The time has come to move again.
For part 7 click here.
For part 6 click here.
For part 5 click here.
For part 4 click here.
For part 3 click here.
For part 2 click here.
For the article that I wrote so very long ago, and for the first and potentially most enlightening part of the discussion click here.
And as always, enjoy and have fun.
April 28, 2007 at 4:43 pm
To most,
Ultimate truth lovers?
Only what helps, in a given situation can be seen as valid option and can be called “truth”.
It canges? Well, yes of course, it changes! What does not ?
This is the “fun” of it!
To re-invent oneself, over and over again.
So, let’s be polite towards one another and with this I do not mean becoming fals to oneself and reduce one’s own interactions to “dog petting”…
I mean respect, courtesy and simplicity be considered, really considered before posting…
I regularily get a lovely reminder from Sheik, our host, when I read at the top of the page, his last words as his introduction to the blog:
“And as always, enjoy and have fun.”
Glad you exist.
April 28, 2007 at 5:02 pm
2b: that is the shame of the fof and what I/we have to live with, it’s beyond benign, I/we were trying to put our energy, time, strength, commitment into a truly noble endeavor.
That it could have been so co-opted by rb is sad , painful and probably criminal, as witnessed by this blog.
I find this blog part of my healing process, giving voice to that in me which represents the noblest reasons for being part of a School.
And thanking all of you for giving voice to that which is painful and difficult….
Do i feel like a fool for having been used? absolutely…
how is it that I can witness these and countless other examples of deplorable, despicable behaviour in humanity and still…
I am happy to say..
In my heart of hearts, I still believe in that dream of people coming together, working together to build a vision of what we want our world to be.
go figure..
the gods are quite frankly, stark raving mad
April 28, 2007 at 5:14 pm
Dear friends,
I invited you to read these words….
‘All there is is this’
‘SEEKERS BEWARE … this rare, radical and uncompromising communication leaves you with nowhere to go. If there is a readiness to hear, this is the first and last message.’
‘Doctrines, processes and progressive paths which seek enlightenment only exacerbate the problem they address by reinforcing the idea that the self can find something that it presumes it has lost. It is that very effort, that investment in self-identity that continuously recreates the illusion of separation from oneness. This is the veil that we believe exists. It is the dream of individuality.’
Out of all the many awakening that have been described to me, it is continuously confirmed that one of the first realisations that arises is the seeing that no-one awakens. And yet we see that the majority of teachings, both traditional and contemporary, are constantly speaking to an apparent separate seeker (subject) and recommending that in order to attain enlightenment (object) they should choose to meditate, self-enquire, purify, cultivate understanding, still the mind and the ego, surrender, be honest, seek earnestly, give up seeking, do therapy, do nothing, be here now, and so on . . . the ideas are as endless and as complicated as the mind from where they are generated.
These recommendations arise from the belief that the “enlightenment” of the “teacher” has been attained or earned through the application of choice, effort, acceptance or surrender, and that other seekers can be taught to do the same
Of course there can be nothing right or wrong with earnest seeking, meditation, self-enquiry, understanding and so on. They are simply what they appear to be. But who is it that is going to choose to make the effort? Where is the effort going to take the apparent chooser to? – where is there to go if there is only oneness? If there is no separate individual there is no volition, and so how can an illusion dispel itself?
There is no person that becomes enlightened. No-one awakens. Awakening is the absence of the illusion of individuality. Already there is only awakeness, oneness, timeless being, radical aliveness. When the dream seeker is no more it is seen (by no-one) that there is nothing to seek and no-one to become liberated.
Here is oneness, the realisation of wholeness that cannot be attained or owned. This is the awakening in which the awareness of what is arises together with the dreaming of that which cannot be known. There can be a dance between dreaming and being, and in that dance there can be a return to the fascination of personal ownership.
However, the realisation that the dream seeker is also oneness is liberation, the uncaused, impersonal, silent stillness which is the celebration of unconditional love. This is all there is.
There is no me or you, no seeker, no enlightenment, no disciple and no guru. There is no better or worse, no path or purpose, and nothing that has to be achieved.
All appearance is source. All that apparently manifests in the hypnotic dream of separation – the world, the life story, the search for home, is one appearing as two the nothing appearing as everything, the absolute appearing as the particular.
There is no separate intelligence weaving a destiny and no choice functioning at any level. Nothing is happening but this, as it is, invites the apparent seeker to rediscover that which is . . . the abiding, uncaused, unchanging, impersonal silence from which unconditional love overflows and celebrates. It is the wonderful mystery.
External link
* The Open Secret Tony Parsons Home Page
ps Thank you NO PERSON for all your interesting messages on this blog.
