’t hold him much longer. I probably won’t be following his ideas any time soon, but I am impressed with his creativity and passion.
At the same time, I can understand why Lust for Life and others would criticize Kiran after some of his comments in this blog. Like all of us, Kiran is learning and growing through everything he’s experiencing, and sometimes maybe the wrong words come out (and believe me, I am not professing to be anywhere above that).
So in the meantime, one of the reasons this blog “works” is that it’s more about the ideas and less about the status of the person conveying the ideas. That’s one of the beauties of it.
April 12, 2007 at 5:39 pm
Re Howard Carter 6/88 and I see… 6/124:
Thank you I See. You said well all the things I feel I have gotten from the Fellowship, and also described precisely where I find myself now. There really is no contradiction in the possibility that the FoF does work, and that at the same time someone may find it time to leave.
Although you do not actually state this in your post, I find that an important part of my work right now is the reconsidering of all the ideas I have had about the nature of work on one’s self, states, consciousness, schools, and teachers. There was an earlier posting that long ago where someone said that some of the Advaita style teachers have found that FoF people come to them very well prepared — in response to this some of the ‘mainstream’ FoF posters (perhaps HC?) seemed to take offense at this notion. However I find it actually to be a very positive comment on the FoF and RB — an actual compliment from another teacher!. I think my years here have been in no way wasted, whatsoever. At the same time, I feel there is no going back, and in this there is I feel no contradiction at all.
April 12, 2007 at 5:52 pm
Dear friends,
I have a couple of questions as I am grateful for this blog. It seems a support to help us digest very different issues for each of us who were and connected to the fof, in one way or the other.
It still surprises me that so many different “fellowship members ex or not” have so any different experiences.
My aim is to focus on what is positive now, what gives me joy and I love to climb up the emotional scale. I try to go to the simple feeling of what feels good. If it does not feel good I try to not go there.
Connected to this is my observation that people like HC and CB get a lot of attention and receive wonderful replies…Why are we still so reactive isn’t that mechanical behavior?
What about our conscience is that not a simple radar in us that states this does not feel good, a will walk around the block and avoid the situation?
After few months of mourning I feel ready to start something new…though I do not want to go into te same rut as before…I hope our new community is instrumental in helping each other? As soon as guide lines are laid down the decision in the moment is gone.
What about these typical people who talk and talk and talk…who take so much energy and who are not able to share or those who are not so good in expressing themselves in a group…?
Many questions. I think this blog was a good way of expressing our pain, our frustration. It feels like a new time…thank God and hope to come to a better feeling place with leaving the pain behind.
Any idea how to work with these issues like building a community, with conscience and be able to take decisions in the moment and avoid the cult/ power trap? As you can tell I do not like to see energy going into war and or battling RB or the fof ? I hope to build and to go “up”.
Looking forward to your responses.
Love to all of you each moment.
April 12, 2007 at 6:23 pm
Inner Jewels #107: I have not verified either but yes I believe the existence of ‘the’ rapture. The rapture Index, I have no clue.
One rapture leads to (or is) mystic inspiration.
The other is produced by the blast of a hydrogen bomb or several atom bombs.
On post #47 the esoteric sheik of inner confusion calls it correctly–FREAKY.
Sir Knight helped me find the knowledge about the Eagle and Condor.
And Sir Knight and Mr. Sheik have always to be thanked. They are literally saving lives.
April 12, 2007 at 6:40 pm
Dear ‘I see’ said the blind man (#123),
You describe the richness of your own experience, and how it helped you in your own work, and you present a very concise argument: “The fact that the school works and the fact that it is time to leave are not exclusive.”
I like that we’re talking about this topic in this blog: “Does the school really work as much as we believe it works? Or are we deceiving ourselves so that we can bear an uncomfortable truth? Or could both be true?”
When you think about it, there’s nothing shocking or provocative about these questions. They are very natual and straightforward questions for someone who has spent years trying to observe themselves.
Unfortunately, one very plausible answer might be found in Don Juan’s post 6/112. I read his post last night, and read it again, and I’m still letting things sink in a bit.
We often say the best place to hide an esoteric idea is right in front of people (e.g., the deck of playing cards). Very true, and you can hide many things that way, not just esoteric ideas.
I always enjoy the scene in Casablanca where Rick walks up to the piano right in the middle of the restaurant and grabs the “papers” without a soul noticing him. It could be we are a bit like those restaurant patrons — enjoying the music and the company of friends, and meanwhile oblivious to a significant event occurring right in front of us.
April 12, 2007 at 6:51 pm
Rabbi Burns says: Does anyone have any indication from their own experience that the FOF “works”, other than changing superficial aspects of personal behavior and maybe making us appear a bit more civilized?
It is not easy to dive deep into the many ‘I’s and still find what works in the Fellowship after having said everything I’ve said but let me try if only for the exercise.
The fact that Robert has stood head over heals on the idea of self remembering for thirty three, (eight?) years, has definitely worked for me.
The fact that with no matter what artifices, Robert has managed to hold to the idea of the non expression of negative emotions, has worked for me. In fact, a thousand more things have worked for me.
When Exlax asks me where we are going with this I should be honest enough to answer and say: Where I would like to go is back to the Fellowship, not because it is the only offer at hand but because awakening is not nearly as strong an issue for me as living and having half lived there I would like to live the whole. I was pushed out of life to get there I am not afraid of being pushed out from there, to life. I doubt those inside would be as willing to take me as I’d be willing to come back but I’ll still give it a try and state my case and yes, I am after reforming the Fellowship and everyone in it, if that’s how you would like to put it. If they can’t bear doing it with me they might be able to do it on their own with the few suggestions I have that might work.
The Fellowship works or can work for any one individual who sincerely works on himself especially if that individual is consistently checked. If every check on the individual is transformed by him without judgement, it works. It works less on the individuals that go unchecked because instead of having to confront their weaknesses, the weaknesses are strengthened by suddenly being approved by Robert. If Robert approves you, everyone allows you and continues to approve you blindly or if they don’t “approve” you, they still have to put up with you.
I would challenge anyone to tell me what cannot work about being present and not expressing negative emotions. What surprises me is not that it doesn’t work, it is that it didn’t or hasn’t yet worked for the Fellowship as a whole.
As a group of people living together in very particular conditions what has worked is that although we have not yet learnt to develop the second line and sincerely embrace each other with all our weaknesses, we have learnt that no matter the weaknesses it is possible to share a place together. To be silent. To not mechanically condone every one of our ‘I’s. Everything that we have suppressed for thirty years has acted against us from one angle and acted for us, from another. Not one effort has been lost. The beauty is there even if it acted against us by separating us into better and less better dressed.
Anyone who has worked on himself knows that this process is the same inner process for an individual. First, life gives one a mechanical programming then one unwinds that mechanicality by sitting on it and not judging it.
It is difficult to understand the extent to which working against negative emotions has not led the Fellowship to a conscious community. It is as if the non expression of negative emotions had remained in suppression rather than in transformation, for transformed it leads to non judgement which transformed leads to compassion. There are no transformations if the result is not a positive emotion.
One cannot spend the whole of one’s life simply transforming negative emotions into more negative emotions and that is where Robert seems to have gotten stuck together with us. If you seriously listen to his discourse today, the presentation of duality is unresolved and there is NO hope in his vision. It consistently falls back into individual presence without being able to move forward into community or human presence, proper to every one of us, and the hierarchy structure becomes increasingly crystallized instead of opening up the possibility of wholesome and dynamic participation.
All of us have had divine states and they may not be as permanent as Robert’s but they are as worthy as Robert’s. I sincerely believe Robert’s “decadence” is as much my responsibility as his. I idolized him as much as anybody else and I don’t think he or anyone would have been able to avoid the excesses that come with the acceptance of idolatry.
It is true that I would like to come back to the Fellowship but not so true that I would beg for it. I am not that naive to not understand that it may take some people a lifetime to overcome our situation, particularly, Robert and Girard. One cannot “save” anyone unfortunately and life seems to get at each one of us in its own terms.
The other day, my dog half killed a fox before I was able to stop him but the fox was so dead that it seemed better to let him finish it and he did as soon as I stepped away as if he knew that he had to finish the job. The only mercy in this world is the one we can give each other. Left on our own, life takes care of us and it is not nearly as merciful. It is Robert who said, if you don’t forgive your friends you wont have any, and that works for me. There are very few things that he has said, that don’t work for me.
From one angle what I have attempted to do in this blog is look at ourselves as each of us has tried to look at him/herself. Destroy the myth so that we can carry our little human selves, if not to eternity, at least across this life. Seeing one’s lower self is not a pretty spectacle but one can only see it when there’s enough beauty to hold the vision. There they both stand; the beauty and the beast. “Our” beasts are no worse than my own beast or any body else’s. While it may be an option for some to hit their chest and dwell on the beast, it is also an option for others to live with the beast and transform it. I do not believe that those in the Fellowship have looked at it already or at least taken care of it as we need to take care of it.
I think they are still trying to buffer it and that looking at it with open ‘I’s as we have done here on the blog is as legitimate a process as any inside. Seeing is not condoning or judging. Seeing is recognition. Once you recognize the obstacle then you can start working with it. In the individual process you see the beast with presence and continue tackling it with presence and all the tools: Identification, negative emotions, lying, imagination, unnecessary talk.
In a community it should be possible to do the same thing, that is, to acknowledge everybody’s presence and use all the tools. It cannot happen if only one presence is acknowledged. I would challenge anyone to tell me if Robert would not be the happiest human being to realize that we have come to ‘be’, thanks to him and in spite of him or that it would not please us too.
I do believe what holds the beauty of the Fellowship today is the young people and student’s children who knew the vision that we were after and are not identified with the old student’s inhibitions and pains. If we want to resolve them for ourselves, good for us, they have something else to do. Each one of us has payed his price all along and each one must do his own work. In the end, even the community must be forgone and one must leave alone.
April 12, 2007 at 6:52 pm
Renald, in post 117, misquotes Inner Jewels:
“Inner jewel – 6-101
That bit about a student saying that he would kill the teacher.”
According to Inner Jewel’s actual post, the student said he would kill FOR the teacher. Big difference.
But thanks for the bit of gossip about the Peruvian from Seattle. Very juicy.
April 12, 2007 at 7:26 pm
RE post 123 from ‘I see’ said the blind man:
If you could hear my post, you would hear the sound of clapping….for a long, long time!
April 12, 2007 at 7:29 pm
Great post from I SEE (#123), including: “If we came to the school to have our being changed then I think the Fellowship does work and we can leave it different from when we joined and more aware of ourselves, general laws and human psychology and consider the years well spent.”
That’s exactly right. This is how serious students are/were in fact changed in the FOF – we learnt a lot about ourselves and the way the world works.
We also progressed spiritually to a limited extent. As has been mentioned here several times, John Wheeler, an Advaita teacher, stated that former FOF students are well prepared. My impression of what he meant (I was there) is that we have a clear and deep realisation that the ‘I’s are not real. This is great preparation for the next step.
Unfortunately the FOF adds huge amounts of useless extraneous material to the basic info required for awakening. Which is why HC and other FOF true believers can only give us generalisations, circular arguments and quotations – nothing substantial.
The FOF may be useful, and fun, for a while, but anyone seriously interested in awakening is more likely to find what they’re looking for elsewhere.
In fact most of the current FOF members I’ve spoken to freely admit they’re not there for the teachings of the other RB. They remain for their friends, for money they earn from the FOF, etc. One friend told me that in his home town he was regarded as very ordinary whereas in the FOF he feels special.
It’s healthy to be honest about these things and not build up the kind of convoluted imaginary reality espoused by HC. Just look around and see what’s there, then look inside and see what’s there. It’s all very simple.
The Real RB
April 12, 2007 at 7:50 pm
Anonymous #114 – why would I pretend to have been a student???!!! I left FOF in the mid 90’s. Kiran may have been on the scene then, but I was, as you say, oblivious to him, probably under the rock of contradictory I’s struggling to decide whether to stay or leave…
So he is well known, charismatic and popular with students eh? As I thought, a candidate to start up a ‘new school’!
Comrade #125 – thanks for your support. You did a better job of the point I was trying to make about anonymity:
“one of the reasons this blog “works” is that it’s more about the ideas and less about the status of the person conveying the ideas”
which may be why well-known charismatic popular Kiran is so keen on highlighting his identity (as well as his hair!)
Kiran – “I am sorry, and I love you”.
I was unnecessarily mean to you, sorry.
(not because of your high status, but because you are a fellow being who did not deserve it!)(by the way, I use sun-in! see how hypocritical and contradictory I can be! – yes, really, not pretending!)
I am still intrigued about the photos! A well-known and popular ex FOFer demonstrating to others how great life is once you have left?
April 12, 2007 at 7:52 pm
Dear # 94 – Ruddery
You said “Two weeks prior I had had the most significant spiritual experience of my life – that event had caused me to quit a great job/career and begin a search which ended nearly two years later by joining FOF. Forever after, the words of “Hotel C” seemed somehow ‘true’ in my psychology – which is not to say that I know even now what they mean.”
Yeah, I had a few ‘states’ with that song as well. “Hotel California” (not Hotel C). You might want to review the last stanzas again.
RELAX, said the nightman,” We are programmed to receive, You can check out anytime you want, but YOU CAN NEVER LEAVE”
“Welcome to the Hotel California, what a lovely place, what a lovely face. Living it up at the Hotel California, what a nice surprise, what a nice surprise, bring your ALIBIS”.
A prison by any other term is still a prison.
The equivalent would be a ‘lifer’ sitting in San Quentin looking around and saying
” WOW, what a nice hotel, the food is great, the people really nice, the sex is great even though one big guy controls all young men he wants,and we get to step out into the courtyard once a week for the cocktail hour.”
Is he living an illusion? You may say that it is obvious- yes. But the FOF Hotel California is not? Well think again. No difference my friend, just a matter of how you see the world.
Meanwhile, enjoy. One illusion is as good as the next. But if and when you want ‘truth and reality’, take a closer look.
April 12, 2007 at 8:05 pm
Howard Carter rouser of the dead. You fight your corner cleverly. Your logic knows no bounds, even if you have once read that “Death Shall Come on Swift Wings To Him Who Disturbs the Peace of the King…”. But you do not believe in silly curses, do you?
*****
Who is this Kiran? The only Kiran I knew / know is the woman in red in the Bollywood pop video – well, I don’t actually know her…
http://www.bhangraomega.com/videos/vplayer.php?video_id=3
Ever curious,
RR
April 12, 2007 at 9:25 pm
(#85,96,122)- on the relationship between consciousness, love, and morality
My point, in #85, was that, in my experience, an impulse towards benevolence is inherent in the experience of consciousness. (The way Ouspensky apparently experienced it, in such a state one cannot do violence.) If one wants to somehow assess a teaching, a practice, a teacher, or one’s own state, rather than merely bleat “the lower cannot see the higher” or some other “work angle,” one may look at the fruits of the tree, and this, for me, is the fruit most apparent. That every other being for whom I’ve gained respect in my life appears to have reached the same conclusion, or embodies it, is not a coincidence, but it is not responsible for my experience of it.
If one defines “morality” as that which is transmitted through the culture — which works for me — then I agree that “morals have nothing to do with it,” except to whatever extent there may be certain such morals that derived from experiences of consciousness. But I wouldn’t know about that.
As for whether consciousness, “that true you,” is ever harmed, or merely observes unscathed, this is a philosophical truism that I find of value as something to keep in mind if one needs to forgive oneself or another, but may be, and has been, abused to allow and excuse any and all sorts of criminal behavior. The assumption that what goes on “below” is of no ultimate consequence, because nothing that is “real” can ever be harmed, is perhaps the core of the decades-long rationalizing of Robert’s behavior, which, having experienced it quite personally, I know for a fact is entirely inconsistent with benevolence, and therefore with my experience of consciousness, which I trust well beyond anything in a book, let alone anything Robert might say. (And if any reader supposes that this is yet another example of how “the lower cannot see the higher,” let me respectfully suggest that they first experience being coldly instructed by their teacher to have sex with him, and then let’s chat.)
So if the presumed embodiment of a teaching and a school routinely acts in a manner that is irreconcilable with consciousness, what does that say?
And what does it tell us about ourselves if we find ourselves content to observe, and fund, such behavior, on the theory that “consciousness is not harmed,” or it’s his “personal life”?
Is it consciousness that we value?
April 12, 2007 at 9:52 pm
Hi there,
This blog made me realize again, what a wonderful tool the internet is. When I started to be interested in the ideas of Gurdjieff in the mid 80s, it was very difficult to find people working with the ideas. Information about the FOF like you provide here simple did not exist. It took me years of membership to gather them. So, thanks to all contributors.
As most of you, I expected something quite different behind the label Gurdjieff-Ouspensky-Centres. I wonder if informed people today would even consider to join an organisation like the FOF. To help people who are interested in the Fourth Way to find each other, I started the webpage http://www.fourthway.info a few years ago. You can leave your contact information, if you are interested to meet other people interested in Gurdjieff ideas.
Why are people interested in these ideas in the first place?
I think we feel a quality of truth in them. And everybody needs to make his deal with himself to be true to that quality. I could not be true to that being in the FOF and left it many years ago.
What a relieve it was to experience the work in groups that actually did have a true connection to Gurdjieffs origin. What a revelation it was to learn about his Movements and Meditation or Breathing practices. What a different quality of brotherhood and working together. All things unknown to the FOF, since there are not in any book. I think the Movements are a very essential part to understand Gurdjieffs ideas. He had a reason to want to be remembered as a teacher of dance. Since very little material was available up to recently I started the website http://www.gurdjieff-movements.net for everybody interested to learn more about them.
The FOF is dealing with fragments of what Ouspensky wrote down in books and many strange ideas, where added. Ideas like “feminine dominance”, “exclusive help of angels”, “teacher is under different laws”, ”exclusive possession of C-influence”, “access of C-Influence for humans being regulated by membership”, “building an ark”, “alchemy”, “angels love man, man love woman, women love children”…
Other ideas that play are only a site aspect in Gurdjieffs teaching were made very big “body types”, “center of gravity”, “chief feature”…
In contrast, ideas that where important for Gurdjieff, like the all merciful God as a force available to all humans, are never even mentioned. God was replaced by C-Influence, and its availability restricted to membership and payment. Impulses of ones conscience were covered and distorted by being labelled feminine dominance. I think the invention of “feminine dominance” was one of the best tricks of manipulation, because it lead people to mistrust there own feelings and to accept things that they never would have, with a clear open heart and mind.
The Guru play is a phase many seekers have to go through. It can be observed in all traditions. I do not know how many people joined the FOF in the last 37 years, I suspect something around 30.000 to 40.000. More than 95%left it already. Leaving it is normal and sooner or later it is just time to go on and look for true quality of the heart.
Isn’t that what we are after?
April 12, 2007 at 9:56 pm
Renald (117): No I was not referring to the student in Seattle you mentioned. I was referring to a well-respected, long-time student, whom I still love (kind of like a lost brother), who told me what I reported here (and the student didn’t say he would kill the teacher, he said he would kill someone else if the teacher asked him to). Gossip? I don’t think so: it was to illustrate a point (and by the way, some studies on gossip have shown how it helps people and societies learn and arbitrate “acceptable” behavior. Although I still try not to do it;) But I love the quote you offered. And non-quoters be damned (hee hee), here’s another one ascribed to Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas (that “heretical” text which, thankfully, the church did not manage to entirely stamp out):
If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.
April 12, 2007 at 11:19 pm
#137. I simplified it but thanks, I couldn’t have said it better.
April 12, 2007 at 11:50 pm
Hello Lust For Life,
Sorry for being a jerk.
April 13, 2007 at 12:01 am
(for which woman is nothing but a guest in the Fellowship, with the gays first, the half men second and the women third?)
Elena
Make that women and straight men third.
April 13, 2007 at 12:20 am
Howard,
I guess we all have a very different definition of what “WORKS’ means.
It seems to be subject to the various differences in ambitions, expectations, knowledge , timing and mere level of being of each individual.
The question for me would have to be:
Has this School , so far, helped you in becoming a “better” human being,
in deepening your understanding of life and of your inner world,
and ultimately in finding the many ways in which you can use and expand all of that understanding to propel your self outwards instead of keeping it in the restricted frame of your micro- Cosmo dimension ?
Has it helped you at all to develop any sense of compassion, kindness, altruism, and unselfishness towards the surrounding souls, as one of the results of being less identify with that all “me-me” world?
Probably we shouldn’t even try to explain to you how difficult is the acceptance of the compromise of staying in, and how it conflicts with the integrity of our inner aim , simply because you don’t even recognize its existence in the first place, but have you considered the fact that MOST of us know what you are talking about , because we have appreciated it, loved it, used it and made it work too ?
The difference between us is that we have been were you are now and we can relate to your point of view, somehow,
but you seem to have no clue about what we are able to see from where we are standing and consequentially your preaching and patronizing becomes undeserved and unnecessary.
In your frame of thought a spiritual life and evolution depends only upon the continuation of a membership and the resulting responsibility to it,
disregarding the fact that perhaps , at some point ,that responsibility can be stretched outside the structure of a School.
(assuming that this is still one)
Can it be that “WORKS” means exactly THAT ?
and one simply graduates when the lesson has been learned ?
and moves on ?
This possibility is most likely unacceptable to you,
because it suggests the existence of a dependency to that structure
and also that such a dependency is destined to be replace with a new , broader understanding,
and that such an understanding requires a further payment.
M.
April 13, 2007 at 12:21 am
Rabbi Burns preaches (post #133):
“Unfortunately the FOF adds huge amounts of useless extraneous material to the basic info required for awakening. Which is why HC and other FOF true believers can only give us generalisations, circular arguments and quotations – nothing substantial.”
Rabbi, if you know so well what it takes to wake up, why haven’t you, or if you have, show us the way. What we get from you is less than insubstantial, it is just reactive negativity thinly disguised.
I am certain that Wheeler is well meaning, as I hope some part of you is, but who is to say who is being prepared for what?
Grain of Salt
April 13, 2007 at 12:26 am
To Elena, interesting story about the dog and fox…time to read Pinocchio again…
There will be little to worry about if and when you do want to come back, all of these are thoughts expressed are inconsequential and the only harm done has been to yourself–nothing you cannot recover from.
Good luck. Hope to see you soon.
April 13, 2007 at 1:29 am
Elena (#130)
Now you are irritating me too! You have left the FOF, have you not? Take the plunge and abandon the system too if you dare!! Start from the beginning and examine without any pre-conceptions everything you see manifesting in yourself, other people and everything around you and free yourself from your anal view of the world, for goodness sake!
What is all this about the higher and lower self, the beast that needs overcoming, our weaknesses that need working on? Can you not see how you are still so indoctrinated?
To quote Walt Whitman on ‘the beast’:
‘…Clear and sweet is my soul, and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul…’
‘…Welcome is every organ and attribute of me, and of any man hearty and clean’
Not an inch nor a particle of an inch is vile, and none shall be less familiar than the rest…’
(from Song of Myself)
‘…Limitless limpid jets of love hot and enormous, quivering jelly of love, white-blow and delirious juice…’
(from I Sing the Body Electric)
He did not feel obliged to tame the beast but rejoiced in it!
How exactly have you benefited from the non-expression of negative emotions? Abandon the system! What if our emotions are special sensors similar to the five senses, our solar plexus being a special organ to help us interpret information coming in? Then negative emotions are good things, emotions being a rudder to steer us perhaps? Walt again:
‘…Scorn becomes him well, and appetite and defiance become him well,
The wildest largest passions, bliss that is utmost, sorrow that is utmost become him well…’
(from I Sing the Body Electric)
He did not reject anything he saw but loved and embraced it; it is what we are, our being right now! Let go of this need to separate yourself from other bits of yourself, it reinforces false identity.
Something you said I do agree with though:
“Seeing is not condoning or judging. Seeing is recognition.”
But then you fall back into the trap of being a miserable sinner who needs to battle against demons:
“Once you recognize the obstacle then you can start working with it.”
NO! You don’t need to WORK with IT! Leave it alone, let it be and be it! The seeing of it, recognizing it for what it is is enough. Sometimes it disappears then and there, other times it doesn’t, look a bit deeper and see more of what it is, understand it is what we are, and just LIVE it.
Did you have a Catholic upbringing or something? Let it go, let it all go and BE WHAT YOU ARE, experience what you are to the fullest, embrace the bits you find uncomfortable, distasteful, unpleasant and just examine why that reaction is occurring, same with the bits you find fill you with pride, pleasure, desire. Don’t judge and don’t judge yourself for judging because you can bet your life you will! Don’t be quite so earnestly navel-gazing, get out there, live and experience it all to the depths of your being!
Some other famous guys said ‘Life is a mighty joke’, and ‘Life is nothing but a dream’, (and I reckon they were talking about life including the FOF and associated theories, not the FOF idea of ‘life’), don’t take it all so seriously!
April 13, 2007 at 1:41 am
Elena: “Where I would like to go is back to the Fellowship, not because it is the only offer at hand but because awakening is not nearly as strong an issue for me as living and having half lived there I would like to live the whole.”
Wow! Another clear and honest reason for being in the FOF.
thanks, RB
April 13, 2007 at 1:42 am
#120 for the relativity
Thank you.
April 13, 2007 at 1:45 am
“But after being a guest for this many years (for which woman is nothing but a guest in the Fellowship, with the gays first, the half men second and the women third?)”
It is my experience that the WOMEN are the ones who are in the key positions in the FOF who make it run. Perhaps this revealation of yours truly says that as YOU were not one of them but had WISHED to be (as you were partnered with one of the Big Wheels) and have not been given the
kudos that you think you deserved for playing that role, you felt unrecognized. Boo-hoo.
Gays first? Who are you referring to?? Not anyone anyone knew in command.
Half men? Is this a reference to the inner circle??
Then you go on and on again about what’s wrong with the price one had to pay, etc., ad nauseum.
Maybe the best punishment for you is to go back into the fold, if they will have you. Seems like that is where your heart is.
As far as reform, you are in deep imagination. Maybe you could be part of the shadow FOF, those who remain but do their own thing because they are too weak to either follow the rules or are unable to live in life? In other words, LIMBO.
I wish you the best of luck, oh, I forgot, the FOF is luckier than us mere mortals, isn’t that right, dear?
April 13, 2007 at 1:56 am
#122 Ruddery
Dangerous and erroneous thinking in my opinion.
The body, mind, heart / consciousness dichotomy is also incorrect perception, in my opinion.
April 13, 2007 at 2:02 am
(#130) “I would challenge anyone to tell me if Robert would not be the happiest human being to realize that we have come to ‘be’, thanks to him and in spite of him or that it would not please us too.”
Elena:
I’ve read most, if not all, of your posts and have found them particularly insightful. But I’ll accept your invitation.
I am quite confident, based on my experiences with Robert and my observations of his interactions over a period of years, that the “being,” or consciousness, of FOF members is not Robert’s priority. Robert purports to believe that FOF membership is critical for consciousness and “being,” yet has directly caused the departure of countless students who have threatened nothing more than Robert’s comfort, sexual and otherwise.
Robert’s priority is maintaining the institution. I’ll certainly allow that his reasons are not limited to his personal comfort, but he will without a moment’s hesitation sacrifice the being or consciousness of any individual student, or any number of them, for the sake of the institution, or, for that matter, for his personal comfort. I have seen it with my own eyes many times.
Robert is not made happy by his students’ “being.” He is made happy by his students supporting his aims, which are quite different. Therefore, if the result of one coming to “be” causes Robert inconvenience, I am very sure one will discover that Robert will not be happy. No, ma’am.
April 13, 2007 at 2:46 am
Dear friends,
Reading the blog and wondering why Kiran and HC are able to receive so much attention…?
Try focus on being, enjoying, having fun.
Life is really short…but if you want attention you know how to get it….
I am still pondering the following questions?
1.Why did many of us give up our own power and followed others advise about…God may know, awakening, how to dress, how to talk. What was that in us?
2. Is it my inner voice that tells me that it is not right to follow the fof because it is based on lies? Is it my conscience or is it my sense of justice?
3. That I believed all what Robert said and buffered it with: he knows more then me. Was that because I was naive or because I really could not believe that the Teacher was so cold and uncaring?
4. Where is that part in me…that is using others for my gratification? Or was it just a coincidence that landing up in the fof?
5.Why did other older students not warn me about everything that was going on or was I to deaf to hear? I would not have joined if I heard about the abusiveness of power about the hell letter and for example that 200 people left around 1995? Why is info not that easy available about the fof and the teacher for such a long time? The blog made an end to that fact.
Maybe all these questions are just questions to be lived.. And maybe it is better to just life now and be grateful and enjoy what there is now?
With love and hope to hear responses.
April 13, 2007 at 3:32 am
This is a message for those who are searching, doubting, feel lost or disconnected, and for our friends -“fence sitters”. If you are happened to be satisfied with your spiritual progress in the school – please never mind this message and keep up your good work.
Dear friends, we just had a wonderful, fun, fruitful gathering with John Wheeler on East Coast, with over 30 friends from many places. It was so nice to see old friends some of whom had left FOF years ago! It felt like a school reunion. Some interesting new local people showed up too, and they fit right in, it was a pleasure to meet them. John gave a talk for about hour and a half, then there were questions and discussion, and he encouraged others to “pitch in”, and share our understanding, which we did. There were also few people among the new guys who obviously already “got” the message, and this added to the energy.
Lots and lots of music happened too this weekend – starting Friday, when John arrived – we all got in our music studio and everyone enjoyed playing all different instruments. John himself is a wonderful musician and song writer, so are many of our friends! Next couple days we played a lot more, and kept switching instruments to make it more fun.
On Sunday we cooked a very beautiful dinner for 15 people, everyone sat at a large table in the living room with fireplace, flowers and candles (true high FOF style, which was so nice). People were very relaxed, talkative, many shared their thoughts and it was not just John talking.
There was much laughter and smiles through the whole weekend – uninhibited and free expression of joy.
During the weekend there was quite a lot of small private talks with John, it seemed that everyone who wanted to have some private time with him got a chance to do so and ask their innermost questions. He made himself very available for all who were interested.
John had a great time, really liked all of us, made many new friends and doesn’t mind doing it again on East Coast. He really enjoys fof-people (for many good reasons). He likes very much to talk and explain non-dual ideas and doesn’t seem to get tired of people. He is a kind, giving and generous person.
John didn’t care much for money, he was happy to charge $10 a person for a talk, he said that “charging anything above $25 for this seems unreasonable”. But we kind of insisted on $25 donation for talks, and also asked 20-25 for food and wine. Those friends who were tight on money attended talks and ate for free, they offered help with cleaning and setting up.
This whole event was NOT about money, and this is so wonderful and refreshing.
I could see how beneficial this gathering was for all of us, it opened the new door for some or helped to remove any residual mental clutter for others.
If you have curiosity or interest, please DO YOURSELF A FAVOR and contact John Wheeler to schedule a private talk or just attend his small group talk. There is absolutely no “joining” or “following” and it is not going to cost you much money at all. The info is on his site (www.thenaturalstate.org)
You have nothing to loose and (possibly) everything to gain!
I am infinitely grateful for the lucky play of meeting John Wheeler and understanding what he is pointing to.
Much love and support to all,
No person
malaec@yahoo.com
P.S. We have lots of nice pictures, I think they will be posted soon somewhere in the cyberspace…
April 13, 2007 at 4:09 am
#144 Last Salt Shaker: “There will be little to worry about if and when you do want to come back, all of these are thoughts expressed are inconsequential and the only harm done has been to yourself–nothing you cannot recover from.”
So, all of Elena’s thoughts are inconsequential? No wonder she felt like she couldn’t speak in the Fellowship! And she has harmed herself by speaking her truth? What poppycock!
In one self-serving, insidious, patronizing statement, you have managed to marginalize and invalidate Elena’s soul-searching expressions, while appearing to welcome her back to the fold with open arms.
Makes my skin crawl.
April 13, 2007 at 4:10 am
Dear All,
I want to share with you my experience of the meeting which we had in NY last weekend, which attracted many ex-students, current students and ‘outsiders’.
I went to the US for several reasons: to have a break from my London life, to see my friends whom I haven’t seen in years, and to meet John Wheeler to whom I wanted to express my gratitude for helping me to ‘wake up’ from the concepts of ‘attaining consciousness’ etc.
I didn’t have any imaginary picture of what it was going to be like to have a meeting in the post-FOF life. When many people gathered together, I felt somewhat uneasy in the beginning, as it reminded me of the form which was used in the school for the meetings (in the way that people sit down and listen to the leader of the gathering), yet soon I relaxed as the initial introduction made by John progressed into a lively informal discussion.
The main difference I felt was that anybody could say anything they wanted, without the self-conscious feeling of being ‘careful’ as to not say anything that would lead to being asked to leave the school. It reminded me that I probably wouldn’t have left the school if I could ever speak up openly of what I thought and felt.
I found it to be easy to be around John who would always say that he is not a teacher, he is someone who is pointing out to the simple fact of one’s identity as a fully present consciousness, whatever the mind’s interpretation of the concept of consciousness might be.
It is amazing for me to realize that after years of reading non-duality writings, in which I felt was truth hidden, it was John’s words that finally opened my eyes. To me, his ‘pointers’ are so simple and uncompromising and not available for interpretations, that the mind simply doesn’t have anything to argue with anymore. That is exactly the moment when the ‘switch’ in perception can occur. Although there might be some ‘residual’ thinking and doubt (it’s not always easy for the mind to give up of all the stories of what does it mean to ‘wake up’), it is easily removed by looking directly into one’s immediate experience as consciousness.
John discourages any type of following him, but he is opened to answer any questions if you happened to still have them.
So, it was wonderful to meet someone whom you don’t have to follow, but just find another beautiful friend. I personally didn’t have any more questions to ask, but if I will, I was welcomed to ask them directly, which was never ever possible with Robert.
As for the meeting with old and new friends who are related to the FOF, it was free, loving and fun. We played music, sang songs, drunk lots of wine and could connect to each other on a simple ‘human’ level. We all have bounding experiences, but now we can relate to each other without suspicion, criticism, resentment or fear.
Our generous hosts invited all into their beautiful home where we could share our current experiences and be together on the basis of true friendship and common understandings, without artificiality. (And it was refreshingly nice not having to wear skirts or ties in order to be together, after all consciousness is not about following any kind of form).
Whatever I went through in the FOF, it is a great value for me to have friends who also were there. Do you remember how wonderful it was to visit any country in the world, to go to any teaching house and to meet people whom you have never seen before and immediately being embraced by them? That was true magic to me, and we still can have it, even if we are not in the school anymore, this weekend showed it to me. I wish we could soon make a directory of the ex-FOF members and would be able to enjoy the same connectedness without having to pay big money and pay with our conscience for staying in the friendly environment.
April 13, 2007 at 4:15 am
To Lust for life and last salt shaker,
No, I have not left the Fellowship or rather the Fellowship is still in me and so is the system and my husband has not quite fallen out no matter how much I’ve tried and I definitely am not interested in expressing negative emotions even if it looks like that is what I’ve been doing to those that can’t read between the lines or it is as you seem to imply, condoned by Whitman.
Please forgive me if I irritate you or make you think that I’ve split the whole of my brain but only formatory thinking does not really understand what I’ve been working on, for this blog may be an interesting past time for some but for me it’s been a joyful job that I will be quitting fairly soon. I talk much and quickly so that you can squeeze out of me the last I’ve got to give to the Fellowship as it is today.
I do not believe that I have harmed myself or anyone else by the things I’ve said and most especially know that everything I’ve said is consequential. The last salt shaker never convinced me, not even one grain and with Mr. Carter I can’t even be bothered to object. And I am not willing to go back to the Fellowship without it changing so hugely that Robert would be willing to get a reasonable salary and do with it nothing more than what he could and with that guarantee, then maybe I would consider it. If you can do something for yourself and make this things work, please call on me again.
April 13, 2007 at 5:05 am
Lust for Life, your post #146 has much in it that aligns perfectly with my own experience. For example, when I intentionally stopped looking at people as body types, centers of gravity and features, and saw them simply as other people, they regained a beautiful simplicity that I had not experienced in years. Abandon the pigeon-holing if ye would be whole! It is useful to examine the individual threads at a certain point, but then you need to step back and see the fabric.
PS: One doesn’t need to be raised a Catholic to learn to despise “the beast” within us — the FOF is a very effective substitute. Plenty of guilt and shame to go around!
April 13, 2007 at 6:03 am
I came upon this blog from Wikipedia and one of the reasons I researched this is due to knowing a member approximately 10 years ago. This blog has been an eye opening experience from someone on the outside watching a member of FOF go into the brink of insanity.
I met him in a math class and during the final he left a note on my desk that he wanted to have coffee. Seemed like a nice shy guy that was very much lacking in the self esteem department.
I became friends with him and he said that he belonged to this group that met at a very nice house and had a teacher. When I asked him what they did in the meetings he would giggle and say that they tried on hats and the most important people wore the biggest hats.
He lived adjacent to a bookstore and claimed he worked with computers but was always vague when I asked for a discription of his job (now I realize he was putting bookmarks in books at that bookstore).
He always came across as a sad sack that needed a mommy and finacial help but a nice harmless guy or so I thought.
The first indication that I got that this guy was psychotic was when I took him for an evening out in San Francisco. I drove and ended up paying for the entire evening because he ended up having no money. I accepted this and agreed. We saw a show and had a chinese diner. On the way back to the car, I gave my bagged leftovers to a homeless man. My “friend” puffed out his chest and said”, You only did that because I am here and you want to impress me.” This was the first time I experienced his narcissim and was shocked. I always get the rest of my meal to go in Chinatown and give it to a homeless person. It was one of those momemts where somebody says something so outrageous where you just don’t have a reply and stand there in stunned silence.
We get in the car and I am driving over the Golden Gate Bridge when he informs me that he has to go to the bathroom now. I tell him I will pull over on an exit and he can go in a bush. He get indignant and says,”It’s not that kind.” He informs me that he needs a proper bathroom. I feel like saying, “What are you two years old? Why did’nt you go poo poo back in the city?” I don’t say anything but pull off at Vista Point. He looks around and tells me it’s too dark. I point out families and tell him it’s OK. I wait for about 20 minutes and he finally shows up. He gets in the car and starts screaming at me that I planned this and I brought him here on purpose to scare him.
He than starts screaming at me that I do not know who he is and what he is going through.
At this point he is so enraged and psychotic that I don’t know if he is going to punch me or grab the wheel or what so I say why don’t you tell me what you are going through and he curtly says, “no.” and just shuts up for the hour remainder drive home.
He calls me up and says he is under a lot of stress with his job (how stressful is placing bookmarks in books?). I don’t see him and he moves to Oregon House and sends me a post office address.
He calls me on day and says he wants to come back to Sonoma and asks me to book a hotel in his name. He than says why don’t we go horseback riding and why don’t you book a real nice restaurant for us too. He than informs me that he has no money and is silent. I bluntly that I was shocked that he expected me to carry him and that I had no intention of doing so. He exploded in a fit of anger over the phone and started screaming that dinner was off and other whacko ramblings. I hung up and that’s the last I heard of him. I did a resident search and he is still up there in Oregon House.
One thing that I see from all of these posting is the me, me, me factor….I need to help me.
I am not trying to stir up anything but the most enlightened beings on this earth saw an “awakening” in helping others. They got out of “self”.
The people that I most respect, have an inherent sense of community and helping better the world around them.
If you have never been to Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco, I highly recommend it. There is also a volunteer foundation called, “One Brick”.
April 13, 2007 at 6:15 am
I would like to share with you something which made me especially confused tonight.
I found on my shelf “Thoughts From The Teacher of Sep17, 2006”. This was the last meeting at the Theatron during the Journey Forth by Day. People paid unbelievable amounts of money to come from all over the world to these events…
If anybody can find any useful meaning in it, please help me in my confusion!
I will only share few quotations and RB interpretations…
“Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you.” {James 4:8}
God is the divinity within us, the state we are blessed to be in now. How do we draw near this state when it is absent? With the sequence. This evening’s event is composed of the most beautiful thoughts from the schools that have preceded us – some of the most beautiful arias.
“We attain freedom from sin in six steps” {The Philokalia, Ilias the Presbyter}
Here, we clearly see “sin” as sleep. We obtain freedom from sleep in six steps with the precious sequence – the pyramid of Saqqara. The pyramid of Saqqara is the oldest existing example of architecture for man. What a “do” it is!
“Practice the dharma, since it is your best companion.” {Padmasanbhava}
To “practice” means to engage presence with the sequence. The sequence is a friend of this state we are in – the “friend of Allah.”
“Ten thousand would be of little use in this little gate”. {The Arabian Nights}
Because they are crooked, because they are unrelated to your sequence. Hafiz called the ten thousands “I’s unrelated to your sequence “ten thousand idiots”, because they actually imagine they are the state we are in now: presence – too beautiful, too definite for words.
How do you feel? Are you still here? Are you hypnotised yet? Present? Does it make any sence to you? Do you see any thread of manipulation?
April 13, 2007 at 8:28 am
Lust for Life. Wasn’t that a bit cruel quoting Walt Whitman at length to Elena? After all Walt was pretty gay himself – at least he didn’t seem too interested in mingling with women. He writes some good verses though… albeit in large chunks homoerotic. But that’s only my interpretation.
RR
April 13, 2007 at 8:34 am
Hello everyone,
None of this is breaking news, but I felt someone had to say it.
Today, April 12, 2007, is the 9th Anniversary of an interesting date in the history of the Fellowship: Robert Burton predicted a cataclysmic earthquake would occur on April 12, 1998. He said California would fall into the Pacific Ocean.
Because of this predicted cataclysm, RB stated that Renaissance (Apollo, Isis), which is located approximately 1,500 feet above sea level, would become near ocean-front property. He began making these statements approximately 20 years earlier, and the prediction became an integral part of his idea that the Fellowship would become an “ark” — a safe haven for esoteric knowledge, the sciences, and fine art. A new civilization would spring up from the ashes. RB said the “fall of California” would be a precursor to a much larger event that would have occurred about five months ago on November 11, 2006 — a nuclear war that would destroy civilization.
The date of November 11th, 2006 was such a central part of RB’s comments for so many years, it would have been hard to imagine that the date would pass with barely any mention. But the date has passed, and the predictions are a distant memory.
However, I think it’s very difficult for outside observers to really understand what’s occurring in the Fellowship without emphasizing the significance of these predictions. In 1984, there would be a stock market crash that would lead to a depression. In 1987, there would be a war in the Middle East that would get us out of the depression. In 1998, California would fall. In 2006, nuclear war. The ark, in the meantime, would be built year-by-year in preparation for these big events. The ark would be self-sustaining, and a new civilization would begin where the small town of Oregon House, Calif., now rests.
People have had very different experiences with these predictions. Some may have rolled their eyes. Some may have tolerated it, but really didn’t care. Or maybe they tried not to think of it. When the stock market didn’t crash in 1984 as predicted, RB said that his teaching was always about self-remembering, and that his teaching was still about self-remembering even after the failed prediction. On occasion, he even joked about his poor track record as a prophet.
But his teaching WAS very much about the predictions. For many, many years, it was part of the dogma. Despite the failed prediction in 1984, RB never backed down from his prediction of the fall of California, and for nuclear war in 2006. Many of his comments for several years were focused on these predicted events, and how the Fellowship needed to prepare for it, and how these events were related to the Fellowship’s connection to Higher Forces. Not only was he predicting these events, but these events were to occur to fulfill the destiny of the Fellowship.
As 1998 drew closer, a considerable amount of pressure was placed on members to move away from Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Sacramento, and to start new lives at Apollo. Some resisted and left the Fellowship. Others did not leave but still resisted the idea. Many members quit their jobs along the coastal cities and began new businesses from home offices in Oregon House. Some of them joined the Fellowship or RVW payroll, while some retired prematurely from their careers and simply waited for the event to occur. When it didn’t occur, many people were able to find a new life in Oregon House, while others suffered serious financial consequences. Overall, the prediction contributed to a population increase in the area, and the number of local members grew to over 700.
There’s much more to tell, but that’s the basic history of these predictions as I recall it.
Now for some editorial commentary:
It’s hard for most of us to deny the possibility of nuclear war — it could happen. When or if it will happen, we don’t know. We hope not. We hope there is a growing global consciousness that many of us have been speaking of, and that we can contribute to that in our own ways, and that a catastrophic war with the unimaginable suffering that would accompany it could be avoided. Even then, we know the power of Nature, and the power of the Earth. So we know that cataclysmic earthquakes are not out of the question either — although most geologists would doubt the likelihood of anything on the scale that RB predicted.
I never rolled my eyes, though. I for one, always believed that RB’s predictions were possible, and the anticipation of such events produced an odd sort of presence at times. It reminded me of the precious little time that I have, and the precious little time that I have with the ones I love.
I have always sensed that RB believed what he was predicting. On the other hand, I can’t deny that such predictions are the stuff that cults are made of. It’s typical: see the infamous YouTube videos in earlier posts.
When RB said his teaching was always about self-remembering I took that to heart. I truly believed that, and part of me still does.
But many of us are afraid that another possibility is post 6/112 by Don Juan.
Could both be true? Is the Fellowship suffering from a type of “double crystallization”? On the one hand, we have a beautiful and perfect teaching that has given us so much. On the other hand, we have failed prophecies and destructive cult behavior. Cognitive dissonance indeed.
April 13, 2007 at 8:55 am
Dear Lust for life,
Forgive me again for not reading you more carefully and misinterpreting how you wish to quote Whitman. Indeed, Whitman is in a much better state than I am and although I’ve been there sometimes, I’m not there now.
Nevertheless, the passions that you so enjoy are the same compassions that I know upside down and backwards, and there’s not one compassion that I would give up for any passion.
How exactly have you benefited from the non-expression of negative emotions?