April 28, 2007 at 5:39 pm
I thought it could be of interest.
Christopher Hitchens: God Is Not Great
posted by alex
on Apr 27, 2007 – 07:28 AM
——————————————————————————–
‘I do not think it is arrogant of me to claim that I had already discovered these four objections (as well as noticed the more vulgar and obvious fact that religion is used by those in temporal charge to invest themselves with authority) before my boyish voice had broken. I am morally certain that millions of other people came to very similar conclusions in very much the same way, and I have since met such people in hundreds of places, and in dozens of different countries. Many of them never believed, and many of them abandoned faith after a difficult struggle. Some of them had blinding moments of un-conviction that were every bit as instantaneous, though perhaps less epileptic and apocalyptic (and later more rationally and more morally justified) than Saul of Tarsus on the Damascene road. And here is the point, about myself and my co-thinkers. Our belief is not a belief. Our principles are not a faith. We do not rely solely upon science and reason, because these are necessary rather than sufficient factors, but we distrust anything that contradicts science or outrages reason. We may differ on many things, but what we respect is free inquiry, openmindedness, and the pursuit of ideas for their own sake. We do not hold our convictions dogmatically: the disagreement between Professor Stephen Jay Gould and Professor Richard Dawkins, concerning “punctuated evolution” and the unfilled gaps in post-Darwinian theory, is quite wide as well as quite deep, but we shall resolve it by evidence and reasoning and not by mutual excommunication. (My own annoyance at Professor Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, for their cringe-making proposal that atheists should conceitedly nominate themselves to be called “brights,” is a part of a continuous argument.) We are not immune to the lure of wonder and mystery and awe: we have music and art and literature, and find that the serious ethical dilemmas are better handled by Shakespeare and Tolstoy and Schiller and Dostoyevsky and George Eliot than in the mythical morality tales of the holy books. Literature, not scripture, sustains the mind and—since there is no other metaphor—also the soul. We do not believe in heaven or hell, yet no statistic will ever find that without these blandishments and threats we commit more crimes of greed or violence than the faithful. (In fact, if a proper statistical inquiry could ever be made, I am sure the evidence would be the other way.) We are reconciled to living only once, except through our children, for whom we are perfectly happy to notice that we must make way, and room. We speculate that it is at least possible that, once people accepted the fact of their short and struggling lives, they might behave better toward each other and not worse. We believe with certainty that an ethical life can be lived without religion. And we know for a fact that the corollary holds true—that religion has caused innumerable people not just to conduct themselves no better than others, but to award themselves permission to behave in ways that would make a brothel-keeper or an ethnic cleanser raise an eyebrow.’
April 28, 2007 at 5:49 pm
Living the Contradiction 5
— between “you cannot do” and “you can do”
The above contradiction is at the basis of the 4th way system and most people have long found a way around it by making an exclusive choice of one or the other. In this Blog also most have completely lost even the possibility to consider the possibility that “they cannot do” that “everything happens”.
Of course the reason for that is that we have been programmed in a western culture, in India or China the other side would certainly be chosen exclusively…. to avoid the contradiction.
I certainly was a “doing machine” before the events in Egypt, but I had to be given a very definite lesson to learn to incorporate the other pole. First for several weeks in Coma I was given the most profound lessen of “you cannot do” because I was aware of all that was going on around my bed, for example the two doctors who walked up and down saying “He probably won’t make it”.
Or when I came out of the Coma and had to so deeply accept the fact that “I cannot do” anything to bring Cassandra back.
But it did not stop there, when I came to ISIS I “could not do” anything to avoid being the focus of so many girls who really were driven to care for this helpless, cute newborn baby that was me. Even Rowena Taylor with whom I had hardly ever talked up to that point, invited me to her home and wanted to convince me that betraying her husband was nothing unusual, as she was doing this since 20 years.
I was really very weak at that time, “just watching and wandering” what would come next and it even became more strange. Shortly after I had refused Rowena’s offers, fate made it happen that Asaf with his lack of conscience, asked Rowena to investigate my sex-life as apparently she had been the fellowship liaison for sex-issues before and had been in charge to check if boys RB wanted to be with were AIDS free.
So dutifully and certainly without seeing any contradiction she called every girl I had been seen with and interviewed them about their relationship to me. If I had not been so weak at that point I would have gone over to her house and spit in her innocent face. But instead I wrote my first letter to RB narrating the story. A few days later Wayne Mott dutifully called me to tell me that RB had decided to give me a “Medical leave of Absence” as my letter to him was “TOO VULGAR”.
Rowena ! it does not take an Oracle for me to know what kind of Expert you are, you are a wolf in sheep’s clothing and one of the worst results of FOF education, a smiling face that has no scruple to turn around and hurt anyone if you perceive it is to your advantage.
In this respect the status quo was has always been continued by sheep…… what makes it more difficult to see, is because there are different sheep. There is always only a very small percentage of “aggressive sheep” like HC, ”Becareful” or the FOF students behind this, then the larger percentage of “real sheep” the Yes-Sayers and followers of orders, and the “Intellectual sheep” like “Just Observing” that in fact are “Just Judging” and “Just doing mental masturbation” but believe they are so clever and objective. And then there is the largest group of “silent sheep”, which for the most diverse reasons just follow and are silent. For them maybe the word from Rodney Collin might still have some awakening power: “The subtlety of the excuse will not be taken in consideration”.
Certainly if you keep hanging on to this rotten club, you are dumping all your high aspirations with which you started this work.
All these event are a crossroad and these are the moments where “you can do” until soon the gates are closing again and you are back for a long time “where everything just happens” and “you cannot do”.
“Unless the weeds are removed neither plants nor flowers can grow”
Here are some pictures from my flowers last week
http://www.flickr.com/photos/iloveyou2/sets/72157600135447901/show/
Kiran@beingpresent.net
April 28, 2007 at 7:01 pm
Dear Friends, Teachers All, Briefly, I am half-way through a booklet called Free At Last by Daniel Greenberg. It is about an experimental school for children ages 4 to 19. As I read I am chapter by chapter being blown away by the similarities to the fof as a ” School “. As above, so below?
Rarely has my lunar composure been so disintegrated. There was no other possibility for me in the moment but to hurry down to the office to get this info out to you all. The blog stew is bubbling over. How did this back burner get turned on so high? …..I have a vision. Please check this out and see if you get the same one. It is Perfect. It fits, or I have not writ one word today.
April 28, 2007 at 7:11 pm
“Teleological” reasoning is a process of reasoning in which the result to be reached controls the process used to reach it.
If the result to be reached is “not losing the school,” the reasoning process used to reach that result will not admit information that might lead to a different result.
Teleological reasoning is not free reasoning. Something to keep in mind.
April 28, 2007 at 7:32 pm
BBWolf # 392 – I agree wholeheartedly! I suppose for a lot of leaving students there may need to be a period of grieving, adjustment and / or coming to terms with the situation. Once this is past there is no need for regret, just an appreciation of the fact that what happened (what we attracted?) brought us to where we are now, and that there is a lot more to explore, now we are wiser and more self reliant. I experience some discomfort about the bloggers who are talking about getting some kind of history of the FOF up and running. I understand that the motivation behind this may be to inform ‘prospective students’ of the full facts, but we need to acknowledge the potential consequences on ourselves; I envisage a number of individuals making this their new purpose in life; they may end up stuck in the role of ex-cult members wanting to save others, which may not be too dissimilar to the position they were in before. When I left the fof, I kept a journal of quotes that seemed meaningful at the time, this one seems relevant:
“Now I stand at the end of one life and on the threshold of another. Contemplating. Weighing. About me lie the ruins of a life. Instead of blind faith – directness, unbounded energy, and instead of unclearness I now have the knowledge that comes from experience; work that is limitless in its scope and significance” Agnes Smedley
April 28, 2007 at 7:45 pm
If someone wants to set up a webforum, it could be done for free in a number of places. One place that works is eAmped.com — the only requirement is that the owner give their name and email address. If you want alternatives, try googling “free forums.”
Advantages are that it’s easier to keep track of what you read (things get marked “read”), there is threading, so it’s easier to follow specific topics or questions.
K
April 28, 2007 at 7:46 pm
bruce , paul and others
of course i am not indulging in a “wierd sense of humour’ and that statement is proof of the fact that you simply do not understand, INCLUDING all the other withering life people, (and half life people/ex members), , , , , , you simply do not understand the sheer effort required to reach my stage, (and even greater effort in my case as i guide others in the fellowship, emulating roberts shining example of benevolence).
maybe you can remember my words of pure, holy, succinct advice to you previously, EMULATE ROBERT.
you sarcasticly say, ‘magnanimous,’ proving your low form of ‘wit,’ as you fail to apprieciate my immense magnanimity in using my hard won divine energy to succour others. as again robert provides succour to so many despite the fact that he, (despite his pain and suffering), will receive back from a portion of worthless moon fodder only negativity. BUT not all of his seed falls on stony ground.
sarcastic life people, like bruce and paul, could not sustain the work required even to begin to understand the true path that i follow BEYOND the 4th way.
as a successful elite athlete i had experience of hard physical pain, i had learned to cherish the gift of pain, (as robert showed me he does), i can pass through the pain barrier wherever it occurs, mental, psyscial, emotional, etc.
you have to embrace difficulty to achieve a higher plane of consciousness. I KNOW that through roberts grace as chaperon I CAN become one of the 7, and that is an achievement that only the elite ‘workers’ can possibly attain.
one of roberts recent messages to us says it most beautifully;WHEN A MAN HAS RECEIVED THE HOLY FIRE OF CONSCIOUS COMMUNION WITH GOD, WHAT LIES BEFORE HIM IS NOT PEACE BUT GREAT LABOUR. (The Philokalia)
and so i labor on – INSPIRED!
i pray that these words will inspire otherworkers to greater effort.