After a long time of not expressing negative emotions, boredom got very weak, indiference, extremely weak, hatred, anger….. they all slowly got weaker and they are probably still there, but weak enough that they don’t hurt me. One of the last one’s to tackle has been envy. Many negative emotions are in the lower emotional centre but envy is in the I. It is why it is so difficult for us to give up hierarchy in the instinctive centre and embrace hierarchy from the I. Real I.
This quote that you give from Whitman:
‘…Scorn becomes him well, and appetite and defiance become him well,
The wildest largest passions, bliss that is utmost, sorrow that is utmost become him well…
as I would interpret it, they all become us well because they are like the whip that tames the horse enough to allow for the harness.
There is nothing wrong with our pains, that is, our passions. They serve their purpose, but I’ve become passionate about compassion.
It is late and I am tired so I will get back to your question if you insist. I was in bed and realized I had become identified with your anal description and missed the rest. Then I thought I was more oral than anal but I’ll have to verify that!
On your thought about higher and lower I disagree. I’m not interested in consciousness without functions but very interested in conscious functions. Leaving the Fellowship to me, means simply more Work. It is another of my passions.
April 13, 2007 at 9:09 am
It has been stated and suggested in several posts that there is a connection between the school and C Influence. This is the corner stone of the school mythology. As has been demonstrated in other posts, it is the normal means to controlling a group with our kind of agenda for a leader to claim to be a conduit between higher and lower worlds. I hope we can all accept this as fact with a view to seeing if the school is an exception.
In the Fellowship it is normal to be totally convinced that C Influence acts directly on students in a way that C Influence does not act on non students. Our plays are written as the roles required by ascending souls to mature towards their final lifetime and awakening. The first obvious point is that there are many, many people outside the school who believe they have a connection to supernatural forces. People of all sorts of persuasions, mainstream members of the diverse faiths that are such a feature of this world we inhabit, as well as the literally thousands of less well known belief systems that have their countless adherents.
One must surely acknowledge that humans tend to have religious beliefs. The beliefs they have are more a matter of where and when they are born rather than personal choice. Recently there have been huge changes in western society, the breakdown of family and community, the cult of the individual, the real fear of nuclear war, the tremendous advances in technology, creation of wealth, vast amounts of accessible data, etc. Our world is very different from the world of Europe during the plague and 100 Years War, the world of the reformation or world of Renaissance humanism.
What are the beliefs of our age in our part of the globe? Lots of fundamentalist Christians, many who fall into the New Age category, a minority of real agnostics and atheists and a large number of people who seem to have satisfied their need for belief in sports, celebrities, politics, and other opiates of the moment.
Gurdjieff’s teaching was of his time, after all, now one can see how the ideas he taught fitted into the ‘world view’ of his age, just think of the table of hydrogens, law of octaves, cosmology and psychology and what was going on in Europe at the beginning of the 20th Century. Robert’s is also very typical, although it is harder to see when so close, but just think of the whole idea of impressions and that surely the over abundance of stimuli is one of the distinguishing features of our age. Bookstores are full of Hafiz and Rumi, the equivalent of daily cards are to be found everywhere, California is full of boutique wineries and organizations incorporated as churches, corporate America is full of females playing at being men, homosexual men hold high office in San Francisco and America is built on immigrants who come here to make new lives for themselves.
Is it any wonder that the Fellowship should exist in its present form? Surely it is far more likely that the school was squeezed out from between the things surrounding it and that is how it got its shape, rather than that it was created independently of its surroundings for higher reasons and yet somehow is so typical. The school is a function of our age and has taken on the character of the personality that makes the decisions, namely Robert Burton. Is Isis gold alchemy or Gay? It is full of the phallic follies of palms and pillars topped with gushing golden statuary. Is there a higher intelligence arranging things like this or have things developed according to mechanical laws?
If we care to, we can see plenty of evidence of things having developed without any need for C Influence, so why use them to explain the way things are?
Anyway, back to the point that others are as certain of their beliefs in their equivalent of influence C as we are in ours. On what basis can one objectively state that we are right and they are wrong, and yet we do this and the vast majority of believers in other things are sure that they are right and we are wrong. Isn’t it most probable that this is something that humans do, and we being humans do it too? It surely has to be more likely than that we are the only ones on the plant who are right; of course the problem is further compounded by the fact that students don’t necessarily think alike either, even if you really knew what they really believed and so actually we are saying that ‘I’ am right.
Wow! That is the kind of stuff I came to the school to develop immunity to and it looks like the inoculation has finally worked.
Ok, then lets look at the irrefutable proofs that C Influence is in our lives. One thing that happens when you become emotionally detached from people outside the group you identify with very strongly, is that you demean those outside the group and do not give them or what happens in their lives the same value. You also just do not get into conversations with a life colleague about the strange thing that happened to him on the drive in to work, but listen attentively when a student tells you seriously how C Influence hid her pencil so she couldn’t write down your phone number when you left a message and that’s why she didn’t call.
So many incredible, totally unaccountable and wonderful things happen all the time. I am genuinely sorry for people who cannot see it and ascribe such huge values to the petty little things that constitute the pseudo-miraculous in their lives. I actually find it strange that more dramatic things don’t happen in the school, just according to probabilities it feels like they should. It seems that Robert is perpetually waiting for something dramatic to happen and will readily interpret whatever does happen as the personal intervention of divine powers. He gets very excited by anything like that. We imitate him. Robert takes things personally and constantly looks for and finds meanings in things around him. This is one of his great qualities as a teacher and can probably also be described as some kind of psychosis as well.
Having thought about this for some years and actively sought to answer the question, I am sure for myself that there is no higher incidence of strange happenings at Isis. The main factor that causes weird things is having a group of people who support one another in seeing weird things and subliminally conspiring to make weird things happen. It is the life blood of Isis that C Influence is active around us and we remind one another of it all the time, no wonder we see so many things that can apparently only be explained by C influence. When two students are in ‘life’ they will tend to judge ‘life people’ because they take this behavior with them and it even gets amplified in such a context. We see these ‘life people’ who do not notice the things we notice as being asleep and we see ourselves as being awake surrounded by signs from the gods. That is not to say that people who are trying to be awake do not have a different awareness than people who are not, but it can be explained with out having to turn to influence C for a reason. Think of the vanity of all of this. Again, imitating Robert, we set out to see what supports our views and they are reinforced and strengthened.
Surely this is what being in a school must be all about, investigating things like this and seeing the mechanical. As soon as someone says C Influence it means you have left the world of mechanics and are in the conscious realm of the gods. Isn’t it far more likely that everything is mechanical, rather than that there should be some benign rogue power is free. Even though we used to pay lip service to the idea of different worlds being under different orders of laws, the mystique of C Influence somehow escaped all laws. There is nothing to be afraid of and it is not blasphemy to understand the way things work. Isn’t this what we came here to understand, and yet this superstitious behavior is not just tolerated but it is sanctioned and positively encouraged in the interests of preserving the status quo. I find this irreconcilable with my conscience.
As it is so important, I just want to dwell on the way we interpret things for ourselves a little longer. We receive shocks that help us be present. Great! It is a real tool to remind you to be more aware and having a general awareness of C influence certainly helps in the way Ouspensky put it that it is easier to divide attention if you are aware of something other than you and the direction your attention is going. It is kind of like giving peripheral vision to a horse with blinkers with a corresponding change in perception. But does that mean that you have to believe it in the same way children believe in the tooth fairy? For example, quite a while ago when coming home, I opened the front door. There was junk mail on the floor which I picked up and as I straightened I banged my head on the door handle. In my hand was a flyer with Renaissance written on it. It was a shock from Influence C and I was awake.
Actually I was awake enough to see what was happening. There was something in me that reacted to the stimulus of seeing the card and banged my head for me. My slower, more habitual psychology was shocked into awareness, but it did not come from outside, it came from within. We can account for many shocks this way if we take the trouble; they are in fact made possible by the different speeds of different parts in us and caused by a learnt reaction, we are not only conditioned to see shocks, but to actually make them occur. Isn’t this not only a more plausible explanation but a far more interesting one? When I see a #44, which I do often, it is not because Influence C have seen fit to pepper my path with omens, it is because there is something in me that is trained to recognize these things. Doesn’t this open things up to observation, reason and understanding? Ascribing some supernatural cause to physical phenomena is what kept people under the yoke of the church for centuries. Isn’t it possible that we are in a similar position?
April 13, 2007 at 10:50 am
Dear Robert,
I have decided not to make another teaching payment by April 15, the latest day on which a payment may be received before the Fellowship of Friends releases me from its roster.
In parting, there are many things for which I could personally thank you, but only one of ultimate value. Thank you above all for showing me the preciousness and the accessibility of self remembering in my life.
My decision to leave is based on a combination of two factors: the weight of the financial burden, and my increasing dissatisfaction with what I specifically receive for it.
I hold no bitterness regarding my past payments to and for the school, financial or otherwise. Until recently the prize has consistently exceeded the cost. Nor is any alternative teacher or philosophy drawing me away.
Your sexual preferences and your personal lifestyle have also never been a major problem for me, although it needs to be said that I do not condone the way you use your authority as a spiritual leader to manipulate the inexperienced and vulnerable essences of the young men you pursue as lovers…including, once long ago, myself. Much may be justified in the name of consensual sex, but the difference between a naïve 17-year-old minor and a naïve 23-year-old FOF student is strictly a legal distinction.
No. After all, you have simply stopped being my teacher, and so it appears I will now no longer be your student. It is time for me to move on, resolutely if unexpectedly, with many lovely memories, without resentment, without blame, ojalà.
Or as the late Kurt Vonnegut wrote, “so it goes.”
Good luck with your new system. I sincerely wish you a fond farewell.
Joseph
April 13, 2007 at 10:59 am
I think one has to separate the organisation FOF from the ideas of the Fourth Way. If one ask oneself, what one has gained of being in the fellowship, it also a question of who deserves credit for what. The ideas are not property of the FOF, neither are the people.
If the ideas Gurdjieff gathered from Sufism, Dür-Bön, Buddhism and Christianity would not have been so strong, we would not have invested in being part of the FOF in the first place.
The ideas Gurdjieff gathered had their power before being in the FOF, during being in the FOF and they have it after leaving it.
April 13, 2007 at 3:35 pm
Joseph G – a beautiful open letter and a beautiful exit. Thanks for sharing. PS – if you are who I think, we were once good friends – Benjamin.
Martin in 165 – Agreed, a separation of FOF and 4th way is warranted – these are often grouped in these postings; though I believe condemning either, or RB, results from insufficient understanding – all is happening perfectly though, including that. I would add on the separation of FOF from 4th way that I believe the 4th way is probaly the highest form of teaching of the past, of the old teachings – those teachings that would take you from ‘here’ to ‘there’, that would seek to earn you what you do not yet have. Though now something new (essenced from old though) arises. A more direct experience of truth if you can grab it – sometimes called ‘non-duality’ and simultaneously arising in this time (perhaps first formulated by Khristnamurti) in many different forms – an experience of self so profound that all the old teachings drop away.
And on consciousness and morality; while consciousness, self, is unaffected by another’s lack of morality, of anything that occurs; this is not to say that THAT is the same thing as justification or excusing or ignoring. Functions, including the heart, still work as before (indeed, it appears here better than ever); it is simply that Self is not wound up (identified?) in those emotions. Self, Observer, observes and learns more about self – remember, those observed are self also. As Jesus and others have intimated – one takes responsibility for ALL; where then can judgment exist except in the insanity of separation?
Yesri Baba – only fear could see danger where none exists – understanding trumps fear.
April 13, 2007 at 4:46 pm
‘I see’ Said the Blind Man (#123): an excellent post regarding what ‘worked’ for you in the FOF. Nevertheless, all of the learning and training based on sacrifices, discipline, surrender, acquiring ‘flexibility’, self testing in various situations; all this character building and special kind of education is an intentionally designed or a byproduct occuring in many enviroments & circumstances; volunteer corps, wars, life on mean streets, military trainning, certain professions, many cults & religious organizations (Rajneesh-Osho compounds, Zen monasteries). It is also an integral part of living an unsheltered life that can either mature one, destroy one or send him crystalizing early on. They are the valuable ‘life lessons’. But I agree with you that it used to be an advantage to have such a rich, safe & democratic (in the past) small-big market- place of cultural activity, industry, variety & plurality.
The specialty of this school is the idea of Self Remembering. The way it started working for me is when I quickly learned to ‘separate’from and for the most part ignore the “huge amounts of useless extranenous material to the basic info required for awakening”(Rabi Burns #133). You have to be able to stand the pressure of injesting this ‘extraneous’ bad & injurious foods, that are accompanied with the harping on emotions & interests; all that feeds living people to the Moloch of the pathology described in Don Juan’s (#112).(Many people come into the school unhealthy, needy, immature, and are life refugees in the worst way. For them this ‘extraneous material’ is the base of their happily acquired new identity suplanting in a gradual way their ‘life identity’ and they have to maintain it at a very high psychological cost).
I regard the practice called ‘separation’ or ‘divided attention’ as the only valuable practice this school has come up with and the only thing that still keeps me in (besides a few remaining like-minded friends and the organisational structures that allow us to keep in touch, and the prospect of meeting new sensible students).
Self observing allows for a participation in the experience without denying from yourself the natural involvement in it. When used correctly based on self knowledge (and not out of the sickly need of self-denial) it adds a sense of internal flexibility and freedom in every situation, being alone or in company, be it good or extremely irritating company, (acceptance and a form of love can be the result).It can be activated any time: as if a flutter of a different type of awarness is always at hand; It’s as if at any moment you can trust a kind of strenth in yourself to let the internal & external manifestations of life (including the hardest blows) gently flow over you.
The law of diminishing returns (#123) and other economical principles do not apply to this practice.
Does this justify remaining in the school?
April 13, 2007 at 4:53 pm
I just came (by chance) across the post by the entity named ‘X’ page 1 in the blog who wrote:
”Lots of young insecure males (kind of like our friend Alexis) got their “daddy” feeding them and buying them clothes, and puling their pants down…”
Man, whoever you are..that’s the funniest comment I’ve read on this blog so far.
Congratulations…
You have no idea, do you…
Alexis
April 13, 2007 at 5:01 pm
Once more I believe we have all been brilliantly brainwash by FOF.
There is a female on this blog that my machine believes that is indeed a FAKE!!!!!!!!!
Every time I read her responses my machine gets a shock, and for the record its not from Influence C. Its a shock from my Intellectual Center.
Be CAREFUL out there, FOF is BRILLIANT sometimes………………
Damm glad my machine was in the present for a few seconds to solve the puzzle.
April 13, 2007 at 5:45 pm
To Another Name, I’ll give it a try to answer your questions, for whatever it’s worth. These answers are true for me, but I offer them here because perhaps someone else may find some resonance in them.
1. Why did many of us give up our own power and followed others advise about…God may know, awakening, how to dress, how to talk. What was that in us?
When I joined, I was unsure of myself and did not feel very empowered. So there was not much power to give up. I needed something strong and direct to lean on. As for following tasks and exercises, we were told that to get real will, we must give up our own self-will, that in order to do, one must first not-do certain things, and it made sense on a certain level. It’s right there in Ouspensky, and it plays well into the FOF structure. I think I’ve said before: we are very formatory, and because we find certain things we hear in the FOF very true, we extend this to the entire institution and implicitly believe that for them to be true, everything else must also be true, or the reverse, if some aspects of the FOF are false, then even those that we feel strongly are true, could be false, which is inadmissible. So we swallow the whole on account of the formatory center. Not that there isn’t critical thinking in individuals, but it is squashed by their own need to belong, to not stir up disharmony, and by saying “it’s not really that important, look at how many other aspects of the school are just fine and wonderful”. Basically, we eventually get identified with the school and defend its manifestations. Or if we don’t defend the unpleasant aspects, we buffer them out of our minds and hope that they never come up in conversation. Cognitive dissonance is unpleasant. It’s that simple. Somehow in the school we investigate ourselves and our inner attitudes, but the relationship to the school often remains untouched, as if it was beyond investigation in this inner work.
2. Is it my inner voice that tells me that it is not right to follow the fof because it is based on lies? Is it my conscience or is it my sense of justice?
I don’t know, there are so many inner voices 🙂 and we can call them so many names, to me it’s just confusing the issue. For me, it’s not a strong sense that I shouldn’t follow the FOF because it’s not right, it’s more of a sense that I’ve learned as much as I could and I no longer need it. When you were a child turning into a teenager, did you tell yourself that you should no longer play with toys because it’s not right, or did you just look back one day and realize you’ve stopped playing like a child? Staying only because teaching payment is supposed to buy me a ticket to heaven, would be based on fear, and I don’t have that fear (nor do I have a concept of Paradise). So FOF simply falls away as incompatible with my psychology.
3. That I believed all what Robert said and buffered it with: he knows more then me. Was that because I was naive or because I really could not believe that the Teacher was so cold and uncaring?
I was never a true believer, I always had doubts, but tried to suppress them, for the simple reason of wanting to make it work, wanting to make it my school, make it coherent and worthy of my time. I preferred not to think too much about what Robert said because that could cause unpleasant i’s and again, cognitive dissonance.
4. Where is that part in me…that is using others for my gratification? Or was it just a coincidence that landing up in the fof?
When someone posted a description of narcissism, I could quite identify with many aspects of it. I would not say that it is prevalent or a disease in myself, but I can certainly recognize many of the same tendencies of being a little selfish ruler of the world like a little child who only wants what it wants and doesn’t even occur to him to think of the needs of others. Including I want MY consciousness. So because that was my blind spot, it did take a long time before I started to notice selfishness and before it began to bother me. In that sense I think it was no coincidence that I landed in the FOF.
5.Why did other older students not warn me about everything that was going on or was I to deaf to hear?
See answer 1 – “we hope it never comes up in conversation” because it might cause us unpleasant cognitive dissonance. Newer students have not yet properly identified with the school and so we “protect” them from this information and we say it’s for their own good. But I feel really it’s so that once they find out about all the controversies as they inevitably will, they are also full of belief that staying in the school is the only right thing. I have often watched the transformation of a newer student into an older student with some unease, because deep down you really know what is happening, you are just afraid to say it aloud so as not to break the spell. I’m talking about when the new student starts to use “we” instead of “you” to refer to the body of the school, when they start photographing others and feeling good about themselves for it, when they start repeating unverified statements and get recognition for it, when they make inspired claims and emotional confessions about how the school is helping us, and get nods and smiles… Older students basically wait for you to become strong enough and attached enough so that you will reaffirm their beliefs rather than challenge them.
April 13, 2007 at 6:33 pm
Hindu philosphy.
So, who here reads sanskrit?
Or are you content with an american translation of a dilution of a translation of a copy?
You are not the first 4th way-ish adherents to journey East.
Be careful, you know even less about this than you did about real 4th way, and look where that got you! If 4th way is Budweiser, Advaita is LSD.
Spiritual bypass #2?
Heresay.
p.s. The FoF doesn’t work. Never did. It doesn’t do what it professes to do. You work, you pay to work. The fruits of your labours are many(states, insights, energy, wealth,&tc – you are amazing and you never valued it), and they are either co-opted into the Teachers dream, or if they don’t fit, they are neutralised.
Check for yourself; if the FoF disappeared today, what would you have tomorrow?
April 13, 2007 at 6:35 pm
Hi friends:
I recently started reading Esther and Jerry Hicks books. One of the ideas in these books is something called the Emotional Guidance System. You are shown a diagram of emotions starting with the lowest emotion (depression) to the highest emotion (bliss) as an example. How it works is when you are in a negative emotion, whatever you are experiencing, reach for an emotion higher on the emotional guidance scale but choose one closer or a little bit better than what you are experiencing. In doing this what seems to happen is it gives one a sense of accomplishment and empowerment rather than a sense of continued failure at not reaching ‘nirvana’. Isn’t this the best way to become successful in learning any new art form?
What truly struck me as something new is the idea that depression is lower on the emotional scale than anger is. So if you are experiencing depression, anger would be a step up from that. Now in the Fellowship they would both be considered negative emotions, and anger would be considered the worst of the two because you are obviously expressing the negative emotion. But this book states that depression is lower on the emotional guidance scale than anger and anger is a healthier emotion to express because it doesn’t leave you feeling depleted emotionally.
One of the things I see in Fellowship students is in working with the non expression of negative emotions, all kinds of emotions are suppressed, leaving the person feeling energetically depleted. That’s probably why wine is used so much in the Fellowship because it seems to initially bring energy and then ends up depleting it. And I would not be surprised if this is why there have been a large number of people getting cancer and other illnesses in the Fellowship.
One’s own personal power (and not the King of Clubs as many people think of as something ‘really bad!’) is absolutely required to reach higher states. Taking personal power away from a person limits their ability to reach and experience higher states. And this is key to keeping people in bondage.
Wake up people! Find your own way. There are all kinds of things out here that can help, and many of your friends out here have mentioned quite a few already. Stop allowing other people to deplete you of the fine energy we all were given at our birth to do great things on this earth.
April 13, 2007 at 6:47 pm
Dear Exlax, everything you say is true. I have thought about these things and the others I present. You can stay where you prefer. I would be happier to move on.
Please forgive me if I have offended you. I am awfully defensive as I am awfully attacking and even little things are misunderstood by me. I beg you we let go of our entanglement together and still accept if you want to question personality issues that seem to fit well.
There’s more being said and I would thank you if you also looked at that. This street fight between us is still much better than the silence in the Fellowship. We’ll come to know each other much sooner and maybe grow out of personality into who we really are.
Dear 151, (for, Dear ‘I’ll give it a try’ sounds even more ridiculous and I don’t want to drop the dear although it sounds terribly out dated with so many postings that wish to go beyond it while I am trying to come forward to it) and Another name (152). And friends,
I could not agree with you better, is it not clear in my other postings? And yet, I am convinced that even Robert is human enough to sit down and cry and walk around after he gets the limitations he deserves and is put back into the framework any man should have today. Forcing each other to be nothing more than what we are is a blessing. What is the difference between Robert and a spoiled child that got too many mummies and daddies behind him to spoil him well?
One of the problems is that we think blaming and shaming him, Girard or the rest of us for our very human weaknesses is enough and I am not interested in stopping there. I have “blamed” and “shamed” if you wish to look at it that way or I have simply stated what I’ve seen. What we do with what we see is what matters.
Not one of us is a lot less weaker than Robert or the rest and I doubt any one of us would have not fallen into the same temptations we fell, each to the extent they were supported and allowed. The proportions that the situation has taken needs equally huge proportions to change and correct it and frankly, what really makes one sit down and cry is that we probably don’t have the being to do it in the short run.
Had we the being, we would, like any true parent, put all the necessary limitations on the child and continue to love her. The Fellowship of Friends is our kindergarden and Robert is just a baby in a very spoiled state. The rest of us are the babies in a very abused state. The problem is that the “teachers” are on the spoiled babie’s side.
Blaming and shaming and leaving things there is nothing but the same awful hopelessness that Robert has managed to instill in us treating us like third class human beings that will never manage to make anything for themselves. Having been in a much more hopeless state than any Robert could come even close to putting me in, it is very clear to me that one sits under the leaves for sometime, recovers strength, then gets up and puts things in place.
I cannot put the Fellowship in place on my own because it is not my own. I can take some dangerous toys away from the child and at least let others know that they can access the law and not be so abused, but I cannot avoid the gifts he receives from other people who cannot acknowledge how spoiled the child is and who need to convince others that the child is not spoiled but a man number seven in the highest realm.
I am not only interested in going ahead with the Fellowship because of Robert, Girard, or anyone of us adults individually, (for we all count a great deal), but because my daughter and the younger generation, count “enormously” to me.
I sincerely believe that the only real miracle that can happen to a school is to become a community, just as miraculous as it is for a standard man to become a human being.
The best lesson my children ever taught me was that I could say no. I pondered for a long time on what No, meant, without negativity (for I seemed to say no quite a lot to them and I was desperately trying not to ruin them with negativity.) And then the understanding came. We were in a park and there were very beautiful flowers that Elisa wanted to pick. It was so natural for her to want to pick them, why not? But after saying no various times she didn’t stop and I simply went up to her and smacked her hand gently. She was two years old. She looked at me greatly surprised and cried as if I had killed her and angrily moved away from the flowers to never try them again and I felt like a hero who had trapped the dragon! I understood that one’s freedom stops where ever somebody else’s freedom begins, be it organic or inorganic and that it was necessary to check each other where ever we stepped beyond. The freedom to use nature is not the freedom to abuse it as there is no freedom to abuse each other with no matter what excuse. Digging in and out of each other is good for both the earth and the people but there is no lawfulness in abuse.
Thank you again for all your inputs, I’m not being able to find much time to sit and cry and there’s great gratitude for that.
April 13, 2007 at 7:38 pm
Last Salt Shaker Says (144):
“What we get from you is less than insubstantial, it is just reactive negativity thinly disguised.”
I don’t feel negative about what HC or you are saying, honest! I appreciate the fact you’re trying to express yourself as best you can. But your response illustrates a typical trait of the FOF true believer: anything that contradicts your fixed beliefs is viewed as “negative”.
Similarly people who leave the FOF are often described as “negative”. It’s usually an incorrect assumption. If for “negative” you substitute “questioning” you’re probably closer to the truth.
April 13, 2007 at 8:40 pm
Because during the RB meetings I am often in the mellow state of fascination (or a state of trance), I find it useful to think about the teaching after the meeting – reading the Thoughts from the Teacher.
This is what seems to me to be the sings of manipulation and brainwashing – “hypnoses” and weird logic. It really confuses our brains.
The quotations are profound and invite us to experience some “insights” – we open our “mouths” and swallow a lot of BS… together with the beauty of the quotations:
“Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you.” {James 4:8}
God is the divinity within us (1) , the state we are blessed (2) to be in now (3). How do we draw near this state when it is absent? With the sequence (4). This evening’s event is composed of the most beautiful thoughts from the schools that have preceded us (5) – some of the most beautiful arias.
1. I am not sure if James 4:8 meant “God” as a divinity within, he might as well meant it as a divinity “without”. RB said so – OK.
2. He assures us that we are at the meeting in some special “blessed” state which he knows or sees. (I often observed that flattery about how much we are awaken or in essence during the meeting – might be far from being true, but may put one in the state of trance and also makes one dependent or addicted to his meeting).
3. This is a brainwashing: now you are ‘this’, but after the meeting you will be ‘the other’ and you will must do the sequence. Hypnoses!
4. Here we go! And before the sequence how did we draw near? By throwing a little roll of bread? Or with the scary predictions?
5. To boost the importance of the sequence he supports it with the authority of “the schools which have preceded us”
“We attain freedom from sin in six steps” {The Philokalia, Ilias the Presbyter}
Here, we clearly (6) see “sin” as sleep. We obtain freedom from sleep in six steps with the precious (!) sequence (!) – the pyramid of Saqqara (7). The pyramid of Saqqara is the oldest existing example of architecture for man. What a “do” (10) it is!.
6. In case you are still in doubt you have a “proof” that those “schools that have preceded us” used the sequence! But instead of saying “Here we clearly see that they used the sequence” he says ” they used the word “sin” instead of “sleep”. I think it is a brilliant way to confuse someones reasoning quite a bit!
7. Another “authority” boost
8. This makes Egypt “do” in the ascending octave where we are at the “si-do”?
“Practice the dharma, since it is your best companion.” {Padmasanbhava}
To “practice” means to engage presence with the sequence. (9) The sequence is a friend of this state we are in (2) – the “friend of Allah.”
9. The whole esoteric world was practicing the sequence throughout the history! Don’t be left out!
Ten thousand would be of little use in this little gate”. {The Arabian Nights}
Because they are crooked (10), because they are unrelated to your sequence (11). Hafiz called the ten thousands “I’s unrelated to your sequence (12) “ten thousand idiots”, because they actually imagine (?) they are the state we are in now (?): presence – too beautiful, too definite for words.
10 &11. This makes a perfect zombi out of a intelligent person – now anything except the sequence is crooked! Leave your brain on the shelve and repeat: Be-Hold-Bla-whatever…”
12. Now it makes us “the idiots”. If you think, reason – you are an idiot! Perfect logic…
I think it is quite scary! This type of teaching makes the students “see the evidence” in the Egyptian architecture, drawings, in the sacred books, in anything – THE SEQUENCE … and basically anything else they were told to see… plus they keep coming to the meetings and events and pay tones of money…
April 13, 2007 at 8:56 pm
Talking about “shocks”.
Once I heard a friend say:
” Schocks are presence, the rest is imagination!”
Lovely true way to talk about presence, I felt.
Today, on my way back home from work, I entered a dark space of imagination (called negative imagination). Something within me pictured the death of a dear friend, in Egypt, were she went to meet Robert a few days ago.
Horrifyied, I said to myself:
“If she is dead, the School too is surely dead !
At that very moment, on the walk way, I saw this huge dead fish !
A shock is a shock!
To Elena.
When I read you wanted to “come back” my fisrt reaction was: what if she is a fake ?
What if she is using intentional insinserity to fish for reactions… from student, to bad student, to ex-student, to good ex-student, to repented ex-student… The all spectrum…?
Because of your last post, I am not “there” anymore yet, I do have difficulty to get your point. I guess I am left with having to trust.
To Joseph:
Touching letter. Very beautiful, simple and sincere. I could not prevent observing that even if you declare not making a “major” point of Robert’s sexual life, it constitutes the longest paragraphe of your letter.
I resume:
A shock is a shock!
One suspicion for one trust.
One all is well/not well for one Good luck!
This web thing is a gift! Thank You so much!
April 13, 2007 at 9:37 pm
Dear Rita and No Person,
Thanks for the info on the wonderful weekend spent with John Wheeler.
I must say that you capsulized my experience with him at different times with him over the last year.
Yes, there is life after being bannished to the moon.
Wonderful, isn’t it. So simple. Just our natural awareness.
With much love
To Joseph,
Beautifully put. Enjoy your life. Keep in touch, there are many friends from OH that share your exit and your existence. Hugs
April 13, 2007 at 9:47 pm
Now that I’ve passed away, I offer a few selections from the teachings of Bokonon:
“Papa” Monzano, he’s so very bad
But without bad “Papa” I would be so sad;
Because without “Papa’s” badness,
Tell me, if you would,
How could wicked old Bokonon
Ever, ever look good?
I wanted all things
To seem to make some sense,
So we could all be happy, yes,
Instead of tense.
And I made up lies
So that they all fit nice,
And I made this sad world
A par-a-dise.
Someday, someday, this crazy world will have to end,
And our God will take things back that He to us did lend.
And if, on that sad day, you want to scold our God,
Why just go ahead and scold Him. He’ll just smile and nod.
Tiger got to hunt,
Bird got to fly;
Man got to sit and wonder, “Why, why, why?”
Tiger got to sleep,
Bird got to land;
Man got to tell himself he understand.
Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way.
And, my personal favorite:
The Last Rites of Bokononism
(Each line is said once by the person giving the rites and then repeated by the dying person.)
God made mud.
God got lonesome.
So God said to some of the mud, “Sit up!”
“See all I’ve made,” said God, “the hills, the sea, the sky, the stars.”
And I was some of the mud that got to sit up and look around.
Lucky me, lucky mud.
I, mud, sat up and saw what a nice job God had done.
Nice going, God.
Nobody but you could have done it, God! I certainly couldn’t have.
I feel very unimportant compared to You.
The only way I can feel the least bit important is to think of all the mud that didn’t even get to sit up and look around.
I got so much, and most mud got so little.
Thank you for the honor!
Now mud lies down again and goes to sleep.
What memories for mud to have!
What interesting other kinds of sitting-up mud I met!
I loved everything I saw!
Good night.
I will go to heaven now.
I can hardly wait…
To find out for certain what my wampeter was…
And who was in my karass…
And all the good things our karass did for you.
Amen.
April 13, 2007 at 10:08 pm
(#163)
“Apophenia is the experience of seeing patterns or connections in random or meaningless data. The term was coined in 1958 by Klaus Conrad, who defined it as the “unmotivated seeing of connections” accompanied by a “specific experience of an abnormal meaningfulness”.
Conrad originally described this phenomenon in relation to the distortion of reality present in psychosis, but it has become more widely used to describe this tendency in healthy individuals without necessarily implying the presence of neurological or mental illness.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia
April 13, 2007 at 10:42 pm
Dear Last Salt Shaker,
My beautiful golden Afghan, who liked to kill foxes and bobcats, died last night from kidney failure. “Negro Gutiérrez” my mixed poodle and I, buried the hole and circled around it. Mr. Haven will cover it later before he himself leaves. We use to call him “Hippie Haven.”
It is a great thing to know that you are the last one. I was tired and let you go quickly but here’s a list of the requirements you would need to meet to invite me back…. Just in case you’re interested.
Give Robert a decent salary and every body else who has worked for more than five years in the Fellowship, accordingly. The better the salary, the better for the Fellowship.
Give health insurance to anyone who has consistently worked for more than five years in the Fellowship.
Raise the minimum teaching payments at least to six hundred dollars.
Solve the situation of all artist immigrants so that they can remain in the US
Solve the situation for all of Robert’s immigrants guaranteeing as far as possible that they can remain in the states after solving the artist’s situation.
Give guarantees to any one of those students who have worked for the Fellowship for more than twenty years for their old age if they need them. They can give them up if they don’t.
Institutionalize open meetings, in circles where who ever talks is equal, not separated.
Institutionalize a permanent board where everyone knows what money comes in and where it goes.
Institutionalize an official embrace of anyone who arrives, not just allowing them to say their name but inviting them to say whatever they have to say and an official embrace to anyone who wishes to leave in the same way.
Keep the open channels for voluntary work but also institutionalize channels for students to present their work and let those few who become interested, pay for them to the student. If he wishes to give the school, let it be but don’t make him become a price on to himself. It is a blessing and a curse that only Mr. Haven and Mr. Braverman have gotten away with that and not all the others who tried.
Institutionalize good will, not amount. Value the people for what they are worth not for what they pay.
Institutionalize channels for anyone to make money for themselves or the fellowship or both.
Bring down the banners about the last school on the planet and invest the money you’re wasting on buying time to share time with each other, have a decent meal, a decent conversation, a decent life.
Plant organic and get in contact with the planet so that the barbie palms have a chance to survive.
Revitalize the winery.
Actualize the olives and any other company so that we all participate in it if it is the Fellowship’s and know if it isn’t.
Open doors to ex-students to rejoin at no cost.
Invite worth while students like Seiki who are still around but maybe not for long, to open their long gone dream dojo and give us what they have to give.
Close the brothel and allow for anyone to have relations as human beings.
Continue the institutionalization of the non expression of negative emotions amongst us, photographs, and exercises.
Institutionalize the use of vote if necessary for some issues.
Do not allow the development of a leader or an inner circle but live like men with consciousness where every one responds for himself and his community.
These are just a few of the things I can think of now but many others might add to the list.
In other words, let’s clean up and stop shaking.
Should you even wish to commit to the list just let me know, you might count on my teaching payments.
April 13, 2007 at 11:04 pm
forgive my ignorance but could someone explain CONCISELY how the FOF explain influence c
April 14, 2007 at 1:13 am
I was inspired by Joseph G.’s letter of Leaving the FOF, and have just now, several months after leaving, decided to write the following letter to Robert, fully knowing that it doesn’t matter if it is actually sent to him, or even, if sent, that
he would ever actually read it with real understanding.
ROBERT,
This is a late, over-the -shoulder reflection on why I left your organization after
more than 20 years. First, it did not occur to me then, nor does it now, to “thank you” for all you did for me. Why? Because I now see clearly that you did
nothing other than to play to my projected needs for spiritual superiority, outside authority, high purpose and community. I imagined the whole thing, and the “feel good” went on and on for 15 plus years. But slowly, ever so slowly, I, like many of your current 20 plus year students, actually began to see through your cobbled- together,” licence plate” teaching. To see clear through to the bottom, that you, taught by your predatory “Teacher” Alex Horn, have very cleverly combined a 2% element of Truth with 98% invention and called it “The Fourth Way”. You knew and capitalized on all the classic Seekers weaknesses to catch a then popular “spiritual wind” and you sailed with it to a very Good,very Rich lifestyle. But actually, your teaching has always and everywhere consisted of surgically lifted quotes and rituals, which, combined and “believed”, kept me following Your Way. Oh the Right words were there; the fractional Truth kept me off balance in the face of obvious and numerous Acts sick and sad-beyond-description.To this day though,you are a survivor because you know when and how to” throw the dogs a bone”,just like most politicians and “spiritual” leaders.That is to say, Robert, you are average, actually no more or less distinguished than any others. The truth is, we needed someone like you and hey, who can blame you for setting up shop..that’s marketing..that’s life –as-we-imagine-it! You continue because you cannot stop, because your Greed for all things and experiences drives you on.
Well, I’m off your ‘ship , and have reached real, dry land, no thanks to you!
You did pass on a few useful and therefore true, things…”The I’s – ALL the Is –are not real,” including mine and yours, and” Man – that means you and I and ALL men- cannot do.” And, whether or not you believe it, you are a man, flesh and bone, who has IMAGINED your thoughts are real and that you, Robert Burton, have “achieved” consciousness. And we went along because we didn’t know any better, didn’t know that
we are ALL ALREADY ONE…and the same Self . Now, and increasingly so, we are coming to know ourselves, by ourselves, and not by what any spiritual predator like you tells us.
I know now, without a doubt, that nothing I have said here, or will ever say, is real. Words are only expressed thoughts…concepts…I’s .and I am not my thoughts. And I know now that “I” am not my body either. That’s two of the most important things I could ever know in a lifetime, and not one of them was ever hinted at by you, Robert. And that’s because you don’t know this, and you can’t teach what you don’t know is true for yourself…
Oh, and there’s a third, supremely important thing which you never taught me or anyone, although you frequently use and abuse the word – LOVE. Ah, but never mind, it’s only human… this “I” that I imagine me to be, has done that too. Haven’t we all? Sometimes now, in recognizing my true nature as nothing other than awareness, or love, I know that I am love, and when I do, I know that you too, like all of us, are nothing but love .
April 14, 2007 at 2:34 am
To Post #100,
It sounds like a very interesting invitation. And also very useful for those afraid of loosing their friends after leaving the FOF.
On the other hand, the Comunity already exists. It’s called Oregon House. We happened to ignore it all these years, because as members of the FOF, all the rest were just “life people” or “former students”. So what we called Comunity (the FOF)was just a bubble. Are we planning to create another bubble, this time with ex-members?
The Oregon House Comunity includes all the people living in the area, such as the guys at Post Office, the Willow Glen crew, and RB with all his FOF members. Are we ready to take this in? It’s not easy.
The form of the FOF has penetrated so deeply in us that it’s hard to see it for what it is, just a form; part of which is very nice and useful. But we can’t ignore other aspects of this structure, which made us feel special or simply different, increasing the feeling of separation. From this perspective, creating a new structure
could be a little bit tricky.
The experience of leaving the FOF is different for each of us. Some of us will dive into a new form, while others will go for self-inquiry and a quiet time. As for myself, right now it could be described as a combination of self-inquiry and curiosity.
See you at the Post Office!
April 14, 2007 at 2:56 am
(#164) Gee, if you’re Joseph
G——s, this is so cool because Robert told me almost thirty years ago I’m on your ladder, and I’ve been waiting a very long time for you to leave the Fellowship so I could move on. Wow. Thanks.
April 14, 2007 at 4:23 am
Hello.
The very fact that Howard is here is really fascinating.
What would the teacher think? Does he know that Howard is associating with ex-students?
Isn’t this against the fellowship law?
Accordingly, Influence C might abandon him because of this oversight. True? Verified?
Would celestial beings have the time or inclination to worry about this felony? (Or is it a misdemeanor?)
My goodness! Where would they find the time to try and punish one individual for their innate curiousity, passion and very real questions.
Would there be a trial and a jury of peers?
Could the perpetrator of the sins take the stand?
Would these feathery, brilliant celestials cruelly abandon a simple follower for this infraction?
Would that individual wander forever in dust, flies and excrement?
Is Celestial Influence cruel? Unforgiving?
According to fellowship law, they are…
Peace
April 14, 2007 at 4:42 am
Dear Half Life, “I regard the practice called ’separation’ or ‘divided attention’ as the only valuable practice this school has come up with and the only thing that still keeps me in ”
I came to realize that this practice doesn’t lead to lasting or permanent changes or understanding of one’s true nature. These are wonderful mind exercises, sometimes resulting in higher states. They help to sharpen attention too.
There are functions – human attention and memory, and there is conscious awareness, which is beyond all functions and states. When a “practice” is going on, there is a mental game going on the level of functions, “we” divide our attention and separate, remember “ourselves” and forget, but it goes on as a mind game and is happening WITHIN permanent conscious awareness.
Playing the “practice” game prevents us from seeing the big picture.
The whole “Self observing” and “self remembering” concept is a bit selfish. You are – what observes, and it is completely selfless. In fact it is seen that there is no individual Self at all at the core of our being, there is just this pure undivided consciousness.
We get addicted to practice, because it perpetuate “me”, the seeker, the student, the doer. It makes “me” feel real and important. When in fact there is no one, just this consciousness looking through your eyes right now. Do you need to practice it? No, it’s simply there.
Who needs the practice then? Well, it’s this the “good student” that we imagine ourselves to be…
Who are you? Do you know?
April 14, 2007 at 4:45 am
“I regard the practice called ’separation’ or ‘divided attention’ as the only valuable practice this school has come up with and the only thing that still keeps me in”
If your aim is to become Whole or One or whatever you want to call it, has it never dawned on you that dividing attention is actually creating a duality, one that observes and the one being observed? Quite the opposite, no?
“On the other hand, the Comunity already exists. It’s called Oregon House. We happened to ignore it all these years, because as members of the FOF, all the rest were just “life people” or “former students”.”
Mr.A: Thank you for this. I have also often wondered why, after X amount of years, former students never become life people again but just remain former students? Guess its to keep them out of “community events” like the up-coming North Yuba Life Market.I guess if FOF students ever grow up they will no longer be in essence?
Elena:
I am sorry to disturb your sleep. If I said it is because of compassion maybe I would not be believed. I no longer respond to your posts. It is finished. A long torment without a quote to prove it. In my mind’s eye I hug you, not the fake FOF kind of hug where we barely touch, but a real, emotional one from one Latino to another.
April 14, 2007 at 6:05 am
6/176 – You, me us they
Just wanted to pick up on what you wrote about shocks as I think it is a great illustration of the point I was trying to make in post 6/163 of how we can demystify our lives.
You wrote –
Today, on my way back home from work, I entered a dark space of imagination (called negative imagination). Something within me pictured the death of a dear friend, in Egypt, were she went to meet Robert a few days ago.
Horrifyied, I said to myself:
“If she is dead, the School too is surely dead !
At that very moment, on the walk way, I saw this huge dead fish !
Do you remember in A New Model of the Universe that Ouspensky wrote about dreams and how the stimulus that triggers the dream that you remember when you wake up might well also be the stumulus that wakes you up. This is because different centers work at different speeds and data that one center takes in can stimulate a reaction that is then assumed to have occurred before the actual stimulus is noticed by the part of you that you derive your current identity from. This leads to a feeling that something has occurred that is too improbable to be part of the normal ebb and flow of life and therefore must have a personal meaning and importance for us.
You might have thought of death as a result of the powerful sight of the dead fish, but only became aware of the dead fish after or at the same time as having entertained the thought of the death of your friend. Many of our moments are not so very mysterious but rather than try to de-mystify them by using reason the school amplifies this trait to the point of it being an actual mental health issue for some members.
This is not to belittle our experiences but rather to call into question the way a group of enquirers into truth can be fobbed off with such nonsense from people who apparently ‘know’. It requires a number of people to all buy into this kind of lie for it work and become the mainstay of the culture of a group like ours. Questioning the validity of this personalizing of events is not encouraged either by the establishment, Robert and his circle of go-betweens, or by the majority of fellow students. I have tried to bring this up several times but it seems that the faith (faith for a man number 4 is the result of his verifications) of the majority of students is built on this supposed relationship with the gods. I see very little difference between this kind of belief and the belief of any number of devotees of religions that we judge so harshly for their gullibility. Robert is very clever at orchestrating the conditions for us to ‘feel’ the reality of C Influence in our lives as well as in his own.
It is great fun to debunk this lie. It can only be done by ones own observation. Of course there will be many times when you cannot see what happened as you were not paying attention, but one perseveres and learns. For me this promises a never ending unveiling of mechanicality in the direction that seems most aligned with the truth. It is amusing to note that seeing things from the point of their being mechanical is actually far more mystical than taking mumbo jumbo at face value.
April 14, 2007 at 6:20 am
“La Migra” raided Isis today. As far as I know, they have not done that in many years, so it seems likely that someone goaded them into renewing their interest. I can understand that some of you out there have quite a grudge against Robert and perhaps others still in the FOF, but please keep in mind that heat from the INS will have absolutely no impact on Robert or on any older students you may wish to upset – they all either have citizenship or at least green cards. It might, however, cause a lot of pain for young, confused foreign students who are trying to sort out what the FOF is and whether they can stay in it and/or in the US at all. Please find better ways to express your displeasure with the power structure than harming those who have the least power within it.
April 14, 2007 at 7:42 am
i joined the Fellowship in Sacramento in 1978 and for two years spent time in the Santa Cruz/Los Gatos center, the Sacramento Center and many weekends at Rennaisance mostly washing dishes at the Lodge.I “lost the vine” in 1980…not the result of being pruned…I just sort of whithered and fell off. This blog has been a revelation, long awaited. The stigma of being an ex-member has never really left me until now. I love the idea of the School and probably always will. Like so many others here, I remain a serious student who was changed forever by my time in the FOF. I want to acknowledge the people there who made it such a unique experience…especially Katherine Brooker, my wife for a turbulent year and a half. I’m sorry for being such a thorn in your side. I felt so alone until one day I found myself floating around Lake Tahoe on a big paddlewheeler with Harold Wirk who was doing caricatures, and he told me the tale of how he and Stella had left the School. I often wish I could relive those two years knowing what I know now. But, I wonder…So thanks, again to James and JoAnn, Drew and Susan and to all who have written here.
April 14, 2007 at 9:01 am
6\172: “One of the things I see in Fellowship students is in working with the non expression of negative emotions, all kinds of emotions are suppressed, leaving the person feeling energetically depleted. That’s probably why wine is used so much in the Fellowship because it seems to initially bring energy and then ends up depleting it.”
Yes, that’s right. And ‘in life’ it’s also true. But I’m wondering why No person and Rita Penfold still ‘drunk lots of wine’ (6\155)? What about John? From my experience the consciousness or pure awareness do not need any “enhancement” – it’s a joy much better than alcohol can brings. People drinks to dissolve a poison of supressed negativity, to forget their ‘problems’ for a while, to feel ‘more free’ from inner considering (‘be in essence’)… It is all ‘functions’, ‘lower self’, ‘illusory mind concept’. But what is a reason to drink when one selfremember, awakened, enlightened? Are you not happy enough being awake? Do you still need to buffer something? But please do not tell the stories about Gurdjieff, Ouspensky and anybody who is not reading the blog.
in light, fa
April 14, 2007 at 9:37 am
It is very amusing to read some of the comments here and sometimes it really makes me laugh. I must admit I have forgotten many of the funny ideas that were invented in the FOF. Like feminine dominance, the nine lives or ladders, but the “sequence” seems to top it all.
Well at least it seems to be not too harmful, and meditation, the use of mantras and breathing exercises is not a bad thing.
April 14, 2007 at 10:00 am
To : “I see”, 6/123,
“The fact that the school works and the fact that it is time to leave are not exclusive.”
They may not need to be exclusive; just don’t assume they need to be inclusive either. You, like several others here, are still trying to put conditions on my staying.
“Maybe the school works in a more profound way than you suspect and people do move on.”
The school could not be more profound than I suspect, because I see it is as profound as it could possibly be. That’s why I stay.
April 14, 2007 at 10:01 am
Consider this,
the interesting role that this blog site is fulfilling is in allowing at last a meeting of the light siders (those who are positively in the school)and the dark siders (those who left in negativity or to find another school),which was not possible before.
Each indivdual now has the chance to digest and integrate the two polarities within themselves, and if they can find a balance , they have the chance to move beyond the “school” experiential loop that they have been stuck in, and the associated belief systems that go with it.
Final incarnations rarely, if ever, involve school work,either as student or as teacher.Total freedom includes moving beyond the need to swallow ,or spout, a belief system ; all of which are designed to keep you within that loop.
stay well,
pigs in a pen
April 14, 2007 at 10:13 am
#163 i see said the blind man
Yeah, that’s what i meant to say but you do it so much better!
“Isn’t it far more likely that everything is mechanical, rather than that there should be
some benign rogue power is free?”
Aside from the fact i don’t get the syntax (is there a word or two missing?) i wish to respond to this.
Isn’t it far more likely that everything is alive, awake and connected? Remember the anecdote about the experience O. had of walking through the streets and feeling the houses and everything else being alive? I don’t know why i use that archaic example, commonality i guess.
It is we who are dead. Our minds make us that way. That it is inert stuff out there and we are trying to become “conscious” of the deep, hidden secret of it. Horseshit!
We are trying to become alive with it.
This materialisation and objectivication of Soul, self, “C-influence”, “consciousness” as something that acts in and on an external world to our exclusive benefit is just plain self delusion. In fact quite the opposite is true. The universe is indifferent to our petty dreams and desires but we can become alive and into harmony with it.
Anyone selling the snake oil of special invisible influence is a spiritual criminal.
You are a good writer, i really admire that and your perceptions about what is going on around you are correct in my opinion.
My opinion also is that if you would get out of there and drop as much of the 4th way mental framework the better off you will be. Not that they are not valid at a certain point in development but you have out grown them. You certainly know you are in horseshit up to your neck.
April 14, 2007 at 10:19 am
Interestingly now, while I very seriously ponder leaving the FOF, I read new meaning into Walt Whitman. Why did I never read him as I do now? Did he also find that he had to leave some group?
Imagine that you just decided to leave the FOF – now read these words:
“Each man to himself and each woman to herself is the word of the past and the present and the true word of immortality. No one can grow for another – not one.”
Or
“Afoot and light hearted, I take to the open road,
Healthy Free, the world before me, the long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.
Henceforth, I ask not good fortune, I myself am good fortune….
Here is the test of wisdom,
Wisdom is not finally tested in schools.”
Walt Whitman once encouraged me to stay. Now he reads like a great advocate for leaving – for celebrating the individual path. “I nourish active rebellion”.
Every word says “Leave – Leave – Leave!”
Amazing how easy it is to find meaning to justify a direction whatever it might be. Ah that need to release cognitive dissonance is so strong. “Strong is your hold o mortal flesh. Strong is your hold O love.”
But I sure look forward to that long brown path and that open road that leads wherever I choose. I can smell it from here on the fence.
(Still here I carry my old delicious burdens,
I carry them, men and women. I carry them with me wherever I go,
I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them.
Allons, the road is before us. I have tried it. My own feet have tried it well. Be not detained…. Let the money remain unearned… Mind not the cry of the teacher!
Let others dispose of questions. I dispose of nothing. I arouse unanswerable questions.
To Confused (#175): The force of quotes can be very strong as you so clearly noted. They make it all ok. “If it is good enough for Walt, it is good enough for me” and it is so easy to use them to justify a path – a path that our emotional center wants to take. As Daryl Bem, a leader in cognitive dissonance noted –“We do things and spend the rest of the time explaining why we did it.”
It is pretty easy to quote and make it sound like you know something. This we have learned.
FenceRider
April 14, 2007 at 10:36 am
#166 Ruddery
We are probably just misunderstanding each other.
“Functions, including the heart, still work as before
(indeed, it appears here better than ever); it is simply that Self is not wound up (identified?) in those emotions.”
It seems to me you need a little more understanding of the non-dual part of non-duality.
April 14, 2007 at 5:21 pm
dear fencerider,
Thanks for those words from Walt,and take care on the long brown road…there may be a rhino just around the corner.
April 14, 2007 at 6:27 pm
To: Laughing Love,6/185,
I have a short term special dispensation under the heading of “scout”.
April 14, 2007 at 6:30 pm
nudaveritas asks (181): “could someone explain CONCISELY how the FOF explain influence c?”
C influence is “conscious influence”. Until recently this was said to be 44 conscious beings (Gurdjieff, Ouspensky, Whitman, Queen Elizabeth 1, Vivaldi, Leonardo, etc). Now that the 4th Way has been repudiated maybe the list has changed.
But the list doesn’t affect the basic principle which is that these deceased “conscious beings” are floating around giving “shocks” to FOF students to help them “awaken”. In the past the shocks would typically take the form of ensuring that many auto number plates contained the number 44. These days the number 6 is considered more significant. Also pyramids are more frequently seen.
These beings communicate directly with RB via shocks, telling him when California will fall into the sea etc. An odd aspect of this is that they’re always wrong. This is interpreted to mean that they deliberately mislead Robert to give him extra “friction”.
A fundamental concept is that these particular conscious beings only work with FOF students. They start their work as soon as you make your first teaching payment (I’m not sure if they wait till the check clears). When you leave they immediately withdraw their assistance. I assume they have some kind of direct line to the FOF accounting department.
RB has a particular relationship with Leonardo Da Vinci. A famous story relates how when Robert missed a shot while playing tennis he complained that Leonardo had jogged his elbow.
I’m not making this up.
RB
April 14, 2007 at 7:03 pm
To Fence Rider – someone said “Awakening is not a group experience”.
At this point I don’t believe in the concept of “awakening” (because it turns out that what I truly am – consciousness – was never ever asleep or not there, and what my mind imagined as my identity – personality -was never real).
But I would say that Realizing one’s true nature is not a group experience, and cannot be. I totally agree with Walt, each one of us has to find out who we truly are by ourselves, nobody can do it for us.
A group or a school unites like-minded people and make it a beautiful experience to do things together. It could be fun, it could be meaningful – whatever. But nothing and nobody will ever “give” you the realization of who you are. Each of us has to see for themselves, in solitude, by personal inquiry. Please do not believe in any BS about next lifetimes! It’s just a buffer, a thought to distract you from recognizing yourself NOW. Consciousness is in you – right now, not in the next lifetime. It is our fortune, it’s what makes us alive, it’s the light in your eyes. The recognition of one’s conscious nature brings tremendous inner freedom and peace. Walt saw it, so did many, many others.
It’s possible, because it is ALREADY YOU.
Best of luck to you, Fence Rider!
April 14, 2007 at 7:24 pm
(On drinking wine:)
fofanatomy, as Freud famously said, “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” Chill out. Have a glass of wine. You don’t need a reason to enjoy your life. If you don’t enjoy wine, don’t drink it, but trying to figure out whether the harmless things other people do means they’re really not “conscious” is a waste of your precious time.
(On Whitman:)
FenceRider, have you happened to read the description of Whitman by Richard Maurice Bucke, who knew him well personally, in his 1901 book Cosmic Consciousness? It sounds like you already respect him quite a bit, but it’s one of the most beautiful portraits of a person I’ve ever read.
(On Robert:)
Elena, pardon me if I didn’t understand where you were coming from in my #151, but I don’t know you other than through your posts and sometimes don’t know whether in a particular post you’re being straight, sarcastic, ironic, etc. But it does seem to me that, in your ##130 and 173, you may be naive. “What is the difference between Robert and a spoiled child that got too many mummies and daddies behind him to spoil him well?” I believe, a great deal.
Robert is sociopathic. This is not inconsistent with his being charming, insightful, or possessing various remarkable qualities, which Robert obviously does. But I suggest taking two giant steps back and viewing the man without any of the programming about him he has so assiduously cultivated over the past thirty-seven years, trusting your common sense and everything you’ve learned. Robert uses people like Kleenex, and is quite incapable of perceiving that he does wrong. That he has made mistakes, such as making predictions that don’t pan out, he will acknowledge, since it cannot be denied, but he will never acknowledge that he has rampantly abused power to the detriment of those who most trusted him. He is incapable of it. He is broken. Robert will live out his life, in one place or another, in the company of devoted followers, confident in the belief that he has been betrayed by fools because his Christ-like being attracted it.
April 14, 2007 at 7:58 pm
Dear Mary Battista,
You are the greatest character in this comedy. Please keep posting your sincere self!
April 14, 2007 at 8:00 pm
If all that matters is awareness
Would you give up your hands?
Your head?
Your legs?
Why haven’t you given up your genitals?
And why do you bother to write?
You are probably an FoF student because that’s how they talk, without the slightest awareness.
April 14, 2007 at 8:03 pm
Triangle says
If your aim is to become Whole or One or whatever you want to call it, has it never dawned on you that dividing attention is actually creating a duality, one that observes and the one being observed? Quite the opposite, no?
No, not quite.
One is One
Two includes One
And three includes them both.
When the formatory apparatus can only perceive one dimension, it can only deny. Affirming or finding solutions means pushing the obstacle beyond.
April 14, 2007 at 8:05 pm
Positive emotions says
It is clear that those who deny the value of working with negative emotions left the Fellowship because they didn’t do their homework, drunk too much and are still dizzy with the effects without having ever tasted the wine. It takes as much time for a grape to become wine as for a standard individual to taste the flavor of gratitude.
April 14, 2007 at 8:15 pm
Hi Fof Anatomy!
You ask “But I’m wondering why No person and Rita Penfold still ‘drunk lots of wine’ (6\155)? What about John? From my experience the consciousness or pure awareness do not need any “enhancement” – it’s a joy much better than alcohol can brings.”
I can answer for myself – I drink red wine simply because I honestly love the flavor! Then, I also enjoy a slight buzz it gives. Before FOF I didn’t drink alcohol at all for many years- I was married to a Muslim and drinking was forbidden. In school I learned to enjoy red wine and love it! Back in 1996 in Apollo we were given 2 cases of wine every month as a part of salary – so even if you didn’t drink before, you kind of had to do something with all this wine. My closet was always full with boxes of wine! (I only wish it was the case these days…)
You are right – there is no “enhancement” to consciousness, in fact it is impossible to enhance it. And it is a great joy to experience all kinds of things, taste foods, drink wine, feel buzzed, sing, move your body, look at colors, smile at friends, discuss ideas… It’s all – wonderful experiences that make life so joyful!
May be you think of consciousness as something separate, blank and sterile and empty of expression… No, it is manifesting in everything you see around, in every pair of eyes, in wine, in food, in music, in garbage, it’s all-including, all-loving, all-enjoying, it is so full. It embraces everything, not separate and selective. What does separating and selecting – is the false identity we have about ourselves in our minds, which is full of personal opinion about right and wrong. It’s like a tiny small mental cage, that we put ourselves in, and judge the world from this limited prospective. “This is consciousness, and this is not consciousness, this is good and this is bad, because “I” don’t like it”. Looks like you’ve got an artificial concept of a certain “conscious” behavior, that you created in your mind and believe in. There is no such limiting “conscious” standard, friend, it’s a mind trap we tend to fall into.
Consciousness – which you truly are – is so infinitely larger, it’s all-embracing, all-including and free.
Hey, let’s drink to that! 🙂
Speaking of wine drinking and fun: HERE’S THE LINK TO THE PICTURES FROM OUR WEEKEND! Enjoy, and please join us next time.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7783643@N07/sets/72157600071813610
malaec@yahoo.com
April 14, 2007 at 9:02 pm
Fence Rider 6-196
Please contact me by email at brjbrisson(at)yahoo.com for some personal input when the dust settles or sooner if you prefer.
Thank you Sheik for your patience and your hard work.
April 14, 2007 at 9:29 pm
Raptus Regaliter (#160)
Where did the idea that Walt Whitman was gay come from? Some anally retentive Victorian academics? Have you read the following poems?
A Woman Waits for Me
I Sing The Body Electric
From Pent Up Aching Rivers
One Hour To Madness And Joy
He doesn’t seem gay from these to me!
Anyway, he may have been gay, bisexual or a hermaphrodite for all I care, that was not the point. The point was to indicate to those who think there are lower parts of us which need taming, characteristics to be harnessed and disciplined, that this may be an illusion. The FOF and 4th way advocate the idea that we have no will and have to create it by controlling thoughts, emotions, states etc. thus enabling us to develop ‘true will’ and consciousness. Whitman and others suggest the idea of non-effort, letting go and allowing ourselves to be with whatever is within our awareness.
Elena seems to be still wedded to these ideas, and my quoting Whitman was an attempt to indicate to her that there may be a different, more freeing perspective. This was more eloquently stated by Fence Rider (#196), who also pointed out the tendency to constantly justify our actions, which is something that we need to be aware of. Much of this is probably happening here on the blog, though getting it out in the open and having feedback makes it more possible to see. I have been, in a sense, on the ‘open road’ since leaving about a decade ago, and don’t regret my time in the FOF or since, but have been wary of following up on any other groups, teachings or ideas, rather remaining open to everything I can be. This has led to more uncertainty and also more self-reliance, but there is something that is helpful in discussing things with others, using each other as sounding boards. Even No Person, who claims to have discovered permanent conscious awareness, enjoys meeting with like minded people. Why is that? Because we are social animals, or because we use others to justify our view of the world? Or both?
Elena (#162)
“Many negative emotions are in the lower emotional centre but envy is in the I. It is why it is so difficult for us to give up hierarchy in the instinctive centre and embrace hierarchy from the I. Real I.”
What?! This makes absolutely no sense to me, sorry! If you want to stick with the idea of centres, envy is in whatever centre the object of envy relates to surely? E.g. If I am envious of someone having a bigger piece of cake than me, it is probably the instinctive centre. If I am envious of another’s positive relationship with their friends, it is probably the emotional centre, and if someone is cleverer than me I may be envious from the intellectual centre.
…and regarding compassion and passion:
compassion:
“a strong feeling of sympathy and sadness for the suffering or bad luck of others and a desire to help them”
passion:
“a very powerful feeling, for example of sexual attraction, love, hate, anger or other emotion”
So the two are not exclusive. Walt Whitman had both. From his poems, he was obviously passionate, and as he served as a volunteer nurse during the civil war, it could be assumed that he experienced compassion too. And, Elena, though it is admirable that you want to show compassion to others, it is unlikely you can do this until you can be compassionate with yourself. Many people working in the ‘caring professions’ think they do it from compassion, but in fact do it because they need to be needed. Regarding my previous reference to passion, I was trying to point out that this separation and censorship of different emotions, labeling some as higher or better, and others as lower, the beast or whatever, leads to inner conflict and suffering that is totally unnecessary. Acknowledge all your emotions, and examine what they are trying to tell you, was all I was getting at. You imply you are suffering and crying, this may relate to the grieving process that was mentioned previously in the blog, probably a necessary experience for you to go through since leaving not only the FOF, but a big part of your life. I am not meaning to be critical but to encourage you to let everything fall away, you can re-start afresh, all past grievances washed away. How brilliant would that be?
April 14, 2007 at 9:59 pm
Greetings from another xfofer.
Kudos to the Sheik. Your original post was quite a nice piece of writing, and you seem to be a canny observer. And you don’t have to apologize for your English, it’s quite good!
Thanks to the people who have posted their personal stories. For those still in the group, this takes incredible guts and a lot of courage to hit the old “send” button.
Many years ago, when struggled with “cognitive dissonance” while infof, I got a tremendous jolt right where I needed it from “The Guru Papers.” “Captive Hearts, Captive Minds” co-authored by Janja Lalich helped me understand the situation I was in, and I later became friendly with Janja, who was in a “feminist/political” group in the East Bay and had made many efforts to help people similarly entrapped. Margaret Singer’s book “Cults in our Midst” (if I remember rightly, no guarantees there) is also profound, and I had the chance to talk with her several times before she passed away a few years ago. Margaret was a lively intellect who spent most of her career studying closed groups. She was quite amusing recounting the variety of subject matters around which these groups were organized, and how the leaders came to put together their communities.
Here are three kind of random thoughts:
I don’t think it’s ever wrong to have gratitude for the good things that have come my way over the years–it’s a great feeling to abide in, and connects me in a very pleasing way to an abundant reality.
People who can “speak truth to power” seem admirable to me, and I’ve tried to emulate them when I can.
Fear–primal, inchoate, unconcious–stands between my dreams and their realization. To not be captive to fear, or always acting in response to it, is incredibly hard.
I haven’t thought about the fof for some time, but a recent stream of events has brought a lot of it back, and this blog is one of them.
Thanks for reading.
April 14, 2007 at 10:17 pm
What is it then that one wants? Spiritually speaking, the Truth, Higher States, Liberation?
For me Liberation. Liberation from what then – from the constraints of the mind and from the beliefs it creates and then manifests, liberation from that prison entirely and completely not just in mind but heart and body.
Liberation meaning the total non-attachment to them. Does that mean not to feel think or experience, on the contrary it means experiencing more than that previously constrained by a belief system. Thoughts feelings emotions flood-in that were not there before as they were not allowed. Now they run wild and naked through the passageways free and rampant and disappear as quickly as they came.
Life itself, it might be said, is what a person is, that mystery that not knowing, where what or how the next moment will appear or be, being that unconstrained Life.
Life, Consciousness, Awareness, The Nameless One, the labels are endless, but everything happens in IT is sustained by IT, IS – IT.
Is that what everyone wants? Perhaps not, after all why should they? Life manifests in myriad ways thankfully.
April 14, 2007 at 11:15 pm
Hello, All,
I join everyone in thanking you Shiek — Thank you! This blog is a very good thing and I think it will be a big help to decent (those with ears and eyes) people both in and out of the FOF.
In the spirit of those who have shown their real and imagined letters to Robert, I thought I’d share a real one from 1994. I heard through reliable sources that Robert actually read it, and commented to someone near him that “Charles doesn’t believe in Influence C any more.” That apparently was all he said about it.
So, if you are wondering if Robert ever was confronted directly on his s**t, he was. The results speak for themselves.
I’m very happily living my life in the glorious world with excellent friends and family. I would never want to be in the clutches of the FOF ever again.
October 1994
Robert Burton
Oregon House, California
Dear Robert,
Many of my friends are leaving the Fellowship right now, and many blame you for deceiving them. I tend to think that you may be equally deceived. I think that you, as a result of your experience with Alex Horn, may be subject to a personality formed in you that has dominated your psychology ever since.
For the last six months I have been seriously studying the current literature on cults and cult related psychology. The conclusion I have reached is that the Fellowship is, in fact, a cult — just like so many other cults. You are cast in the role of “cult leader,” and your behavior parallels other cult leaders to a surprising degree.
I think the so-called “verifications of C-Influence” are not verifications at all.
The “shocks” that we all see are real and have been known to people since the earliest times; Carl Jung called them “synchronicity” or the meaningful coincidence of two or more events. However, your interpretations of them (validating your claims) , the assumption that only Fellowship people receive them (the “chosen people”), attributing the cause to 44 former humans seen only by you — these things I contend are not real, but rather are fantasies. Fantasies generally satisfy an underlying psychological need and that, I think, is the case for all of us who have been involved with the Fellowship, including you, and maybe particularly you.
The fantasy related to your predictions has the potential to be really pernicious.
Robert, the world-wide economic collapse you predicted never happened! Please don’t believe it did, and please don’t change your story to say that you predicted a stock market crash — you predicted a crippling global depression. As for the fall of California … well, it’s absurd. Give it up. The moving of your most psychologically dependent followers to Oregon House, the closing in and isolation it will lead to, the already present armed guards — I think these things are a sign of paranoia.
I am abandoning the fantasy, and I recommend that you do, too. I recommend that you turn your considerable intelligence to studying this cult psychology phenomenon. If you are honest with yourself I think you will find that the shoe fits.
For your sake, and for the sake of those following you, please give up your messianic role, disband the Fellowship, send away your followers, and become an ordinary human again. It’s not too late. Please do it.
Sincerely,
Charles R.
April 15, 2007 at 12:23 am
“This materialisation and objectivication of Soul, self, “C-influence”, “consciousness” as something that acts in and on an external world to our exclusive benefit is just plain self delusion.”
Nosri Baba. Dead wrong. Just as you lump FOF into the same frame as Fourth Way. Miles apart.
The aim of the True Fourth Way is to elevate the level of humanity from the depths that we have sunk. This is the true hallmark of the Fourth Way. (Third Line)
Also, one’s life benefits: physically, materially and spiritually. As well as those dear to one. (Second Line)
April 15, 2007 at 12:30 am
““La Migra” raided Isis today. As far as I know, they have not done that in many years, so it seems likely that someone goaded them into renewing their interest. I can understand that some of you out there have quite a grudge against Robert and perhaps others still in the FOF, but please keep in mind that heat from the INS will have absolutely no impact on Robert or on any older students you may wish to upset”
Hey Joe, time to wake up!!! Don’t you know that ANYTHING written in cyberspace is read by EVERYONE like the FBI, CIA, etc, etc?????
Your insinuation that someone on thew blog turned them in is but a symptom of your paranoid state of awareness.
April 15, 2007 at 1:28 am
coot having new testament and old testament thoughts.
New Testament thoughts gone all Walt Whitman. coots experience only, as serious student, for those on fence and held by fear – let go, come in (out?), après FOF is aperitif. Try to leave in right way (maybe Joe-G way?), may not need another “teacher.” Muscles may be weak for while from FOF atrophy (was surprise, start to walk at first and have to limp for bit), but after time – after FOF – many seem get back lost sense of meaning / sense of place. And the Way abides for those who wish to travel anon.
Sometimes is enough to know what no longer is right, do not have to over-think future. Just move from what seems wrong.
In old FOF days, some respect for Mysteries; less certitude. Now more Certainty as inverse to bad prophesy. One might be forgiven for having thought that this should have been more true of Humility (little joke).
coot also not impressed by some of certainty peddlers on blog. Note to self: at risk of duality, not required to leap from frying pan to fire. Also, Way requires not pretty hair (or any, fortunately for old coot). little jokes.
Old Testament thoughts based on recent INS rumor post, FOF meeting of leaders rumor post, and A Goldman “be careful” attempt at intimidation posts, plus. Let us think, should it be student and ex-student trying sincerely to express understanding on blog who should “be careful” OR keepers of corruption who should be careful? Hard call … have to think … have to think. Need long thought here …
Let’s see, RB has sex with ENORMOUS – shocking amount if it finally comes out – number of non-homosexual young males stretch back 35 year (and at least one female if Bonita, FOF’s very first student, is to be believed), lavish lifestyle based on “donations” (no no for ‘church’ in U.S.), bending rules and laws when see fit, leave trail of pain and hurt in many students / former students – some have suicide, depression, psychosis. Older leader “students” know this, but they meet to protect FOF from blog, to warn blog to “be careful.” Ha Ha mighty joke, yes? They ratify shabby and corrupt, but warn sincere not to be honest. Ha Ha? Big joke, no?
Note to FOF leadership: where conscience, shame? Not too late for you too, stop enable, stop allowing corruption. Corrupt to allow form to move into support for bad. Miles was leadership. Sam Saunders was leadership. They stood up to bad. Courage. Conscience.
Older non-leader student think what happens off-stage does not affect your “work?” Deadening of conscience does not affect your work? Does not apply? Two words: Brian Sisler and Kevin Kelly. You know. You know you know. And knowing, must finally “at long last” come to understanding that if price of FOF is allowing vulnerable to be preyed on for YOUR apparent progress, then there is no progress – only hole in heart.
Old angle “some come to eat, some come to be eaten.” Seemed like so smart saying back then, when did not seem to apply to curly coot. Now think, in regard to FOF, that we all come to be eaten. Even leaders. Especially leaders. Not too late. For courage. For conscience. For real way of sly man.
April 15, 2007 at 2:03 am
Something I know to be true: that is is infinitely easier to speak about bringing one’s higher centers into being than to actually do it. (Whether or not they are already here is a moot point, and the work remains the same.)
That is why the collective energies of a group of people focused on the same aim is a great help. Alone, even with the best of intentions, we tend to lose it. Anyone can verify this.
That’s probably why the 30 former students got together with John Wheeler in New Jersey — to focus their energies and harvest their collective consciousness. It is a good, admirable effort. However, let us remember that awakening is about longevity… day after day, week after week, year after year, focusing on the present, on not listening to the ‘I’s (any of them) without compromise.
That is what a school is about.
April 15, 2007 at 3:18 am
Living the contradiction 3
— not just enduring it
Living the contradiction is a science and of course there are many ways to miss, otherwise most husbands and wives would be conscious, as marriage is full of contradictions.
There is really no way to get a right relationship to contradictions with your mind alone, because as Albert Einstein formulated: “Problems cannot be solved with the same tool that created them.” And of course it is our emotions, senses and mind that creates contradictions. So to solve contradictions one has to rise to a different level, all else will just be preparation.
It was kind of funny when recently a friend wrote to me that he is seeing most of the contradictions that are discussed on the blog, but he decided to stay in the FOF because he is seeing the value of contradictions and is ready to work with them. It seems I am giving students the material for justifying their stay.
However just as in a marriage “just enduring contradictions” is not enough. External contradictions do nothing until we let them in and have them fight this internal battle. A battle where we do know like Arjuna that they are all our family and we have not to be afraid to kill our own brothers.
To give you an example,… to me the contradictions in the FOF were not invisible for the twenty years prior to the accident. Of course, like many, I saw for example how the students of the inner circle were corrupting things, based on self-interest, fear, lack of understanding and what not. However I had enough immunity to keep those things on the outside and I was even proud of this as I considered it a form of non-identification.
The accident and all that followed ripped me wide open and certainly destroyed this illusion for my benefit. For example I knew that Abraham Goldman, as most lawyers would not hesitate to bend whatever laws in his favor rather than follow some eternal principles.
Still from this place internal strength I called him a friend and even lend him a substantial amount of money. By the way, certainly RB is aware that he is not such a “top notch” lawyer as some sheep are made to believe, but he is knowing the value of contradictions and therefore made him the legal advisor of the FOF.
Anyway his services like his posts on this blog or when RB sends him to get one of his boys from another country, he can deduct from his teaching payment. When I was in Coma in the hospital in Cairo he did not hesitate to follow the suggestion to come to my bed with a contract that would write over my company to the FOF in case I were to die.
However despite I was aware of all that, they could not make me hold a pen for the signature and when I asked him month later why he did this, he answered with his true naivety “That it was only to protect me”.
Now the amazing thing to me was that the events had made me so vulnerable that all this did not bounce of as from my previous mental armory, but penetrated deeply. But also something new and magical had entered my being that did not allow anymore to take the easy way out, in form of anger, judgment, blame, easy justification. This something let me allow to have the love for the FOF and the awareness of these horrible sides coexist side by side.
This as many other events that preceded and followed allowed me to realize that it is Contradictions that are such a “blessing in disguise”, if they fall on a ground that is ready. And although it seemed I was doing the same before the events in Egypt in fact I was then not prepared to let Contradictions enter to the degree. that they truly unleash the battle inside of me.
I know the same is true for many of those who are still in the FOF and for most the longer they are in it, if they do not have drastic events occur in their lives, the more they will create mechanisms to keep the contradictions that are all around them in the external, with justification, sadness, anger.
“Now like a singing air creature,
I feel the Rose, pure contradiction,
Keep opening” Hafiz
If you want to escape contradiction for a while meet me here : http://flickr.com/photos/iloveyou2/sets/72157600077299794/show/
http://haramararetreat.com/gallery.cfm
If you want to move closer to the source of all the discussed contradictions: http://www.energy-medicine.info/core/kiransresidence.html
April 15, 2007 at 3:53 am
Dear Fence Rider,
Thanks for the beautiful quotes from Walt Whitman, it’s been too long since I have read his poetry. No matter where your path leads, he is an excellent traveling companion.
I just want to post again that there is a yahoo group for ex-students….I started it hoping those of us who have left could connect with old friends.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aftertheFOF
Jeanette
April 15, 2007 at 5:15 am
#186 no person
Time to open a can of worms.
You say again and again there is this background of pure undivided consciousness which is our true nature, correct?
Is this awareness present at night in deep sleep? Are we aware of it? Are you aware of it?
You say: “When in fact there is no one, just this consciousness looking through your eyes right now.” Does this mean it has a location somewhere in the head or the body? If it contains all “states” does that not infer that it is the highest “state” Of consciousness possible? And if that is so isn’t it likely one would need to do more than tap ones heels together to realize it?
I understand it is near impossible to write about this stuff and actually communicate anything. For instance, i used the term “background” instead of perhaps inter-penetrating or omnipresent. Using words objectifies.
I have done enough mushrooms and meditating and self-remembering to know who i am and i am not that yet. There are at least as many stages of dissolution to go through as have been gone through and pure undivided consciousness will still be here when i get there. I would just hope no person gets too comfortable at a stop along the route.
Again, my disclaimer:
Everything i write is to myself. I welcome any response. I offer opinion. I wish to question each piece of knowledge from whatever system of thought and encourage all to do the same. This world is thrashing in the quicksand of immense amounts of knowledge and we need the rope of what is true.
April 15, 2007 at 7:56 am
#151 from I’ll Give It a Try (“I am quite confident . . . that the ‘being,’ or consciousness, of FOF members is not Robert’s priority”):
Very true indeed. He does put on a pretty good show of caring for the rubes, though.
#163 from ‘I see’ said the blind man (re: the mythology of “Influence C”):
Fantastic post. If only it could penetrate the thick fog of belief.
#191 from fofAnatomy (“But I’m wondering why No person and Rita Penfold still ‘drunk lots of wine’”):
You’re kidding, right? Either that or you’re totally clueless.
April 15, 2007 at 8:49 am
#191 from fofAnatomy: Sorry about that, someone hit “submit” prematurely. I’m sure you’re not “totally clueless.” But you are kidding, no?
April 15, 2007 at 12:12 pm
Kiran (217): About 3 weeks ago I accused you of advertising your silly spiritual school, here on the blog. I accused you of trying to attract more followers (probably to fund your frequent trips abroad) by leaving links to your website. And… you are at it again. I hope that the ideas and writings you have left here earlier will be enough to make anyone stay as far away from you as possible – am I wrong to believe that you are slowly becoming just another Robert Burton? – a charismatic man with a golden tongue and a greedy disposition. Money money money…
I don’t think that it’s necessarily wrong to leave links to informative sources (there have been many here before), but you simply seem to be marketing your new school. Some of the non-dualists on the blog are similarly guilty, yet I sense a different reason for their actions (I may be wrong).
Kiran, I hope you know what you are doing. There are many gurus in this world, and even more sheep.
April 15, 2007 at 1:20 pm
Dear No Person (#186),
The term ‘practice’ in my post (#167- regarding the practice of divided attention) is used as a noun in the sense: A habitual or customary action or way of doing something, as in; ‘Budhist religious practices’ or; ‘Law practice’, not as a verb in the sense of exercising repeatedly, as you have understood it.
But more importantly, I tried to describe an experience that is very similiar to what non dualists such as Adyashanti describe as “the awarness behind the mask called ‘me'”, or the awarness that like a shock can “short-circuit the mind” (#104 Yesri Baba & Adyashanti) in the immediate space of the moment, breaking the spell of being comletely lost in the idetification of the moment. With this kind of practice you can develop a capability to participate in your own life (the ‘functions’) with the added liberty of a slight internal detachment without detracting from the ‘joys’, from the directness, vitality and the immediacy of the experience of being alive. It may not be a glamorous practice, leading necessarily to permanent high states, or to a sense of fullfilment. This is a describtion of an experience without which life for me would be duller.
This is not ‘duality’, this not ‘non-duality’, this is not ‘consciousness’, ‘enlightment’, ‘oneness’, ‘Allah’ or ‘C influence’: All those are ideas, mind constructs, abstractions. They are the basis for creating identities, falsehoods, false personalities; they give birth to ideologies, salvation myths, entire packages that include empty shells of leaders (spiritual or secular) that suck you dry, sets of customs, costumes and masks (& robes or tuxedos). The people who need them are those who cannot stand the ‘burden’ of their own separate individuality and they rush towards the first available prison (or prison of the mind) that will strip them from their money, use their life force for absurd projects, strip them from their ability to think & decide for themselves.
I cannot make this practice sound as ecxiting as your new religion for which you evangelize with such pathos: your “all is consciousness” motto.
I particularly dislike your family of statements such as “there is no individual…just this pure undivided consciousness”; Everything experienced occurs in the space between the temples (the ears) of the individual’s head. That is the only place in which consciousness may occur. If a person denies the uniqueness of the separate individual he is a hater of what is most noble, beautiful & meaningful in human nature. And this hate (and self hate) has consequences that lead all the way down the road to exploitation & concentration camps*. The highest degree of spirituality can manifest only thru the individual as an individual.
*( I know you, you are a lovely person and mean well. Don’t take our disagreements personally).
April 15, 2007 at 1:29 pm
Hello Shiek,
I personally don’t think Kiran is advertising.
The experience/accident in Egypt he described was considered by FOF to be one the greatest shocks the school ever endured and it created ripple effects throughout the entire FOF community. I think he is trying to let people know about his blog, but it doesn’t seem like he is trying to make an ad in my opinion.
April 15, 2007 at 1:29 pm
Welcome dear all and hello sheik ,
having read only parts of the blog yet, I amusingly wonder, if you would have started all this, if you had known what box of pandora you would open.
At least you get a costless crashcourse.
Whishing all of us a good and save journey into the endless Now, which had always been here, always been available for everyone and never wanted money, sex or suffering from us.
Love to you all!
Birgit
April 15, 2007 at 2:18 pm
To 6/212 Charles R.
Great letter. Too bad we did not have a blog at that time.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
To 6/217 Kiran
Your observation about the existence of contradictions in the FOF is right, but I find the part of “having enough immunity to keep those things on the outside” worth for further investigation. You are right it has nothing to do with non-identification. What allowed us then to “keep things outside”?
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
I agree with many of the opinions here, that the FOF is a good preparation. Maybe not the fastest and the cheapest. I learned to discriminate and trust myself.
There are lots of people out there, trying to be a superior Gurus. Be it in the Fourth Way or in the Advaita, Satsang scene or somewhere else.
Luckily there are also “teachers”, friends and companions out there, which do not need to play the master and servant play. They do not claim to be under different laws, or being a human of a special rang or number. They teach through being, not with labels. One characteristic of the new way is for me, that it is more integrative. These “teachers” do not claim to know everything, or be the only one for you. They meet up with other “teachers”. You can share and compare. A few names have been mentioned here and I am sure if everybody would post his positive discoveries the list would be very long.
I believe the real teacher is within oneself or I could say we are all connected to a source through our heart that will help and teach us if we listen. A good companion will be able to show you that within yourself. Anybody who puts himself between you and the source is very questionable. If they claim your connection to the source depends on them, they are probable a hasnamuss.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
If you want to offer your contact or find contacts within the ideas of the Fourth Way, the site http://www.fourthway.info might be a place for that.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
To the Sheik, thanks for your work, humour and common sense.
April 15, 2007 at 3:19 pm
exlax101 #213
I had experience with three different “4th way” groups, all were miles apart. Yours must be the one with the exclusive invisible influence.
April 15, 2007 at 3:56 pm
“I see” said the blind mind Says: Post 6/188
“Questioning the validity of this personalizing of events is not encouraged either by the establishment, Robert and his circle of go-betweens, or by the majority of fellow students.”
Just like observing/studying (m)any desperate attempts “to exist” from the ego point of view.
Everyone is “at work”! And we are not finished refining our comprehension of what it means to be humans…
Keep sharing, talking about it, patienly, lovingly… The same way your mother, father or anyone might have demonstrated patience towards you when you firmly believed (and tryied to convince them) there is the devil in the cup board…
Was you 6, 7 or 10 years old ?
Time to be finished with the child within ?
Yes, of course… but only when the timing is right…
Remember the image of the apple naturally falling from the tree?
Beautiful, silent and meaningful metaphore.
So, thank you for going further on the shock subject. One of the many.
The theory of parts functionning at different speeds creating a shock as they “meet”
(the same is said about laughter) also called “synchronicity” also called “coincidence” is very interesting.
One day we may very well have scientifical evidences of such phenomenons.
For my part, supportively, let me repeat the simplicity of this: “A shock is a shock”.
The explanation/interpretation/use of it is not…
Thank you all for the many beautiful posts!
April 15, 2007 at 4:53 pm
Dear Sheik
I appreciate that you have the being to post my messages despite the fact you feel this way about me….. in the FOF this kind of contradiction would not have been possible
I hope that my busyness will always allow me to travel without needing to take money from anyone except my customers
If I posted some links its to pictures on flickr
which some people told me to enjoy but it you find one objectionable … just delete it
thank you for making this possible
Kiran
more pictures with my new friend
April 15, 2007 at 5:48 pm
hello again: On my post #172 I meant to say ‘too much wine’. I drink wine and enjoy it a lot but too much wine depletes my energy.
April 15, 2007 at 6:20 pm
Yesri Baba (219): “If it contains all “states” does that not infer that it is the highest “state” Of consciousness possible? And if that is so isn’t it likely one would need to do more than tap ones heels together to realize it?”
This question brings us very close to something real. It sounds logical. Why? Because (as Yesri himself says) it comes from the mind. And the mind likes to make things appear difficult.
My experience has been that in fact the jump is extremely quick and simple, involving no effort at all, and once it happens you can’t lose it.
Sorry if this sounds presumptuous – words are indeed a difficult medium. You might want to check out John Wheeler’s website.
Charles
April 15, 2007 at 6:42 pm
To HC 6/199: I have a short term special dispensation under the heading of “scout”.
Hmmmm, that sounds familiar. Although, then, the dispensation was to study cults (such as Rashneesh’s) to be able to show to IRS how different FOF was from those groups. How the FOF was a “religion”, not a cult like those others.
It’s as good a road out as any.
April 15, 2007 at 6:43 pm
Kiran wrote # 217: When I was in Coma in the hospital in Cairo he did not hesitate to follow the suggestion to come to my bed with a contract that would write over my company to the FOF in case I were to die. However despite I was aware of all that, they could not make me hold a pen for the signature and when I asked him month later why he did this, he answered with his true naivety “That it was only to protect me”.
Kiran, is this really true? If so, it’s extaordinary that you could take it on board without losing all respect for RB. I was shocked and horrified just reading it, let alone experiencing it. Are you sure you’re not doing the same as your friend in the FOF, whom you describe as misusing your ideas about contradictions to justify remaining in the FOF?
I understand what you’re saying about rising above negative reactions, but my experience is more that I see the negative reaction without identifying with it and then it has its common sense result, also without identification. The result in this case would be loss of respect for RB, an entirely reasonable reaction. Why pretend otherwise? This can be a very clean and honest process, no need for grudges etc.
respectfully, Rabbi Burns
April 15, 2007 at 7:07 pm
Kiran, you must have joined after I left; I never knew you.
Your chilling deathbed bequest story, showing how coldly Robert uses people and situations, is priceless.
It’s easy to forgive and ignore your tireless self-marketing in exchange for gems like that.
April 15, 2007 at 8:18 pm
Dear Lust for life (209) and I’ll give it a try, (202) and friends,
Thank you all for sharing.
Lust for life, says:
On leaving the Fellowship “This has led to more uncertainty and also more self-reliance, but there is something that is helpful in discussing things with others, using each other as sounding boards. Even No Person, who claims to have discovered permanent conscious awareness, enjoys meeting with like minded people”.
I could not agree with you more deeply. “Others” is what it is about for me, in our times. But simply talking is not enough. Conversation or sharing our thoughts on this blog is a great tool but, effective as it is, it is only “checking” each other’s thoughts without “we”, being able to follow up on the effects in the short and long term. Great thinkers have left their thoughts and humanity has hardly heard them. They like to spill blood to be able to hear. Schools simply try to avoid the shedding of blood and work with small pockets of people that can spread out but they hardly ever scape, without the spilling of blood.
As I’ve consistently said, what matters is not only the function of thinking but all other functions and in Robert Burton’s School I believe we have seen what the connection between heart and mind can do and the damage that not having the sex centre connected with them, can do. The damages that have come from this disconnectedness of the sex centre are what I am talking about in terms of CHANGING the fellowship but I am not willing to step on the connections between head and heart that Robert has managed to enforce. The ideas of influence C, alchemy, self remembering or work on negative emotions stand for me no matter how much Rabbi Burns makes me laugh with his very funny description of influence C. I will not stand against Robert’s “magic” no matter how willing I am to question and stop his abuses.
Everything negative that we have said about The Fellowship and its people individually, stands, and everything that is positive about it continues to stand even if not one of the students can express it, unable to go beyond their very personal experience.
I might have to agree with you that on the whole, the Fellowship has the potential to do more damage than good. That would be confirmed by the fact that not one student, not Robert himself has been able to face this blog and counterbalance it.
It looks like the Fellowship does not have the being to deal with its own Karma and therefore the forces that are driving it to a rampant decadence cannot be stopped. How could they when they cannot even be questioned? When they are not even willing to look at themselves too busy remembering themselves?
Nevertheless, what is positive about the Fellowship still lives in me and those that have come from me and hopefully those that can hear what is said because they know it for themselves. It could be out of naivete as ‘trying it’ says, or out of compassion, as I say.
Let me play the devil’s advocate:
What do you really want, those of you who are trying to destroy the Fellowship? Send “us” to the looney bin? Sweep the floors with our bodies? Take us to jail? Or something perhaps more criminal?
Abuse in our times may be made up with money. Civil courts can take care of it. But is that really all you’re after? Make a good civil case and close the Fellowship down? Would that be the best solution? And what would happen to those that still know a school is necessary? To those that have no money except their monthly salary? To Robert?
Indeed, it would not be a very terrible deal to close the Fellowship down and Robert and those who seriously supported him could have a great dinner and laugh because they got away with it for thirty five years. The rest of us will leave hopelessly depressed knowing that we had been “done in” as My Fair Lady put it. No Schools. No chance of working together for a more conscious life. No friendships. No help. Me and myself all around hopelessly alone or, me and my awareness and to hell with everybody else or me and my subjective group of friends.
There is no compassion in your stands not because you are not kind to others but because there is no vision in your solutions. You are simply ‘eating’ everything up, as Coot used the word, without selecting the fish from the bones.
When I joined the Fellowship I started practicing martial arts so that I could defend Robert if he ever needed to be defended. (I am laughing too, that is how naive I can be). Were you to read the discussions on internet when they were possible, you would recognize the swords with which I stood by him, protected and supported him or rather his Form and School.
This e-mail is already long and it does shame me to take too much space but I’m going to finish the point.
The devil’s advocate says: As far as I learnt, work on alchemy is work on valuation of our surrounding as much as on ourselves. We, in the Fellowship, dress beautifully not because we are barbies but because life people have lost the beauty of clothes and themselves. Clothes are not only the expression of who we are, they are our transformation of earth to beautify man. We are not just wearing any old jean that saysthat I am a hard working money maker, and that that is good enough. We are not interested in “Work, work, work and die without having ever lived. Without having ever tasted a meal or good wine or ourselves become the King-Priest”.
Elena says: The problem is not the form or Alchemy in this case, as it is not in many other aspects of Robert Burton’s School. The problem is that the king has turned against the people. He makes barbies of students by stripping them by centering all the resources on himself: Love or attention, work or money or third force, life or comfort and pleasure or the simple joy of beauty.