April 28, 2007 at 8:58 pm
I don’t find the words of Tony Parsons much more inspiring than those of the 4th way or Robert Burton.
“there is no seperate intelligence weaving destiny and no choice functioning at any level.Nothing is happening but this…”
HOW DEPRESSING!
Happy to be alive, happy to have chosen to leave to FOF and happy to feel that there IS something more than JUST this.
Moonfood
April 28, 2007 at 9:41 pm
Hello All,
As a supplement to my last post about the “soul-less-ness” of Fellowship members 7/356, another thought occurred to me. Again, it’s probably been said before, but it helps me to express it.
The thought is – “In order to leave the Fellowship, you have to BE somebody.” (You have to exist as a responsible full fledged adult).
Why is that?
Once you have given up your soul in the FOF, you actually cease to be a responsible full fledged adult – you become a “student”, with a body type, center of gravity, alchemy, chief feature, lifetime photograph, and a “school” history of payments, centers and roles you have been in, spouses/relationships/children, etc. You are asked to fit your life into the school, whereupon it ceases to have a separate existence. You are in this role for your entire natural life.
Even if you learn “unpleasant facts” about the Fellowship, and even if your conscience is painfully aware of the problem, you cannot really muster the force necessary to escape the situation until you GIVE YOURSELF PERMISSION TO EXIST, and you regain trust in your own thoughts, feelings, and judgments. It is that process, the regaining of your soul, which takes the time – sometimes a long time.
And only you can do it.
We are fortunate to be able to witness the process beginning to unfold in Elena, William H., and others right here on the blog. The process is ongoing in all of us who have regained our lives.
Charles
April 28, 2007 at 10:30 pm
re my #375, and other things
Ex-Lax (384):
You’ve misinterpreted my post and my intention by jumping to the conclusion I’m gay-bashing. (I said, “I mean, let’s face it–it’s not a coincidence that, whatever else it may be, the Fellowship has always had a form that appeals to a gay man, populated by members who feel the need to act, in certain respects, like a gay man.”)
Both references to “a gay man” were intended to refer specifically to Robert, not all gay men. By the “need to act, in certain respects, like a gay man,” I was not referring to engaging in sex with Robert, or to sex at all (although, in the context of this blog, I can easily see how it would be assumed otherwise). I’m well aware that the vast majority of those who have had sex with Robert are not gay, and that their cooperation has not been due to any desire to “act like a gay man.” I have some personal experience in that area.
I have no problem whatsoever with homosexuality, yours or Robert’s, and happen to believe that anyone who makes a moral judgment about homosexuality per se is a foolish prig (including that “Robert” who expressed his belief in an earlier post that gays can’t become “conscious,” or some such rot). Nor do I suggest any universal truths about gay men. But I’ve been on this earth long enough to notice that there are certain behaviors and predilections common to a fair number of gay men, without jumping to the conclusion that all gay men act that way, or that all men who act that way are gay. If you believe that Robert’s tastes and nonsexual behaviors, which have strongly influenced the form of the FoF, have nothing whatsoever to do with his sexual orientation, I would frankly be very interested in hearing from you, as a gay man, your point of view about this. For the moment, though, I don’t believe it’s a coincidence. I don’t presume to know why, nor do I judge it. (Nor is it a particularly original observation. I recall, a few decades ago, when a friend, Gary B., laughingly told me that, when he went to his first meeting, and saw Robert and all the men with their purses, etc., he thought the Teacher was gay! “Imagine that!” he laughed. “Silly me!”)
BBWolf (392):
I would respectfully take issue with your assertion that you ought not to be deprived of your “right” to drive a gas guzzling truck, and that there is no right or wrong except for the individual, in discussing your view that people should be free to experience the FoF. While reasonable people can differ about exactly where to draw the line about gas guzzlers–should cars getting less than 20 mpg be taken off the road? less than 25?–yours is the attitude that has brought us global warming, and any number of other phenomena that make life unpleasant for everyone except the person who imagines he has a “right” to do what he pleases without regard to the consequences for others. I sympathize with your belief that people shouldn’t be prevented from joining the FoF if that’s what they want to do, but I also believe in society’s obligation to try to prevent fraud, deception, and predation. If you want to walk around Miles at the gate, that’s OK with me, but preventing Miles from speaking truth at the gate, not so much.