Listening to the subjectivities of a man is not nearly as harmful as idolizing him. Were students equal to Robert, they would make fun of him, praise him for his creativity and give their angle on the idea but in the Fellowship today, the possibility of giving their angle has disappeared and if they cannot even give an angle how difficult is it really for them to understand that no one is valuing them? Students have been “condemned” to be their lower self who does not deserve to be heard or acknowledged and this is what Robert’s form is decreeing. Only Robert and his very strict “chosen” ones can live for themselves and hardly so. The whole of the Fellowship is working for the Queen Bee and humans are not just bees. This is cult and fascism when it comes to humans.
Since the arrival of Patriarchy, godlike kings have stood at the head of communities and led them. Modern western history has shifted the centre of power from the king to the people. While that has been accomplished in the physical arena it has not yet been accomplished in the emotional one.
Robert’s greatest mistake and greatest tool is the destruction of the human background that we are each coming from. By his shere ignorance in not acknowledging the process humanity as a whole has tread on, he strips students from the possibility of understanding where they stand as human beings struggling to become more conscious. By his ignorant programming and background he neglects to acknowledge the past or the present around him. Was that not what America did to free itself from the old world?
The great Teachers of humanity stand at his convenience, and fall at his convenience. Ghandi to him? bullshit, Churchill? Bullshit, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, worse than bullshit, dirt in his eyes. “Drop everyone worth while so that you can hold me and only me: Robert Burton, please! I am the only divine and human being worth on the menu”.
There are no nationalities in the Fellowship which is a double sworded tool, a great one in as much as the future is concerned and a decapitating one, in as much as the past is concerned. He wants students to cut their heads off and still walk without them. Mr. Haven supports him. Go from feet to higher centres, non stop, cut everything else off, consciousness without functions.
By neglecting to acknowledge our past, that is the past of humanity, Robert strips us from our roots. Desperate with his own ignorance, he tries to reclaim humanity, dropping the system and embracing the sequence with images from other schools and traditions but he still does this from his limited, individualistic point of view, affirming the idea of presence without acknowledging the cultures, the people or the students. He falls in his own trap and draws the school in it with him.
Can he not be forgiven for that? Can the school no be redeemed? Can we not stand up and move on? Can we not see the parallel between him and the Nation of the United States? Where have any one of both ever acknowledged other nations past and respected them? So? Do we treat him like the Fuhrer? Will we have to go into the third world war so that man can finally say,
Here I stand a man with all men?
Or can we understand “that”, without destroying each other?
The shift that is needed today is the one in which both the individual and the community stand on equal ground. The king or individual, stands for himself and Holds, the community as a whole. Each individual is both king and community. Each one values the divinity that he carries inside and the divinity within everything and everybody else outside.
Schools are meant to give enough foundation to a group of people so that the “form” spreads. Work on all centres, is necessary, not just the head or the heart. Future schools will need to develop the connection between the head, the heart and the sex centre and they are still as needed as ever.
A leader or a teacher today is a man or a woman who does not need to get “payed” because he or she CAN make money for herself, work for herself, live for herself just like anybody else in the community, what he does or does not do with what he makes is up to him or her but using everybodie’s money is what is no longer the case.
We are all, each other’s teachers. No one can give up his own work, his own first line, to become King and be supported by others. Everyone needs to support the state, inwardly and externally but no one has to support any body else. Isn’t that what Robert and America have also “stood” for, if not for themselves?
I embrace Robert and Girard and every one in the Fellowship as I, a Colombian, embrace America. No harm will ever come to you from my hands but the dogs have been loosened and it is not in my hands. Come and meet us so that we can embrace and avoid the tremendous damage that not being able to stand up for your selves, brings. It is not about coming against us with your lawyers or wars as it is about bringing forth everything you lived for and together, going beyond. If it cannot be done in a small community like ours, what hopes can one have that it may be done in the bigger scale?
April 15, 2007 at 9:13 pm
Hi Yesri Baba, thanks for the question – but why don’t you address it to others as well? There are quite a few folks on this blog who can pitch in on this one. Hey guys! Please pitch in.
It’s interesting that “deep sleep” question is very common. I’ve asked it too. The answer to it – yes, awareness is there always, in deep sleep as well. “Are ‘we’ aware of it” shows that there is still an asumption of some separate “me” who should be aware of awareness… Gets funny with words, right? But may be you see what I am trying to say. Awareness is the very base, bottom, the primal essence of who we are. There can be no “one” before it, aware of it or controlling it, you see? This is it, the base, the core, that’s who we are. When it is understood and clearly seen – there is no more “digging” deeper, this is IT! In a way, you ‘dissolve” and rest. Until it’s understood and seen – mind will continue to restlessly dig, and nothing can be done about it – mind has to go until it comes to a complete wall and then gives up. Until you imagine yourself this separate little entity – mind will justify it, and questions like “deep sleep” will continue. See if you can find in your immediate experience a separate entity called “me”. See if there is such a thing in reality, not in your mind. The whole trick is that there is NO such entity. We imagined it, totally believe in it, and lived life through this imaginary personality… The reality is actually quite simple: awareness observing. That’s all you can tell, right? Just this “looking”, cognizing. No image of “me” in there. This is really it! Too simple, therefore – boring to the mind.
About “location in the body” – consciousness manifests in everything around us, but it kind of appears to be located… This is hard to explain. What can I compare consciousness with? OK. I’ll try this. Is electricity located in the lamp? No, it flows through it and makes lamp do what it must – shine. Lamp can get very proud and claim ability to shine independently, at it’s will. But electricity doesn’t care, it does it’s work through lamp. Lamp is a tool of expression. Without manifestating in objects electricity is INVISIBLE and unknown. It needs objects to show itself, to manifest, to do work… Does electricity have form, shape, smell, color by iteslf? No. Yet it is everywhere around us, in us, in the air, in water, in every living cell, invisible but ready to manifest. And it can become so many beautiful (and scary) things through manifesting in objects… Does it get diminished by manifesting, does manifesting AFFECT electricity? No. It’s there, and it’s free, it’s untouched, and it’s the SAME in every lamp.
Consciousness or life is one intelligent force, kind of like this, it creates all and manifests in everything around. A clumsy comparison of course, not perfect, but may be you can see what I mean. In my example lamp and electricity kind of seem separate, when in reality consciousness IS everything, permeates all, it’s all actually one big creation, made of the same cosmic stuff, same star dust, down to the smallest particles, smallest units of energy. Funny, but we all are actually one. Made of the same interconnected stuff. It is seen when taking drugs, too. Scientists know it already, they measured, and and are pretty shocked… There are papers published about it out there, in case you’re curious. In fact, recently there are some amazing discoveries been made, that seriousle question the whole concept of free will, doing, and separate entity… Amazing times we are living in!
About drugs. In my (not so abundant) experience, drugs certainly show you briefly the vastness of awareness at the core of our being, but somehow they do not clearly expose the illusion of “me”. What was this quote, please help me out here… “I am still locked inside myself…” That’s why drugs don’t really free you, at least in my experience. They do “half-job”.
And until you’re locked in “myself” – a mental concept -you’re bound to “think your way out”, so there goes your illusory concept of time, so there is the “path”, getting from here to there, stopping along the route… All mental concepts.
There is no time, no path, no getting anywhere and no stops along the route in reality. Only NOW, as it is, and you’re in it ALWAYS, whether you like it or not. The path and time is in your mind only, they are CONCEPTS. Agree? Events are happening and unfolding in mysterious ways, they are experienced NOW as they are, and there is a great pleasure and relaxation in not knowing how things unfold. Like a movie – you enjoy watching it as it plays. Who wants to know ahead? Knowing how it suppose to end spoils the fun of watching.
I am not sure if I answered anything, Yesri Baba… May be others could contribute as well.
Thanks for the can of worms. Do you know that “worms” and “hearts” is the same word in Russian? My son when he was a little boy about 6 or 7, laughed so much when he heard expression “King of hearts” in Russian for the first time. He was literally rolling with laughter: “King of Worms! Real worms!”
April 15, 2007 at 9:16 pm
Birgit (225): I don’t feel that I have done anything, I was simply at a place in a time and it followed from there. If I was to know that this discussion would ensue from my initial article, it wouldn’t have changed a thing. Good luck to you too.
Kiran (229): Great reply.
April 15, 2007 at 10:50 pm
Elena (#235),
‘Schools’ are an illusion, the same as ‘religions’:
He says something at the end that is a parallel with the Hawaiian Therapist stuff talked about earlier on in the blog, well worth a watch.
I do not wish to destroy the FOF, or anyone in it, not even RB, but share this stuff to help mine and others understandings.
April 15, 2007 at 10:58 pm
Dear Half Life,
you said: “Everything experienced occurs in the space between the temples (the ears) of the individual’s head. That is the only place in which consciousness may occur.”
– ARE YOU SURE? How can you know it? Is it your direct practical experience, or just how you think about it based on some ideas? Can you feel or know for sure that consciousness occurs in the physical head? Because you see, even scientists are not sure about it at this point…
“If a person denies the uniqueness of the separate individual he is a hater of what is most noble, beautiful & meaningful in human nature.” – This is another strange conclusion… I don’t see the connection with hate. It is sure not my experience. You see, there is plenty of uniqueness in manifestation – how can it be denied? it’s pretty obvious. We as humans are so uniquely different in expression. It’s great, it’s beautiful. It’s not about uniform standard behavior…I am not talking about it. It’s this mental imaginary picture we have about ourselves that has not much to do with natural unique expression. This is what I call separate “person” – this imagined “me” in the mind… He is false… See for yourself.
Why would you call it “new religion”? I am not offended, no, it just seems strange. I don’t follow or worship anyone and definitely don’t want anyone to follow me or ANYONE else. Each of us is completely perfect, has everything to know himself, no need to follow anyone.. There is no religious dogma in this, just pointing to something that is within each of us, so one can look for himself. It’s about very practical verification, not blind believing!
This understanding was very liberating for me and quite a few others, so I like to share with friends (somewhat passionately – can’t help it, just the way I am!) 🙂
PS. Kiran, what lovely pictures with Taco! Thanks.
(And what a disturbing story about signing off your business…Wow.)
April 15, 2007 at 11:09 pm
Dear Practical (#216),
You wrote: “Something I know to be true: that is is infinitely easier to speak about bringing one’s higher centers into being than to actually do it… That is why the collective energies of a group of people focused on the same aim is a great help. Alone, even with the best of intentions, we tend to lose it. Anyone can verify this.”
Most everyone who has left the Fellowship or who is thinking about leaving has reflected on this to great depths. However, to parallel you line of thinking, I would say instead that it is infinitely easier to speak about something as though we have verified it than it is to actually verify it.
Your post is an interesting comparison to the post directly above yours, by “coot” #215:
“You know. You know you know. And knowing, must finally ‘at long last’ come to understanding that if price of FOF is allowing vulnerable to be preyed on for YOUR apparent progress, then there is no progress – only hole in heart.”
So because you need help, because you need a group, and because the ends justifies the means, you can ignore what coot has written? Or maybe you haven’t ignored it, and if not, I’d be interesting in hearing your response to it.
April 15, 2007 at 11:44 pm
One more comment regarding Practical’s post (216): “That is why the collective energies of a group of people focused on the same aim is a great help.”
The argument here is: “The Fellowship is of great help.” And the premise to that argument is: “People within the Fellowship are focused on the same aim.”
If the premise were true, maybe the argument would be sound. However, many of us don’t believe the premise is accurate — that everyone is working together and seeking the same results. There may be a STATED common aim to “follow the will of Influence C and to help all students within the Fellowship to awaken, etc.”
But in my view, “anyone can verify” that there are numerous reasons and motives that people remain in the Fellowship, and some of those motives/reasons are far from being innocent.
April 15, 2007 at 11:44 pm
Hugues Serre said,
Dear Friends, I recently found out about this blog and decided to participate in this esoteric inner confusion to say hello to all those good people I know and to share my experience of being a former student. I am French (pardon my English), joined in Paris in 1980 and left the Fellowship of Friends in 2001.
For many years my experience of the school was a great experience; although there were aspects that gave me difficulties, I found the balance to be in my favour.
After some years I knew most sides of this beautiful garden and realised that the fence around it was getting higher and higher as my wish to know the outside became stronger.
Among the building material of the fence I will mention only some that appeared to me the most solid : I understood the idea of feminine dominance (it still makes sense to me) but the understanding of this idea made it clear to me, that if I really wanted to work with it to its bottom I had to leave the school one day or another for the FOF rules were imposing lots of it upon me and this was shaking conscience. I talked some times about it to people even in one meeting (not popular) and received lofty angles that sounded like lies, buffers or illusions.
Another difficulty I had with the teaching is the ‘9 life’ theory which I found castrating. Because someone was telling me I was not in my ninth life (by not telling me I was in it) I was bound to not awaken and work for my next life. Something my psychology was not able to relate to positively and creatively because I had this illusion I continue to nourish that it is possible for me although I measure the difficulties. (Probably a road-sign theory).
Another strong material of the fence is: “nothing outside the Fellow-sheep” . This ownership on “C” influence was unbearable to me. No one owns the truth, no one owns god, “C” influence or whatever the name you like! If I limit such a great thing as influence “C” it may be because I don’t know what it is, it has nothing to do with road-signs ! (or I have a hidden motivation…).
As this ‘I’ of leaving was becoming stronger in my personality the balance in my favour was loosening, but I did not have this illusion (as some have in this blog) that I could get anywhere by myself, (except on the way of the good householder) it was an affirmation in me that I would leave only for another teaching worth more than this one, but not for nothing. This attitude (I think ) saved me of an experience that many seem to go through, of being a victim, because I saved the dearest thing in me well alive : the search for who am I ? not turning love into hatred. This attitude of a victim is not real, just a position I take in front of something that appears to me as injustice or betrayal . If after this 20 years of FOF I had turned in depression it would have to me a signification that I had learned nothing, fortified nothing in my being. Although I confess that I could not avoid the necessary time of mourning . If I am a victim it is only of my self, my wrong motivations, my immaturity, my lake of verifications, my easygoing attitude of believing. I wish you all to be strong, courageous, true, stay in front of the problem if any, don’t put it on the shelf for tomorrow it may be to late. Searching for justice in court or by any other means is vain, it will only satisfy false personality, so if I leave with something in me that is still searching for a true spiritual path it is better to avoid feeding the lower part, otherwise I may be acting from the belief that there is nothing outside the “fellowship” (every wrong action will have to be paid for).
But this fence also has gold on it , and I love gold !
Beauty, friends, events … for 20 years my life was constructed around the FOF way of life, I knew nothing else. Even after finding a new teacher and school , my heart was broken at the idea of leaving my friends forever (the RULE) and it took me some time to take the step, my conscience could not avoid it.
Fear is the greatest obstacle, and remain the greatest obstacle, but if I don’t face it, who will? if not now, when?
I face it now !
Yes, the world is very large, ‘C’ Influence is like the sun, IT shines for every one on this hearth and it is up to me to turn my life, my work in the good direction, to have a guide, a well advised guide, who is a resource, to whom I can go, and ask. To whom I can trust when my burden becomes heavy. Entering another teaching is a challenge, probably bigger than adapting to a new form in the same school (assuming one does not have to many accounts). I have to face my crystalisations and melt this fixed parts in me that unconsciously had classified good and bad.
I wish to reaffirm my gratitude to the FOF to my friends that remain in a good place of my heart , to Robert Burton who was able to create this school that in spite of everything taught me much, and will forever be one of the greatest experiences of my life. Yes mister Burton you are for me an enigma that I respect with prudence.
I like to express my gratitude especially to the memory of Christina Nielsen.
If I contradict myself then I contradict myself !
To finish I will give you the words of my teacher when I first met him and was still a FOF student : “listen to your heart, and do not look for signs”.
I confess that writing this letter I had some tears on my cheek.
Hugues.
Hugues_serre@yahoo.fr
April 16, 2007 at 12:45 am
Dear third pig,
Your comment “there may be a Rhino just around the corner” reminds me of Robert’s request to spend more time at the Galleria before I get cancer.
I appreciate your concern for me, as I appreciated his, but I don’t think fear is the correct tool to use. I will not stay in the FOF because of fear and I don’t think anyone should stay for that reason.
There must be a better reason to stay.
If I have a fear, it relates more to the wasted time that results from bad advice. I owe gratitude to the FOF and to Robert but I do not necessarily owe him or it the rest of my life.
My sincere analysis of Robert’s judgment leads to the conclusion that he is a bit off.
Here is my reasoning: I am sometimes a teacher of kids. As a teacher, I know clearly that if I were even to make a sexual comment to a kid, that it could destroy me, my family, and all that I care for. Every teacher, psychologist, doctor, pastor (essentially anyone in a role that requires respect) knows that that actions of this nature will have consequences. Some of course are not able to control themselves, but they know that there is risk.
The fact that Robert has continued this risky behavior for 30 years, costing the FOF presumably millions of dollars in paid off law suits, lost students and lost opportunities (e.g. the winery) seems like bad judgment. His behavior continues to risk the longevity of the FOF which he claims he loves. Does it not bother you that he gambles with the results of your efforts in a way that has no possible win for the FOF. He says his first I is “What can I do for the FOF today”. Well I know a way that he could save the FOF a lot of hassle and money. This, along with hundreds of other things, tells me that his judgment is a little off. It is not the sex or that he is gay, but his approach to sex is risky for the whole organization.
Although I love many aspects of the FOF, I don’t think I want to put my will, my work, my family, my tastes, and most of my experiences and most of my time under someone that has shown poor judgment. That would be poor judgment on my part.
His poor judgment extends beyond his sex life – just look at the current condition of the vineyard and winery and theatron. I hope we at least have enough sense to stay away from further illegal activity related to permits.
Although he has given scant advice to me, the little that he has given has in retrospect not been helpful.
Many would say that his poor judgment does not extend into his teaching. I attended an event recently where we viewed a statue of a nude woman thousands of years old. He claimed that the little breast was BE and the large breast was Long BE. He implied, in a sincere voice, that the creators of this statue were teaching the sequence. I like his focus on BE but I have to question his judgment.
But if you read my post carefully, it was a post about not trusting the justifications. Your “Rhino I” has triggered a few. I apologize if it seems like a rant but I need to understand this contradiction. I know there are different ways and scales from which to view these actions.
So lets step back and be more reasonable. Perhaps I am incorrect to attribute all of this to bad judgment. Perhaps Robert is just a risk taker. From a state of presence, nothing on this plane matters. Clearly he takes huge risks. If that is the case then he probably is not afraid of Rhinos that might be on the long brown path. He was not afraid to leave Alex. Whether it is bad judgment or just that he likes to live on the edge – either way, I think I am correct to try to disallow fear as a motivation for this important decision.
If anyone has comments on the “Bad Judgment” issue, I am open to hearing them.
FenceRider
“dear fencerider,
Thanks for those words from Walt,and take care on the long brown road…there may be a rhino just around the corner.”
April 16, 2007 at 1:11 am
“I had experience with three different “4th way” groups, all were miles apart.”
I do not doubt it, my friend, but am sure these were just off-shoots of all the other nonsense groups that are out there.
All cannot escape and pseudo 4th Way are necessary to keep feeding the moon.
Remember the law of the octave? All the so-called groups that jumped on the bandwagon after Gurdjiev’s death are on a descending octave.
Another hallmark is the student must find the teaching.
April 16, 2007 at 1:12 am
To you who have hung on for decades in the FOF, please read (6/215), especially the following paragraph (anglicized):
“Older students, do you think what happens out of sight does not affect your “work?” That the deadening of conscience does not affect your work? That it does not apply to you? Two words: Brian Sisler and Kevin Kelly. You know. You know that you know. And knowing, you must finally “at long last” come to the understanding that if the price of FOF membership is allowing the vulnerable to be preyed upon for YOUR apparent progress, then there is no progress – only a hole in your heart.”
A Fourth Way school exists to provide the tools and practice for living life. And living without the ‘guarantee’ of immortality is uncomfortable. In fact, could THAT be the proverbial grain of sand around which the ‘pearl’ is formed?
Isn’t it time to hear your conscience? Isn’t it time to finally push off from the safe shore and sail for the deep water? If not now, when?
April 16, 2007 at 1:14 am
#231 Charles
Yes indeed, words suck. Especially in the mind of someone like me who don’t use them so good.
“My experience has been that in fact the jump is extremely quick and simple, involving no effort at all, and once it happens you can’t lose it.”
I don’t really disagree much with this statement except perhaps that the jump may quick and simple requiring no effort but getting to the cliff is a bitch.
It is also my opinion that arriving at that awareness is the beginning of the line not the end of it.
April 16, 2007 at 1:24 am
Shout-outs:
Sheik: changed my name, won’t happen again.
And have you gotten the irony of the “cult for intellectuals,” in your apt words, lead by an innate anti-intellectual? lol
Miles: Agree with everything in your letters. You still living in the same spot? Let’s have coffee!
Keith: Nice posts, can’t claim to have read them closely, but agree big time that you have to own up to having been conned. Sorry about being a jerk frequently, btw. Best to J. (if appropriate)
Linda K/L/R/T: Sweetie, I’ve forgiven you for sexually preying on me when I was a newbie. But 2 bites was enough, really.
Cathie: Warm feelings, love your clarity. Do you see K?
Charles Randall: Loved your letter then, love them now in reruns. If you’re up our way, let’s have lunch! Hi to D.
JoelF
April 16, 2007 at 1:32 am
Yesri Baba #219: Mushrooms is that like being abnormally normal? And, the after glow “boy, I would like to be in that state ‘naturally’.
Several years ago they found a body frozen in the Italian alps they named the “iceman”. In his possession they found a handful of mushrooms in a leather bag. Food?
April 16, 2007 at 1:43 am
Yesri Baba 219: “Is this awareness present at night in deep sleep? Are we aware of it? Are you aware of it?”
What’s the difference between being in deep sleep and being dead? That’s the awareness that’s being spoken of.
“Are you aware of it?” If by “you” you mean my mind the answer is “no”. Sleep is refreshing precisely because the mind with all its concepts is temporarily out of the picture. Awarenss, the real me/you, remains, however. When my alarm clock goes off my mind reactivates, within the awareness.
Just words, I know.
RB
April 16, 2007 at 1:50 am
Hello. I just thought this was interesting.
I should be citing my source, but I don’t remember where I got this stuff.
Cult:
The word cult comes from the Latin colere, meaning ‘to cultivate’ or ‘to worship’. At first it meant quite innocently ‘a particular system of religious worship’. Then it came to mean ‘excessive and unreasoning devotion to a person or cause’. Nowadays it is often used for a religious group that demands the complete subservience of its members.
Cults, in this new sense, are religious groups that tell people what to think and how to act. The cult leader demands unquestioning obedience and loyalty. Cult members may be expected to leave their families behind, to give their money to the cult leader and to dedicate themselves exclusively to the service of the cult. They are often subjected to a form of brainwashing that is intended to make them willing and docile followers.
Cult behavior, however, is not limited to fringe organizations. Any religious group that claims the right to interpret its scriptures dogmatically and infallibly, imposing its authority on all its members and allowing no other interpretation, is acting like a cult. Cults demand uniformity of belief and action. They stifle freedom of conscience.
Occult:
The word occult comes from the Latin occulere, meaning ‘to cover, to hide, to conceal’. Originally it meant simply ‘hidden’. Later it was used to refer to something that is not available to the ordinary senses or reasoning, being too deep or too great for words, something transcendental. Theosophists sometimes use the word in that latter sense.
Theosophy teaches that the world is a marvelously complex place where there are (as Hamlet told his friend Horatio) “more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
Today we know that the atmosphere all around us is full of radio and television waves that we cannot see or hear directly, as well as many other sorts of energy that escape our eyes and ears. All such waves and energy are occult – that is, hidden from our ordinary senses but they nevertheless affect us, and we can learn to use them.
To say that something is occult is merely to say that it is beyond our range or perception or understanding – not that it is supernatural (outside of nature) or even abnormal. It is only a part of nature that is not obvious to use, such as the way one person’s thoughts can influence another, or the ability some people have to anticipate the future. Occultism is the study of such hidden aspects of nature.
In recent times, however, the words occult and occultism have been given new, debased and even sinister meanings. They are often connected with such phenomena as devil worship, animal sacrifice, drugs, ghosts, fortune telling and a variety of other things. For this reason, the occult section in a bookstore is likely to include books dealing with a hodgepodge of subjects – some respectable, some foolish and some trashy, if not actually wicked.
With this new meaning of occult, which has sprung up only during the past few years like an overnight mushroom, Theosophy has nothing to do. The Theosophical view is that the devil of popular lore is a myth and a misunderstanding of a symbol. Theosophy also teaches that the first step to spiritual progress is a clean life.
April 16, 2007 at 2:19 am
#236 No person
“Drugs certainly show you briefly the vastness
of awareness at the core of our being, but somehow they don’t clearly expose the illusion of ‘me'”. Girl, you didn’t take enough!
Is the awarness aware of itself in deep sleep?
If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one to hear it does it make a sound?
Of course it is all mental gymnastics and i am quite aware of what you are trying to communicate because i have viewed the cosmos through that lens before and i am right here looking out of these not me eyes typing with these not me fingers.
I am not picking on you i am trying to expose the flaw in no mind, all is God or spirit or awareness or consciousness philosophy (and it is a philosphy)which is taking a certain stage or degree of awakening or development and making it the whole ball of wax.
I am sure this will be the end of the discussion at least on my side. We all certainly know we are not going to ferret out the truth by talking about it. I will just end by saying i agree with most all you say (except about the drugs which i no longer use, by the way) but feel it is incomplete.
Well, that didn’t come out right.
No, shit!
It was kinda what i wanted to say.
You’re an idiot.
Am not.
Are to.
Shut up!
P.S. Exlax 101. Don’t be going anywhere. I am not done with you yet.
April 16, 2007 at 2:52 am
Exlax 101 #244
Thank you for that last post, it saved me a lot of time. I hadn’t read it when i wrote that last post to no person. I had loosely formulated a response explaining the sentence i was wrong about in a previous posting. But it isn’t necessary now that what i suspected has been revealed. You are nothing but an arrogant, authoritarian Gurdjeffite spouting archaic knowledge. By the way, everything in the universe is not material. There have been some advancements in science such as quantum mechanics. You may have read about them or don’t they deliver Popular Mechanics to your cave.
Now i am done with you.
April 16, 2007 at 4:00 am
did anyone ever consider RB might just want to retire and make everything so ridiculous that people will leave and he can go to his favorite spot on the planet to spend the rest of his life in luxury? I am sure there are plenty of ‘men’ who would enjoy this lifestyle and go with him, while everyone else is just scratching their head.
April 16, 2007 at 5:02 am
(#243) FenceRider:
“If anyone has comments on the “Bad Judgment” issue, I am open to hearing them.”
My take is that your desire to second-guess your assessment towards the end of your post was a laudable impulse, but you were more correct the first time and should trust yourself more. Calling it “bad judgment,” in my view, is more than charitable. Doing something obviously harmful to oneself and others on occasion shows poor judgment; making a lifestyle out of it for decades, and declaring it the manifestation of consciousness, is something else again. If someone wants, for the benefit of those who have been blissfully ignorant, to tell the Brian Sisler or Kevin Kelly stories, and one realizes these are merely the tip of a very large iceberg, I think terms like “bad judgment” will seem woefully inadequate.
April 16, 2007 at 5:03 am
Do we laugh, cry, or just have another glass of wine? The fog of esotericism is lifting off these hills along Rices Crossing Road. It is no longer mysterious, the props are falling away. The light being shown on the FOF by the contributors to this blog is revealing. Revealing what? An organization unwilling or unable to take action in its own behalf. Howard, in your capacity as a business consultant, what remedy would you suggest? The management team is weak, the Board is afraid, and the CEO pretends not to hear the voices of the Shareholders. What an opportunity for Robert and the FOF to transform these events into something meaningful, or to fade slowly into memory.
stillamember
April 16, 2007 at 5:08 am
Lovely People,
Talk of “shocks” is the thread I’d like to pick up…
HC, thanks for conceding that I can still receive “calling cards from Influence C” but doesn’t that contradict your belief that I must be a dues paying member of the FoF to do so? ( Or is my peripheral status enough for the Angels to still deign to drop them in my path?)
For those who deride or question the notion of higher forces working in our lives —in or out of the FoF— consider this zinger from dear old Walt’s “Song of Myself”:
“…a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels.”
Making meaning from the moments in a day is life at its best for me. Sometimes poetry materializes effortlessly—the coincidences ring out like a bell, calling me to see the patterns in the disparate and sometimes discouraging minutiae that make up our lives. More often than not, I am challenged to read between the lines, transform the mundane into some kind of majesty or at least into a good laugh. Is it not an integral part of being human, this capacity to make meaning? And perhaps ultimately (as Hegel says), to begin to perceive the magnificence of the universe itself so that, in the reflection of that vast mystery, god flashes into existence in the twinkling of an eye.
Maybe that’s why talk of pure consciousness still irks me a bit. It seems to me that despite claims to non-duality, there lurks a mighty one in positing consciousness as distinct from everything else. If pure consciousness is our one true “home,” or selfless “self,” then why the heck did it/we have to go to the trouble of manifesting life on planet Earth?
We are here—in these bodies, with these capacities and particular talents and possibilities so we might as well take on the whole kit and caboodle! May we have the courage to do so, with plenty of shared laughter and tenderness along the way.
Mousing along the open road,
J.
PS. Here’s a short and sweet talk about not getting trapped in guru or “getting there” mental constructs:
http://heartofyoga.com/los_angeles_talks (click on “The Guru”)
PPS. Walt Whitman is the hands-down winner of most quoted CB on this blog. That makes me smile ‘cause he of all of them probably would have embraced this weird-wondrous medium for heart wrenchings and mud slingings. Go Walt!
April 16, 2007 at 6:07 am
Fence sitter wrote:
——————————————–
Here is my reasoning: I am sometimes a teacher of kids. As a teacher, I know clearly that if I were even to make a sexual comment to a kid, that it could destroy me, my family, and all that I care for. Every teacher, psychologist, doctor, pastor (essentially anyone in a role that requires respect) knows that that actions of this nature will have consequences. Some of course are not able to control themselves, but they know that there is risk.
——————————————
For what it’s worth: Robert Burton was required to resign his job teaching fourth grade at Springhill Elementary School effective March 17, 1967. He later told people he was told he “hugged the kids too much.”
Most teachers whom school districts discharge are permitted to finish out the year unless they did something egregious. It’s pretty disruptive to elementary-school-aged children to fire a teacher in mid-March. Someone must have thought it was pretty important to get rid of the guy immediately.
Also, it may interest old-timers to note that the Avatar of the Age renewed his teaching credential in 1975. I guess he worried that the enterprise might collapse and he’d have to go back to teaching elementary school.
April 16, 2007 at 6:18 am
In response to Coot 6/215 and Fellow Friend 6/245.
What happen to Brian Sisler and Kevin Kelly?
Or anyone?
marys_angels@peoplepc.com
April 16, 2007 at 7:33 am
To: Elena, 6/235
“Since the arrival of Patriarchy, godlike kings have stood at the head of communities and led them. Modern western history has shifted the centre of power from the king to the people. While that has been accomplished in the physical arena it has not yet been accomplished in the emotional one.”
Is not the Absolute a Monarch,
the universe, a monarchy?
When one thinks about it, the Absolute has done a pretty good job so far. I would conclude it’s not such a bad form of government.
April 16, 2007 at 10:42 am
(#247)
Joel, just like the rest of us, you were a jerk frequently, and not just to Keith. If you’d like to cleanse your karma, how about not using the blog to reprise the Older Student routine and act chummy with folks with whom you were never all that close? “You still living in the same spot? Let’s have coffee!” Please. If we were interested in that nonsense we’d still be in the Fellowship.
April 16, 2007 at 12:32 pm
#256 Inner Jewels
I don’t question the notion of “higher forces” working in our lives. I question my right to ask the question if “higher forces” are working in our lives.
April 16, 2007 at 1:17 pm
Dear Kiran,
Are you sure Abraham Goldman tried to get a signature from you? If you are in coma everybody knows that you can not write. Abraham was not born yesterday. Maybe you were on life support and were sedated and were able to respond? Let us know as a coma and being sedated is a big difference. Your story is upsetting to me and if not true…a bad descending octave.
Maybe thefollowing is more practical. Robert had this quote for years: If you see something in others it does not take you long before you see it in yourself. (Many cultures have a variation on this saying).
This technique from Byron Katie might help you to understand the contradictions in yourself and it might help you to live the question and come to the wordless unexplainable silence.
Ask yourself the following question (pen and paper, will help to get this clear).
Is it true?
How can you absolutely know that it is true? (When you are in coma?)
What would you be without this story?
Turn it around.
The last one is a hard one and can have many possibilities but when you apply it and get there……Blows your mind and that is what we need (Beside love).
Good luck.
April 16, 2007 at 1:27 pm
To anonymous 257
Is this really true. Please can anybody tell me it is not true. I am going to throw up.
For what it’s worth: Robert Burton was required to resign his job teaching fourth grade at Springhill Elementary School effective March 17, 1967. He later told people he was told he “hugged the kids too much.”
Most teachers whom school districts discharge are permitted to finish out the year unless they did something egregious. It’s pretty disruptive to elementary-school-aged children to fire a teacher in mid-March. Someone must have thought it was pretty important to get rid of the guy immediately.
Also, it may interest old-timers to note that the Avatar of the Age renewed his teaching credential in 1975. I guess he worried that the enterprise might collapse and he’d have to go back to teaching elementary school.
April 16, 2007 at 5:43 pm
Inner Jewels: “Maybe that’s why talk of pure consciousness still irks me a bit. It seems to me that despite claims to non-duality, there lurks a mighty one in positing consciousness as distinct from everything else. If pure consciousness is our one true “home,” or selfless “self,” then why the heck did it/we have to go to the trouble of manifesting life on planet Earth?”
Huh? No, no. The bit about having to reach consciousness as distinct from everything else and from functions/the world in particular, is precisely what the Fellowship IS about, and precisely what non-dualistic philosophies are NOT about. Listen to a meeting with RB, then listen to one of those non-dual guys and girls whose names have been posted on the blog. You’ll see the difference.
In the same vein, HC says: “Is not the Absolute a Monarch, the universe, a monarchy?” HC asks this as if it were a rhetorical question, but it is actually a belief-based statement without any foundation in verifications. It is part of that same large Western (Christian, Zoroastrian… Burtonian) tradition that posits a Creator somewhere far above a separate Created. It is a way of explaining the world around us, just like saying that
all material things are composed of five elements, is a way of explaining the world. If you stick only to it, it works as a system for making sense of life. But in the fourth way, one is instructed not to lie/talk about things one knows nothing of. Which is what HC’s following statement was, unless he has personally verified that there is an Absolute out there ruling the universe.
April 16, 2007 at 6:20 pm
coot notes subjective and partial of this stories. If others have better understandings (as could be wrong), so fill in blanks please add. But from perspective:
Brian seem “RB boy” who later have serious psychological breakdown maybe like schizphrenia. (guess maybe have late 20s years of age and very sweet solar type) Walk up and down Rice Crossing Road day and night, can’t stop. Finally taken to Marysville by FOF and just dropped off. Lived in tent by river. Homeless. Later live on street in Sacramento city and stabbed in stomack (chest?) by the other homeless?, loose much blood, university hospital, almost die. Older students help get Brian back to “life” family. Later to all shock RB let Brian back in school. (maybe top rung of ladder of bad decision – non responsible action). Saw on wikipedia until remove Brian Sisler found dead in Marysville hotel, believe thought suicide.
Kevin was brave quadriplegic went to Berkeley university on own, eventually live in Roseville? work for HP? Uneasy balance in hard life like many of us will never know but basic stable. When California to fall in ocean – RB put out word that all must come to high ground. Kevin came to high ground, lost stability. Fell out of wheelchair and drownd in small amount of water – felt to be suicide by many. Later, heard RB put out another of his famous ugly epigram on Kevin – not sure but something like play of crime. Ugly words for brave man. No humility from second after Jesus. Sad joke.
Let them who have ears to hear and eyes to see.
And for noble Kevin: trouble not the epigram of small man, dear friend, they are as payment for God’s delivery of Israel, “Ye mountains, that ye skipped like rams; and ye little hills, like lambs”
To both – in peace
April 16, 2007 at 6:39 pm
Re: Ed #260
Do I know you? I published one of your books once, but I thought _that_ Ed Weston passed away some time ago.
Linda, Miles, Charles, Cathie, and Keith are all people I knew personally, in some cases intimately.
So “Ed,” I’m not sure where you’re coming from. You can always skip my posts if you find them irritating. I won’t mind!
JoelF
PS Thanks for the welcome.
April 16, 2007 at 6:50 pm
Re: Charles R.
For context, Charles R. was an admired ‘inner circle’ member for 20+ years (as FOF Treasurer and Director) for 15 years, he saw it all – ‘the good, the bad and the ugly’). His sincere 1994 departure letter (posted in 6/212) shocked many.
April 16, 2007 at 6:59 pm
I was not sure if I would ever pass the following along to any but closest family/friends. After all, the material is merely from a dream and the content which cannot be verified here as having real meaning, is not only gossip, but probably calumny as well… I thus pass it along with a reader beware warning and apology if I should have kept mouth shut…
I have had three major “third state” night time dreams concerning Robert. Third state in that I was amazingly aware of self in the dream, aware that I was dreaming, and that the dreams were remembered completely upon awakening. The first two were positive concerning Robert; the third, which I will relate partially here, and which occurred not very long after I left FOF the second time (couple of years ago), was not:
The dream is very long in content; I meet with many students – all of whom were ‘competing’ for Robert’s ‘selection’ and to summarize all that, after several ‘hours’ of seeming content, I am brought before Robert and one other individual. Both look quite like vampire caricatures and I get the impression they are ‘feeding’ off pyschic energies among those being ‘chosen’. Faces were drawn in – like vampires are often pictured when they have not fed in a while; Robert was still recognizable; the second person was not – though I, perhaps formatorily, associated he with Gerard. I am offered in the dream several incentives for returning to FOF including my choice of four different females and am further warned that ‘this might be my last chance’ to evolve… I answer near the end of the dream that “perhaps I will attract another teacher” meaning I did not choose to rejoin. This was a ‘in the dream’ decision however, that I wondered about upon awakening the next morn.
Last Friday, I watched “Stargate SG 1”, a scifi series that has been on for years, but which I had never become interested in. They are currently advertising their ‘final ten installments’; I happened to watch the first of these – plus a ‘documentary’ on the series that encapsulated the prior seasons, the various aliens, philosphies, etc. There is an “awakened’ alien species in the series, the current major protangonist, called the “ORI” – they feed off lower pyschic energies. I mention all this, because watching immediately brought me back to my dream and Robert’s connection to ‘being like the ORI’ jumped out at me.
That all said; the totality colud be a bit of scifi created in my own mind; could have been generated from my own fears or psychological state, etc. I associate no real meaning other than it happened and currently affects my own psychology. Even said, I continue to feel a great deal of love toward RB. Topic completed for me.
April 16, 2007 at 7:03 pm
Kiran, 6/217
“It was only to protect me.”
Excuse my questions, they might appear naive, but I would welcome clarifications.
Who is “me” ?
If you are quoting Abraham’s words (which I presume you do) the quote should show a “you”.
We would comprehend then:
I, Abraham, did this to protect you, Kiran.
I am asking because at first, the use of the quotations marks forced to understand that Abraham was protecting himself (“me”).
I know this would be a mistake in English language, a mistake Abraham probably would not do but, who knows…
We would comprehend then:
I, Abraham, did this to protect (me) myself.
Hope you don’t mind coming back to that for clarity.
Further on: to protect from what ?
No idea or, so far, unsatisfactory deductions.
How do you undestand this “protection” idea for yourself ?
To No Person, 6/236
“Is electricity located in the lamp ?”
Your post was a wonderful one! I sometimes suffer from the lenght and “teaching” tones of your sharings yet, I never doubt the intention. Most appreciated, in this case, your clarity/simplicity in attempting an answer. Thank you for that!
A last thank you note to Hugues Serre.
It is very always helpful to remember that nothing is lost!
Much Love to us all!
April 16, 2007 at 7:19 pm
To Hugues Serre,
I appreciate your discretion and you might not be willing to talk about it (which is OK of course!) but since I would like to know more about your after FOF, I simply ask:
You clearly state your understanding that one cannot do it “alone”.
What helped/helps you ?
Who is your teacher today and who are your friends ?
In advance, thanks and a big hug!
April 16, 2007 at 7:32 pm
Here is a story about Buddha. Ananda asked him whether he is conscious or asleep while he is sleeping. Buddha answered: ‘Sleep happens with the body, and I remain aware of it. Here is the sleep coming, here it has come, here it became deeper, here the body relaxed, but my consciousness remains’.
Hard to say, this is Buddha’s original words, but this is the story.
Is any of us, claiming ourselves as ‘no persons’ at this level?
Is the question of ‘levels of coming to realizations of the truth’ appropriate in general?
Both – yes and no.
Funny, from what one of the most popular (and mentioned on the blog) current non-dual teachers says, follows that there are different degrees of coming close to the source, and our understanding changes, as the reality keeps unfolding itself anew constantly; from what the other not less respected (and mentioned on the blog) current non-dual teachers says, follows that all the talks about degrees, levels etc. is imagination and lies, and the reality keeps unfolding itself anew constantly.
The idea of ‘levels’ seems to be a tricky one, because the mind immediately starts chasing after this (‘when I reach the level/state of what Buddha described about the sleep…’). And yet, ‘awakening’ happens on the continuous basis, and changes in understanding occur, and there is a feeling of a ‘different level of understanding’ at times.
Where am I? In between these two.
To Yesri Baba
#148 You are one of the most welcome. And thank you, too.
#251 ‘…but feel it is incomplete.’
Yes, it does feel this way. As if ‘things haven’t gone the full circle yet’…
April 16, 2007 at 7:33 pm
Sheik, first of all, thank you for your time and guidance on this forum. I am an ex fof member. If anyone reading this would like to see a brilliant treatment of the controversy at the root of this bittersweet blog I suggest you see Harvey Keitel’s performance in Jane Campion’s film HOLY SMOKE (with Kate Winslet). I coached Mr. Keitel for his role. Jane Campion used material directly from true stories I shared about the fof.
I joined the Followship in 1975 where Girard was center director and was ‘kicked out’ with a letter signed by him 17 years later. During my tour of duty I was married for a few years to Robert’s #1 gate keeper, organizer and personal assistant. I was also Robert’s personal chauffeur, ‘hostess’ and point person in New York City for about 5 years in the late 70s. I often wondered why there was a tube of KY jelly next to the toothpaste in his hotel bathroom. To say I was naïve would be generous. It took me 10 years to leave after I DID find out why the KY was there. WHY did it take so long to exit? I was nearly 30 years old and had passed the bulk of my 20s in the fof. I burnt my bridges with anyone I knew in my chosen profession and I felt unequipped to confront the superficiality and crassness of popular culture. My days continued to be peppered with C-influence (synchronicities) despite the sense of personal betrayal and manipulation I felt, not only by Robert but even more by most of the people he authorized to speak on his behalf. (Many of whom, shockingly, were skeptical regarding C-Influence!) During the mid 1980s I tried to have the conversation now flowing in this forum and was highly criticized and eventually rejected for it. I lived (hid out) in Europe and despite my personal doubts about the fof became the center director of a small city in Northern Italy where there were only two students… my husband being the other one. If I do say so myself, I think we directed each other with great aplomb. I started to get in trouble once some young Italian people actually started joining and visiting (or immigrating to) Renaissance. Before they left for America I warned them that they might get hit on by the teacher. I worded it more delicately, of course, but it wasn’t long before I got a call from Guinevere and then Robert himself asking me not to speak about his personal life to anyone, ever again… or else! I told both Guinevere and Robert that for my own personal ethic I needed to be honest with these young international travelers about the possibility that they might be seduced. Notwithstanding the fact that I found the 4th way work to be a driving force in my own search for meaning, I also confessed to these young Italians my own confusion at being a spokesperson for an organization whose leadership I questioned. During one long distance (Oregon House-Italy) conversation with Robert, I told him that I had nothing against homosexuality, that I actually thought it was cool. I said something to the effect that he should take away the exercise against it and accept himself as he was. He told me that he was not a homosexual but that he actually became a woman when he was with these young men, and that the sex was part of his, and their, awakening. I held my ground and said that, for my own personal reasons, I would continue to warn young travelers about what they might encounter upon meeting him. I added that it was up to their own discretion what to do. I also told Robert that I loved him (which is true) and that there were no words to express how much I valued what I had learned through his efforts as a teacher. At the end of this 20 minute conversation he asked me to pass the phone to my husband. Robert apologized to him for any pain he may have caused and asked him to pass the phone back to me. Robert told me what he had just said to my husband. I think I thanked him and put the phone down. I know I was shaking. My husband was crying. We both sat very still and silent for a long, long time.
…I am of Jewish Russian descent, Minsk and Kiev.
My heart goes out to all, but especially to any confused young students from Eastern Europe.
Shelley
April 16, 2007 at 8:08 pm
Over the years, I’ve heard a fair amount of criticism for my good friend, the King of Clubs. I want to thank The Esoteric Sheik of Inner Confusion for giving me this opportunity to offer a different perspective on him.
First of all, I don’t want to imply that King of Clubs is above criticism. I know him well, and sometimes he’s “up to no good” -– especially when he’s fully developed with his psychic powers. But over the years, I’ve often overheard such comments as:
— The King of Clubs is opposed to your work.
— Never underestimate the cleverness of the King of Clubs to undermine your efforts.
— The King of Clubs will disguise itself as Higher Centres.
— The King of Clubs does not wish to be seen, because then his true nature will be revealed.
— The King of Clubs deceives you.
— The King of Clubs leads people out of the Fellowship.