Crouching Tiger (395):
Don’t assume that working without an intellectual system is spiritual snobbery or naivete. You may not feel ready to do so, and that’s fine by me. Going beyond that, to making the assumption you do, is itself no more than spiritual snobbery and naivete–i.e., if you cannot practice that way, then no one else can, or at least no one that you yourself have not acknowledged to be sufficiently advanced.
Perhaps you can let go of wondering whether I am a snob, or you are snob, along with the rest of it.
Gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate, bodhi svaha.
April 28, 2007 at 10:30 pm
#75: Elena: I am not trying to influence you, I am stating my point of view as a friend. I understand your sorrows. What makes you think that what I wrote had any hidden agenda for you to be embrace the Fellowship again?
#87: Anony’mouse’: I agree to disagree. I made the choices because I wanted something. If there hadn’t been a want, need, greed on my part then there would have not been any hook on me. I made teaching payments because I wanted to remain in the Fellowship I bought a ticket for the ride.
You may see it differently to me but I cannot change that. (am I influencing you too? I hope not)
Alexis
April 28, 2007 at 10:34 pm
#397: “What attracted me to the FOF was the quality…” Exactly, I left my prospective student meeting floating on cushion of air.
OP #2 “In my heart of hearts, I still believe…
Me too!
April 28, 2007 at 11:19 pm
Dedicated to our dear beloved Teacher,Conscious Being,Crystallized man # 7 (almost 8),Nine of Heart and fully evolved angel in the human body,his Holiness Robert Burton.
The Fellowship is sinking
but Robert doesn’t care,
he busy with his anus
he lost his mind there..
He going back to Egypt
to find hidden keys,
he test those keys with mouth
by scratching up on teeth..
The yanger “key”-the better
and great if there are three,
but older “key” will matter
if yanger has “Shirt Be”
April 29, 2007 at 12:41 am
Here are more work I’s I hear from many students while dicussing the blog:
• These people are not credible. They are lying. They are negative losers
• I want to build the school
• I want to die in the school
• Robert is not the school
• This is Robert’s school
• So, what it is not my business!
• It is RB’s right to have his private life the way he wants it
• They are adults and know what they are doing, nobody is forcing them
• The attitude toward the teacher is a reflection of the attitude to your own higher possibilities
• You still can work on yourself and take responsibility for yourself
• Shut up and be in the moment
• Shut up and let me self-remember!
April 29, 2007 at 2:30 am
Hey, Sheik, don’t lower yourself to the type of inconsiderate namecalling, there is already too much on this blog!
It is rather hypocritical dont you think that only when a member leaves he gets praise for his decisions, and not the probably equally sincere current member.
So get a grip, we are all in the same boat after all!
April 29, 2007 at 3:24 am
“There is no me or you, no seeker, no enlightenment, no disciple and no guru. There is no better or worse, no path or purpose, and nothing that has to be achieved.”
He left out: There is only the book agent, the lecture fee and the other things linked to becoming a “profit”.
April 29, 2007 at 3:29 am
Thank you all for the conversations, poems and comments. I was a member of the Fellowship of Friends from 1976 to 1981/2. I was young when I joined the FOF and it was during a time when some Centers (in the Midwest) were quite Puritanical. Anyway, I am using the name “Mind the Gap” because I have a “gap” in my life history. The time in the FOF was real and the friends we made in the FOF were special but how do you explain being shunned and having a gap in your life history, a lack of lifelong friends or acqaintances that you see from time to time.
It is a sort of Resume with an “mmmm” during a certain phase in your life. It has been a long time since I have been a member but it is a part of my life that I haven’t shared with people outside of the “School”. I struggled and left for my own reasons and always felt that it was my own inablility to be the type of student that I saw as “the good student”. However, I know that there were some strange and very sad situations in the FOF but I left before S. Saunders and Miles left the school or these situations were disclosed. I don’t want to go on about my story but I so like hearing from all of you. If a “historical site” is created, I would like to contribute.
I discovered this site one week ago and it has made me think again about organizing and writing about those years in my life when I was in the FOF. I am now 53 years old, a mother of two boys, 15 and 13 years old. I have not communicated with them about my time with the FOF but I would like to place this in context for them. I have a very loving husband and our connection is with laughter, love and living.
Thank you, Sheila
April 29, 2007 at 3:39 am
Dear Op says (2) and all others who are taking time to be here. Thanks.
Thanks for expressing yourself. Your words are like mine. I feel and I know this is part of going through the process of leaving, digesting and accepting this ‘Play”.