— The King of Clubs rejects Influence C.
— etc., etc.
It makes me wonder why any of us would walk out the front door in the morning. It’s scary stuff.
We occasionally give the King of Clubs some credit. For example, it’s widely acknowledged that he is the intellectual part of the instinctive centre, and that he controls the five senses, protects the body from harm, provides intuition (what some people refer to as the sixth sense), seeks healthful food for the body, and is concerned with the healthy functioning of the environment that houses each of our bodies.
But overall, people don’t trust the King of Clubs. He’s like the guy who walks into a pub, and immediately all of the music stops and everyone takes a break from their conversations to look around. He goes off and sits down at a table by himself, and the bar tender glares at him before asking, “What’ll it be.” But me personally? I love talking to the guy. He’s helped me through all types of situations, and I can’t say enough about how close we are as friends. (They say we Kings are much more alike than the Jacks and Queens. And some even theorize that very good things happen when at least three of us get together, but that’s another story.)
But anyway, I’m sure ‘Clubs’ would say the same about me. Believe me, we’ve had many a brew together over the years. He watches out for me, and I watch out for him. He sometimes wonders why I’m interested in the off-beat esoteric ideas that we find in the Religion & Philosophy section at Borders. But overall we get along fine, and I enjoy hearing what he has to say.
For example, in the past couple of years, there’s this new guy called the Lower Self. Some people are trying to associate Lower Self with King of Clubs as though they are close brothers. But King of Clubs tells me he has never met Lower Self. “I’ve never seen him, or even seen a picture of him,” Clubs says. “And I’ve actually never met anyone who has seen him. So for all I know, someone made the guy up.”
Interesting take on that.
Clubs recently told me: “I’m sure I’m an ‘obstacle’ in my own way, just as you are an ‘obstacle’ my friend. But I’d like to mention something about Lower Self. The Lower Self became a Big Thing in the Fellowship right around the time we started hearing about this so-called Sequence… When people sincerely tried the Sequence, something very odd happened around the second or third step. A little voice inside of them said, ‘Uh, excuse me. What are you doing?’ And sure enough, the Sequence would stop in its tracks. And someone called this the Lower Self. Why? Because only something within you that lacked good intentions would ever dream of stopping the Sequence. But the impulse to stop the Sequence is actually what we commonly refer to as Intuition. And Intuition can be a very good thing.”
I asked Clubs to explain what he meant by that.
“Well, I think people who sincerely try the Sequence — in other words, sincerely TRY IT, and not try it by simply reciting a bunch of words — quickly find that the Sequence is naturally interrupted, not because the so-called Lower Self is interrupting their work, but because Intuition senses something is wrong,” Clubs said.
“But isn’t it possible that you are wrong,” I asked Clubs, “and that getting through the Sequence and getting past that initial doubt just requires an extra effort and a positive attitude?”
He replied: “King of Hearts, I hope you are just playing ‘devil’s advocate’ here, because if you truly believe what you just said, you have your head in the clouds. ‘Getting through it’ amounts to nothing more than playing a strange word game, and imagining all sort of things. Intuition isn’t quite so concerned about the word game. If you want to play a word game, then go right ahead –- have at it. No, Intuition becomes concerned when someone SINCERELY tries a Sequence and sincerely starts being on the lookout for the so-called ‘lower self.’ When that happens, Intuition quickly jumps in to stop it –- possibly for reasons of health, well-being, and sanity.”
Hmm. Those are bold statements, but I always expect that out of Clubs. I’ve been known to make bold statements of my own at times, so I don’t judge him for it. I don’t always believe him, but this time he really has my attention.
But I’m not sure what to make of this phrase: “…possibly for reasons of health, well-being, and sanity.” Is Clubs suggesting that the Sequence is actually UN-healthy? And that watching for the so-called “lower self” is actually UN-healthy? Hmm.
But unfortunately Clubs and I didn’t have time to talk more on the subject. The last thing he said was, “Just listen to your Intuition, and listen to your Conscience. I can’t answer these questions for you.”
And then, as he was walking away, he stopped and laughed, and said:
“Wait. How can anyone answer a question that they haven’t yet asked? So my advice is this… Forget answering these questions… Will you please at least ASK them?”
*********
So for me that was a rather memorable conversation –- a bit shocking, actually.
Personally, I’d be very happy if the Sequence WERE real, but I’ve decided to take Clubs’s advice and watch more carefully. My current attitude about it? I sense that the Sequence is nothing more than an invention, and that the Lower Self (as we’re describing it in the Fellowship) is nothing more than an invention. To give the benefit of the doubt to those who have put forth these ideas, the best I can say about the Sequence is that it’s “an experiment.” But if it is an experiment, we should stop pretending that it’s actually The Word of the Gods as Passed Down from the Conscious Teachings of Ancient Civilizations.
Clubs seems to take it a step further… He once described the Sequence as an experimental “drug,” and that we should stop pretending it’s been tested and approved, and that we know its effects and side-effects, long-term, short-term or otherwise — or whether it has any positive effects whatsoever.
*********
Finally, my friends, I do have one more thought on King of Clubs. Clubs provides another very important and useful function, and I can’t emphasize this enough:
He has the ability to intuit when you are being deceived or harmed in any way.
Given that, it’s interesting that we would have so many negative things to say about him. Because if people would listen to him, just as they listen to me, and just as they listen to King of Spades and King of Diamonds, they might gain a deeper understanding about themselves and what’s happening in their lives, and in the meantime avoid all sorts of trouble. And if they do get into trouble, they would later find a way out of it, and they would find a way to help their friends out of it.
All I can say is this: Listen to all of us, not just me. Listen to your Intuition. Listen to what your thoughts tell you. Be strong, be happy, and whatever you decide to do, leave fear and shame far behind. You are not alone. You are safe. You are in good hands –- each and every one of you.
April 16, 2007 at 8:27 pm
To Kiran 6/229
It is so easy to love animals isn’t it ?
The sharing of Taco is precious for
we truly feel simplicity and joy, in both of you.
Thanks.
April 16, 2007 at 9:06 pm
To HC or JH or you, and Friends,
Mail 259 says:
“Since the arrival of Patriarchy, godlike kings have stood at the head of communities and led them. Modern western history has shifted the centre of power from the king to the people. While that has been accomplished in the physical arena it has not yet been accomplished in the emotional one.”
Is not the Absolute a Monarch,
the universe, a monarchy?
When one thinks about it, the Absolute has done a pretty good job so far. I would conclude it’s not such a bad form of government.”
Dear Student or students behind the name Howard Carter for there are no students with such a name and you have been using it to sound legitimate but it is as phony as the personality they’ve dressed you up with. You are not as “dumm” as you portray yourself though, you could even be JH letting your other image out.
Your question is valid and I will attempt to give an understanding of it. Before I do that, I should have added “….it has not yet been accomplished in the emotional or intellectual arena”
“Is not the Absolute a Monarch,
the universe, a monarchy?”
The monarchy of the Absolute is not a despotism.
Despotism arises in the King of Clubs,
that is why you can’t find any LOVE in the Fellowship but little self interests cuddling each other.
The king of clubs is territorial, egotistic and self centered. The Steward is open, humble and all encompassing.
Identified with the body the King of Clubs extends out its tentacles and acquires territory. Within that territory it generates its “protections” and “generosities”. What it considers to be outside of its territory it tries to avoid and destroy. This is what subjectivity is: The impossibility to go beyond the king of Clubs. Mr. Burton has gone far beyond this in his “theory” but has limited himself to this in his “practice.” It is easier to “know” than to “be”.
Likewise, the students in the Fellowship have developed small groups amongst themselves and there’s no all encompassing forms to embrace them except interestingly enough, dining with each other. This is no coincidence. The “King” of clubs allows his pack to eat. Hence the potager, Apollo D’Oro, breakfasts and dinners with Robert. Even more interesting is that in the two last ones people are less and less allowed to eat, with the expectation that they will not lower their eyes from the King and food is thrown away or as has been said, kept for the servants. The problems in the Fellowship are not nearly as bad because of what Robert says but because of the discriminatory forms that hold it together. Words come in and out of our mind but the form penetrates our being and people become used to being treated like dirt. After a few years of being tamed by this form, most become docile.
This is the hierarchy of the King of Clubs and it comes from outside, in. It reaches the emotional and intellectual centres to reinforce the formatory apparatus and is unable to go beyond. It descends again strengthening the same forms and becoming more and more crystallized. This is the Fellowship of Friends, today.
Hierarchy from above comes from inside, out. The hierarchy of the Absolute can bring nothing but humility in a human being. The humility that knows that one is the last one in the hierarchy of developing beings and the pride that knows that one is the first one in the hierarchy of undeveloped beings. Planets, stars and galaxies above, animals, plants and minerals, below.
This is the ladder expressed in the table of hydrogens not as an academic thought but as an inner experience. The language continues to be factual but in religions and schools the terms used would include angels, archangels etc. and animals, beast, devils, etc.
The danger involved in Mr. Burtons return to “religious” language of the past, “the devil, the sinners, the goats, etc.” is amongst other things, that he is relying on the subconscious fears of our programming and unwilling to embrace a more academic, “scientific” language that Mr. Ouspensky and Mr. Collin tried to enforce as it is needed in our times. Going back to “religious” language is a very smart move in Mr. Burtons, predatory King of Clubs. Interesting that he is supported by Mr. Braverman who knows not little of it coming from where he comes from and Mr. Yudin. Going “backwards” in history is also “falling behind,” damaging the possibilities the school had to go “ahead.”
You might ask yourself why Mr. Burton, being an American and having said “ Science, is the Art of our time” embraced theater, opera and ballet, music, waltz and inorganic gardening but was unable to embrace the objectivity of science that Mr. Collin attempted: The marriage of science and the mysteries.
By abandoning the System and returning to old religious language, Mr. Burton thwarted the impulse that Mr. Collin brought forth. It is no coincidence that Mr. Burton does not have a third of the warmth that Mr. Collin manifests or a sixth of the mind that Mr. Collin “holds”. Perhaps this is why he cannot “Be Hold” his own School.
This answers only half of your question and only a little of it. The other half would need to be written at least in poetry or poetic prose. What is the hierarchy of the Absolute if it is not the Hierarchy of the King of Clubs?
Perhaps, endless gratitude?
A love that touches the food in your mouth?
Your hands on a tool? The pen? The keyboard?
My eyes on your eyes,
My skin on yours?
These words with which, we make love?
The vase carving the potter’s soul?
The soil carving the gardener’s being?
The Work, each man’s work, carving humanity’s being?
A sex connected to the heart and mind with the body totally free?
A drink in lips,
the scent, within?
The play of the hero without the subject or the king?
The suffering that can hold judgement?
Being?
The freedom of words from pay?
The willingness to communicate?
The objective institutions that have struggled to give the individual guarantees to live, free of monarchs and statesmen?
The spirit in science and science in Art?
April 16, 2007 at 11:09 pm
To Kiran 6/217: That “deathbed-give–me-your-money-story” is really beyond everything I have heard except the sex-stories and left me speechless.
To Hughes 6/217: I liked what your teacher has said; Yes, truth is simple.
I have loved Kristina too.
She was a wonderful seeker and a great divine inspiration.
We made a lot of healing and digesting work together, when she was pushed out – apparently because she told RB to minimize his car park to save some money for the FOF – as far as I remember
_______________________________________________________________________
As a Berliner I can say, that the highest and most threatening walls can break surprisingly quick. As an Ex-FOFfy, I am happy to see how the walls between members and ex-members, friends and ex-friends are breaking right now.
Yes, we are all one – That does not mean that we share the same opinions or make the same consequences, it only means, that we are all part of a certain living field (not in every aspect of our life of course, only in terms of turning our attention towards the FOF-experiences –referring to fieldtheories by Rupert Sheldrake and Bert Hellinger)
The FOF as a living field has always included the exstudents and also maybe the family members and friends, that had not joined – although it was always politics to desperately try to exclude all of them.
The field knows and has a vivid memory beyond time, space and pain.
Now seems to be a time, that the FOF as a living field faces its many shadows and starts to deal with them.
April 17, 2007 at 12:01 am
To: Inner Jewels, 6/256
“HC, thanks for conceding that I can still receive “calling cards from Influence C” but doesn’t that contradict your belief that I must be a dues paying member of the FoF to do so? ( Or is my peripheral status enough for the Angels to still deign to drop them in my path?)”
Inner Jewels,
As far as I know the FoF/Robert has not made any mention of people not being able to get shocks once out. That would be formatory. The school helps uncover and clarify concepts like formatory thinking, not promote them.
As students we all err, and if I fall victim to formatory thinking I’d like to believe it will eventually be revealed to me, either by my own seeing or through the insightful photograph of someone close by.
I think the main requisite to receive shocks in and out, is to understand some of the methods higher forces uses to send the shocks, and to be open to them. I suppose being “open” implies valuing.
Of course it doesn’t hurt to have a sweet mother.
April 17, 2007 at 12:27 am
Well Ed #260 (don’t know if we’ve met), I don’t see anything wrong with Joel’s wanting to socialize, what is your problem?
Protocol for people who want to talk off the blog: post your email addy!
cathieleavitt(at)sbcglobal(dot)net
(I think if you do it that way you avoid the spam bots, maybe.)
April 17, 2007 at 12:27 am
Kiran, Re: Contradictions
Isn’t it amazing how many former and current FOF’ers have arrived at a similar place? The words are different but the experiential fact seems much the same.
Adyashanti once commented that “If it isn’t a paradox, it probably isn’t true”. That is, if we see only the head or tail of a coin (or only the “yes” or “no”) we miss the fact that they have no existence apart from each other. From that perspective there is only the coin: there is no head or tail. This is one way of understanding duality.
Resting our attention in awareness we experience “the profound lesson of reception, neither preference nor denial” as Walt Whitman put it. Awareness does not distinguish, it only vivifies our perceptions. This is one way of understanding non-duality.
April 17, 2007 at 12:34 am
Dear Elena,
For what it’s worth, I’d like to offer some observations of things I see in your posts.
First, let me say that I’m all for leaving the school — I think that is a wise move for many, if not most. But if you are going to leave, you must really leave. And right now, I think you are trying to “sit between two stools” as Gurdjieff put it.
You seem to still hang on to much of the mythology of Robert and the FOF — for example, you make sweeping, generalized statements about “life” that reveal the same rather ugly judgment that Robert frequently espouses. You are, as you put it, still under the spell of Robert’s “magic.”
At the same time, you put yourself in the impossible place of wanting to return — but only if a long list of personal conditions are met. Surely you must know this is never going to happen. Putting aside the question of whether the FOF is a “real school” or not, from the very beginning we were told that we came to learn, not dictate demands that must be agreed to if we are to stay. This may be appropriate for a community, as you have spoken about, but the leadership of the Fellowship think of themselves as a school first, and a community second. You are only setting yourself up for more disappointment if you think otherwise, in my opinion.
My observations may have limited value. After all, I’ve been out of the school for 18 years. But I suspect the core issues have not altered. You would be told that you need to change yourself, that the school will not change for you. And on some level, by their own logic, this may even be right. I think you will only continue to hurt yourself by running up against this wall over and over.
I know I am taking the risk of upsetting you with what I am saying. I write this not to criticize you, but because I see your pain and confusion. And I think the way to resolve this is to make a choice: to rejoin in the spirit of acceptance and with the most positive attitude you can muster, or to make a clean break and walk away.
“Life” is not nearly so bad as it seems you have come to believe. In fact, I can’t imagine being anywhere else.
Best wishes.
April 17, 2007 at 1:04 am
So I have a question for many of you, especially those of you who are flirting with non-dualism, and those of you who have had apparent shifts in perception that tend to mimic approximately what the non-dualists are pointing towards. I would epecially appreciate responses from Rita, Innernaut, Mark H., Ruddery, Yesri Baba, Rabbi Burns, NotHisRealName, I See Said the, youmeus, half life, Tim, and others too numerous to mention.
The sense of awareness that the non-dualists describe as always being present, always being aware, always being conscious, the consciousness that is what we are, seems to me to have a certain validity. If it is not taken too far. Rita, you describe it in post 58 part 4 as “Somehow (and I have no idea how, it doesn’t seem to relate to efforts, but maybe it does), the awareness wakes up all by itself without ‘Rita’ in the picture. Rita virtually disappears, then appears again, but by that time she knows she is not who she thinks she is.”
For me the awareness appears without effort. I have always thought that the awareness came because of the effort. In this state the “I’s” telling me to make effort, when they occur at all, happen after the awareness has already arrived. The “stop”, “sense your body”, “divide attention”, “be where you are”, “remember yourself” or whatever are after thoughts and if I let them go, the awareness stays all by itself. No effort, no work, no force, just presence.
I am not willing to call this the third state because it rarely, so far, includes the awareness of myself and where I am. It may be a very sensitive awareness of the environment, the vivid impressions of where I am and what is going on around me with much more taken in than ordinarily. There is no interfering thought, although thoughts do not necessarily stop, the thoughts stay quietly in the background. The experience of this state is what I imagine the great poets, writers and artists experience that allows them to see the world so clearly and to make connections that I can’t make in my ordinary state.
Isn’t this essence that is manifesting? The awareness behind the noise and confusion of our formatory minds? Have I just become tired of struggling with the pointless repetitious thinking and when that drops away there it is, essential awareness?
We have all come away from our fof experience with some excess baggage and for me it has taken many years for it to loosen up enough to just drop away. Like dropping the ballast weights from a hot air balloon. Not abandoning the system per se, but letting go of unnecessary attitudes.
The non-dualists say this is the end of the journey that never was. You are what you are looking for and always have been. You remain as you are: present and aware. This is your ongoing natural state. You are that awareness beyond thought.
Part of me likes this idea. There is no work, no way, no enlightenment, no awakening, no person, no thought, just pure awareness that we have always had. Nothing to attain, you are what you are seeking. No more struggle.
Curiously enough I can be in this state of awareness and my mind can still ask the questions. One does not displace the other as long as I don’t identify with either. But isn’t this after all just another step on the way? Isn’t this a plateau where maybe we can rest a while before moving on? I don’t know. These are my questions now.
If you wish to respond privately please e-mail me at theplace@atrockisland.com.
Yours in peace
Steven Keith Anderson
April 17, 2007 at 1:21 am
Duplicate comment, has been deleted.
— Sheik
April 17, 2007 at 1:21 am
#259: “When one thinks about it, the Absolute has done a pretty good job so far.”
There’s no limit to your beneficence Howard. I’m sure the “Absolute” with his beard and robe appreciates your support and is keeping his “I” on you.
April 17, 2007 at 1:48 am
To Hughes Serre, we will never forget the beautiful days in the Chateau–golden memories that have created so much for many of us.
We often spent some time together in the 80s and I will send you private email too but want to thank you publicly on this blog for this beautiful letter about your experience.
Adieu…
April 17, 2007 at 2:29 am
Dear Howard Carter,
“Is not the absolute a Monarch, the universe a monarchy” – HC
Weeeell – actually no Howard, unfortunately your concept of the absolute seems to be pure Burton, including no contractions! i.e.
a projection of Dominance feature into the ether and as such hogwash.
The Absolute can neither be a hereditary ruler, nor metaphorical equivalent.
The absolute by definition is indefinable!, is absolutely everything, (including you)
and absolutely no-thing, (including you). All possibility and potential
and all impossibility. It’s not a someone ruling over its creation, in the way that Robert rules over you. It is creation and everything uncreated.
Now then, sit back and cogitate, because some say that the Absolute is merely a sticky concept, born of a tricky yet ultimately feeble human mind. A contrivance to do away with the mind bogglingly irritating conundrum of infinite regression i.e.
Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
Answer: The absolute, which is the cause of all and yet without prior cause.
I guess the absolute didn’t evolve after all, just kind of always was or make that is. Chicken omelette anyone?
HE is not out there in a velvet cape and white tights, that’s Robert after the crowds go home. Just plain old all and everything with a big dollop of nothingness.
Anyway, enough wiseacreing merely for the purpose of making you appear daft and me very smart, or was it the other way around? I merely wished a literary preamble to highlight the idiocy of your inane esoteric mumbo jumbo for the future good of your soul dear Howard. Is not that kind of me?
“When one thinks about it, the absolute has done a pretty good job” – HC
Gosh Howie, good of you to say, it’s the warm little comments like that which make
an absolute’s epoch.
When one thinks about it?
Howieeeeeeee!
I ask you, honestly have you ever really thought about it?
Leave the Burtonising behind for a minute and have a good old think. It’ll be that searing pain between the temples.
Ryan
April 17, 2007 at 3:09 am
#266 skeptical optimist
Good to hear from you again. I thought that reception was kind of cold. Maybe someone is holding a grudge.
When i knew you you were kind of a jerk, but then so was everyone else in the “older student” position because they didn’t know a lot more than us newer students and were sure to let us know it.
But the way i see it if you don’t forgive someone and cut them some slack you won’t be able to forgive yourself and cut yourself some slack and let that “karma” disappear like the fantasy it is.
Good to hear from you.
April 17, 2007 at 3:16 am
To: Ryan 6/285
You obviously have your concept of the Absolute and I have mine.
Believe it or not I can actually think and disagree with you at the same time.
April 17, 2007 at 3:25 am
I think old Howie must is an amalgam of FOF A-holes trying to steer the wayward back to the fold. It’s interesting how much dishonesty has sprung from the FOF efforts to dilute the dialog here.
There’s something here for everyone to think about, but I still feel “leaving” is,and should be, a profound and individual undertaking if it is to be for the right reasons.
April 17, 2007 at 3:39 am
#268 ruddery
Cool dream, i am glad you shared it.
It is a fascinating archetype, the vampire.
Colin Wilson wrote a book about it called “LIfeforce” which was made into a movie and there are all the vampire movies and stories going way back.
Sometimes you talk to a person and you can just feel the energy being drained out of you and some people can seem to charge you up. I guess that means you are doing the sucking.
On a larger scale all of creation is vampiritic.
We eat cows and carrots. Society sucks the lifeforce out of individuals. Blackholes consume galaxies. The universe is just one big perpetual motion feeding frenzy.
April 17, 2007 at 3:39 am
Dear Innernaut,
Thank you for your advice. The Fellowship has changed in this eighteen years and I’m neither suffering that much nor as naive as it may look but when time comes to sit and cry I will be happy to.It is just not time yet. Tears have never killed anyone and they help crystallize in a different way if you’re not afraid of the suffering.
I nevertheless thank you sincerely. I see the honesty of your words. Maybe you could just leave me aside and share what is being said? It goes beyond the Fellowship and that is why I am in this blog, who knows for how long. If you look at the emails, I hardly use the “we” as much as the “they”. I think I’ve already left.
As for life, life is in essence and false personality and schools are for essence and true personality. Not that there aren’t great and beautiful people in life, just that they don’t really care to find out who they are or explore with themselves as the anchor and a keel for the world.
Wether it is the Fellowship or some other school, I am not ready to graduate, go and plant a little garden of my own and spend the rest of my life with family and friends. There’s nothing wrong with that but it just doesn’t happen to orphans and I am beyond wanting to be adopted.
Please know that you don’t upset me, on the contrary, the feedback helps now that attacking is not the case.
Thank you again,
Elena
April 17, 2007 at 3:41 am
Cathie, re your 278:
Since you ask, I was a frequent object of Joels’ supercilious put-downs when I would inadvertantly tread on his vanity. You perhaps didn’t share the experience, as he had a very different act for females. Seeing him announce his entrance into the blog by ignoring most of the substance of what is being discussed and instead listing all of the “older students” he’d like us all to know he considers his social equals was like a painful flashback to the pseudoaristocracy of the FOF. But, my bad.
April 17, 2007 at 4:43 am
#271 for the relativity
My Brothaa! You did it again.
I thought the responses from No person and Rabbi burns about the deep sleep question were bogus. I watched a video of Gongagi (one of the current lineage leaders of mentioned non-dualists) responding to the same question from a seeker and found her answer to be bogus also. Personally i would just as soon not be awake when i’m asleep but if one is going to claim pure, eternal, ever present consciousness it better be just that. Like i said i am sure it will be here when i get there.
The question of stages and levels will never be understood only experienced , i imagine.
I would like to revisit one other thing i mentioned: Mushrooms, meditation and Self remembering.
Psychotropic drugs seem to paralyze mind allowing one to see ones true nature with varying degrees of distortion. Certainly not a permanent fix.
Self-remembering is what non-dualists are advocating or pointing to.
To me meditation is the most important thing. Not as a way of attaining something, some state, or release, or realization after any immediate or extended
period of time or effort. But if one wants to see the inexorable, inexaustible, multi-faceted, ten thousand ways the mind grasps, strives, wanders, lies, cheats and steals sit quietly for an extended period by yourself every day and do nothing but watch. Of course there is a place for vigilence always.
For the non-dualists. Yes, the very act of meditating is an act of mind and the me which is who i am.
April 17, 2007 at 5:01 am
Keith #28: “But isn’t this [pure awareness that we have always had…nothing to attain, you are what you are seeking…no more struggle] after all just another step on the way? Isn’t this a plateau where maybe we can rest a while before moving on?”
My experience is that this realization continues to deepen, not as a result of any kind of “efforting,” but because it is its nature to deepen.
Another way of expressing this is to say that there is a continual unfolding in which I become a more-or-less conscious participant. Life “moves on” through me. There really is nowhere to go.
Chop wood, carry water.
April 17, 2007 at 5:07 am
Dear coot, whoever you are, your skillful poetic words have made me laugh and cry. What a gift you bring. Thanks.
April 17, 2007 at 6:38 am
“You are nothing but an arrogant, authoritarian Gurdjeffite spouting archaic knowledge.”
Gurdjiev was just a pawn. Do you really want to call the knowledge behind him ‘archaic’?
“By the way, everything in the universe is not material.”
Speaking of archaic, what rock have YOU been living under??
“There have been some advancements in science such as quantum mechanics. You may have read about them or don’t they deliver Popular Mechanics to your cave.”
Are you a grease monkey or maybe smog tech??? Where do you get your “science”, Fox News????
“Now i am done with you.”
Thank you, your highness.
April 17, 2007 at 6:42 am
Shelley #272
Amazed to hear your voice here, thank you for telling your story. Hope you are well.
JoelF
April 17, 2007 at 6:50 am
Peter #279
“Isn’t it amazing how many former and current FOF’ers have arrived at a similar place? The words are different but the experiential fact seems much the same.”
Yes, I’ve been struck by this too–read Shelley Mitchell’s story #272, the story was the same then as now.
And all the letters that have been posted here, it doesn’t seem to matter what year they were written, the story is always the same.
Can 20,000 (or whatever the count was) xfofers be wrong?
JoelF
April 17, 2007 at 7:05 am
“The non-dualists say this is the end of the journey that never was. You are what you are looking for and always have been. You remain as you are: present and aware.”
Seems to me this is actually the first step, you know, like being in good householder?
I always laugh at the title of the book “the power of NOW”. Seems like there should be a sequel: the Power of Now What?
A teacher once told me that being present is like going from A1 to A2, etc. Know what I mean?
If you truly believed you are ‘that’, then questions no longer exist…for if you are truly in this state, then there is no longer anyone asking that question.
April 17, 2007 at 8:13 am
(247, 260, 266, 278, 286)
OK folks, don’t want to put a whole lot of energy into this side show, but Ed, sounds like you’ve got some “accounts” to let go of, my friend. Whatever Joel may have said seems to have hurt your feelings, and we understand how that is, but maybe we can get beyond that and move on. Joel, I don’t know you, but maybe you have a little soul searching to do, and I can kind of see where Ed is coming from with his reaction to your “Hey Miles! Hey Linda! Hey everybody, it’s me, Joel!” post. We’ve focused a lot of energy on Robert’s behavior, but we forget that the FOF indirectly enabled a lot of us to treat each other in ways that hurt — I know what Ed means about the “aristocracy.” But hey — move on.
April 17, 2007 at 8:43 am
About the Absolute – an older student friend of mine told me many years ago that it (the Absolute – or did he say “God”?) is, actually, a big Jovial black woman with a loud laughter and huge ass, from which all things appear into existance. Since he told me many other things that I was able to verify as wise and true, I feel safe to share this one with the blog. Even though I have not researched this particular statement for myself 100%, because of attending to more personal matters, I still find that my friend’s model of the Absolute can be trustworthy – otherwise I’d have hard time explaining to myself all these piles of stuff I had and have to deal with in my life.
April 17, 2007 at 9:45 am
Dear Fencerider,
My apologies for making a quip about the long brown path and rhinos,as this was a jest and not to be taken seriously.As for RB’s judgement,I lost all respect for the man after having dined with him and listening to a tirade of self-pity over being victimised by ex-students. Surely a man teaching the 4th way would understand the law of cause and effect.Maybe he expected students leaving the school to act more consciously than him.
As for myself, I am no longer in FOF,and have been supprised by the richness and diversity of experiences and material available since leaving. This is a journey for each of us as individuals, yet we are not alone, and if we are seeking we will attact. When I did leave it was basically in a positive frame of mind, but just clear that it was time to move on. Never the less, there were a few self-instilled fears that I had taken on due to certain fellowship doctrines which I found I had to reason around with the following arguments:
Losing touch with influence C – bollocks,my connection with something higher existed long before I met the school and, like everyone, was a personal thing which developed as I spent more time with myself, in whatever way I was experiencing myself.Also, If I left and found myslf on a bus to the moon then I would simply rejoin which was easy enough as they were always desperate for your money.
The 4th way is a short cut to awakening,it may take you much longer :
Excellent. Didn’t I choose to come and experience this life for the various reasons that that I agreed not to remember and by so doing ,learn the various lessons that I could only learn by doing so.(sorry ,that’s my belief…you don’t have to have that one ).So whats this awfull huury to bypass the experience for AWAKENING, which is …what.
You can’t do it alone, or it will take much longer.
Well Hello , Spirit is eternal, which means I’m going to be doing this here or somewhere else , forever . One thing is certain, I didn’t want to be looking back at a long life wondering why I didn’t experience any more of the long brown path.
I hope this helps with the fence sitting octave’s completion.My intention is not to move you to leave or stay, it’s your experience, and mine isn’t affected either way. Having said, I would tend to trust your gut feeling over anything intellectual as it is more connected to higher self. More ill is created by in-action than trying new paths and correcting them as necessary(if you take the probability of making a wrong choice at 50%, and the probability of being able to correct a wrong choice also at 50 % also). Also, If one takes the concept that perhaps one’s higher self has not just one but many simultaneous incarnations occuring from which to gather experiences,(hey what do I know ), a great deal relativity is gained over the angst and intellectual arguments we are spewing forth over the “right path” on this blog site and our lives in general. All the best
pigs in space time continuim
April 17, 2007 at 9:49 am
Dear bloggers and Sheikh!
I’ve tried to create ‘blog diggest’ in order to translate it to one of a foreign language and post it in an antifofcult web site. I’ m a gratefull blogreader from February 25. But now I’m confused by the blog as you, Sheikh, by the FOF’s first prospective meeting. What is the blog message? RB is crazy a bit – But who is normal? RB has bad sexual habits and abuses naïve people – But “There is no such limiting ‘conscious’ standard” except my (and you) imaginary mind concept about it (see 6/207 from No person). RB lies to students – And Mr.G did it for some ‘conscious’ reasons. RB is just an actor – But people like his performances. FOF is a cult – But everything is a cult more or less, starting from company of friends with a leader and company with boss or octave leader or president of USA and ending with Absolute and Ray of Creation. FOF doesn’t lead to awakening – Yes, for somebody it doesn’t work but it took 30 years to realize it, so sorry, so sad stories. But everybody has no regret but being in the FOF and was happy and expressing a gratitude to RB. Cognitive dissonance – As I get it, this theory explains EVERYTHING – why one thinks or moves or posts a message or join a cult. This is just different expression of system’s idea of “stimulus-response.” So, where is a problem? Where is a message? Who can dare to express it in 100-200 words?
IMHO: “Friend, thou shalt not join ANY community because thou can become a fanatic cult member. You are already complete, conscious being, fully aware of everything. Believe nobody but your heart and conscience. Just BE and rejoyce. We are all ONE. Amen.” – looks useless.
Observing the confusion and formatory thinking, fa
April 17, 2007 at 9:49 am
Dear All.
I actually had the aim to read up to the last postings, but after reading #5/314 I couldn’t help wanting to air this feeling: bravo Clara Elena. Thank you!
April 17, 2007 at 11:57 am
Keith #281
I don’t think i am qualified to answer your questions as this seems to be just what i am trying to figure out myself. But just because i don’t understand something doesn’t mean i won’t pretend i do and give my opinions.
“I am not willing to call this the third state because it rarely, so far, includes the awareness of myself and where i am.”
“Isn’t this essence that is manifesting?”
Do you see the problem here?
Neither the “third state” or “essence” have ever existed or will ever exist as you have imagined they would be. Henry Miller said something to the effect that we die and are reborn again and again each time more ourself.
We are experiencing and exploring the mystery of who we are. The mind says if this much is good more must be better. Lets go get some more good stuff and get rid of the pain and confusion and back to the “second state” we go. Now that one does exist just like we imagine it.
Those “work I’s” are remnants of our long painful struggle (made much more difficult than necessary by our being in the fellowship, but hey, no use crying over spilled time – sorry that took so long, i had to go look in the dictionary how to spell necissary – twice!) out of the delusion life created in us. Speaking for myself i don’t mind them hanging around.
What you wrote about what the non-dualists say seems to be as true a statement as i have ever read but i would add that you are thought also, just my opinion.
Is this just a step on the way? Isn’t all of creation on a step on the way?
You are the poet, the writer, the artist – Keith.
P.S. Just as an aside. I read a theory that the Buddha only attained a “causal” level of conscious development indicated by his teaching of “nirvana” as an escape from “samsara” and didn’t have the “non-dual” realization that they are the same.
April 17, 2007 at 4:07 pm
FoFanatomy (302): There is no message. What you took out of the discussion is very different to what others have taken out of it. I don’t think that it would be easy to sum it all up, neither do I think that anyone in here was/is fully right, or that his/her opinions are more valid than others’.
You see, the FoF is really unimportant, and the only ones who fail to see that are the ones who have been, or are currently members. No one else cares much.
People matter, individuals matter.
But it’s good to reflect, evaluate, and question if you want to make sure that your journey is going in the right direction.
April 17, 2007 at 4:20 pm
Elena 6/290: “As for life, life is in essence and false personality and schools are for essence and true personality. Not that there aren’t great and beautiful people in life, just that they don’t really care to find out who they are or explore with themselves as the anchor and a keel for the world.”
Elena, These very words will keep you strongly bound to the Fellowship. And an attitude like this will also create great suffering for you if you leave with it. From my experience out here (after 20 years in the FOF and 13 years out) this is FOF self-induced brainwashing and complete baloney. If you truly are thinking of leaving, this kind of thinking needs to be left behind or you will continue to experience the me/them big time, and it will make you feel miserable and lost. I hope you can open your mind to greater possibilities than these and see that all this is, is small town thinking and your ‘false personality’ clinging on to the hope that the FOF is something special. Sorry to disappoint you but letting this go is a big step towards healing.
April 17, 2007 at 5:27 pm
P.S. To Innernaut,(280)
This is a correction from:
(290)I hardly use the “we” as much as the “they”, to
In recent posting I hardly use the “we” as much as the “they”.
Elena
April 17, 2007 at 5:59 pm
I found post #273 by “King of Hearts” regarding the King of Clubs to be very interesting. In sticking up for the oft-maligned King of Clubs, I was reminded of another issue that is prevalent in the FOF — the demonization of the body, or “functions.”
Keith, I also hope this will help with your question #281.
This touches on the many statements on this blog that “all we are is consciousness.” I would propose that something nearer the opposite is true — that all we can really be certain of in any given moment is our existence in these bodies, with their thoughts, emotions, sensations, and, yes, awareness. I agree that there is a wordless awareness that exists, but saying it does not originate in the body seems to me a lie, in the 4th way sense of lying.
Which leads to this: I would ask anyone out there to tell me how they have verified that “consciousness is not functions.” Yes, you can make very good arguments that make a lot of sense, but tell me how you can KNOW this in the same way that you can look down and know that you have hands.
Personally, I think the best we can say for sure is that we don’t know. But at the risk of offending many, to say that “all we are and ever have been is consciousness” is absurd.
I am very claustrophobic. When I was in the hospital a few weeks ago, I had to endure several tests such as CAT scans etc where I couldn’t move and the scanning device was right up in my face. I was very sick and I was so terrified I wanted to claw my way out of there — my body felt very real to me then, as it does right now as I sit at my computer.
I discovered in the FOF that I had an almost unlimited capacity to believe information that contradicted what I was directly experiencing. Now, I tend to trust what I actually experience, without an overlay of intellectualizing or theorizing. Sometimes that experience includes heightened awareness.
Due to chronic illness and pain, I have done some exploration of Qi Gong (a form of Tai Chi) and sitting meditation with breath awareness as taught by the Massachusetts Pain Clinic. When I can bring myself to practice these things, they increase my overall awareness — but precisely because they deepen an awareness of the body and its functions, not because they cause a separation of them. When I have been in the worst pain, there is no running away from it. The pain inevitably worsens that way, almost as though it is demanding my attention. Only by going more deeply into the pain, with the intent to experience it fully — because that is what is happening right now in my life — is there any possibility of relief. Often, the relief does not come in the form of reduced pain, but in something we haven’t talked all that much about, but that I feel may be the most important thing of all: acceptance.
Perhaps because our bodies are more tangible and more “common” to our experience, we tend to think of them as less of a mystery than awareness. I tend to believe that they are equally mysterious, and more likely, are not separate things at all.
For many years in the FOF, I read this passage from William Blake’s “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell,” and wondered why it didn’t fit with the information we were being given. Now I think it makes perfect sense with what I am experiencing:
“Man has no Body distinct from his Soul for that call’d Body is a portion of Soul discern’d by the five Senses, the chief inlets of Soul in this age.”
Best wishes all.
PS: Joel F, you were always nice to me. In fact, you more or less encouraged me to leave the FOF when you were in NYC, and it was that very good advice that helped give me the final push over the wall. You wouldn’t remember my real name anyway, I doubt, but thanks just the same.
April 17, 2007 at 6:07 pm
“fofanatomy” (302): I agree with Sheik that you won’t find a “blog message.”
But if had to pick a message, I like the idea that we’re here, and that we’re talking openly. In the Fellowship, we’re not talking openly. Big difference.
For years, people could stand up at meetings and express their own thoughts. But no longer.
For quite some time, GH was conducting a series of relatively open discussions called “symposiums.” We were encouraged to simply talk without raising our hands. But no longer.
For a while, members communicated online within the Fellowship about Fellowship ideas. But no longer.
Freedom of expression is sometimes believed to be some sort of subjective idea promoted by the champions of democracy. We sometimes dismiss it as being irrelevant to the Fellowship.
When someone convinces me that the air that we breathe is unimportant, then I’ll believe that freedom of expression is unimportant.
By the way, I do agree with some of your comments, fofanatomy, and like what you’re trying to say.
April 17, 2007 at 6:14 pm
Dear Keith,
Thank you for your question.
You said: ‘isn’t this after all just another step on the way? Isn’t this a plateau where maybe we can rest a while before moving on?’
In your message I read the answers to your question.
Where is that place of rest? And where is it we are going to move on?
To me, all is occurring within consciousness (and I even can’t call it ‘mine’, because ‘me’ is also occurring there).
When the ‘shift’ in perception happens and one sees oneself as consciousness within which all is arising without a ‘doer’, whatever ‘residual’ thinking might come later, one is unshaken by it. Thoughts are for thinking, body is for living, consciousness is a space where all that is happening.
There are many more things for the mind to understand, for the body and heart to experience, and all comes as joy of living once you are free of the ‘need’ to change anything or to acquire anything. That ‘need’ exists only in the mind of a seeker. Once you’re done with it, there’s only living free and doing what’s necessary to maintain good living for yourself and for those around you.
In that realization there is a deep peace which events in life will not take away.
I am now living an episode of my life, which not long ago would break my heart and bring me to depression. It is not easy, yet now I live this suffering as a source of joy and an amazing in wisdom and beauty event. I think that it is because I see how impersonal it is and I don’t need for it to change in any way.
To me, life with all that it brings is for joyful living, and yes, you can also rest in this state and move freely, knowing that wherever life takes you, you are always here. Where else could you be?
April 17, 2007 at 6:48 pm
So, the question doesn’t seem to come up – what is the teaching today in the FoF and who is doing it (whatever it is).
For those of you Bloggers just arriving and catching up, the NEW form and teaching of the newly morphed FOF looks something like this:
• abandoned 4th way ideas to be a replaced by a kind of mind incantation called the sequence, a series of 6 thoughts eg: be, hold , move, back, be, hold. You are supposed to do this the minute you are even remotely in the moment, which nicely takes you right out of the moment, because you just entered your head to incant the sequence. At the end of this you take 4 breaths and start again.( I don’t know if the breaths are more of a gasp or just normal breathing- which if you didn’t breath, you would be gasping for air anyway.)
• All kinds of symbols from Egyptian times, going back to Prehistoric with a sprinkling of more current 5-11th century visual art interpreted by Robert. These interpretations are greatly (if not entirely) worked out by about 100 people who are researching art books, history, writing etc to see if anything looks interesting and they can contribute to the great things that are being revealed. Really important and interesting stuff is brought to light like: two prehistoric cult figurines , one with a long penis and one with short penis mean Long Be and Short Be in the sequence, or a cave painting depicting a mammoth having a good dump, showing 6 poo droppings (probably 3-4 other poo droppings are illegible due to time eradicating them) means a ‘weak sequence’ (meaning the mammoth did not incant the sequence with any real feeling).
• Asaf, a young attractive, sparkling , sweet, recently arrived (last 3 years) Israeli student with incredible RAM does a good deal of the teaching these days. He was nicely segued into the forefront by Robert.(I guess Roberts energy is giving out- after all it takes a lot of energy to keep working on his ‘night moves’).
• Most students find the shift to Asaf just fine. After all if you are following a cult leader, one is a good as the next. As long as there is a leader who has some charisma . Asaf co-ordinates most of the ‘material’ coming in from the 100+ researchers and puts it into a format so at least it follows some general thought process. Conferring with Robert before every meeting/dinner etc they come up with the teaching for that day. Most of it is interpretations that go nowhere, mean nothing, and can’t even give you a state these days, unless you decide somewhere along the line that this has been given to you to separate from and to work with. The best you can get out of a meeting is either “some pissed off” or to trigger some positive peptides which will give you a mild buzz of ‘euphoric floating off’ much like some tortured prisoners experience when the pain gets beyond the bearable stag. Either way, you get a ‘state’.
• Lunches, dinners, events on the property with other students are beautifully dressed events with wine and music. Conversations can’t go anywhere, because they are broken up every 4-8 minutes with some sweet, smiling believer announcing the ‘opportunity’ for another event that will only cost you $125 or if you want to sit with the main man at the table $250- 350. Asaf does most of the talking anyway at these events, but, hey, you might absorb some of those ‘higher energies’ from the main man by just sitting there and incanting the sequence.
• Any reading, or checking out things for yourself are done in secret. You do not discuss any of what you are up to when you are not on the property with anyone unless it is one of your best friends (but then you never know for sure if they will turn you in or not). It is a bit like going down to SoHo for a good night on the town when the wife goes over to her sisters. You can keep doing whatever it is that feeds your spiritual yearning, but just don’t get caught- or there will be an instant divorce.
• If you really start suffering in your confusion, you are encouraged to do some ‘third line work’ to help bridge your ‘interval’. This can take any form – from washing pots or dishes, serving RB his next dinner, fund raising for RB, cleaning the gardens around the Academy. Just keep busy- it will help you stop from looking inside or thinking about ‘what the hell is going on ?’.
• If you leave the FoF, well, according to the main man, you are dammed for eternity and go to the end of the queue to feed the moon. And , oh, for those staying, do not talk to those who have left- you might catch a virus- and boy , then you never know what might happen to you.
I think that covers the main points.
If possible, maybe someone could deliver a message to Asaf.
Sweetheart, you are a very lovely man, from the little I know of you. You have your looks, your youth, and your brains. Take your sweet new girlfriend ( she is a sweetie also) and get out while you have the looks, youth and brains to do something with your life. I know the power and all the attention feels really good- it is not often a person in one lifetime gets so much attention (big fish is small pond syndrome), but one day you will wake up when you are 40 or 50 and will wonder where your life went- all the things that you could have done, would have done……if only. And your still sweet disposition had not been totally tainted by the perversion and sickness around you. Go on the internet and take a look at all the twisted ‘spiritual teachers’ (including RB) . Leave, don’t become another statistic in the loooonnnng line of spiritual predators. Remember the famous line ‘ ABSOLUTE POWER CORRUPTS ABSOLUTELY
April 17, 2007 at 7:05 pm
Keith, as a follow-up to your question #281, I had a couple more thoughts.
Ouspensky talked of the importance of not working for “results.” This seemed impossible to me for years, but now makes more sense than almost anything. Maybe it’s also related to the idea of “non-doing” or “non-effort,” though I can’t claim to know much about the traditions that these ideas come from.
My biggest breakthrough to date came when I saw, almost in an instant, that nearly everything in me that wanted awakening came from a place that was incompatible with the whole notion. How can vanity to look like an awakened person drive a successful effort to awaken? All of my motivations fell away, revealing nothing but a clear understanding of this paradox: “efforts” to awaken are incompatible with awakening itself.
There is no resolution to this paradox. You have to live in the uncomfortable awareness that is in between.
Also, realize the remarkable state I was in when all this occurred was due in large part to a tremendous physical and mental breakdown, that I am happy to report did not last. Neither did the state, but its afterglow has continued to permeate my thinking and awareness, even this 5-plus years later.