I am very happy that this is an available medium and wish that everybody before joining would come across this info. I have gained a lot in my years in the fof (who would not: working 16-18 hours a day, making tremendous efforts, never doing enough, always more was needed…many beautiful people, the promise of the beautiful community ).
On the other side many of my years have gone by and I have no college fund for my children, nor retirement (yet)…I have left family and friends behind and it hurts. I hurried form one octave to another, often doing too much…
Yes Robert could be worse and he is a kind man…if he would be more sadistic or criminal this would not have lasted as long. He is kind and it is hard to believe that he can be that cold and that he is what he is. He surely believes his own words…
So often I am angry to older students who did not tell me the truth…I did not question more. Who is too blame. Me..? Not wiser and trusting others point of view because I had too many of my own, and could not, dared not, to figure it out.
Yes I hurt and this blog is healing salve for me. I am sorry I can not move one (yet). Wait give me time, sit with me, endure me, as I have to do myself. It is alright, really I will survive and carry the hurt with grace, just give me time and your kindness, as many do and have done.
Love to all of you.
From the place of acceptance new possibilities can arise.
April 29, 2007 at 5:55 am
To Duncan, 394.
Obviously my eyes are neither as wide nor as open but in imagination. Thank you for getting more real and forgive me. It must be the pressure or depression.
April 29, 2007 at 7:56 am
Hey Duncan, 393 and 394,
It looks like both these posts are for me and not for the person that questioned you fairly gently. Hopefully he’ll see that, not identify with it and allow me to take the blow who deserve it much more than him.
Let me take my confusion back.
April 29, 2007 at 8:29 am
Dear Elena,
I am sorry I did not say well what I meant.
I actually like you, you speak from your heart, I really hear you.
You did not hurt me at all.
I just noticed some people attacking you and trying to give you a hard time with intellectual arguments (sometimes good), others have been very nice as well towards you and to what you have to say.
I can certainly see that this happened to other fine people like Ames G. Joel F. Charles R. and more…
So, do not take it personally if you can, we can only please 50 % of the people we encounter, the other 50% will just not like us, naturally, even when you come from the most intentional place you can muster and with total integrity.
I perhaps do not agree with everything you say, you write “mucho”, it’s your talent obviously and you are a very good thinker, but I refer more to the little things, not the important.
On the other hand I am completely supporting YOU in your departure from the fof and in trying to expose the truth, and MORE.
I hope you’ll find close friends to spend time with during this period of deep grief.
We need support, right?
This big heavy time will pass and you’ll find your joyful self again.
NoName
April 29, 2007 at 1:52 pm
Just Observing #373, demonstrates how ‘Newspeak’ works in the Fellowship: ‘Transformation’ means; Self denial, getting the dissonance going, hypocrisy, repression.
Just Observing #344: “The school is what you make of it” means: you cannot make anything external or give a full expression to your Being & you cannot create; all & everything godess REB is the only one doing that, but you can learn to make it ‘your own’ in imagination i.e. ‘transform’ the school internally (how do you transform excreta into high hydrogens, into gourmet dish?).
NoName #371, would love to get involved in some class action lawsuit; get some of my money back, maybe a chinese pot or a chadelier. Besides, I’m getting bored here (I am still in), there is not much to do lately except this conscious blog reding. If the lawsuit is successful we can turn the Galleria into an affordable B&B (maybe a section of it will remain a brothel, of a more varied sort, more selection). REB will be put in a trailer by the bathhouse and given vouchers and coupons (for groceries & gas) for further keying to a few Just Observing, HigherMs, HCs who will privately sit at his feet.
Bruce, ames, others wouldn’t you want to channel some of your anger that lawsuit way, and this time not settle out of court? Many will join including current members. And a few russian students with ’small fists’.
Archive #352, thanks for Ouspensky beyond the grave update. Thanks gods (isn’t he in this C cadre with his buddy Gurdjieff?) we have now the final word on everything. I suspected all along that there was more to it than this, and now, finally, we can begin the serious Work.
I wonder what would an REB note beyond the grave read. Enlightened Zack, would you please put on your ESP cap and try to read his?
April 29, 2007 at 3:45 pm
Hello Moonfood,
you wrote:”Happy to be alive, happy to have chosen to leave to FOF and happy to feel that there IS something more than JUST this.”
I am also very happy to be alive and for me JUST THIS is everything, as Tony Parsons says” is the manifestation of unconditional love, the wonderful mistery….”why do you want more??And what is this more? 9 lifetimes, angels hoovering around, sequences, numbers , keys???
Much better without all this staff…there is so much aliveness, there is only aliveness…
Love to you.
April 29, 2007 at 3:55 pm
to Kiran: The last post probably helped a lot more people than your previous ones. That was heart-felt. It is quite sad the lack of conscience occurring in the FOF at this time and I have to say it probably has become worse, and becoming more sociopathic in nature. I liked your flowers. You seem to have a kind heart. We are all one another’s teachers.
April 29, 2007 at 4:40 pm
The Dancer Dancing- A Dialog (monolog actually) NOT a Poem!!!
The Choreographers argue the nature of Man…
Some insist “Man is the Dance”
Some insist “Man is the Dancer”
The Conductors argue the nature of Man…
Some insist “Man is the Score”
Some insist “Man is the Music”
Philosophers argue the nature of Man…
Some insist “Man is unchanging ever-present Conscious”
Some insist “Man is electrified tissue”
Old Dog wonders “Is Man the instrument or the song?”
It’s a Crazy question. Man is neither…he is Both.
Man is the Dancer Dancing.
Man is the Orchestra Playing.
Man is the interplay of consciousness and tissue, not one or the other… both together.
Man is neither rain or ocean. He is the patter of raindrops falling on the water. He is the ripples in spacetime produced by the empassioned osculations of Possibility and Destiny.
Scroll of Credits: Yes, Yes. Old Dog know there is also the unmentioned Stage on which everthing takes place. However, you must wait to the end, to ‘The Scroll of Credits’ to know where the Dancing and Music…and Living took place.
April 29, 2007 at 5:00 pm
To I’ll give it a try #13:
I don’t want to keep labouring the obvious… or what should be obvious! The greatest spiritual beings/teachers that we know of (Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed etc..) all used a system to get beyond the system. Gurdjieff and Ouspensky adapted Sufi teaching to create a system for the Western mind.
We all need a map to help navigate our own inner worlds, and the help of people who ahve already nade the same effort. If we’re lucky, we can folow the map far enough and deeply enough to make our own footprints (actually we make our own footprints all the way along..!). Many beings have done this and come back with even more beautiful maps for others to follow. Isn’t this what the interdependence of spiritual life/beings is all about?
But you seem rather rootless and a ‘law unto yourself’… certainly not keen to acknowledge any kinship in your efforts – and believe yourself in advance of others who acknowledge the need for a map, and help.
Do I think the world you have been describing really exists in a meaningful sense? No, I do not.
April 29, 2007 at 5:32 pm
Dear Alexis and Friends,
Please, you have been kind to me and we seem to have a misunderstanding that does not really matter. I am not here to pick a fight with you or any ex-student, no matter how much our views differ. I have already picked a fight against the Fellowship because I believe it is a necessary fight.
Perhaps it would be easier to leave and transform this on my own and let things be but I am not going to take that path. Fighting means so much more karma and struggle and yet if I can help even one person to get a wide view of the Fellowship before he or she joins, the karma and the struggle are worth it.
You see, what I find most dangerous about the Fellowship is that I sincerely believe that it makes us, the students, believe that we are not good enough. That we are not allowed to talk or participate because we are not “conscious” enough, “good enough.”
I believe people join a school because they know they need to work on themselves but if the school treats them repeatedly for a long time as if they are not worth while people, then the school itself is discriminating them. For whatever excuse, I was not allowed to participate or given the slightest support in seventeen years that I was in this school. Even my husband allowed them to discriminate me and supported their actions with his.
I was given the exercise not to give angles at meetings for two years because I asked a question to Robert, an insignificant theoretical question.
I know there are many more abuses in the Fellowship than this one done to me but the subtlety with which the inner circle of the Fellowship denies a huge population of the Fellowship the right to participate on equal ground is discriminatory. It harms the SELF and people get used to being less. It is so subtle but it is the most dangerous aspect of any cult.
Alexis, I have much appreciated your angles, I don’t know why I don’t seem to be able to convey this to you. Since I began participating on the blog so many things have happened. When I began there was much love for both ex-students and the Fellowship, much wish to receive the suffering and still stand up for the Fellowship. I did not wish to leave. I had to.
As time goes by I see more and more why I had to. What it has done to me and others and why I am going to fight.
But the fight is not against you unless you are willing to stand for the Fellowship of Friends as it is today. Then the fight is against you and even my daughter and my husband.
If I make a hundred mistakes, don’t be surprised. I have made a million mistakes for seventeen years by supporting the Fellowship wishing an institution to avail my being.
I am not free of making mistakes and you have no idea how difficult it is to tread my way above the fear of not having been considered “good enough” for seventeen years to
consider myself “good enough” to question this institution down to the ground. But I am going to try. If I was not “good enough” to support them I might be “good enough” to go against them.
On another subject, I don’t know if the historical document that Ames proposes is just a historical one or a questioning one.