It’s like the episodes with intense pain I referred to in my previous post. If I work to rid myself of the pain, it only gets worse. But if I enter into it as fully as possible, it may get better, or it may get worse, or it may stay the same. But my attitude towards it changes, and I can better accept that this is what I have to experience in this moment in my life.
Another crucial distinction for me involved the very concept of effort. For me, in the FOF, effort meant work, often doing something I didn’t want to do. The motivations behind effort then, for me, are the usual suspects: fear, guilt, shame, reward, etc. When I left the school, there was so much baggage surrounding “efforts,” that I resolved to make none (psychologically, of course I had to have a job), but to only do what proceeded from my own natural desire and understanding. There is a very big difference between “effort” and pursuing something out of your own understanding. The latter feels far more psychologically healthy. Following this course led to less and less “efforts” and to more uncovering of layers of baggage, which in turn led to the breakdown/breakthrough described above.
That’s how it seems to me anyway. Hope it helps.
April 17, 2007 at 7:13 pm
“Can 20,000 x-fofers be wrong?” (242)
No. Everyone gets what he is looking for. To be an acting coach, to explore life to the fullest, to be free of teachers and to follow one’s heart.
The 2,000 in the school are also not wrong. They are a small and specific group of people looking to achieve presence moment by moment without any compromise.
Just depends on the aim.
April 17, 2007 at 7:27 pm
To Bruce (#6/288):
” It’s interesting how much dishonesty has sprung from the FOF efforts to dilute the dialog here.”
Would you care to elaborate about the “dishonesty” and the “dilute the dialog” parts? Do you really see this as a one-sided issue?
Sheikh 6/305:
“You see, the FoF is really unimportant, and the only ones who fail to see that are the ones who have been, or are currently members. No one else cares much.”
Exactly! As our famous Yesri Baba would say, it is all happening between the temples.
A Joel F. memory: At a meeting he was leading in the early 80’s, Joel started by strongly calling on those poor souls attending the meeting about teaching payments. The gist of it was that ‘if you do not know, every single day, why you are paying such (exhorbitant) amounts of money to the school, you may as well throw it out the window or burn it in the fireplace right now (the fire was crakling in the room’s fireplace)”. It certainly made a strong impression on me and I always found Joel highly entertaining. Joel F, Stella W, and to a some extent Charles R, to name those known to this blog, were iconoclastic figures who, while part of the “FOF aristocracy”, brought strong mind-scrubbing to those who cared to listen. I certainly am very grateful to have known them.
April 17, 2007 at 7:31 pm
Dear third Pig,
I clearly underestimated you. Thanks for the wonderful advice. Perhaps someday we will meet on that long brown path.
I guess I have become overly sensitive to the use of monsters to represent the king of clubs which is waiting around every corner to send us into meaningless oblivian (or worse).
When my wife chose to leave, she received comments that her king of clubs had gotten the best of her. Another claimed it was her vanity. I doubt if many even considered the possibility that she might have seen something that they did not see, or simply been ready for a change.
Best wishes and thanks,
FenceRider.
April 17, 2007 at 7:48 pm
Re the Sheik’s comments (305) on the blog’s purpose:
It may be that FOF students and ex-students and associated people could in some sense be thought to comprise a group mind. If so, for most of the years since the FOF’s arising that mind has been very limited and rule bound, unable to see beyond its own constricting walls. Only thoughts and communications that fitted in with Robert’s teachings were admissable. Many real observations and obvious truths were buffered, suppressed and denied.
This blog provides a place where much that was hidden can rise into the light and be weighed and considered by “the FOF mind”. To me this is a very healthy and broadening process, a reintegration of some small truths (and lies) into a larger Truth.
It looks like the process still has a considerable way to go. It’s great to be a part of it!
thanks to all, Rabbi Burns
April 17, 2007 at 8:09 pm
To Elena.
At this point, I think you would be more happy when actively walking a political path.
You demonstrate the right concernes and the right skills. Do you feel the same ?
I do feel you are using the FOF situation to “sharpen your tools” and come closer to what really matters for you.
This does not need to exclude a spiritual path.
I just agree with the idea expressed on a previous post, that since you left the FOF, you should leave!
May you allow yourself to explore another “medium”.
As I wrote this words, a window went bright open in my house causing the “flight” of a bird represented in a painting which fell on the floor, undammaged!
Sincronicity lovers, the case is yours…
Much Love to us all.
April 17, 2007 at 8:23 pm
To Keith – thanks, a nice and relevant topic:
“So I have a question for many of you, especially those of you who are flirting with non-dualism, and those of you who have had apparent shifts in perception that tend to mimic approximately what the non-dualists are pointing towards. I would epecially appreciate responses from Rita, Innernaut, Mark H., Ruddery, Yesri Baba, Rabbi Burns, NotHisRealName, I See Said the, youmeus, half life, Tim, and others too numerous to mention.
The sense of awareness that the non-dualists describe as always being present, always being aware, always being conscious, the consciousness that is what we are, seems to me to have a certain validity. If it is not taken too far.”
Weee- already material abounds in this request for discussion of non-duality for dualistic arguments. Minute ago, I began my search for my personal answers to Keith’s topic in my usual way of the past 30 years or so: I asked self, “What do I have, what have I verified, about non-duality?” And, of course in so doing, I was already locked up so far into duality by the time that the question formed internally, that no answer could be trusted. Who is this dualistic ‘I’ asking the question? Of whom? Where is duality’s time stream that so easily assumed answer could be found in the ‘past’?
We have all been flirting with the concept of non-duality ever since our first ‘B’ influence. Non-duality is at the core of all ways (at least it so seems here), but is seldom recognized. I first began to see ‘something different and normally missed’ after leaving the fof the first time and coming upon Khristnamurti writings. He, I believe, never uses the term’non-duality’, but his writings/talks are filled with that concept. Words like “no boundary seen between you and I”, “the teacher/student relationship holds both back”. “A Course in Miracles” also, at heart is a course in non-duality. “You are the one and only son of God”. A dear friend of mine, another “Robert” by name, has been ‘teaching’ non-duality for years – sometimes I could hear the words, sometimes not. I recently went to the “john Willard” meeting held for mostly ex-fofers in the east and mentioned by many in these posts. Once again the words rang true – but what, after all that, is the experience here?
I personally, do NOT have a “always being present, always being aware, always being conscious, the consciousness that is what we are”. As with trips like “self-remembering”, there here seems a moving in and out of “non-duality”. On the otherhand, the simple action of “grabbing and realizing” true self as conciousness seems to create possibilities not found (here) in self-remebering. It is not “I am here now” as an entity in space-time present but rather an “I am” without boundaries, without time, concepts, memories, knowledge, etc. The experience seems here like an infinite ‘fuzzy background’ that seems self – and out of which is being created time, space, bodies, things, events and more. Occassionally, though rarely here, there is a recognition of ‘being the creator’ of all that – mostly though, just ‘observer’
A couple of concepts also seem to roll out of the experience that, at least here, represent psychological change: 1) A grand and great recognition that all words lie, that nothing real can be said. 2) A tendency, when at least somewhat aware of true self, of “knowing nothing” as an intelligent place from/in which to stand.
I probably know little, if anything, about non-duality; on the otherhand, no concept has affected psychology here so much before – including the very major affect that ‘self-remembering’ had on my life for 30+ years.
Of further relevance here – two years before meeting the FOF, my search began when a very huge spiritual experience occurred:
Having just arrived home, I leaned forward from the couch to turn on TV to “Saturday Night Live”. Immediately, my head was jerked upward and I witnessed what seemed a cloudy, ‘windless tornado’ entering through the roof and into my pineal. I was taken up, “Alice-like” to suddenly be bigger than my house and growing ever-bigger to witness neighborhood, state, continent, earth, solar system. I “became” everything, knowing all, all time all space, everyone, everything – the earth passed into an insignificant spec of my colon.
Twenty or so minutes later, measured by passage of time in the SNL show, I was again Benjamin – wondering what had happened, why and where to from there. Life was irrevocably changed. The relevance here is that the “little” (comparatively) experience of non-duality now compares favorably in some mystic way with that initial experience and thus has to do greatly with acceptance here of non-dulaity.
April 17, 2007 at 9:18 pm
How could we allow it to happen?
Seeing all the contradictions is a pretty painful process. They do not go away, they just get bigger.
But how did we allow all these contradictions and weird invented ideas enter in our minds and hearts?
The difficulty is, they come very slowly one by one. You just do not notice and you do not expect them. One can call it naivety or innocence. It starts with a little irritation here, a twisted idea there, a new rule to work with and a lot of imitation, lack of courage and wanting to be liked.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
When I was new, I was told that the teacher would live together with his wife and mother in a nice house. He would not read a work book before not being in good householder, which meant cleaning his car and his home. I have no idea if I just totally misunderstood the person who was centre director at the time, but anyway. (Maybe Shelley 6/272 did a better job in preparing people)
Here I was arriving as a young man at Oregon House with this picture of the teacher in my mind, who was washing his car in front of his home, while mom and his wife were stitching in the living room, with a work book waiting for him on the table. I guess I should not have watched American TV-series as a kid, but in my picture it was a typical suburban American house with a nice clean American car parked in front.
Well – the house surpassed my expectation, as did the cars. Not being able to find Mom and the wife did not really spoil the picture. I just thought, you must have misunderstood your well caring centre director, who may even not have known any better.
Then after four days I had my first diner with RB. A big disappointment, not only because I was told he does not clean his car himself. I felt guilty of not being impressed. Only years later I found out that most people I asked were not impressed when seeing RB for the first time and they all felt, it was their own fault. Prove me wrong if your first impression was different, but I believe our own intuition knows something is wrong, but we have just not learned to trust it.
Since having noticed that RB was escorted by young man only and still not being able to find his wife at the kitchen window, I started to wonder. I started to ask and was told he used to be celibate for many years but only recently started to be with man. Surprise, surprise, ok, I thought, different lanes for different brains, if that is his choice – still not even being able to get the whole picture. One of the boys of his encourtage had given me a ride the day before, playing loud rock music in his car. For me that meant, he is definitely not a student but a worker. Yes indeed very formatory, I know, but hey, I was expecting the highest.
I must admit that during the first days at Renaissance I thought most of the people I saw at the property were hired personal and that was where all the teaching payment went. The mind is a clever thing (maybe not so clever in this case) and will always look for a way to create balance and avoid contradictions. My mind told me, ahh then this person who gave me a ride yesterday is probably a professional male prostitute from San Francisco, which they hired for the teacher as his friend. Well you know how fare I was from reality, but somehow this made the situation ok, since I was not in the target line, at least I could imagine that for a while.
So I could forget about it and made friends with beautiful people from all over the world. By the time the next weird revelation was on the menu I already had many friends who somehow seemed to be more important than caring about the strange news, possible rumours, and allowing to feel the contradiction.
I think everybody in FOF knows these games of ones mind to make things OK and everybody had his set of justifications and wild theories. I still find a lot of them in this blog.
It allows people and allowed me to accept false prophesies, invented ideas, horrendous payments and still not feel the horror of the situation.
As an example, on one occasion we had a European meeting in Berlin in early 90’s. The Lady who was the travelling “teacher” declared that RB had moved on to a next level and we are now on the fifth way, the way of love. I think new labels were as popular as new art hobbies, since they somehow gave the illusion of progress. Being out for many years I realize reading some posts, that I am totally not up to date with all the new labels.
But back to Berlin – she, being married to a “healed homosexual” said, this ‘way’ does not allow students to engage in homosexual activities and went on about it in length. There were about 80 people in the room, who had come from all over Europe. Nobody reacted or said anything to comment it. It was total nonsense to say, but prepared the next generation of young male students to expect a decent man cleaning his car in front of the house, waving to mom. I guess some were sitting in the audience thinking, “See I knew it, all only rumours from negative people”.
I also did not say anything and I regret it. So I let it happen till the pain was over and we all did as if everything is perfectly normal and ok. I am sure everybody who has been in the FOF knows many situations like that.
We all had learned not to listen to our hearts and ignore the obvious. And we all had learned that addressing contradictions had the price of having to leave our friends and comfort. We even had theories, why all the lies and the narcistic behaviour is a perfectly written play or a difficult role to play, that they are part of awakening and so on. We just forgot what we came for and our conscience was covered under a pile of labels.
The king is really naked.
But only the innocent child can see it.
April 17, 2007 at 9:19 pm
Does anybody know the real story of Kimo Beech, “the student who damaged his large accumulator”?
April 17, 2007 at 9:43 pm
my e-mail address came up wrong on my last post. it is theplace@rockisland.com.
Thank you Cathie and Yesri Baba your thoughts are much appreciated. #246 “It is also my opinion that arriving at that awareness is the begining of the line not the end of it.” This popped up after I entered my last post and mirrors my current sense of the question. It seems that when this awareness manifests it is quite content with the plateau that it is on and needs nothing further. It can see quite well from where it is, thank you. Why look any farther? This becomes more of an intellectual dilema when not in that state than in it.
Loved #273 King of Hearts
I have always been confused as to why so many people attribute the actions and attitudes of false personality to the King of Clubs. Is it simply because RB says so? Must be. I guess he never read much Ouspensky or Gurdjieff.
April 17, 2007 at 9:57 pm
(290) (“As for life, life is in essence and false personality and schools are for essence and true personality. Not that there aren’t great and beautiful people in life, just that they don’t really care to find out who they are or explore with themselves as the anchor and a keel for the world.”)
Elena:
More than two decades out of the Fellowship and I still find myself having to check these thoughts about “life” and “life people.” They evidently connected very strongly to one or more of my features, vanity obviously among them. I do know what you’re saying, believe me, and I can understand your grief at the thought of being surrounded exclusively by “sleeping machines,” but such is not the case. The concepts of “life,” “life people,” “schools,” etc., may be temporarily useful–maybe–but they’re just concepts, and they quickly become toxic ones at that; look at what they’ve done to your own mind.
I’ve met many, many people who have never heard of the Fellowship and yet are plainly trying to awaken and, it appears to me, with some success (although it took me a while for my vanity to admit it). For that matter, I don’t think I’m just kidding myself in believing that my own work has continued since I stopped making teaching payments. A little trust in life beyond FOF is warranted, Elena. The more I see of the Universe, the more its benevolence has been revealed.
(282)
Keith:
The mind may always generate questions, but that doesn’t mean we have to search for answers.
April 17, 2007 at 10:14 pm
re: 268 Ruddery:
‘I have had three major “third state” night time dreams’
I have also had third state experiences while in the first state dreaming. I’ve also experienced the third state while in the state between the first and second where one is trying very hard to stay in the second; like when driving while drowsy (I always pull over for a nap now).
The usual descriptions of the four states of consciousness describe these as a continuum. One goes from one to the other. This definition is good most of the time. Another way to look at it for me is that the third state is added to whatever part of the first or second state one happens to be in. Usually that is a higher second state when the third state is coincident with an effort to evoke it but not always.
What you may have experienced is lucid dreaming. Google the phrase for lots of information. One aspect of lucid dreaming is that one is quite aware of the fact that one is dreaming and regards everything happening to one from that understanding. This frees one from any feelings of inner considering or morality or feminine domanince. You did not mention anything about this in your posting.
One thing interesting in reading about lucid dreaming is that there are many people who are trying to acquire this skill. Control over this gives one the ability to fly or have sex or anything else one might want to experience in a dream. I got the feeling from reading about it that practitioners of lucid dreaming experience much more lucidity in their dreams than they do when they are awake.
This is a question I try to ask myself when I can remember to. How lucid am I right now? How real is this moment to me? Usually trying to become more lucid for me is exactly like trying to say out of the first state when driving. It takes the same kind of moment to moment effort.
April 17, 2007 at 10:14 pm
Tales of the Interregnum, 1.
(Note: in this case, the interregnum is the time when the internal controls of the fof programming, ideas of the 4th way, and “work personality” had started to slip away, but before my own understanding could retake internal control.)
It was 1994, shortly after having left the fof, and struggling to understand what had really happened over the preceding 22 years. At a church meeting room in San Francisco, I was attending meetings of a support group for former members of HIHCCGs. (The word “cult” seems to trigger people, so I’m using Margaret Singer’s description: “high intensity, high control, closed groups”).
Among the 20 or so participants, representatives of many HIHCCGs. Each briefly described what had brought them to the meeting, some quite fearfully. As the stories went on, I became more and more uncomfortable. Whether overtly or by intimation, each person was at pains to picture the “special” quality of their group, maybe as part of a rationalization of why they had committed themselves so completely.
Soon these impressions became mutually exclusive. If group A was “special” because of the social awareness fostered there, group B was “special” because its members were going to quietly save the world. But wait, group C was “special” because of the keen appreciation they had been taught for nature, and group D was “special” because of their leader’s incredible discernment, humor and access to secret knowledge.
Not all of these groups were “spiritual” of course, but the feeling of “special ness” was astoundingly routine and unquestioned, with long explanations of what was really wonderful in the group’s teachings or the person of the leader.
My discomfort clearly traced to my own feelings that the fof was truly “special.” Could it be that there was no difference between the fof and these other HIHCCGs that seemed just utterly bizarre and wacky to me? Or between our “special, conscious” leader and the leaders of these other groups, each of whom, in the descriptions of their followers, seemed obviously dysfunctional, probably psychotic, and someone I (as a rational person, mind you) would run away from if I ever happened to meet them? Huh?
I left the meeting more confused than when I had arrived, although I would go back for more meetings over the coming months. But this is where a wedge was driven, in my thinking, between the “content” of the fof and the “process” of what actually went on there. I began to understand why Margaret Singer was completely unconcerned about the high purpose of what we had studied and practiced in the fof, and just laughed when we tried to get her to talk about it.
Yes, the “content” was irrelevant—consciousness, great artworks, fine dining, travel, and all the rest—might be legitimate studies, but had absolutely nothing to do with the “process” that brought people into the group, tied them to it, and made it almost impossible to leave without real personal trauma.
Gradually I came to understand the fof as just another HIHCCG, no different really than any other in its workings. This has been a blessing. It’s just another whacked-out HIHCCG with a charismatic leader and his bunch of rationalizing captives, of which I used to be one. It has also brought me to where the Sheik is:
“You see, the FoF is really unimportant, and the only ones who fail to see that are the ones who have been, or are currently members. No one else cares much.
People matter, individuals matter.”
Thanks for reading.
April 17, 2007 at 10:38 pm
RE fofanatomy # 302 & Sheik #305:
I don’t know about the blog, but here are some ground rules of day-to-day living I have found useful:
1. We are all born suckers.
It is easier to believe than to verify. And it is most convenient to believe that everyone has our best interest at heart, especially if they tell us so. (parents, authority figures and all other types of advertisiers). But “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on ME.” We don’t need to always “get it right”, but to learn from our experiences.
2. We all “seek the good” – or what we think is good for us at the time.
If there is one motivation behind all actions, from saint to sinner without exception, it is to “seek the good”, or one’s own self-interest (or, if you like, well-being). What you seek may not actually be good for you, like eating a 1/2 gallon of icecream to make you feel better, but “it sounds like a good idea at the time”.
3. Life is a continuous learning process and we get the most benefit from it by constantly remembering points 1 & 2.
At the end of the movie biography based on Gurdjieff’s book tiled “Meetings with Remarkable Men”, the abbot of the monastary tells him as he is about to leave: “Now it is time for you to go back into life and measure yourself against forces that will show you your place.”
The more honestly you can “measure yourself against forces that will show you your place”, the closer you will be to the reality of your current situation. And the better you can protect yourself from others seeking their “good” at your expense!
As for the TRUTH, that is a whole other matter.
April 17, 2007 at 10:42 pm
To Yesry Baba #292
I wasn’t answering a ‘deep sleep’ question at all and even forgot that you were the one to mention it. (You just wouldn’t be the one asking such questions here, as it looks to me).
I don’t think that in your original message to No person you were really asking about this – clearly, that was not your concern, and your message was about something different, which she has not necessarily noticed.
Background: reading a book I came across the story about the Buddha, words about ‘awareness in sleep’ associated with ‘some people on the blog were seriously writing something about…’, I speculated on the subject, almost talking to myself.
What was personally for you – only the two last comments on your messages.
Much love
PS I’m agree on the meditation
April 17, 2007 at 10:52 pm
Kiran, your story about the FOF wanting you to sign your business over to them while you were at death’s door reminds me of a student in London called Roger. He was an older gentleman, who was dying and signed a lot of money over to the FOF on his passing for the purpose of building a hostel for students who were unable to afford a visit to Renaissance (as it was then). Plans were drawn up and he was convinced that it would be built but it never was and who knows what happened to the money? That left a very nasty taste in my mouth, he was such a generous man, and this betrayal was one of the factors that helped me to see that RB has no conscience.
The Third Pig – I was wondering about your name; the third state? the third force? the third eye? The third little pig who built his house of brick so the wolf could not blow his house down? All of the above? I like your approach and agree wholeheartedly; we are on our own and have to rely on what seems to be right at a point in time, any errors will be corrected by our internal compass, and nothing can be learned except through our own personal experience, risk taking and courage….after all what have we to lose?
Sheik, you are wrong, the FOF does not matter to some ex-members, apart from the fact that it was part of our past experience and got us to where we are now. You are right in that individuals matter which is why some ex-members like myself keep blogging – because we feel we have some idea what current or wavering students are experiencing and want to share with them how it feels to be ‘in life’ – we are wallowing like pigs in the mud of life and find it to be delicious and natural and stimulating, with the pungent smell of a combination of rotting matter and sweet earth capable of nourishing new growth. Pigs live a good life, especially when they are free roaming in their natural surroungings, not cooped up in some artificial factory designed for the profit of greedy men.
April 17, 2007 at 11:19 pm
“Yesri Baba,” #286
“Ed Weston,” #291
“I’ll give it a try,” #299
Let’s see, it took 2 posts from me before I got flamed. Perhaps it’s past history, and not so much what I wrote?? Coulda been worse, I guess.
To be honest, I have no interest in most of the discussions going on here. But I love the stories, especially about “what must not be told” and really enjoy the posts from people I once knew.
My “shout-outs” were to people I knew, who either posted (or someone else posted their stuff) using their real name, and those few I’d like to connect with again. Can’t really say hello or connect to those posting anonymously, or those who’ve joined in the last 14 years, now can I?
Certainly I was often (and often regret having been) a “supercilious jerk” and a “complete a-hole” while infof, hopefully a little less so now, but who’s to say? Nevertheless, my bad for my actions, then or now.
Which leads me to ask: if you are no longer infof, why post here anonymously? I’m not saying you shouldn’t, but curious why it’s necessary. Any takers?
Thanks again,
JoelF
April 18, 2007 at 1:41 am
“Henry Miller said something to the effect that…”
” I read a theory that the Buddha only…”
Is it only me or does anyone else here agree that quoting someone is simply formatory mind taking up space? Anyone???
I know we have been conditioned to think that quoting some “conscious being” is a noble thing to do, but, Jesus, doesn’t anyone think for themselves anymore? Rather, doesn’t anyone THINK?!?!
Had tea with an FOFer recently and almost the entire time was “So-and-So says this and So-and-So says that…” Thought I would puke on the spot!! Too many people imitating Robert. Let’s be more original, shall we? What next?? Cupping one’s hand to the ear and saying: “What’s that dear?”
I work with Mentally Ill people and they seem to have more on the ball than you idiots…
April 18, 2007 at 1:54 am
Keith says: “Isn’t this essence that is manifesting? The awareness behind the noise and confusion of our formatory minds? Have I just become tired of struggling with the pointless repetitious thinking and when that drops away there it is, essential awareness?”
Hello Keith and friends,
Thank you for the tone of your exploration. It does bring some peace.
I wish to give you a late thank you for the note you wrote related to me back at the beginning of my participation. Since I consider this a public forum I do try to keep away from personal attacks or embraces to individual people so that the tendency of these to fall on the positive or negative halves and end up in elitist groups, has less chance of developing. At the same time I hope it is not too late to acknowledge the kindness of yours and other’s postings and say thank you.
The few experiences I have had of the kind of awareness, I understand you are talking about have, with some help, brought me to try to bring them down to life in the second state or our standard perceptions of life with a more intentional or conscious aim. I have basically tried to address the dullness with which life is perceived in lower states; The lack of meaning in small and big endeavors.
“Consciousness” or “awareness” or “high states” as understood in the system seem not so rare amongst many of us, my question would be, how can the understandings that these states bring, become practical and not simply a passing and momentary “gift”.
While I would agree with you that the states can come sometimes with no effort, I’d also say that they come more often after consistent effort and no matter how they come they have always been perceived by me as gifts. Not from higher entities as much as perhaps the gift of a realm that has allowed to be accessed after consistent effort.
In the many angles given, there seems to be a discussion on the fact of simply knowing that one is as it being sufficient. No effort needed. What I am understanding is, that for some here, individual awareness is sufficient onto itself. Please correct me if I am misunderstanding.
My question would be, if all that matters is individual awareness, would we not be better off working with the way of the Fakir or the Yogi, instead of the fourth way? Surely any one of those ways can achieve greater and greater higher individual states than either of the other two in the short run and while it seems absolutely wonderful it doesn’t seem enough for a fourth way enterprise. The point is, individual practice on its own, or the way of the fakir and the yogi are paths in which there’s a renunciation of certain aspects of life: pleasure, sex, and the external world is worked with as an illusion but as I understand the fourth way, it means to embrace the external world as a reality and what matters is how you embrace it or reject it, not how you avoid it.
Perhaps I could ask, what have been other’s understandings in higher states? Has the state limited itself to the extension of the individual person or as some mention extended itself to an awareness of the unity in all things? The extrasensory perceptions of the molecular and electronic world as Rodney Collin put it? And if these “states” have brought that “consciousness,” how is it possible to act with that understanding of the connectedness of all things when one is not necessarily in the “high state”?
Being able to bring the high state “down” to the four lower centers and keeping it in the kings in one’s daily routines is what I understand as external consideration in a deep sense of the word, towards objects, nature or people.
It is not that Robert does not imply this in his teaching for I do believe he does in every small exercise, it is that he does not seem to give objective value to the world around the individual and by not doing so, fails to honor it.
I hope I make better sense this time because perhaps I was screaming so loud that you couldn’t understand what I was trying to say in previous mails.
April 18, 2007 at 1:54 am
Shelley:
Thanks for your heartfelt post (272). We all do the best we can, but I’ve heard very few stories of anyone holding their ground with Robert. Somehow I doubt he’s been inspired to offer an apology very many times; seems you did him a great service. (I remember you well, BTW, and am glad to see you sounding so well.)
Joel:
Good to hear your voice, too!
Paul A.
April 18, 2007 at 3:13 am
#295 ex-lax 101
Ex-lax dearest. If you check back to your last post to Elena you will see the words “i am done with you”
Your higherness.
April 18, 2007 at 3:27 am
The non-dualist approach to explaining consciousness reminds me of first reading St. Anselmo ontological argument about the existence of God, something like: “God’s essence bespeaks its existence”. I am sure there is a lot more to it, but it gave me fits at the time.
It seems that when one of us asks a question about non-dualist consciousness, we immediately get: who is asking? it is your mind again… etc… I confess that I have not investigated the subject very much, but when I hear of 1st state consciousness being one and the same with 3rd state consciousness, hmmhh… I hear the argument but I do not find it practical.
I have verified for myself (assuming I am not totally numb-skulled) that the experiences of my life get deeper, fuller, more “satisfying” the closer I am to a third state, and that my life vanishes as the sand in a hour glass whenever I am closer to first state (to use 4th way linguo). So what? Does it matter? It still matters to me. Maybe I trained myself to be an state-obsessed, selfish (not really) dyonisian who wants to enjoy his life more fully.
April 18, 2007 at 3:33 am
#314…No, I don’t see this as one sided, and I think if one has followed most of the pages within this blog my reference to dishonesty and dialog dilution from the FOF shills is fairly self evident. If it’s not, pass it by, if it rings a bell, also fine. I’m not in the business of explaining myself for the benefit of others. It’s like putting lipstick on a pig…it’s too difficult to do and a waste of energy…and it upsets the pig.
April 18, 2007 at 4:01 am
Elena (#330): “Being able to bring the high state “down” to the four lower centers and keeping it in the kings in one’s daily routines is what I understand as external consideration in a deep sense of the word, towards objects, nature or people.”
A practical approach that has been helpful in my experience is meditation (Vipassana, for me). Just sit in silence, focusing attention on the breath, allowing thoughts to arise and pass on without trying to stop them or follow them, just returning attention to the breath again and again. You can do it any time, it doesn’t even have to be a formal practice.
All those mind-notions about the fourth way, lower centers, the Kings, external consideration, etc. are revealed to be just that: mind-notions. They recede into the background and eventually fall away, and there is just the breath: presence, spaciousness, awareness. You don’t have to bring anything down to anywhere. It’s already there.
The mind wants to make it complicated and difficult. It’s really not.
Hope this helps.
April 18, 2007 at 4:33 am
Joel —
I love the old stories too — how about you give us a couple?
I remember a meeting you led in a hotel in NYC in early 1983. You asked if we wanted to talk about a “work topic,” or hear one of your stories. “Story!” came the reply. I don’t remember what came after that (sorry), but I’m sure you could offer up something more “intriguing” now anyway.
Personally, I post anonymously for a couple of reasons. One is that, in the beginning on this blog, a FOF lawyer made some weird accusations that were completely baseless, with the facts turned around 180 degrees, but it was enough to remind me that I don’t want to get entangled in that kind of crap. Staying anonymous prevents me from having to “Be Careful…”
The other reason is that I frankly don’t want my employers/relatives to know these details about me. Staying anonymous lets me post very personal bits of information that I would otherwise self-censor out of concern (Google searches of names do show one’s participation in this blog).
Maybe I’ll “come out of the closet” sometime. But for now this suits me.
April 18, 2007 at 5:17 am
To Little Suzy 306
Thank you for your willingness to look at the extent of the ideas I’ve presented.
It is unfortunate that even after being in the Fellowship for so long, we still have such a strong inclination to disregard what is being said, not look at the ideas and just cling to the one that will give one, the opportunity to oppose. Your reaction is not really surprising since second line was never developed inside and there are even less chances, to develop it out here.
False personality, to me, is meant simply as not real, without the negative connotation that you believe it implies. Not real, in that there is nothing permanent in it. True personality requires a degree of Real I.
Many work terms that many of you seem to prefer to drop but that for me make it easier to understand what we’re trying to say. Not that I really have any hope of developing a second line out here or a strong desire to be connected with the Fellowship for a long time after leaving it.
April 18, 2007 at 5:40 am
If any of you have had the misfortune recently of looking at the FOF Wikipedia page, you probably will have noticed the total lack of any material of even a neutral, much less critical nature, on the page. It has fallen to a dedicated cadre of fofanatics who have declared that only the FOF itself, via its own webpages, is a valid source for any information about the FOF and have whittled away at all of the initial material, plus all additions from Veronica Poe and replaced it with FOF propaganda of the most blatant sort. The leader, to judge from the time spent in the endeavour, appears to have been formally appointed by the FOF to just the accomplishment of this task, and performs it with zeal and diligence, and an appallingly hypocritical unctuousness that makes Abraham seem the model of candour and sincerity.
This is, then, basically a call for help. Many of you decry the secretive nature of the FOF and wish its history and tactics were more openly known – not just to its own members, but also to the public at large which still may not easily find clear information. Any one of you can become an editor at any time.–Wikipedia is totally open to input. I know that many of you have access to very relevant materials that could play a central role in re-establishing a real source of information to those who need it quickly and clearly. You can use your real name if you wish, or be totally anonymous. The rules are fairly simple – this works:
clean, unemotional, concise material from solid sources – published material (books, newspapers, television coverage, court papers, websites – but not this blog, sorry); what does not work: personal experience or knowledge, opinions, speculations.
It can be tedious dealing with all the edits, counter-edits, and counter-counter edits, but this is the nature of the medium. As it stands, the FOF now has a shiny new propaganda tool for sucking in more naïve seekers, a much more immediate, well known and trusted source of information than its own webpages. You have the power to stop that, if you wish. Just go to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fellowship_of_Friends
and click on the “create an account” link at the upper right. A review of the “discussion” tab will help familiarize you with some of what has happened and what some of the issues are. A review of the “edit” tab, though more time consuming, will also be informative. When you want to add something, come back to the main page, click on “edit this page” and help however you can.
Thank you.
April 18, 2007 at 8:12 am
# 316 Rabbi Burns
Exactly! As i wrote quite a ways back that is what i am doing here, letting this long buried stuff come up and share some of my thoughts about that stuff. Though it may piss me off i appreciate getting called out on some of it but Ex-lax that comment about “Fox news” was way below the belt.
April 18, 2007 at 9:18 am
Ex-lax 101
I apologize for the post that attacked you. It was mean spirited and i regret it. It seemed to me that you were invalidating experiences i had in the past and throwing around ideas i don’t agree with. I was pissed and threw the same back at you. As Henry Miller said: “That kind of shit never comes to any good.”
April 18, 2007 at 9:42 am
Re: Rabbi Burns, 6/316
“It may be that FOF students and ex-students and associated people could in some sense be thought to comprise a group mind. If so, for most of the years since the FOF’s arising that mind has been very limited and rule bound, unable to see beyond its own constricting walls. Only thoughts and communications that fitted in with Robert’s teachings were admissible. Many real observations and obvious truths were buffered, suppressed and denied.”
I wonder if these statements are simply the result of a clash between a reality that greatly differs from one’s expectations.
The school, at least in my 20+ years, has only offered one product, and that is self-remembering. You could say it comes with a by-product of self knowledge.
People join the school for different reasons; some follow the lead of friends, relatives or mates. Others are curious, or seek adventure; maybe the school provides the outlet to leave a foreign country in a way not normally open to them.
But I believe most join because they hear about self-remembering and are strongly attracted to living a life centered on pursuing this concept.
When we join the school we understand the relationship correctly; the school, through the teacher, offers to show us the way from sleep to consciousness. Many things are known by us yet go unstated. We understand, from several sources, that Influence C sets the curriculum and the teacher, as their intermediary, interprets their wishes. We are told of the metaphor of a prison; we are the ones locked in, the ones who need help, the ones who came to the school to be helped, and the school/teacher are the ones who know the way out. We also understand if this is to happen we must give up our self will.
In the beginning all this is relatively easy, but then we settle into the reality that the race we have entered is more like a marathon as opposed to a sprint. The small will becomes impatient, restless and more and more wants to express itself. And if we have not really sacrificed it, or at least started to, it comes back with a vengeance.
Then one day we realize we have an “agenda” very different than what we are receiving. It does not occur to us that WE have broken the contract, not the school. The school continues to offer all the self remembering we can handle. We can have more than our share if we want, because there are always others who are leaving some or all of their portion on the table.
As far as “limited and rule bound”;again, we give up something small in return for something much bigger that comes later(real will). A quote by Robert that’s proved helpful to me is: “Everyone wants to be Hercules, but without the Labours”.
The “rules” i.e., school exercises, are not gratuitous but can show us many things about ourselves and are a big part of what works about the school.
Likewise, I don’t see the school as being “unable to see beyond its own constricting walls”. To me the system ideas have been incredibly liberating, allowing me to build on this knowledge and apply it to most areas in a useful way.
“Many real observations and obvious truths were buffered, suppressed and denied.”
I’m not sure what Rabbi Burns means here. People in the school work at their own pace. At any given time there will be those who are buffering, suppressing, expressing negativity, etc. But this is not the school’s fault. We are what we are; we fall down and get up and try again.
If he means he tried to give his own understandings and they did not meet with the approval of others, we all go through that. Maybe they did not fit into the school’s “curriculum”, maybe they fell on insensitive ears. In any event it’s good not to identify with our own thoughts, desires, or with those of others.
April 18, 2007 at 10:14 am
Paul A. re 331
Thanks for your comment. Hope you are well. Check out http://www.talkingwithangels.com for more details on my activities.
Skeptical Optimist re 296
Hi Joel. Glad you enjoyed my post. Sheik is doing a fantastic service, don’t you think? Can’t imagine where this is all going. Hope all is well with you.
A ps to my 272 post:
Irony of ironies… when The Last Temptation of Christ premiered at the Venice film festival I informed my (then) husband (a portrait painter) that one of the main actors (Keitel) was a “life” friend of mine. Well, he’d been in the fof too long by that time to have ever heard of him but he immediately wanted to paint his portrait since the film was creating quite a buzz. I made contact with Harvey but he was too busy to sit for a painting however, it renewed my acquaintance with him, which of course lead to Harvey (HOLY SMOKES!) doing a portrait of my husband! (I think this is where the Twilight Zone theme music fades in.)
Cheers,
Shelley
April 18, 2007 at 10:46 am
Dear Joel,
Feel free to come to the North Yuba food and wine festival on Saturday at Texas hill road.
You might meet many in and outies and friends just nice people.
Joy to all of you reading or not.
April 18, 2007 at 1:38 pm
HELP (338): This is actually quite serious. I have been watching the wikipedia entry for some time and while I wasn’t too glad about the battle that was being waged there between pro-FoF and against-FoF, at least there was enough information there for anyone to make up their own mind.
As it is now, a lot of the stuff is untrue. There is incomplete information on the fees, false information on the teacher, false information on the status of the school, etc.
I don’t currently have the time to do anything about it, or get involved in it, but I am sure that some of you guys may find a couple of minutes a day to help in the struggle. Once I get the time, I will try to do something too. If things don’t get better (ie. the information in the article stays untrue and one-sided), it will most probably be deleted.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fellowship_of_Friends
April 18, 2007 at 3:24 pm
Dear Sheik,
almost 50 posts a day. Nobody can expect from you to do this as a hobby if it continues like this. Why don’t put a ‘Donate button’ from Paypal.com on your side, and whoever feels like it can express his valuation for your efforts and support this project.
April 18, 2007 at 3:57 pm
#328 Skeptical Optimist: I read the 4th way books for a few years before I was ‘struck’with the notion that “I” needed a school. And, so “I” went in search. I met jose and susan placing bookmarks in a ‘esoteric’ bookstore.
No offence intended but I either met you or judged you from a distance. An “I” within me said, “side step him”. I was too fresh and unfamiliar with work words at the time.
Anyway, I too noticed how quick supercilious jerk and “complete a-hole” came up. “photographs” perhaps?
I enjoyed the book “Body Types” and totally believe in the “force of ideas” connected with the 4th way.
April 18, 2007 at 3:59 pm
Howard re 341:
After all that has been said on this blog, you present Fellowship of Friends for Dummies. My first reaction was that some were correct in hypothesizing that “Howard Carter” is a pseudonym for one or more FOF propagandists, assigned to play FOF advocate on the blog, like one of those inflatable dolls that keeps popping back up, smiling, after you knock it down. I still consider that a possibility, but also consider it possible that you’re actually a member with 20+ years invested, trying your best to say what you believe. If that’s the case, I’m not sure why you bother. After all, it should be apparent to you by now that the former members here are very familiar with all the notions you present, and eventually found them less than convincing.
My friend, do you really imagine it’s because they weren’t up to the task, while you are? That you’re Hercules, and they’re all self-deluding slackers? What do you suppose it might take for you to come to the conclusion that there may be something fundamentally important and true about the relationship between the FOF and work on one’s self (non-dualists, stay calm) that the collective hundreds of person-years of FOF membership revealed to the other bloggers on this site that has yet to become apparent to you? Or is that an impossibility for you?
You say:
“‘Many real observations and obvious truths were buffered, suppressed and denied.’
I’m not sure what Rabbi Burns means here.”
True dat. Now, do you really want to know what Rabbi Burns means, or do you just want to keep telling yourself that as long as you keep trying to remember yourself, nothing else matters?
April 18, 2007 at 4:16 pm
Hey Joel,
I’d be interested in your take on our friend here “Howard Carter” — how would his latest post (#341) be de-constructed through your HIHCCG training/experience?
PS: Martin from Berlin, great story in #319. Thanks.
April 18, 2007 at 4:21 pm
JoelF:
I agree with you about Margaret Singer. She was a mensch and a hoot. I had a good yak with her once and was glad for it. I use her descriptor HIHCCG, also her phrase “exploitative persuasion.”
Howard Carter:
If you are really interested in remembering your self, try reading a book by Salovey and Singer (not Margaret), called _The Remembered Self_. It’s not an easy read but it may affect the way you see yourself and the stories you tell about your life.
Shelley:
Your story about the phone conversation (he becomes a woman) brings to mind another interesting read: _The Three Christs of Ypsilanti_ by Milton Rokeach. Three institutionalized patients, each of whom believes himself to be Jesus Christ, are brought together at Ypsilanti State Hospital in Michigan and their interactions are observed and analyzed. Rokeach puts together a fascinating book on belief systems. It’s not in print but it was a trade paperback which can be found with a little searching.
April 18, 2007 at 5:10 pm
Yes, Sheik, I agree with Martin – Paypal “donate” button doesn’t hurt. I wanted to send you “couple bucks” long ago for all your selfless efforts to provide a place for all of us to express our thoughts… Money is one (nice) way to express gratitude.
Please allow us to do this, unless you really hate the idea.
Thanks again.
April 18, 2007 at 5:20 pm
#335 Cathie’s post to Elena:
Elena: I couldn’t have said it better. Cathie has great advice for you, and I would agree. The only way to know oneself is to observe oneself and meditation is the key. A silent mind can observe whereas a busy mind is a busy mind, no matter what it’s busy with.
I see nothing wrong with the Fourth Way System. In fact, it’s better than most at describing things and to use as a means to be more objective in ones thinking, but what has happened to our conversation is just an example of how things can be miscommunicated within it.
My advice to you was actually coming from my heart and my own experiences. Again, the written and spoken word seems flawed in expressing feelings.
When I left the Fellowship I was an emotional mess for some time. I couldn’t hold a job, I was sick a lot, and I felt powerless. But in leaving, I came to realize what had to change was myself and not what I I was observing outside of the Fellowship. There is and was no quick fix for anyone leaving the Fellowship. Many have said it’s one of the most difficult things they ever had to do, and I would agree. The Fellowship was my home, my family, my life.
But now I have a life filled with many new experiences and wonderful people, some of which I met in the Fellowship that continue to be my best friends. I have also met new friends that were never in the Fellowship that I relate to just as well. Not to say that all people interest me because they don’t. I have few friends, but the ones I have I cherish. And they love me right back which for me is fertile grounds to continue growing spiritually out here.
April 18, 2007 at 6:14 pm
Re Howard Carter 6/341
I find Howard to be a very good example of the type of people for whom the FoF works, and it is heartening to see you continue to post here. There are a few aspects of your posts that I find illustrative of why it has stopped working for me, and I suspect they are common to many others.
I joined the FoF thinking it was a 4th way school, as I understood the term. I think that very gradually, over the years, the FoF has stopped being the 4th way, and has become the way of the monk, or a devotional way. This is not to say that it does not use many of the same tools. Self remembering, non-expression of negative emotions, etc. are all core ideas. However, the role of the teacher has morphed into a god-like figure, who has a direct pipeline to C-influence, etc., and we are asked to suspend our critical faculties (what ever happened to verification and not lying?).
Much of the entire framework of the FoF is the creation of RB and is not the 4th way. We have fallen into the habit of speaking about these things as if they were simply true: RB’s conception of c-influence, the way they manifest on our level, his relation to them, his role as a prophet/avatar/consolidator of all the work of schools in the past 20,000 years, the role of the school, our evolution and how it is likely to occur (lifetimes, etc.) — all of these things are not to be found in Gurdjieff or Ouspensky, and are very much in common with either the mainstream religions as they are currently practiced, that is in their exoteric forms, or with a person who thinks of himself as a messenger of god. Angels hovering about us, bestowing grace and states, constant efforts will add to our cosmic bank account and if we are lucky after death our infant souls will be placed in divine purgatory (incidentally with room for only 30K souls I believe) after which we will be reborn, hopefully next time in a ‘conscious role’…. These are to me all fanciful constructs, and I cannot verify any of them.
Many people I speak with seem to be either strongly attracted to the newer form of the FoF, or completely at a loss as to how to relate. I think those who are by nature more devotional are the former, while those who are more inclined to a 4th way (or other) approach are the ones who are uncomfortable. I can well imagine how uncomfortable the first 25 years or so of the FoF was for the devotional types, and how happy they must now be.
I would never say that this new form cannot work for a person. Speaking only for myself, I now consider the results of that kind of method to be counter to what I want. This is not to say that self remembering is not what I want, but rather if it is built on an unstable foundation, it will not hold. Careful reading of Buddha, Lao Tzu, Zen, Hindu texts suggest to me a much less cluttered, more direct method is available (I have no idea if direct also means faster). Advaita has gotten a lot of press on the blog, but it is just one incarnation of ideas that are common to all these. From the Buddha:
Paradoxical though it may sound:
There is a path to walk on,
there is walking being done,
but there is no traveller.
There are deeds being done, but there is no doer.
There is a blowing of the air, but there is no wind that does the blowing.
The thought of self is an error
and all existences are hollow as the plantain tree
and as empty as twirling water bubbles.
April 18, 2007 at 6:34 pm
Joel:
I am disappointed; I expected something more profound from you.
Divided Attention, non-Dualism, and Natural state, instead of more info about cults. What do you think?
Clara:
Your writing is complex long and difficult to follow. Are you a socialist? As it was suggested the FOF will not change so it is time to move on.
No Person:
Your analogy of electrical current in a bulb is valid, but how does the light switch turns on? In me, the switch automatically goes off most of the time.
Kiran:
You left FOF because you needed more contradictions or you wanted to relieve yourself from contradictions? Why you and Loretta are wearing white clothes all the time?
John Wheeler Ad Ashanti and followers:
Is this a new cult or what?
Inner Piece:
Are you a Spy?
April 18, 2007 at 6:52 pm
Okay, I said it wrong: “A silent mind can observe whereas a busy mind is a busy mind whatever it’s busy with.” What I meant to say is a silent place to observe one’s busy mind is where we learn what we’re all about.
April 18, 2007 at 6:55 pm
Sometimes the indirect is even more effective than the direct.
My ‘significant other,’ being an avid Netflix fan, has me hooked on the television series, “Foyle’s War,” which was aired in recent years. The setting for this series is early World War II in southern England. The main character is a detective named Christopher Foyle — who is played with aplomb by Michael Kitchen (an outstanding actor). While most WWII stories deal with the military actions of the Allies and Axis, this series focuses instead on the investigations of Foyle. Meanwhile, it weaves in lesser-known but interesting details about the war and how it affected the people of England on the home front.
The other day, I watched the second episode in the first season, called “The White Feather,” and I noticed more than a little relevance to our discussion.
I’ll emphasize here that I don’t see a direct parallel to Nazi Germany (or, for that matter, the current White House). The violence and atrocities committed by the Nazis does not compare to what is occurring within the Fellowship, which has been a nonviolent organization. However, I did see some interesting parallels to the thinking processes of the Nazi sympathizers who were depicted in this episode. What’s more, one character in the series — an otherwise intelligent and thoughtful man — surprisingly becomes interested in the group. The experience of that character is what interested me most. You guessed it: He’s invited to a meeting, is charmed by the leader of the group, and quickly finds himself lured into the ideas.
When you have time between work and social life, contributing to and reading this blog, studying and practicing spiritual ideas, and fighting with the army of FOF editors on Wikipedia (kidding, sort of), I hope you have a chance to take a look at this episode.
April 18, 2007 at 7:03 pm
Blog guide for dummies
coot: don’t throw baby out with bath water
Good FOF student: what bath water?
Fence sitters: love baby, what is fluid in tub called?
Just leave: baby OK, water creepy – time to get out of here
4th Way wrong: throw baby out with bath water
FOF leadership: speak about bath water and we’ll sue you; please turn friends in too
Non-duality: difference of baby and bathwater illusion of mind – must shift
Kiran: baby and bath water a contradiction – I am contradiction with nice hair
Joel: all babies are same baby
Girard One-Angle: RB say no bath water – then NO bath water
“Howard Carter”: Either baby OR bathwater – baby better bet for me
RB: come on in, goodness, the water’s fine
April 18, 2007 at 7:07 pm
Surprisingly perhaps, I agree with a lot of what Howard Carter says in post 341. I do have some reservations, however.
HC: “The school, at least in my 20+ years, has only offered one product, and that is self-remembering.”
This is really the fundamental point. I would have to say that I don’t see it as true. The FOF adds huge amounts of irrelevant material to the 4th Way concept of Self Remembering. To take the most extreme example: Robert’s predictions, such as the idea that the human race will be expunged leaving only FOF students to start a new civilisation. And much more!
If your aim is to make efforts to be frequently present, self remembering is as good a way to go as any. But from what I hear there are much purer 4th Way schools than the FOF, without all the baggage.
Another aspect: My aim when I joined the FOF was to awaken spiritually. My conclusion after many years was that self remembering does not lead to awakening. When I left I quickly found teachings that do lead directly to awakening.
HC: “We are told of the metaphor of a prison; we are the ones locked in, the ones who need help”
Yes, we were told that everyone except FOF members was in a prison of mechanicality. These days I would say the opposite is true: FOF members are imprisoned in their limited world view. Freedom lies outside.
thanks anyway, RB
April 18, 2007 at 7:09 pm
About consciousness and thought (form Gourjieff):
“In the beginning, at the first attempts you make to be aware of yourself you have to use practically all your mental powers, so nothing remains. But it does not mean it will always be like that. It is not real self-remembering; you only study how to do it. You will find later on that consciousness can exist without thought; that consciousness is something different from thought. Then you can think about anything you like. But in the beginning you certainly have to use this mental energy, because it is the only controllable energy you have except movements….It does not mean that you will always have to do it – you open a door.”
I suddenly saw this in “The 4th way” (page 35) and it caught my eye. In my present experience, consciousness does exist without thought, before thought, during thought, and you can move, talk, speak, sing – whatever, and consciousness is there anyway, and can’t be lost in fact… For many years in FOF I thought that speaking and “being here” was pretty much impossible in the same time- and now I see that it is actually not true, it’s totally possible, in fact – it’s easy now. And no special concentrated thoughts are needed now to do all kinds of things and be present where you are in the same time…
Interestingly G. says that IN THE BEGINNING you have to use thoughts or mental powers to be aware, and it’s good for FIRST ATTEMPTS, and you don’t have to ALWAYS DO IT…
Well, it sure looks like the School is forever stuck at these “first attempts” of using thoughts for awareness. Now even more so – you have to use sequence of short thoughts or “work I’s” to become “present”. Note how G. calls this mental approach of using focused thoughts “Not real self-remembering”.
May be this is one of the reasons why Robert dumped G. and O. – otherwise how would he be able to promote his own “making presence out of thoughts” technique, when even G. himself calls it “Not real self-remembering”?
Isn’t RB a pprofessional ELEMENTARY school teacher after all? How many years of repetative “first attemts” one needs to see that it simply doesn’t go any further than that?
Happy graduation to all my friends.
April 18, 2007 at 8:00 pm
Kiran–
You may want to consider whether Abe’s conduct in trying to get you to sign over your business to FOF when you were hospitalized ought to be reported to the California State Bar. From what you say, it sounds like he lied to you and tried to exert undue influence on you. Sounds unethical to me.
April 18, 2007 at 8:42 pm
To Shelley, post 342:
We need to have lunch. Have your people call my people and tell Harvey he’s invited as well.
April 18, 2007 at 8:45 pm
To Martin, 6/345 suggesting Sheik to ask for payment(s). One of the surely many re-actions!
You are going to become a pop-star… I feel it!
Did you learn this kind of behaviour in the FOF or was you born with greed ?
Are you trying to “con-vert/per-vert Sheik ?
It is unfortunate enough that, by visitng your site, if one wants to read more than a tiny bitty piece of what is available, one has to pay.
Sure, will you answer… This is the only way to show “valuation”!
I have another hypothesis:
you are offended.
Sheik can do what you can’t do and you are trying to get back a good feeling about yourself.
Sorry man?
Sheik is not selling God while you are merely another one trying to sell God!
Keep your money in your wallet and keep silent about you ugly dreams.
I am going to be a little provocative now.
We never know… You might be seduced by the challenge to change something about yourself:
I suggest you make free access to all you have to offer in your 4th Way site (meaning money wise of course!).
Need of help? There is enough, there is plenty.
You see, there is true need here…
May you be inspired, perhaps even “wonderfully humiliated”, by the many other web sites
(which links have been posted here by people with enough valuation to do so)
providing free viewing/downloading and even free participation to “meetings” with their head leaders!
You want to send a “gift”?
Mark of your valuation/need for justification/whatever…
Please, sure you will be polite enough not to inform us.
Your post, you understood it by know, was a grey cloud in a landscape made of people looking for light. Don’t get me wrong, nothing personal (I probably even do not know you) but a firm affirmation “through” you. I have to thank you for that and I do.
Other subject:
On the teaching as it is proposed by Robert:
I have deep question about Robert’s intentions.
If his School was to make his students “free”, why so much entertainment/limitations ?
Since a year, since the “Sequence”, every months or week or day, a new civilisation is scaned, distorted and, delivered just like fast food.
Distorted to fit, with special effects and/or omens.
As if the students were retarded minds?
Since the start, the concept, idea, of 9 live-times (among which only once you will be given a female vessel).
Is this not a declared attempt to keep students quiet for most of them are declared to be on their 7/8 one?
How come Robert is just not promoting his beloved Students “graduating” and “going further” since, according to him, once you leave the FOF you become merely moon food ?
As often, I am left with trust.
May, one day, sense be made out of all this…
Much Love to all.
April 18, 2007 at 10:03 pm
To Howard Carter,
You say:
HC “I wonder if these statements are simply the result of a clash between a reality that greatly differs from one’s expectations.”
You reduce the statements to the other person’s subjectivity but are unwilling to seriously look at the objections that have been made by other mails, then you can keep your imaginary world from breaking apart.
HC: The school, at least in my 20+ years, has only offered one product, and that is self-remembering. You could say it comes with a by-product of self knowledge.
That is all you want present students to see so that you can avoid theirlooking at the men that have been abused, the people that have been convinced into supporting it because of your own willingness to blindly hold it so that you can get away with your own weaknesses. It is nevertheless good that you yourself state that the only aspect of the system that the school has offered is self-remembering or first line of work because as long as people keep to themselves they don’t have to question anything else about the school. Your and Mr. Burton’s double morality and double sworded tools so that it continues to work indefinitely.
HC: But I believe most join because they hear about self-remembering and are strongly attracted to living a life centered on pursuing this concept.
No, most join because they sincerely wish to pursue a fourth way path, not an institution to support the enthronization of Mr. Burton, Mr. Haven or Mr. Braverman and have to support them for the rest of their lives.
HC: When we join the school we understand the relationship correctly; the school, through the teacher, offers to show us the way from sleep to consciousness. Many things are known by us yet go unstated. We understand, from several sources, that Influence C sets the curriculum and the teacher, as their intermediary, interprets their wishes.
You make it sound so reasonable. Hasn’t that been your tool from the beginning? Isn’t it the art of reducing everything to your logic so that most people get sucked in by it and end up being the greatest suckers?
HC: “the school, through the teacher, offers to show us the way from sleep to consciousness”.
Why haven’t you reached consciousness then after not twenty but thirty three years that you’ve been living in it? Is it because both you and Mr. Burton actually failed to reach consciousness and had to stick to self remembering as your only tool?
HC: Many things are known by us yet go unstated.
That is about as truthful as you’ve ever gotten. Indeed many things were known to you and you never stated them. You hid them from those that joined so that the Fellowship could continue unquestioned. You hid them in the folds of your being but the immorality was so unbearable that you divided even physically. The one that holds all these pocket dictionary statements and has been repeating them like a tape recorder in all the meetings and dinners and the one that goes home to scream at the cars and the computers, the family and the life idiots that don’t follow your Fellowship uniform.
HC: We understand, from several sources, that Influence C sets the curriculum and the teacher, as their intermediary, interprets their wishes.
Here you keep trying to reinforce the same old stereotyped ideas into the few followers that may still be reading the blog so that they feel comfortable with influence C setting the curriculum and Robert simply being the intermediary with you, Robert’s faithful student. You, Howard Carter, who had to give up talking like a “Friend” because the “friend’s” personality and arguments were so easily toppled over even if they convinced a fence rider that seems unable to ride his own will but stays happily asking every body else for suggestions about what he might do next, revealing the extent to which the many years of your consistent programming has rendered people who cannot really think for themselves or act on what they deeply understand and hold on to people like you as long as you are willing to continue crushing your own being to hold Robert and the imaginary picture of the school. But they certainly don’t really care about you or the school and are just trying to protect their own sweet imaginary pictures.
But then of course, you fail to acknowledge the myriad mistakes influence c has made in supporting Robert, not allowing any of his prophecies to come true, not even the easiest one. Or the fact that there is no consciousness in the way your teacher leads his life. How could you acknowledge such things when they would unite the two of you that have broken apart?
HC: We are told of the metaphor of a prison; we are the ones locked in, the ones who need help, the ones who came to the school to be helped, and the school/teacher are the ones who know the way out.
Again, you’re only trying to reinforce the old mind structures with which you’ve held the Fellowship together at everybody else’s cost and sadly, even yours.
HC: We also understand if this is to happen we must give up our self will.
You misunderstood it wildly, my love. You adhered to the ancient pattern of teacher-student relationship and gave up your will to never develop your own. Just as there are no longer any king-priests, priests, or real teacher’s requiring individuals to give up their will, not even in the Christian Church. There are no longer any individuals who can forgo their own will and still develop themselves consciously. The inner struggle between what is right for one’s self and what is not remains and it cannot be given up to anybody else. Mankind today is mature enough to allow for every individual to choose for himself and your discourse is meant to instill a particular kind of thinking in the students so that they continue to support Robert and the school and not decide for themselves wether what they are seeing is really worth supporting. They want to believe in you but you cannot be believed any more. You are sick, physically, emotionally and mentally sick.
HC : “In the beginning all this is relatively easy, but then we settle into the reality that the race we have entered is more like a marathon as opposed to a sprint. The small will becomes impatient, restless and more and more wants to express itself. And if we have not really sacrificed it, or at least started to, it comes back with a vengeance”.
Why don’t you tell us the painful process you’ve had to endure to sacrifice your will? Your impatience and restlessness and the more and more it wants to express itself? Has it come back with vengeance against you and crippled you? Has, trying to recover not demanded to let it be? Are you trying to convince us or yourself in all your postings that it was worth it? Were you so afraid of being who you were that you had to give it all up to play a role in a conscious school? Was it really that terrible to be simply Howard Carter, a man who, unrestrained would have maybe killed and ended up in jail as you yourself state it in one of your postings? How far do you think you are willing to go in supporting prostitution and fraud, for the Fellowship of Friends is a great huge instinctive, emotional and intellectual fraud and if I don’t sue you it is not because you don’t deserve it but because it is not enough; paying and continuing will simply deepen the crystallizing process in which you’ve put yourself and the Fellowship. Was your inability to establish simple human relationships with othersl inside and outside of the Fellowship, before and after you joined, the reason why you had to dress up in a role? And justify it with a veil of divinity? Because you couldn’t bear your own insignificant humanity?
HC: Then one day we realize we have an “agenda” very different than what we are receiving.
An agenda of your own? One in which it didn’t matter who had to suffer for it, you were willing to sacrifice them?
HC :“It does not occur to us that WE have broken the contract, not the school”.
By far, just you and Robert, not the thousands of students who sincerely tried and worked on themselves. The school, as Meher Baba said, gives its dues to the sincerity with which students work.
HC: The school continues to offer all the self remembering we can handle.
Unfortunately you can’t handle any more self-remembering because the selfishness of it all has filled the glass. Indeed, the school will in the future adopt more second line forms to pretend that it is going beyond but you and Mr. Burton will never really make it. Perhaps you could keep each other company in your old age, after all, you ARE friends in crime.
HC: We can have more than our share if we want, because there are always others who are leaving some or all of their portion on the table.
Is that how you profit from students who are leaving? The portions of self remembering that they leave on your table so that you don’t have to remember any one of them? The many that you invited, lectured and convinced but turned out to be less convinced than you could convince yourself?
Is that how you invite other students to profit from their loss? They have not lost people, friends, wives, they’ve just gained the portion of self remembering that the poor devils who left lost. And they all think you’re so smart, they trust you so willingly but forget they themselves will be treated with the same taste.
HC: As far as “limited and rule bound”;again, we give up something small in return for something much bigger that comes later(real will).
And you call this real will? The willingness to give a blind eye to the facts in front of you, the fact that even you are not willing to sit at the table with Robert and not dine because even you find it sickening? The fact that you’ve never worked with the looking exercise because you no longer dare to look into any body else’s eyes afraid that you might see yourself in them?
HC: A quote by Robert that’s proved helpful to me is: “Everyone wants to be Hercules, but without the Labors”.
Except you, you were willing to do the labors, weren’t you? You were the one that spent all night sweeping the floors for the meeting next day; The one who rationalized it all so that student’s formatory apparatus would feel comfortable in it; the one who bared the consequences with stoicism, gave up everything for yourself, including your self? And hope each student gives his and her self up so that your illusion comes true to the end.
HC: The “rules” i.e., school exercises, are not gratuitous but can show us many things about ourselves and are a big part of what works about the school.
The rules, yes, the rules. How could we forget those when they are the favorite tool to make other’s believe that the school is real? The rule of excessive payments to make the school even more real, make you feel that you’re paying for something worth while; The sex exercises, so that you can collect a bit of extra money; The non expression of negative emotions, so that you can silence and discriminate anyone who opposes(Maybe you could be sued for discrimination too); The dress code, so that young people continue to feel that they are in cinderella’s chosen dream and older students continue to feel that they are after all quite decent people or at least dress like ones.
HC “Likewise, I don’t see the school as being “unable to see beyond its own constricting walls”. To me the system ideas have been incredibly liberating, allowing me to build on this knowledge and apply it to most areas in a useful way.”
You have indeed built on this knowledge and applied it in most areas in a very useful way to your means but have been unable to see beyond its own constricting walls, or yours.
HC: People in the school work at their own pace. At any given time there will be those who are buffering, suppressing, expressing negativity, etc. But this is not the school’s fault.
Of course, the school in your eyes is faultless. Divine. The faults are the student’s who buffer, suppress and express negativity. “Weaklings” that couldn’t bare to live in the exciting contradictions at Isis, students in the outer circle who not knowing and still in centres away from Isis, continue to support what they sincerely believe is a conscious school but that are being simply ripped off mercilessly.
You really are a master at reasoning and turning everything upside down and backwards for your profit. This is what has held the school together for so long. Although only a few students come to your dinners, the rest of them trust that you’ll give them legitimacy although they can’t really bare you or your choices and when able, make fun of your repetitions. They know the double morality and standards that you have stood for in your role but think they are doing you a favor by not confronting it or themselves but they are just digging a deeper grave for you and themselves.
HC: We are what we are; we fall down and get up and try again. If he means he tried to give his own understandings and they did not meet with the approval of others, we all go through that.
Yes, you are what you are; you fall down and suppress any opposition, pay people off, hide the court suits, make dirt of those who have left and pretend students like Miles or my self have left because we wanted to rule, just our vanity and power or lunatic, unlike you, such a straight looking guy, who profess complete surrender, dig deep in the ground of your instinctive heels, hold and keep succeeding at fooling the crop.
HC: If he means he tried to give his own understandings and they did not meet with the approval of others, we all go through that.
Your a cheap liar, no one can give his understandings in the Fellowship because the only people who are allowed to speak are Mr. Burton, Mr. Haven, Mr. Braverman and those who have consistently proved to be as willing to give up their will to theirs. Cheap liars one and all of you.
HC: Maybe they did not fit into the school’s “curriculum”, maybe they fell on insensitive ears.In any event it’s good not to identify with our own thoughts, desires, or with those of others.
After instilling all the thoughts students can have to feel comfortable where they are, as you have done for the past thirty three years, you also instill the thought that they are thinking for themselves, feeling for themselves and give them the confidence that they are following the school curriculum and will sooner or later graduate.
HCIn any event it’s good not to identify with our own thoughts, desires, or with those of others.
Wasn’t that what Mr. Haven suggested when he told students not to read the blog? Was it so that you could deal with it on your own and keep most of the students from reading it to avoid the damage in big scale? You’re such a copy cat Howie, but you do copy him well. How many of you think just like him? Were your machineries cut in series or has the brainwashing just made you all so much alike? or is it just that you are a “a friend” too? The “friend” “Howard Carter”: The Girard haven role, and the middle class honest student programming role? The RTs that you wish to address? You’re coming more together in your recent postings dear, only together in the fatal way.
I guess it is not tragic enough for most of your and the Fellowship supporters that the ear is deaf, an eye doesn’t see, half of the body doesn’t move or can stand erect and they’ll continue to support the unnecessary suffering until they themselves start falling apart, which by far they are. The men have acquired this fluffy kind of flesh that falls loosely from the bones and the women on the contrary have tightened their muscles and face. Alzheimer, cancer, strokes and all kinds of illnesses express the cause. But they still think it is the compassion of their king of hearts to not question it all. Keep it together at no matter whose cost so that you can simply delay the consequences but practically just keep adding to the top.
I hope you forgive me for making such a personal use of this blog and am happy not to be as objective as the wikipedia requires. It says, if you haven’t published a book, then your statements don’t count. Some of you tell me how wonderful it is out here in life but life is as full of shit as the Fellowship and there’s no compassion in trying to defend either one for what it is not. There is more compassion in the mass that raids the king’s court than in the king that rips them off. As for those of you that just want to keep breathing, why don’t you just do that and let us talk. I will be heard simply because I have something worth saying. Maybe not today, or tomorrow but many years to come you will know that I stood for what was worth: Change and move on, embracing each other if possible or not.
I have not given you all up and feared that one of you would come up and shoot me to sit and wine.
April 18, 2007 at 10:04 pm
Elena #330
“Perhaps i could ask, what have been other’s understandings in higher states?”
The primary understanding i have garnered from higher states is that all my understandings are wrong. My mental processes about stuff and spirit are all backwards, upside-down and turned around in a space-time hurdy-gurdy show. Thinking works all right if i am making a pbj sandwich or replacing the starter in my car.
Another understanding is the higher the state the more me i am and the more me everything else is.
April 18, 2007 at 11:41 pm
It dropped so low in my regard
I heard it hit the ground,
And go to pieces on the stones
At bottom of my mind;
Yet blamed the fate that fractured, less
Than I reviled myself
For entertaining plated wares
Upon my silver shelf.
Emily Dickinson
Alexis
April 19, 2007 at 2:24 am
Dear Howie,
I never thought the day would come but for once I agree with everything you write;
“I wonder if these statements are simply the result of a clash between a reality that greatly differs from one’s expectations.” –HC
Yes, we join expecting something real.
“The school, at least in my 20+ years, has only offered one product, and that is self-remembering.”- HC
Yes, Self Remembering is now reduced to a product and the FOF is Grossery Outlet. But watch out for those complaining “I”s they come from the adversary.
“I believe most join because they hear about self-remembering and are strongly attracted to living a life centered on pursuing this concept.” -HC
Yes, 20+ years pursuing a concept – if only it was explained in the beginning that conceptual mind is what one awakens from!
“In the beginning all this is relatively easy, but then we settle into the reality that the race we have entered is more like a marathon as opposed to a sprint.” –HC
Yes, I agree it’s dishonest. Maybe we can warn people in the first prospective meeting that RB says they won’t awaken in the school in this lifetime and that if they ever leave they’ll be eternally damned?
“Then one day we realize we have an “agenda” very different than what we are receiving.” – HC
Yes, one day we realize that awakening is possible after all and that maybe we actually could awaken if only we could find a school and a real teacher. That’s when the Prozac hit’s the trash can right?
“People join the school for different reasons…..maybe the school provides the outlet to leave a foreign country in a way not normally open to them.” -HC
A forged passport and a few months in jail maybe? Though I wouldn’t recommend it.
“ We give up something small in return for something much bigger that comes later”.- HC
Yes, the credit card bill, that’s a bummer. My advice is don’t pay it and wait for Armageddon
“The “rules” i.e., school exercises, are not gratuitous but can show us many things about ourselves” –HC
Yes, how group reinforcement reduces an intelligent person to the level of a paranoid Gibbon for example, that was useful.
Howie, I thought you were pro-FOF but now I see you’re just a big old complainer. You’re in a huge interval buddy and in danger of losing the Way.
Ryan
April 19, 2007 at 4:50 am
This last batch has some of the funniest posts yet — coot 356 and Ryan 365 are inspired. Elena, you lay down some wonderfully poetic, searing, and hilarious truths when you let it all hang out (362).
David (352), I wonder why you say that the FOF has “become” devotional after 25 years of being “the 4th Way.” Everything you describe as “devotional” in nature existed during my experience in the FOF, which ended around 1983 or so. I wasn’t around during the first few years, but when I was, Robert was always treated (at least by most) as god-like, with a direct pipeline to “influence C;” he didn’t “morph” into that role any time recently. Some of the more recent teachings I’ve heard about on this blog do sound pretty zany, it’s true, but not all that much more so than the unverifiable gibberish that was commonplace many years ago. No one “verified” lifetimes, ladders, dire predictions, the beatitude of the 44, Robert’s overnight “crystalizations,” etc., etc., none of which was anywhere to be found in the teachings of G or O (not that those teachings necessarily define the 4th Way). Suspending critical thinking (or just intelligent discernment) is nothing new in the FOF; we all did some of that.
April 19, 2007 at 5:00 am
Elena #362:
Good purge! Keep it up. Eventually the toxins will be gone. Seventeen years of buildup, gonna take some time.
Talking and breathing are not mutually exclusive.
April 19, 2007 at 5:00 am
(353)
Clara:
Your writing is complex long and difficult to follow. Are you a socialist? As it was suggested the FOF will not change so it is time to move on.
Last salt shaker? Zorro? You’re back already? Welcome. I appreciate your efforts to read my long and complex mail. Keep reading love, you’ll get it not too late because the Fellowship WILL hopefully CHANGE and not just end. I am like a wound spilling drops of blood. How long do you think you can stand the splash? The longer you take, the more loss for the Fellowship. You choose. Remember: I am a lunar, not a socialist.
April 19, 2007 at 5:50 am
Hi, Chop Sticks! Funny, I just had a Chinese dinner tonight – using good old knife and fork, I am just too clumsy for chop sticks, could never do it!
Anyway, the analogy with lamp was just an analogy, it’s not perfect. There is no switch for consciousness in reality, consciousness seem to be always ON, flowing through our body-mind mechanisms. But it may appear like it’s sometimes off, because you believe the thoughts that tell you so. Look right now – is it off? And see the thought that may be appearing and expressing doubts. But consciousness is on, nevertheless. Sometimes our attention can be somewhat not focused, or the mental labeling of what’s around us is not going on – but consciousness is still on, all the time. Look, the thought that may come to your mind saying: “No way, I don’t think so” – is just a thought, apprearing in… consciousness, which is ON. So is the next thought, so is the next…They all appear in consciousness, there is always a background awareness of these thoughts. Some thoughts are so loud – it seems like they obscure consciousness, but it is not so. Just don’t panic, relax and see that it is still ON, still going… Thoughts and emotions just come and go, and awareness IS, undisturbed.
As for John Wheeler followers – he’s got none of those, he wouldn’t tolerate any! Good luck following John Wheeler. Definitely it is not a cult. He is totally against the whole “teacher-student” hierarchy and folowing. He is a simple regular guy, just like you and me… (Well, sorry, I actually don’t know if you, Chop Sticks, are a regular guy…)
Adyashanti also discourages followers but has over the years attracted a group of admirers and volunteers, called Open Gate Sangha. I don’t think it is a cult, at least not yet, it doesn’t seem to have the typical attributes… No specific joining procedure or obligatory donations required, to my knowledge. Learn more if you wish:
http://www.adyashanti.org/index.php?file=organization&PHPSESSID=a36484a4613197db32dc9bc0687b23f2
Both individuals charge very small amounts of money ($10-$15) for a talk or meeting, and offer it for no money if you are broke. No set rules or behavior controls of any kind, no joining, no manipulation, no greed, at least to my knowledge.
Not very cultish in my opinion.
April 19, 2007 at 6:11 am
Hello Howard Carter: you said: ” The school continues to offer all the self remembering we can handle.”
Were we in the same School with you, Howard? Because the School I was in LATELY was offering some strange stuff… Not quite the self-remembering as we knew it… In fact the very word “self-remembering” is kind of not mentioned anymore, it slowly went out of style. The teacher instead offers in abundance elaborate interpretations of sacred meaning of depicted prehistoric Rhino poops, or painted giraffe tail hair divisions, or long and short penises, women’s breasts and doggy-style (long Be) sexual positions… Long Be, short, Be, Middle Be… Lots of sacred numbers, like 4, 5, 9, 72, 6, 30 and all kind of number combinations with even more deep meaning… 4 plus 5 makes 9 representing 72…
Have you been to the meeting lately, Howard? Seen those pictures? What do you think about it? Please share with us. Self-remembering, self-observation, verify-verify, right?
Gourjieff and Ouspensky must be turning in their coffins…
No, the teacher didn’t “break the contract”, what is happening to him now has a different name, medical… I only sincerely wish someone around him will have GUTS and genuine KINDNESS to offer him professional medical help…
April 19, 2007 at 6:33 am
“…For entertaining plated wares
Upon my silver shelf.”
Emily Dickinson
Alexis:
“There once was a girl from Nantucket…”
Anon
April 19, 2007 at 6:37 am
Howard responded to my post (185) with the following:
“I have a short term special dispensation under the heading of ‘scout’.”
He was justifying his forbidden correspondence and contact with ex-Fellowshippers.
Who granted your “special dispensation”? Why?
Who suggested the term “scout”?
What are you “scouting”?
Did the “special dispensation” come via a dream? By special post? Were you specially appointed by special beings?
Are you special?
Are you more special than me?
Did someone order you to “scout”? What and who are you scouting for? What are your special qualities as a “scout”?
When does your special dispensation end? Is there a date?
Do you know exactly what “short term” is? What is the exact date upon which your “dispensation” ends? What if you go beyond the date accidentally?
Details please! It all sounds utterly magical. And very special.
April 19, 2007 at 7:02 am
Dear Howard C.
Reading your post reminded me of the time Curly refused to eat with the rest of us at the trough but instead insisted on waiting for the last golden apple to drop.Finally, he got too hungry to wait any longer and when he bent down to clean up the remains, the apple dropped , hit him in back of head and rolled over to me.
Perhaps instead of regurgitating alot of prospective meeting material which does’nt seem to have a whole lot of “you” in it,you could perhaps try to answer these questions with as much honesty as possible.
1) In relation to submitting your will to the teacher ,have you ever thought about or set a stop point for that transaction. If you did, have you stuck with it , or have you let it slide gradually lower to avoid having to face the eventual truth—we all need to abandon the system. Once certain awakening tools are in our bag so to speak,such as submitting ones will to another; there are many more meaningful ways you can practise them in daily life(e.g help your neighbour when your asked, instead of,dear would you move that black asphalt road back 6″ to the left where you originally suggested but now it’s my idea.)
If everyone has an evetual leaving threshold(or the scary scenerio of being willing to pull the trigger comes to mind),and everyone has different needs, lessons to learn, and levels of development;then in truth you have a continuim from about 6 minutes to 6 decades
where one could say ,”they got what they needed”, anything outside of that would be a bit excessive. its all individual.Sorry to leave this incomplete but another apple just dropped.
April 19, 2007 at 7:19 am
Re: David #352
David, you’re being far too reasonable under the circumstances. I fear it’s worse than that. It’s the Way of the Lunatic Monk (as expressed by the Desert Fathers of the Philokalia), and yes verification has fallen by the wayside in favor of asceticism and faith.
With relation to verification and the 4th Way, the kind of verifications we were once upon a time asked to make were also suspect. That is, a model was held up to us (the 4th Way System) and we were asked to verify it. It doesn’t take much to see that this is not true verification in that it starts with an assumption of what you will find.
I hope that as we continue our travels (Buddha not withstanding) we will start with the fact of our experience and worry less about the model that represents it. It’s easy to take on the “speak” of the FoF, of non-duality, or of other systems or non-systems. It’s much harder to speak from fact. I say this because I see it happening in myself.
The cornerstone of knowing who we are is verification (and vice versa); knowing what we know and don’t know and not being ashamed of however much or little that is. Socrates said “I don’t know much, but I know enough to know that no one else knows a great deal more”.
April 19, 2007 at 7:38 am
To You-me-us-they 6/361
I was not suggesting payments, nor do I charge for the viewing of websites.
As you said, ”It is unfortunate enough that, by visitng your site, if one wants to read more than a tiny bitty piece of what is available, one has to pay.”
This is not the case. Where did you get the idea that one has to pay for reading what is on the website http://www.fourthway.info ? It is free and everybody who wants can leave his contact associated with Fourth Way ideas in the database.
So it is a bit hard for me to understand, where you are coming from.
Anyway, if you want to talk to me directly here is my contact info(at)fourthway.info
April 19, 2007 at 9:48 am
To Howard Carter, post 341:
I am a current member of the Fellowship. If it is at all possible, I would prefer the current contradictions to be resolved within it, rather than outside it.
You talk about the submission of will to teacher and School. While this is indeed desirable, it must be accompanied by verification. Peter Ouspensky said, Verify, verify, verify. And this means independence of thinking, verifying things (mostly)that you might not want to verify. It means accepatance of the truth as it shows itself, not as you want it to appear…
When Robert became a conscious teacher, he installed himself as our guide, or to use a 4th Way phrase, ‘steward’. The steward is the bloke who looks after the house when the Master is absent. In order for him to do this successfully, he must take equal care of every room in the house, not just some of them.
One of the big themes in the FOF lately has been ‘Control of the Passions’. While it is fine to talk about it, what we really seek is embodiments of it within the School, in actual people – and principally the teacher. If the teacher however appears to be controlled by his passions, and those seem insatiable or indiscriminate, then the students can’t use him as a model of that behaviour, can they? So the continued submission of will becomes very awkward for them.
The fact that the FOF’s defenders find it necessary to hide or lie about Robert’s behaviour makes life even more awkward for them. It doesn’t help. Chinese proverb: “Only lies need to be defended. The Truth defends itself”.
Trust is a two-way street, and needs to be earned on both sides. Isn’t that the way any successful relationship works?
April 19, 2007 at 10:19 am
ABRAHAM N. GOLDMAN, Oregon House, Calif.: Goldman was licensed in Illinois in 1977 and in California in 1983. He failed to competently represent several clients, did not keep clients reasonably informed about developments in their cases, misrepresented the status of matters to clients, improperly agreed to an aggregate settlement of the claims of multiple clients without their informed written consent, failed to render appropriate accountings of settlements to clients, and misappropriated and commingled client funds. As a result, he was suspended in California for one year, with the suspension stayed for all but the first six months, followed by a two-year probation subject to certain conditions. Illinois imposed reciprocal discipline and suspended him one year, with the suspension stayed for all but the first six months to be followed by a two-year period of probation subject to the conditions imposed by the State of California.
Found here:
Illinois State Bar Association website:
ISBA Bar News, December 15, 2000:
http://www.isba.org/Association/0012-15c.htm
Of course, Abe has mended his ways, he is more honest now (than Abe Lincoln); witness Kiran’s freely given testimony. Almost all record of prior legal malpractice has been expunged except the above. Reposting here may prevent disappearing forever.
What you cannot find could speak volumes. Tip of iceberg? Titanic can tell. How do you bring a legal action against a lawyer?
That is certainly a question full of contradictions. Try it Kiran and get contradictions to your heart’s content. DLE could result.
Honest Abe
April 19, 2007 at 3:33 pm
To you-me-us-they #270
Personal question, personal answer.
hugues_serre@yahoo.fr
regards
Hugues
April 19, 2007 at 3:36 pm
Coot, U R a Hoot.
On “Honest Abe’s” Abe Goldman post: Having known AG very well for his first ten or so years in FOF (my first FOF play, 80’s), and talked to him several times during my more recent FOF tenure (03 – 05, though then ignorant of his Bar association play) – an entirely sweet, trusting, soft soul, or so it seemed here – I believe his ‘fall’, if one could phrase it so, was actually a series of ‘pushes’ from both RB and collaborative nudges from his wife – (none more to say of these though those who know her well, perhaps understand). Which is not to justify or excuse; but is to say – I would not have wanted the same pressures, pushes and nudges in my play.
April 19, 2007 at 3:46 pm
Toward the end of my time in the fof, I had a conversation with a new friend who suddenly asked me to explain what the fof was and what I received from it. After I gave her a thumb nail sketch (sanitized for her protection) of the organization and the techniques, she asked me what sort of person I imagined I’d be if all of it worked as I wished it would. I was stopped in my tracks. When is the last time I even thought of that? So, rather than give the facile answer that sprung immediately to mind, I answered from some suprisingly deep place in myself. I was shocked by my honesty. She listened intently and at the conclusion of my explanation said, “From everything I know about you, you already are that person.” Interesting photograph, no? In that moment it felt entirely impersonal. I didn’t feel that that it was said to appeal to my vanity. It went right to the part of me that at the time I called essence. It also helped me to start to re-evaluate my aim.
Just a story I thought I’d share.
April 19, 2007 at 3:56 pm
Due to circumstances I could not connect to this blog until recently. It took me several days to read up to the current postings and although at times it is a mud fight, I am very glad to see so many interesting and valuable postings here.
And Sheik, I think that the opportunity you are giving here to Communicate, is a major event. Who knows, maybe this is only the start of something Good. Thank you!
Some questions.
How are the 3 lines of work to be understood? Are they only related to school work? Do we need them permanently to evolve, or can they be laid aside as a temporary tool that we don’t need anymore after we have understood and taken into our being the principles and laws related to them?
Can they be seen on a larger scale? What does “school work” mean, is it related to a 4th way organization? Some people seem to believe that 3 lines are possible in life, but apart from maybe in a spiritual (marriage) relationship I wonder how that can be if there is no common 1st line aim of self remembering.
RC spoke about Harmony between groups. How come that is so difficult between the different 4th way schools and groups? We have the Internet now! Maybe a larger scale could be uniting the different branches and fragments of the Fourth Way heritage. I was very interested in the intellectual and cosmological aspects when I joined , but never found all the answers in the FoF. I did learn to understand that a change in being is also needed, but many answers simply don’t seem to exist in the FoF (anymore?). Is it worthwhile to bring the 4th way ideas into the future? Is there a need for a database where all 4th way fragments can come together? Who would organize that? Or is this idea naïve?
I agree with Elena and others that the 2nd line is poorly developed in the FoF. In my experience, many questions are buffered away, and the (Stoic ?) idea that a developed mind should be able to hold any idea without identification (paraphrasing) is hardly recognized. It seems to me that many students have an undeveloped 10 of hearts, like the inability to speak about their work as it relates to the emotional center, the FoF and RB without identification. (He did say that he wished us to remember ourselves when we talk about him.)
Someone on the blog said that healing was never part of the FoF, but I remember that there was a lot of talk about it when I joined in the early 80’s. Also, I can see now for sure that I needed a lot of healing then, and I am grateful that I had some wonderful teachers that were of great help to me. (remember, on the 4th way we can all be teachers) And I did recognize that what they had, came from RB. Maybe this blog can be a help with this process, for those who need it now.
“Sensing” was mentioned in one of the postings a while ago, as a missing ingredient in the FoF. I have missed this as well in the teaching of the FoF. But at the same time I must say that around Apollo/Isis all kinds of “B-influences” are allowed, like massage therapy, hatha yoga etc. I was glad to have found the LaoZe Society led by Seiki. He introduced me to Taoism which is also the (4th ?) way, and Qigong, through which I found that missing ingredient.
I must say that at this moment I have great difficulty with the current teaching. It is unclear to me why the current teaching is seen as higher than what we had before. But it doesn’t feed me as it did before. We now have an old prayer. And we talk a lot about breathing these days. But what do we know about breathing exercises? I mean, in the way breathing connects to the lower self? G said that without proper knowledge, it is not a good thing to experiment with that. And the knowledge about Natural Breathing is not in the teaching of the FoF. We had it for a while when we had the Lao Ze Society, but I think it was not valued enough..
About Inner Circle. G. and O. spoke about the inner circle of humanity, not about the inner circle of ”a” school, but of School on Earth. A more abstract idea. It relates to Understanding of the Human Condition. And I suspect there is a lot of transformed suffering involved to be in that inner circle. Who knows if there are any current and/or ex-students in that circle? I only know what the wrong criteria are for establishing that…
We need to see school not only horizontal through time, but also “vertical” as a triad. In a higher dimension, something that we, human beings see through Time, can be seen as a Triad that unfolds through time. The Triad actually exists before our perception of it, as a play that is written. The only thing that we have to do, if our fate happens to be a conscious one, is being present to the unfolding of our life. Through the practice of non-identification we begin to see the meaning of it. Our present time in this play can be seen as a cairos time, to speak with RC’s words. There is an interesting drawing in the Theory of Celestial Influence, page 329, where School as a cosmos is plotted on that “Philosophers Stone” that we call the Enneagram . The 3 points of the triangle are higher school (Influence C), the teacher, and strangely, Antagonist (opposition).So, that last part belongs to the triad and experience of school! It’s interesting to note that “the teacher” is not at the apex of the triangle.
And of course a group of people can only function as a work field for C influence as long as there are individuals that can find Meaning in it. There are no objective criteria for what is, or is not, a “real” school, because one characteristic is that they are all unique, according to the 4th way ideas. And a school is there for those who need it.
Peace to all.
Another fence rider who has always valued the positive aspects of the FoF,
Shaman.
April 19, 2007 at 5:01 pm
Meher Baba said that the only real difference between men is the degree of their love for God.
That is why this blog is so depressing. It is based on the assumption that because the Fellowship did not help some people in their search, that it cannot help anyone.
Some people left because the Fellowship did not help, or even thwarted them in this search, or perhaps because they discovered that they were really searching for something else.
Who would claim to be as all-knowing as to state with the certainty shown here that the Fellowship is invalid and suspect for those that are still in it, or for others who are still seeking?
Who is so confident in his perceptions as to invalidate the experience of those who find meaning in the Fellowship? (And remember, we are not talking about Charlie Manson here or Hitler, just a bunch of people in the hills trying to remember themselves.)
Can it be that the influence of the Fellowship is valuable for some people — and not only for a short time, as a stepping-stone — but for the long run?
Can it be that the will and discipline required to stay in the Fellowship will bring some people closer to their aims?
Why assume that students are naïve and deluded because they feel the Fellowship provides the best conditions for their work?
Why assume that students are so mindless they cannot take what is useful from the teaching and put aside the rest?
Why so much focus on one’s man’s behavior rather than on his message?
Why assume that his aims are sinister rather than well-meaning?
Why assume that students are lacking in conscience because they are focused more on the meaning of the school than on its form?
Why so much ridicule for the external going’s-on of the Fellowship, as if every other place on the planet earth was free from these flaws?
This kind of thinking makes the blog into a “war” rather than a discussion — and a war that does not actually wish to be won, but only to perpetuate itself, churning out endless ‘I’s.
Is the aim, as is sometimes stated here, to help people who are confused to leave the Fellowship, or simply to indulge in negativity?
Why not try to assume that if people are experiencing the Fellowship as something meaningful for their work, that it is true?
Is there anyone here not trying to find value in his life?
Why not encourage each other to deepen our love for the Truth (not the truth of the many ‘I’s) in any way we can?
April 19, 2007 at 6:09 pm
What gives human beings their biological ability
To subjugate life on earth to their utility
Is also the curse of their mind’s ardent fertility
That creates beliefs to explain away life’s futility.
Humans require to scratch the itch and satisfy the need
In the joining together and finding of creed
That justifies vacuous existence and plants the seed
Of the supernatural remnant that from death will proceed.
Positive, well intentioned and full of righteous trust,
We leave the open road and wash our eyes of dust
Submitting ourselves into the keeping of the just
We build a new city where love rules robust.
Then, finding ourselves exposed to the highest degree
To the lies of a fraudulent spiritual bourgeoisie
We seek to find the truth and so be free
Of the institution’s conspiratorial calumny
Back to the open road my friend; the dust we knew
Blinded our reason less than this dubious stew
Of feel good lies ladled out by a motley crew
Who deserve to be mucking out cages in a zoo.
Where to now? The open road by definition
Is devoid of the confines of tradition
Maybe you need a certain type of disposition
To succeed in making this death – like transition.
The open road is not for all and nor should it be.
The long and short of it is we don’t have to agree
There is a greater price to be paid to be really free
Than keeping up with Roberts’ spending spree.
The only way to know if leaving is right action
Is to leave and allow your experience to give you traction
To make it worth while and justify your timely abstraction
By pursuing a course more likely to give real satisfaction.
We have been warned and now know to recognize
A muddy side path that has proved it can hypnotize
The spirit and what we hold dearest will jeopardize
I really think it is time to leave behind all these ‘I’s
April 19, 2007 at 6:57 pm
To Martin:
Thank you for your comments.
I owe you my apoligies and I hope you will accept them.
I understand now you were not introducing the idea of obligatory “donations” rather suggesting “volontary donations”.
This, I would consider gracious, as a form, appropriate and considerate.
Thank you for introducing the idea.
For Sheik to find out what he wants to do with it.
For your site, I visited it again and you are right to wonder and ask. Now I am forced to say that I do not know myself anymore where I got this idea from! Another site perhaps? Sorry for that as well. Your site is beautiful and important for anyone wishing to explore the 4th Way Teachings occuring, right now, on the planet.
It is so nice not to have to defend a mistake!
The “wonderfully humiliating” is for me!
Thank you for that too!
I wanted this post to be in the blog even if a bit personal, providing Sheik agrees, in case anyone “belived” my previous words without verifying the validity of their content.
Keep up with the good work.
Gratitude to you and us all.
April 19, 2007 at 7:19 pm
I’m a bit surprised to continue to see posts expressing the hope that the Fellowship can change. I would have thought that reading even a small portion of the posts on this blog would have disabused anyone of that notion. Many of us have been there and tried that; in our time, we came to Robert with our hearts in our hands and came away with nothing.
So for William Heinz (3/240) to Elena (6/368), and everyone else before, after and in between who naively hopes for change, I would like to suggest that THE FELLOWSHIP OF FRIENDS WILL NEVER CHANGE, at least not in the way that you are hoping it will. Surely you know that in asking the Fellowship to change, you are really asking Robert Burton to change, which is not going to happen.
Some thoughts on why:
1. “THE LOWER CANNOT SEE THE HIGHER.” According to Fellowship dogma, the lower (that would be you, dear) cannot see the higher (that would be Big Bob), and thus it is impossible for you to offer anything in the way of constructive criticism. To admit that your ideas are worth listening to would overthrow the entire house of cards of the Fellowship power hierarchy. You cannot be seen to know more than the All-Powerful Oz, sometimes even with regard to the smallest of matters.
2. PSYCHOLOGICAL PATHOLOGY CANNOT ADMIT MISTAKES OR FEEL REMORSE. Whatever affliction Robert suffers from, whether narcissistic personality disorder (1/84 and 2/8) or psychopathology (6/112), makes it impossible for him even to consider changing his behavior. And any attempt at conversation would likely be perceived as an attack on himself, or at the very least as confirmation of your inferiority and disloyalty. Even if you don’t accept the medical view, consider the meaning of the curious term “crystallization.”
3. THE DIE-HARDS WOULD DESERT THE SHIP IF TRUE CHANGE OCCURRED. The egos of true believers demand that the Fellowship be bizarre, demanding, exclusive and expensive, for this makes it — and by extension, them — “special” (see Optimist, 6/324 on HIHCCGs). Any retreat from this extremity, especially if in response to calls for change from “below,” would be perceived as weakness by the true believers. It is their faith that is Robert’s true support, and this he cannot afford to lose.
I’d love to be proved wrong on this, but my personal experience of almost twenty years in the Fellowship tells me I’m right. I’d bet big money that all you’ll ever see is cosmetic change, if that.
April 19, 2007 at 7:26 pm
Howard,
I would be very interested in reading a reply from you to #376, since I have discussed some of those same issues with other Howard Carters out there myself, without any concrete explanation or answer .
M.
April 19, 2007 at 7:43 pm
Based on Shelley’s tip, I saw “Holy Smoke.” I don’t think I ever saw a sillier movie. Hired by her parents, a deprogrammer comes to deprogram a young woman who has joined a cult in India. However, she seduces him, and becoming sexually obsessed with her, he ends up wearing lipstick and a red dress and begging her to marry him and move to an ashram. When she refuses, he punches her and puts her in the back of his trunk and tries to drive away with her. I guess it was supposed to show that the deprogrammer was more screwed up than the girl he was deprogramming and the cult he was trying to save her from. The only thing I liked about the movie was that the girl finally went back to India (this time with her mother) to resume her search.
April 19, 2007 at 11:27 pm
Dear Friends:
Some readers of this blog tell me that it is helpful to themselves and others and is making a difference. Having been away about 7 weeks I’m finding that the overall tone is still one of indignation and I’m a little sad about that, also a little puzzled. We’re not the first group of idiots by any means.
If it is helpful to anyone I’d recommend the book by Jack Kornfield “After the Ecstasy, the Laundry” or “How the Heart Grows Wise on the Spiritual Path”. It contains accounts of these same betrayals over sex, money, trust, love etc in other traditions in Chapter 10 “The Dirty Laundry”. Sometimes teachers have actually even been able to acknowledge their failures – there is no rest or retirement on the spiritual path. The book also offers help on how to transform these really rather common spiritual problems of teachers/guides not seeing their “shadow” parts. It also offers some reasons why this happens – examples from Krishnamurti to Amrit Desai.
The betrayal is a teacher. However the hardest betrayal I’ve found was not the external betrayal of the teacher and school but to acknowledge how much I betrayed my own understandings, my own heart, my own friends.
Asking forgiveness if in my ignorance I ever hurt you.
R C
April 19, 2007 at 11:32 pm
#377
I guess your being attracts your clients. Or is that your being attracts your wife? I always forget.
April 19, 2007 at 11:41 pm
Lots of “shout-outs” today:
Another name #343: thanks for the invite, a little busy this weekend. If there’s something in the Bay Area, that might be interesting…
Arthur #346: side-stepping probably a good idea at the time, and thanks for your kind words about Body Types, about which I have more to say, later.
Innernaut #348: Ah, yes, “Howard Carter” does present a problem. He is good at circular reasoning, and it doesn’t seem that he is going to budge from the party line, so I see no reason to debate him. Maybe when he’s no longer infof he will look back on these posts in chagrin—maybe not. Also, I no longer have much interest in the 4th way. When Gurdjieff “formulated” his system almost 100 years ago, he drew on spiritual traditions and practices that were almost inaccessible to anyone in the western world. Now we have authentic representatives of almost every religious/spiritual tradition publishing books, giving talks, and teaching everywhere. And this is without even considering that Gurdjieff lived in a world in which psychotherapy was all but unknown. Look at the synthesis of depth psychology and spirituality (with some “Gurdjieffian” ideas, no less) that Almaas (Hameed Ali) has taught for many years. It would have been unimaginable in Gurdjieff’s time, and is far more powerful and real in producing self-understanding and personal change than any “fourth way” organization with which I am acquainted.
In the beginning, joining a group like the fof can produce some new understandings and realizations of self, knock one out of your usual way of perceiving the world. But in the end it seems to me that the net result of staying infof is to keep oneself, one’s relationships, and one’s understanding of the world completely static, rule-bound, archaic, and completely circumscribed by a fearful, infantilized, and superstitious world view.
Remember Gurdjieff’s story of the youth trapped in a “yezidi circle”?
“Within the circle he can move freely, and the larger the circle, the larger the space in which he can move, but get out of it he cannot. Some strange force, much more powerful than his normal strength, keeps him inside. I myself, although strong, could not pull a weak woman out of the circle.” (For the full text, see this link.)
http://www.lifepositive.com/spirit/masters/gurdjieff/teacher-gurdjieff.asp
Doesn’t that seem to describe many members of fof? And what is the circle made from?
Chop Sticks #343: Were you at the Chop Sticks Café in Seaside circa 1972-1973 where Stella and Harold held court until the wee hours of the a.m. over plates of pretty bad sweet-and-sour? Just wondered. Sorry my lack of profundity disappointed you, but the Tales of the Interregnum are designed for a specific audience. To be honest, I am not currently attracted to subjects like divided attention or non-duality, and have skipped most of those posts. I did publish a wonderful book in the 1990s called “The Wisdom of Sri Nisargatta Maharaj” that I would recommend heartily—it’s advaita from the famous cigarette maker. My insights these days come in therapy, on mountain bike rides, and in the kitchen. Very prosaic, I’m afraid.
Coot #356: Neat post, rotfl. Oddly, I’m working on a post centered around the “baby, bathwater, bathtub” idea. More later.
Rabbi #357: “FOF members are imprisoned in their limited world view. Freedom lies outside.” Very succinct statement, very true to me, too. Thanks.
JoelF
April 19, 2007 at 11:46 pm
coot enjoys the laughing. Appreciate most of posts and posters. Maybe FOF not cult for intellectual, but definite cult for meetings of remarkable mens and womens.
Can’t tell if inner piece in 6/311 post is jokering, but maybe ring of truth. And thank for posting. 311 causing coot long thinking again. Very long. So long that word long no “longer” apply, maybe word like astoundingdanglinglong thought (or just danglinglong thought?). Or, maybe better not-so-short thought?
OK, not-so-short thought results like this: Maybe RB under appreciated. After all, turn on dime. When predictions of future not work as well, RB in stoke of genus put in place – predictions of PAST! Sheik, sheik, sheik, most cult leaders not this clever. Plus, smart enough to use past where most of peoples are died. For specific instance, most prehistoric peoples are no longer alive. So … less people to contradict. Brilliant !
Instead of future known as ‘prophet of future’ RB can right now be known as ‘prophet of prehistoric.’ Could be ‘prophet of dark ages’, but phrase have not consonance (have to avoid word assonance in RBs case due to sodom connection – though less true can be more accurate).
First corollary might be apply to modern sports events. For specific instance, coot feels a state coming on, almost there, now … predict that yesterday Detroit Pistons can beat Boston Celtics by basketball 91 to 89. Not yet sure of meaning of numbers yet, probably need have more danglinglong thought …. almost here …. feel coming …. another one any minute now ….
April 19, 2007 at 11:55 pm
Hey Joel,
Good hearing from you. We only met briefly a couple of times in NYC. I, unlike some others here, always thought of you as one of the few older students I knew who hadn’t had their sense of humor totally removed (but, of course, we all know where that leads). I remember an East Coast ‘do you started by saying, “If someone were to watch us from outside the window here, they would probably think we are a group that worships flowers.” Cracked me up then; cracks me up now.
I, too, am a big fan of stories here. I truly believe that the mysterious core of our existence cannot be spoken about or approached directly, it can only be hinted at or caught from the corner of one’s eye. The stories that we tell ourselves and each other, if we listen carefully, reflect and reveal our own truths. So, let ’em rip.
April 20, 2007 at 12:42 am
Innernaut #308: Have you tried Ayurveda’s Sun Salutation? Ayurveda calls itself the science of self-healing, and I’ve read that Gurdjieff had some connection to it.
April 20, 2007 at 1:45 am
About a dozen people I know have recently left the fellowship, say in the last 3 months, yet their names continue to appear on the inernal web site. These are just the ones I know. How many more are out of the fof, can anybody quote the actual population at this point? It’s kind of like filling all those events with invitees, rather than paying customers. The marketing is really something. What a smoke screen.
Attrition, like all bad news in the fof, is known by word of mouth only, and is carefully guarded by the FIA. On the receiving side is the principle of voluntary ignorance: the segue to a soothing, and completely dissociated experience.
April 20, 2007 at 2:33 am
Elena, #362
do you mean Howard Carter is Girard? I have a feeling you kind of know the guy…
April 20, 2007 at 2:37 am
What the hell was that message today all about? A message was posted to the Fellowship community email list where FOF-related events and meetings are normally advertised. The message was about a wacko in a town 40 miles away who had called his pastor, said he had a gun, and was going to massacre some school kids more bloodily than the other guy in Virginia did. The police are now looking for him. The message further went to say that one lane of the entrance to the Fellowship property would be closed as a general precaution, and to make sure you show your ID pass with presence when entering.
Welcome to Bushland. Spreading freedom and fear. Oh no, the message was probably sent because the Fellowship is obviously a school, and the terrorist was targeting schools. Duh. It makes perfect sense.
April 20, 2007 at 4:14 am
Practical (382)
I’d be depressed, too, if I’d invested much time, energy, and money in something, and then came to understand that, notwithstanding its value, it wasn’t what I’d hoped and that, in fact, I’d been had. I know exactly how that feels.
“Some people left because the Fellowship did not help, or even thwarted them in this search, or perhaps because they discovered that they were really searching for something else.”
Not me. The Fellowship did help. I wasn’t searching for something else when I left, except perhaps a closer connection with the higher parts of myself, including my conscience and the things I’d learned through experiences of consciousness.
“Who would claim to be as all-knowing as to state with the certainty shown here that the Fellowship is invalid and suspect for those that are still in it, or for others who are still seeking?”
Focusing on the “certainty” supposedly shown in some posts may be a way of avoiding the fact that many, many posts discuss, in a reasonably objective, nonjudgmental tone, based on facts known to the poster, reasons for believing that the FOF has a pernicious influence on its members. More on this later.
“Who is so confident in his perceptions as to invalidate the experience of those who find meaning in the Fellowship? (And remember, we are not talking about Charlie Manson here or Hitler, just a bunch of people in the hills trying to remember themselves.)”
I’d never try to invalidate your experience. I might try to point out that your experience may be based on assumptions I know, from my own experience, are not true, or that I came to conclusions that differ from yours after having once held the beliefs you now hold, after having experienced things you may not have yet experienced.
“Can it be that the influence of the Fellowship is valuable for some people — and not only for a short time, as a stepping-stone — but for the long run?”
No need to speculate about what “can be.” The question is whether it is so for you, or for me. As I said, I found it quite valuable at one time. I believe that it is inevitable that a person with a true desire to be in touch with his higher aspects will eventually conclude that the influence is crippling. If you happen not to see it that way, that seems entirely reasonable to me, if only in view of the fact that I myself once felt an intense loyalty to the FOF and all it purported to be. I wouldn’t be honest if I denied that I believe it is because you have thus far succeeded in avoiding certain realizations you eventually will have.
“Can it be that the will and discipline required to stay in the Fellowship will bring some people closer to their aims?”
Will and discipline are useful qualities, but to be of ultimate value they must serve some worthwhile aim. What is your aim? To be able to remember yourself? Can you do that, after however long you’ve been at it? Honestly, now? Would the tremendous discipline required to put a gun to your friend’s head and pull the trigger bring you closer to your aims?
“Why assume that students are naïve and deluded because they feel the Fellowship provides the best conditions for their work?”
That depends on their aims. If their aim is to become someone who has no sense of responsibility towards anyone or anything other than their own sense of being “conscious,” the FOF might very well provide the best condition for thier work. If their aim is to be someone who uses and abuses people who trust them, they certainly have found the right teacher.
“Why assume that students are so mindless they cannot take what is useful from the teaching and put aside the rest?”
The question assumes too much. A teaching that supports, or even allows, what I know, for a fact, has been occurring in the FOF on a routine basis for decades is fundamentally flawed. The ability, or even willingness, to put such matters “aside” does not reflect a higher degree of consciousness or being, but a lower one.
“Why so much focus on one’s man’s behavior rather than on his message?”
A person does not have to be a good baseball player to be a good baseball coach. The message of a person who routinely demonstrates every quality that teachings throughout history have uniformly considered evidence of a lack of consciousness is, to say the very least, suspect. I long ago came to understand that, in Robert’s case, it wasn’t an act designed to facilitate anyone’s awakening, but a manifestation of a profoundly disturbed personality. Also, Robert and his behavior strongly influence every aspect of the Fellowship. It isn’t simply a question of sexual abuse. The vain and delusional elitism, the lack of genuine caring for others, members or not, the incessant grasping after money, food, drink, art, sex, “esoteric” knowledge, status, etc., that permeate the Fellowship and always have, are all related, and all emanate from Robert’s lack of development.
“Why assume that his aims are sinister rather than well-meaning?”
I won’t speak for others, but in my own case, assumptions have nothing to do with it. I learned the hard way, and have sought to help you avoid having to do the same. There is such a thing as naivete, and if thsoe who are influenced by it fully accepted that fact, they wouldn’t be naive.
“Why assume that students are lacking in conscience because they are focused more on the meaning of the school than on its form?”
With all due respect, this question reduces the notion of “conscience” to a meaningless abstraction that indicates a lack of contact with your conscience.
“Why so much ridicule for the external going’s-on of the Fellowship, as if every other place on the planet earth was free from these flaws?”
Every other place on the planet doesn’t purport to be what the Fellowship purports to be. Which is more ridiculous, a person walking around naked, or a person walking around naked crowing about his lovely clothes?
“This kind of thinking makes the blog into a “war” rather than a discussion — and a war that does not actually wish to be won, but only to perpetuate itself, churning out endless ‘I’s.”
I know what you mean, and agree there’s some of that going on here. Do you have a suggestion about how to have such a discussion that isn’t susceptible to this? Under the circumstances, I think folks have been relatively cordial. Those circumstances include the experience of having been sexually assaulted, lied to, and/or bilked out of tens of thousands of dollars, by one’s “teacher.” They also include discussion with people who steadfastly defend the sanctity of all of that, or else maintain that it’s all someone irrelevant.
“Is the aim, as is sometimes stated here, to help people who are confused to leave the Fellowship, or simply to indulge in negativity?”
Neither is my own aim. I try to speak the truth as I understand it in response to questions people are asking. Believe me, I have no interest in trying to cajole you out of the Fellowship. One of many things I learned through my experience of the FOF was that you can’t talk someone into valuing being in the Fellowship, and I learned the converse after my departure.
“Why not try to assume that if people are experiencing the Fellowship as something meaningful for their work, that it is true?”
I accept that it is true that people experience the Fellowship as meaningful for their work. I know exactly how that feels.
“Is there anyone here not trying to find value in his life?”
What is the significance of someone “trying to find value in his life”? It seems to be a truism. Each finds value in a different way. That doesn’t address the question whether the Fellowship is an appropriate, productive place to try to find any particular thing one might value.
“Why not encourage each other to deepen our love for the Truth (not the truth of the many ‘I’s) in any way we can?”
What might I have to offer you that might deepen your love for the Truth, Practical? Is there any aspect of the Truth that you suppose you might not quite understand right now? Go for it.
April 20, 2007 at 5:01 am
Is not enough, with your own I`s?
ten thousands mechanical I`s.
What means the Work?
Dominate siempre,
no te abandones a la ira,
si quieres llegar a la paz definitiva,
sonrìe al destino que te hiere, y no hieras a nadie
April 20, 2007 at 5:27 am
It seems quite appropriate and no coincidence that the answer to Practical’s post #382 is ‘I see’ said the blind man’s poetic post #383. The harmony of the universe manifests again!
April 20, 2007 at 5:30 am
MAN is shipwrecked on a desert island, and not only refuses to climb into the rescue ship sent for him, but throws stones at his rescuers.
Anonymous
Be careful fencesitters for fear the fence becomes a razorblade.
Instinctive centers unite! Hooray!
April 20, 2007 at 7:48 am
For all of those who believe there is no esoteric significance in the Rhinocerous Droppings…This is a true story!
Overzealous zookeeper Friedrich Riesfeldt (Paderborn , Germany) fed his constipated elephant Stefan 22 doses of animal laxative and more than a bushel of berries, figs and prunes before the plugged- up pachyderm finally let it fly, and suffocated the keeper under 200 pounds of poop! Investigators say ill-fated Friedrich, 46, was attempting to give the ailing elephant an olive oil enema when the relieved beast unloaded on him. “The sheer force of the elephant’s unexpected defecation knocked Mr. Riesfeldt to the ground where he struck his head on a rock and lay unconscious as the elephant continued to evacuate his bowels on top of him” said flabbergasted Paderborn police detective Erik Dern. With no one there to help him, he lay under all that dung for at least an hour before a watchman came along, and during that time he suffocated. It seems to be just one of those freak accidents that proves… “Shit happens.”
April 20, 2007 at 8:02 am
So far my calculation, have been 29 including the 6 and Kiran and Loretta. All form here or in Nevada city area. I know of 4 people who are saying they are leaving in July and many who are planning on leaving and getting prepared…what ever that means.
There are people in centers that have left and I am sure there are more then we know.
R.M who left around 95 said that 200 peole had left in that time. Robert had said in a meeting that 100 people will leave in this phase. There is an expectation that not many people except for “John” will join.
There seems to be a Russian blog like this, which means the influx of Russian student has come to a halt.
Try to see if you can organize an alternative community meeting and see who many will come or maybe a party at lake Francis with outies and on the fencer”s”.
Maybe we can make a list with the initials of people and count that way.
You can look them up in the directory….?
Love and peace and joy to all of you.
April 20, 2007 at 8:06 am
thought to share this article I picked up in Galaxy Review recently.
Galaxy Quest
Many eyes are turned to the remote reaches of our galaxy where we have our only 3rd density simultaneous reincarnate game occurring,on a little obscure planet called earth.While this game is due to end in the year 2012 with a final “spiralling” out, there have been many harsh critics who believe the game players are extremely naive to think that you can push higher self’s evolution at effectively 1000 times the speed of a standard sequential incarnating path.We decided to take a look at the final stages of the game and the remaining two species in play.
By far the longest playing and most dominant has been the Human (who-marn),who have had a long and tragic string of almost successful attempts, always thwarted by some cataclysmic geologic event,and in one case a tragic march-by cross spearing event in the last few minutes before completion(we do suspect foul play).The human game now has one final shot at completion before the game runs out in 2012 and they have been understandably reticent to reveal any details of their method ( we did meet with one of their spokesmen but he would not discuss anything with us other than to acknowledge “we know who you are”).We did however have no problem gleaning this information from a planetary “blog”site;
The proposed “spiralling out” is to be undertaken by an elite order of individuals who were hand picked by an even more elite “High Council” ,who were no longer residing in 3rd density but who mostly were involved with the previous tragic march-by cross spearing attempt. This Council numbered 44 in total.Once the High Council had assembled the elite 2000 and revealed to them their “Ascended Master” they then disbanded and returned home where they could watch from a safe distance.
Details are sketchy, but we understand that the Ascended Master had an initial plan to build an Ark out of canvas and crockery to carry the elite 2000, and that provided the elite 2000 could remember who they were ,and why they were, the Ark could lift them out of space time continuim and into 4th density with an initial impetus of a cataclysmic earth tremor. Unfortunately ,some of the elite 2000 lost faith that the canvas and crockery Ark could float let alone move out of 3rd density realm and so the High Council was called to take these tainted elite away (we think to one of earths satellites) and more elite were selected as replacements. Once the Ascended Master discovered that the cataclysmic earth tremor had not manifested, he was forced to search back earlier in time to other pre cataclsmic attempts and in a remote cave found out that as an ascended Master he would have enough power to pull the elite 2000 through to 4th density if he could consume and store enough of a special high protein astral matter. The elite 2000 would be connected as in a chain to him by a special technique called “fisting”, and the bond should hold provided the elite 2000 could continuously intone an incantation called the “sequence”.Well we have our doubts, as did a few more of the elite 2000 who left recently in search of a slighly more palatable technique. In our monitoring of the blog site we noted that most of them had come up with “nothing”.
The othern species involved in the game are extremely secretive but we did speak to a member called Curly who said that although they were not yet ready to show their hands they did believe they had all the apples.
Galactic pigs
April 20, 2007 at 8:28 am
To Joel F.–nice to have you here!
I differ on an important point.
you wrote:
Ah, yes, “Howard Carter” does present a problem. He is good at circular reasoning, and it doesn’t seem that he is going to budge from the party line, so I see no reason to debate him…
I beg to differ about the “party line” comment (aside from the fact that this is not a problem but what makes the debate worthwhile in the first place).
This “Howard Carter” is putting the issues neatly and directly in front of us and argues them well. It seems that you cannot deal with it, because of course the matter of joining or staying in the FOF cannot simply be summed up as reducing the experience of students to wanting to be “special”…if that was the case, someone as smart as you would have left a long time before you did, yes?
April 20, 2007 at 9:00 am
Dear Practical (6/382),
I thought I would try to respond to your letter. You seem like a sincere student and genuinely saddened by what is being done to your school. You say that people who have left are now claiming the Fellowship is wrong for everyone and don’t even admit the possibility that it might be meaningful and valuable for others, as it is for you. That would be a logical thing for a negative departed student to think, wouldn’t it?
As a student, I’m sure you have considered how our expectations color our perceptions of the world and make it subjective. May I suggest for a moment that your understanding of what is happening on the blog is also not complete and is interpreted through your personal bias. If you can entertain that notion for a while, perhaps you will also allow me a different view, which is that from my perspective, most former students are NOT saying that the FOF is all wrong and that no one can benefit from it. Try to read a few posts carefully to see if you could find support for this different conclusion.
In fact, the way I see it, most people are saying that the FOF was great while it lasted, that up to a certain point it helped them a lot, and they are encouraging current students to find out for themselves what works, even if that means being a member. People are also sharing why it did not work for them, and why they eventually left or are considering leaving.
One of the things you say is that people left because FOF thwarted their search, or they found out they were searching for something else. In the Fellowship system, Robert Burton is the conscious leader who finds ultimate answers and hidden meaning to life on Earth, such as the sequence, and provides these for his students’ benefit, would you agree? So it would be natural to assume that people leave because the new teaching isn’t for everybody and they don’t want to accept Robert on his own terms, yes? I’ll ask you to stretch your creative imagination a little bit more and entertain the notion that perhaps somebody left not to follow a better teacher, but because they stopped searching altogether, because the whole concept of wanting to get a final answer, a key that opens all doors, a solution or magic formula to becoming conscious, fell away as an illusion.
I don’t know for sure that the influence of the Fellowship is valuable in the long run. As far as I can tell, as years go by, true devoted students get more and more comfortable in their roles and more identified with being members, needing the school and Robert more and more. This is encouraged and admired as a positive quality called ‘valuation’. Perhaps these students do experience the school as valuable, in the sense that it would be terrible for them if they lost it. For me looking from the outside it signifies their increased dependence and loss of ability to function in normal life. I still experience the Fellowship as very valuable, but in a more indirect way, not because of what it teaches, but because of what I can learn from it about human nature and the functioning of groups and leaders.
Isn’t it odd that, in the school, we are asked to examine our attitudes and see our mechanicality, but our relationship to the school and to the teacher is not included in that examination, as if it were something that is beyond investigating? It’s sad for me to see how my friends who are still in the school are placing their bets on Girard. You know, Robert doesn’t make any sense, but that’s because he’s so far above us that we can’t understand him, but thank God, we have Girard, he will explain everything, he will make everything good.
In the past, some people have called Girard formatory, but I don’t think he’s formatory at all – he does rely on personal experience and does admit to not understanding things when he doesn’t understand, and I’ve heard him express some pretty insightful thoughts. But he has this one quality that he probably considers a strength, but I would consider a weakness, namely, he’s very formatory about this only one thing: Robert is always right. That’s an absolute, unquestionable given.
He does not allow himself to investigate the possibility that Robert could perhaps be very disturbed and that sometimes the reason it seems he doesn’t make sense, is not because he is so way more conscious than us, but because he actually doesn’t make sense. You know, Occam’s razor principle. Instead, Girard has to graft his considerable personal understanding and frame it in terms of whatever Robert comes up with. Of course he can’t doubt Robert, those are the rules of the game and terms of his employment. And because Girard is so firm and manages to make sense most of the time, people give up their vote to him and say, well, he’s a man number 5 or 6, if he doesn’t doubt Robert, I shouldn’t either. He’s a true model student, he shows us that it’s possible, I should try to be like him.
What people forget to acknowledge is that they have personally never verified that Girard is a man number 5 (or 6?) and Robert a man number 7 (or 8?). That they have never even verified that such a ladder of linearly numbered men exists in reality and not just in Gurdjieff’s books. It is a belief based on taking Robert’s basic claim about his divinity as true, and then taking his statements about Girard’s sort-of-divinity as true, at face value. What happened to verification?
But I digress. I wanted to answer Practical, who asks ‘Why so much focus on one’s man’s behavior rather than on his message? Why assume that his aims are sinister rather than well-meaning?’
My dear, did you ever have parents who told you to do one thing but themselves did another? A typical example would be parents who tell kids not to smoke because it’s bad for them. When you confronted them about their own habits, they tended to say, never mind what I do, just do what I say, didn’t they? Did that convince you? I had a childhood friend like that who is now smoking her way to lung cancer. Why study with a teacher who can’t embody some basic human kindness, sincerity, compassion? Anyone can speak lofty words, but our common sense (unless we learn to give it up) tells us to follow the actions.
As for his aims, I’m pretty sure that they ARE well-meaning. Just like a child is well-meaning when she plucks up flowers in the park, without being aware of the broader social context, but does it to please herself, so Robert’s personal psychopathology has actually been watered and fertilized for decades by the attention, adulation, service and lack of negative feedback he surrounds himself with. He means well for himself and his students, in his version of reality. But he is a textbook megalomaniacal narcissist with early childhood trauma that created precisely this kind of personality. If we had allowed any doubts as to his divinity, we could have seen it earlier. These dark, repressed, thwarted and untranscended parts of himself are the enemy, adversary, devil, lower self, dragon, snake, that he and the 2000 students are fighting mightily to keep repressed. Tragically for the school, most of the 2000 are not as psychologically screwed up as Robert, but are still trying to wage his war, and in the process keep giving him reinforcement of his grandiosity, which keeps the merry-go-round going round… and round…
I’m sure you can go on for years picking and choosing those parts from the school that make sense, and creating meaning, and it will be a fulfilling experience, as it has been for many of us. You may or may not wish to look at the bigger picture at some point. In any case, I wish you much honesty and sincerity with yourself and good luck,
Yours,
fellow Traveler
April 20, 2007 at 9:14 am
To: third pig, 6/373, Anonymous, 6/376
“In relation to submitting your will to the teacher, have you ever thought about or set a stop point for that transaction. If you did, have you stuck with it , or have you let it slide gradually lower to avoid having to face the eventual truth.”
Personally I have not set a stop point. I gave myself an aim when I was a newer student that if the teacher asked me to do something directly I would try to carry it out, however distasteful it was to me. My personal understanding is there is no compromising in this area. But for me, it is always safe to act in this way because a true teacher will only ask things that lead to advancing the student’s evolution.
This brings up the example of someone saying they would kill if Robert ordered them to do so. For me, its a moot point because I know he would not ask that of anyone. He’s already asked me to do things and afterwards he saw I was mismatched to the activity and he released me from it.
Regarding moving the road 6 inches to the left, I would move it numerous times if Robert asked me to do it, because I trust that in his asking my spiritual needs would also be served. If Ken W. asked me to move it back and forth I might have a problem.
I might add I would trust Robert in that case because of all the other times I have trusted and all the other times it worked out well for my spiritual needs.
Anonymous, 6/376
“You talk about the submission of will to teacher and School. While this is indeed desirable, it must be accompanied by verification. Peter Ouspensky said, Verify, verify, verify. And this means independence of thinking, verifying things (mostly) that you might not want to verify. It means acceptance of the truth as it shows itself, not as you want it to appear…”
At the core of verification are two things: constancy, and trust. These attributes come into play after one has verified something. In the school one’s verifications are tested often over time. Some tests are minor, some severe. If one has verified the school is real there is a finality involved. One doesn’t have to keep re-verifying it. If one feels the need to keep verifying it, it only means one has not really verified it to begin with.
I also think that many people come to the school not prepared to pay the price the school requires of them to remain. I’m not talking about money here, but paying the price of seeing one’s self.
“The (Teacher) is the bloke who looks after the house…. In order for him to do this successfully, he must take equal care of every room in the house, not just some of them.”
This is really the heart of the whole matter, and also where I feel your have misunderstood the role of a conscious teacher. Robert by no means needs to “take equal care of every room in the house”. All Robert needs to do as the teacher is to put your evolution first. Nothing more. That might mean neglecting one or more rooms in the house, letting them go into complete disrepair if necessary. One important point you seem to miss is this: we can not awaken on our own terms. It is exactly what is impossible, as Ouspensky might say.
P.S. You-Me-Us-They, maybe this addresses your question from some time ago.
April 20, 2007 at 10:04 am
I am forwarding an old letter from an ex-student, as valid now as then. Be warned – I have trimmed it a bit where you see …, but it is still long.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dear Friends,
Of late, my friends and I have been labelled “dissidents”, and worse, by FOF’s leadership. While reading this letter it would be helpful if you could simply consider me an old friend.
… Please permit yourself the clear space to receive these thoughts and feelings in order to work with them as completely as possible. Given the current situation, I understand that this will not be easy for you. It certainly has been a disturbing process for me as well. However, I have been overwhelmed by the weight of my observations and feel duty bound to share them with you.
This letter is not intended to serve as the last word on REB or the FOF. Nor is it written to prove or establish a particular point of view. Instead, I hope that it will create a balance to the information you have received from FOF, and act as a springboard from which you may begin a long overdue reappraisal of your own feelings and presumptions. Many of you are mired in a way of life which, for myself and many other ex-members, was neither happy nor enlightening, but instead offered little more than tedium, suppression, exclusivity and debilitating dependency.
Of late, FOF has required all of you to believe that certain ex-members, as “dissidents”, are “bad” simply because criticism of REB and FOF is not now and never has been permitted. These people have been described as “vindictive”, “crazy”, or “liars” … Apparently it is unthinkable to FOF that anyone could sincerely believe (or know) that the allegations directed at REB are true. But given a history of intense involvement with REB, do you really believe that ex-members would turn around and speak this way unless they really felt that something was wrong? From FOF’s narrow point of view, one would have to be fallen, dark, and just plain wrong to criticize their “guru”. I implore you to remain open to the possibility that your old friends are none of the above.
The author of this letter has over the past year spoken with approximately 40 ex-members who have uniquely personal and varied perceptions of REB and FOF. Among these people are a number of former high-ranking FOF officials and board of directors members, as well as personal and sexual intimates of REB. …
They are all united in the belief that accurate information, dialogue, real consideration and anything remotely like discrimination have never been offered or encouraged by REB or FOF. Therefore, they would like to see a free, full, and honest discussion occur. Such a discussion would benefit everyone, except for those who desire only the maintenance of their status and claim. Everyone, especially the “rank and file” FOF membership, must be set free in order to find their own true way through this controversy.
It is obvious however that as long as ex-member “dissidents” are seen as negative, dark, angry, unspiritual “others”–and “you” in FOF remain the righteous, holy lovers of god, unjustly criticized, god’s army fighting off the heathen masses and demonic media–as long as this contrived dichotomy persists there can be no clarity. …Do not permit the FOF leadership to call you to a false, childish, and simplistic understanding of this controversy. It is a complex, personal and deeply emotional matter that cannot be resolved or dismissed through name-calling and character assassination. … This matter cannot be reduced to a battle between good and evil…
Instead of encouraging an open discussion, FOF has used the same tactics that any political organization would use. They have created a “cause” for you to rally around and feel emotionally committed to and identified with, so that you won’t stare the accusations against REB straight in the eye. They would rather hook you into a fight to protect “the right to freely practice religion”, a right which they claim ex-members have tried to deprive you of. But in what way has anyone actually done this?
Let’s take a little closer look at the constitutional protections afforded to “religions” such as the FOF. The right to believe whatever you want is protected absolutely. However, the right to do whatever you want is not afforded the same absolute protection at all. Many of the things which REB has been accused of do not fall into the category of actions which are protected. Additionally, is it not reasonable as a common citizen to ask why people who have been involved in illegal activities should be granted the privilege of tax-exempt religious status, as claimed by FOF? And if, in fact, abuses of people have occurred (through actions which are commonly recognized as abuses in our society) shouldn’t the victims have a right to address them in all the forums available? How then does this amount to an attack on religious freedom?
…The difficulty for many of you is that it has been so long since you entered into an examination other than one created for you by REB and FOF that to do so on your own and to examine “the authorities themselves” is a very difficult task indeed. And yet it must be done if there is to be any clarity or passage through this controversy.
All I ask then is that this process of unfettered examination be permitted and actually encouraged by FOF. Ask yourself how it is that you are now “advocates”, burdened by belief and fixed presumptions. Why hasn’t REB and FOF welcomed and seen the necessity for an open airing of issues? Why have you all been programmed and “educated” by the FOF propagandists on their way to whitewashing the so-called “FOF sacred history”? How does spiritual practice properly lead to all this manipulation and defense? Who and what is requiring that you become politicized rather than clear? And how well do you really understand that which you are being called upon to defend?
I invite you to regain the discrimination and inquisitiveness many of you have unconsciously chosen to relinquish in order to associate with REB and the myth he has drawn you into (both as to who he is and the necessity of turning to him for your liberation). If we assume for the moment that REB began his “teaching work” by speaking to our desire for liberation, apart from excess dogmatic baggage and entanglements, it is evident that he has now “moved on” and is at work merely cultivating in his students a yearning for salvation in a system where only he can do the saving.
… And if we accept that REB’s writings carry a credible message, they do so only insofar as they release the reader into his or her own inherent sense of “being” and “truth”, free of the game of “the search”. It appears impossible for this to occur in the midst of all the medieval, dogmatic, exclusive, ritualized form beneath which direct, unmediated truth has been buried by REB and FOF. After all these years, where is the real evidence that any type of “spiritual process” is uniquely occurring within your community? People are just growing older. The greatness of god has been subordinated to the glory, of REB and his hierarchical empire. Needing to be nurtured and fathered, and being naive as to true spiritual culture and to the game of spiritual authority, most of us never even noticed the light go out.
This is a large part of what ex-members are trying to address. You are part of a highly ambitious and politicized “machine of seeking” where you no longer own your own perceptions. Ideological dogma coupled with the edited information of the group dominates and molds your life. You are required to adapt to a complex, sophisticated technology of mind and emotion, through which you understand yourself and upon which you view the world; it is a hierarchical scheme with REB as the head, reigning above and beyond the world of man, as external savior or father. We have all been too much in need of an external mediator to serve the participation in and awareness of our own true condition. We must grow beyond the childish and incapacitating dependency bonds which are everywhere propagated by REB and FOF.
In many ex-members’ experience, the first doubts and questions about their lives as devotees centered around the observations they had regarding the “community” and “institution” of FOF. But they found it much harder to take the obvious next step and look directly at REB, the source and creator of every aspect of the “culture”, institutional structure, and spiritual life of those in FOF. These ex-members, like many of you, dared not break the great taboo of seriously questioning or doubting REB; either their comparative lack of in-depth or prolonged personal experience with him or their incapacity to break through the indoctrination prevented them from seeing him clearly. But finally, in the face of what is now obvious, their relationship to the mythology and imagery which is REB has broken down. These people have “discovered” the man Bubbles Burton, and now know that “the emperor wears no clothes.”
At this point it would be good to examine the specific activities of REB that many people are concerned about. Some of the information recently brought to light will be recounted here for those who are unfamiliar with what has been said, or for those who have been confused and distracted by FOF…
To begin with, REB has historically had control over the finances, properties, and other assets of FOF as if he personally and solely “owned” FOF, in stark contrast to the purposes and laws governing non-profit religious organizations. He has personally made all key decisions and has gratified his every whim, caring not for the financial strains he has placed on others. There are serious questions regarding whether REB has over the years abused the tax-exempt status of the FOF corporation for his own personal gain. Perhaps this is why FOF officials in the past few years have strategically destroyed documents that tended to reveal that REB was actually “running the show.”
REB has always demanded that people “go beyond themselves” to give him more money than they could afford, and then has spent the money on whatever he wanted to create or consume in that moment. Like a child, he has demanded the immediate gratification of his material desires, and then has often abandoned what he has been given in search of a new and more expensive “toy”. … In private, REB has laughed at those who have shown any concern about his financial exploitation of others. This is purportedly an example of the fact that REB is “free of conventional morality.”
…REB has participated in and required others to perform in sexual and related acts of a highly degrading and demeaning nature which have caused psychological and/or physical damage to those participating. FOF has recently admitted to examples of these types of activity, which many people believe are a reflection of the perversion of REB, rather than anything like enlightened “spiritual instruction.” … These sexual excesses of REB are not a thing of the distant past….. And it is the firm belief of many people that the inordinate amount of time and attention REB spends on sexuality reflects nothing more than his own obsession and desires.
The vast discrepancy between what REB claims and says, versus what he does and intends must be thoroughly examined and understood before one can make an informed response to the man. What should be clear to everyone is that no one in FOF is given the opportunity to “cast the light” directly on REB. Why is he so estranged and hidden from you, really? Apart from your child-like fantasies and subtle beliefs about “who he is” and “how he works”, how much and how privately have you observed him and then tested your observations? The fact is, apart from what you have read and are told, intermixed with a variety of contacts with REB years ago, most of you know very little about your teacher. You have therefore been called to relate to only the most superficial imagery about who REB is, and at the same time you have become steeped in an officially prescribed method for relating to him which permits only subservience and fawning devotion. And those of you who have been close to him should ask yourselves to what degree you own hopes, needs, and self-generated projections and expectations, coupled with the mythology about how REB’s “unconventional behavior” has been designed to teach you, has colored your perceptions of him. Ex-members know from their own experience that many of you are paying a heavy price in terms of emotional suppression, confusion, and self-delusion in order to maintain the false conclusion that you have actually been served by this “crazy-wise” madness.
Another disturbing matter regarding REB is the ritual of secrecy and deception surrounding him. Some of the things described about REB’s life would not in themselves be worthy of any real concern if they did not stand in complete contradiction to an idealized image which has been used to exploit the people who have supported the whole affair. … It was on the basis of this lie that so many accepted the notion that his past behavior was in fact a “teaching demonstration”, and went on to give their lives, minds, hearts, and money to this man. However, upon discovering this deception, many were understandably outraged. …
You may ask yourself why those who know all of these secrets have always withheld them from you. But we already know the answer. How glamorous to be associated with the ultimate matter and the ultimate master! But what a conceit and what a foundation for the pursuit of power. Through the screening mechanisms of the so-called “culture”, only the few “mature” or “committed” members are given access to REB based upon a paranoid and patriarchal mentality of obedience. The demonstrated signs of your “maturity” (i.e. submission and obedience) gauge the level of your “status” and regulated, controlled access to events, places and people on the political (not spiritual but political) pecking order… REB’s behavior is a reflection of his own character and motivations, just like everyone else’s, and he should rightfully take responsibility for the problems his shortcomings have created in his own life and the lives of others. He is anything but free of ego. He has his own strengths and weaknesses. Yet through the process of indoctrination and manipulation, coupled with the weaknesses of those around him, he has been successful at keeping himself invulnerable and unquestioned. In so doing, he has become afflicted in all the ways that any man would be corrupted and deluded by excessive power and isolation from critical feedback. He has also thus imprisoned himself within the expectations he created in others and the torment of pretending to be something he is not. …
…Nor is it any longer accepted that “the world” is a terrible place full of terrible people, and that spiritual life ends when one leaves FOF. People now know better than to become ensnared in the tentacles of this argument. And where there was only “one” worthy of love and respect, all others became unworthy and worthless. This is what happened in FOF, for as we were all divested of our own selfworth and simultaneously invested in REB, we were rendered nothing rather than “no-thing.” Can you feel this?
We have all (current and ex-members), along with REB, cooperated in constructing this insane empire. It is a classic and perverted play on what might have been. And it is nothing like what most of us signed up for or thought we were choosing. But so long as you are exposed to the “system” which life in FOF represents, there is no space within which to understand this and be set free.
…those who serve critical functions in your “culture” adapt to a profoundly dependent form of relating to REB and a resulting righteous, exclusive, self-glorifying, self-protective and politically charged “life of service.” You are all aware of the institutional mentality of those who lead you at FOF. They are part of a machine and priesthood of aberrated spiritual seeking and corruption, an exclusive club, reigning in association with the “enlightened” source or “goodie” who is offered as a reward to those giving over their center, discrimination, and direct unmediated ability to live the truth of their own condition. In this process many of you have lost yourselves, your power and your way. And for REB to hide behind a claim of “blamelessness and divinity” while placing all the blame on the immaturity of his devotees, those very people who depend on him for their spiritual guidance, is not only irresponsible and cowardly, but the perfect vision of a perfectly narcissistic megalomaniac. Surely there was a time before you came to FOF where you could have simply recognized this to be so.
But can you now? It is so hard from where you are. I know, for it has taken many people years, even after leaving FOF, to wake up from the sleep which had settled into every corner of their mind’s eye. Although discrimination is spoken about in the teaching, it is nowhere present in the lives of devotees. Many of you have, through non-use, lost your own personal, instinctual feeling for life, having been conditioned to believe that it represents recoil from the divine. You have become good at obeying without reflection. Your blank agreement is applauded as “equanimity” and the transcendence of reactivity.
Those who are in the FOF hierarchy have the most to lose. And they are among the most corrupt and in need of help. These people are relieved of the ordinary responsibilities of life and live instead a bizarre fantasy life. To do the bidding of their teacher they have become proficient at selectively withholding and releasing edited information, and have made the poor choice of abandoning their native sense of human decency in exchange for power and prestige.
Many of these same people are the most seriously ambitious in their “search.” It is as if they have not yet adapted to the rudiments of the practice as it relates to the “search” and yet are influential simply because they are “submitted.” Having made such a heavy investment of time and energy in gaining their status and position, they are now banking on their “personal” relationship with REB to save them. In this way there is a tremendous amount of manipulation around the poles of hope and fear. You spin and turn but rarely find a seat from which to observe the play. … The shocking news that thousands of people see this “master” of yours as a tyrannical and deluded power broker never quite reaches your ears or cannot penetrate your rehearsed belief.
When finally pressed up against this blunt observation from “the world” outside, you hold up “the teaching” like a crucifix to stave off the heathen hordes. You retreat into the “certainty” that nothing like “the teaching” could ever have been written by a charlatan. But many believe that REB’s, or anyone else’s ability to artfully synthesize, categorize, and recapitulate ideas and insights does not bear any necessary relation to spiritual realization and maturity. Aside from his particular style of presentation and arrangement of things, there is nothing uniquely described in REB’s literature that does not appear elsewhere. … he has borrowed from or been heavily influenced by numerous others to whom he has given no credit at all. The fact that he has been able to articulate the free and transcendent relationship to life that we all instinctively feel in moments, coupled with the fact that he writes and speaks about many things which are beyond the realm of your personal experience, is offered as “proof” that he is spiritually superior to you.
Many of you have apparently forgotten the simple truth that actions speak louder than words, and that insights which are not practiced are meaningless, if not dangerous. Your distraction with a complexity of abstractions and a sophisticated, “pre-packaged” context within which to interpret everything has left you “incapable of seeing the forest for the trees.” “By their fruits shall ye know them”, said one spiritual teacher nearly 2,000 years ago. And it is on this basis that each one of us must draw our own conclusions regarding the spiritual status of Robert Burton.
I am so glad to no longer be where many of you are, and I wanted to take the opportunity to tell you why. In many respects it would have been far easier to write this entire matter off as just another set of experiences. But I have felt too much passion and serious caring to have made that choice.
Should any of you meander out beyond the fences and psychological barriers of FOF, you will find that there is “unavoidably” only god outside your temple walls. Your spiritual life may change in form, but it will continue. And there are many people who have been through what you have experienced and can thus offer help. Many have needed and received support in order to make the critical transition back to a measure of self-respectability.
…It would have been preferable for all of you to have done the work of provoking this discussion. But I understand why this could not be so and trust that you will soon recognize the benefits which will ultimately come from what has been started. If in the end there is a bit more openness and honesty in FOF, a degree of self-critical inspection, or a drop less arrogance and exclusivity on the part of Robert Burton, we will have all been served…
Sincerely,
Mark D. Miller Sausalito, California USA
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Now, before you dig too deep in your memories trying to remember that name, I should let you know that I needed to make a few small changes to the letter. Do the following substitutions, and you have the original letter:
Bubbles Burton = Franklin Jones
Robert Burton = Da Free John
REB = DFJ
FOF = JDC (Johannine Daist Communion)
The idea is obvious, hopefully. Just change the names and the rest of the text, despite its length, complexity and level of detail, is a near perfect fit – word for word, point for point. Would Margaret Singer just smile and nod knowingly at this point Joel?
Nothing unique in REB’s approach, nor in its results in his students.
From:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Adi_Da/Archive1#Why_Adidam_settled_the_lawsuits_and_for_how_much
April 20, 2007 at 2:23 pm
I opened up a new discussion board.
NEW DISCUSSION.
This discussion is therefore being closed, you will only be able to comment in the new one. Old comments will stay here.