I don’t just wish a “historical document,” which indeed has its place. There is still a “school” somewhere in me, but that is another story.
What I am trying to develop at the moment is a document that addresses the innumerable flaws of the Fellowship. One that collects the many cases of actual damage big or small.
And let me clarify, it is the “cult” more than the “brothel”, that I am concerned about.
In this document if we could lay out the different aspects of concern with neutrality then indeed, people could write in positively or questioningly about the Fellowship. I do not oppose those that can say, everything in my experience in the Fellowship was wonderful, because that is possible too, what I would question is the right those counted few that had that luck, to say that the Fellowship has never harmed anybody or will not continue to do so.
April 29, 2007 at 5:59 pm
To A LOVER.
This is not an arguement between you and me, I want to make that clear. Neither of us is right or wrong.
Different things inspire different people. Tony Parsons doesn’t inspire me. Neither does Robert Burton, 44 angels or the sequence. But I FEEL that there is something more than just this human form on planet earth and that inspires me.
Believe me, I feel very alive and sometimes “aliveness” means feeling the pains of the world along with the joy. Tony Parsons is just another man with another opinion as is Robert and so many other “spiritual advisors”.
I will keep questioning whatever anyone tells me is the truth! Will you? Did you while in the FOF? How many years did it take before REALLY questioning Robert’s spiritual authority in your life? Are you now swallowing Tony Parson’s “happy pill”?
Let’s not forget, all too soon, the lessons we have learnt in leaving a cult….. I know nothing but neither does anyone else!
In kindness,
Moonfood
April 29, 2007 at 6:49 pm
Dear Moonfood
I don’t feel like I am swallowing an “happy pill”, for that may be is more effective to take prozac or other stuff.
What happened when I read Tony Parson’s books (also Nathan Gill Richard Sylvester, John Wheeler and many others)was that I simply found them very inspiring, honest and simple and I just want to share this….and if this is not so for you it is perfectly fine.My previous message wasa bit ‘reactive’.
I agree very much with you when you says:”I know nothing but neither does anyone else!”
It is totally a mistery!
Thank you and take care!
April 29, 2007 at 7:13 pm
Hello Everybody,
About post 7/352. Great notes, Archive! As we used to say, I have a solar side, so it’s not surprising that I took those notes for real. Nevertheless, I have to say that they make complete sense to me, whether they are real or not.
It’s hard to know what was going on in Ouspensky’s mind after he left the System behind. But, I’m pretty sure his seeker didn’t abandon him that easily. So he might have been trying to find answers somewhere else as he probably realised he couldn’t make it through the Fourth Way. Who knows?
Take care!
April 29, 2007 at 8:26 pm
I am so happy to have escaped the FoF after 11 years.
April 29, 2007 at 10:05 pm
Re Tony Parsons and just swallowing the “happy pill” of another teacher. There is a big difference between the Robert Burtons of this world and the various, let’s say, advaitists which have been mentioned on the blog, although not all come from that tradition or call themselves “advaitists”. The difference is this:
Robert Burton: “You have been seeking all your life and now you have found the right school, for I have a connection with a higher school on another plane. Follow me, do such-and-such, struggle with such-and such, and I will take you to heaven. You have the inexplicable good fortune to have been selected by Influence C. With their help, you will eventually create a soul, become immortal and conquer death. This is the greatest task you must perform and no price is to small for such an achievement.”
Other guys: “You have been seeking all your life and you want something from me but I can’t give you anything. I can’t give you enlightenment. Stop seeking already, silly. There is nothing to find and nothing to attain. Don’t keep coming to me to hear the same thing over and over. Go out there and live.”
It takes some people a long time of listening to this to realize that their original question was false. But in the meantime, it is easy to confuse the message and the person who carries it, and say, this person teaches because they want followers.
So I figured if anyone absolutely has to know whether I’m “following” any teaching, to say that my teacher is Puppetji. For sure he doesn’t want my money and my devotion!
April 29, 2007 at 10:29 pm
To Charles R. who writes: “Once you have given up your soul in the FOF, you actually cease to be a responsible full fledged adult – you become a “student”,” etc.
This is not what is suggested, we are asked to take responsibility for ourselves, especially for our evolution (the purpose is to create a soul, not to give up one).
No one can do the work for another–this is elementary. All the tools of body type, center of gravity, are here to help us understand ourself and others, not to have one be diminished by this knowledge. Also, these tools are much more on the background now and do not nearly occupy the space they did a decade ago.
To Elena who wrote: “You see, what I find most dangerous about the Fellowship is that I sincerely believe that it makes us, the students, believe that we are not good enough…”
In my 15+ years in the Fellowship, and the last 10+ here at Isis, I have never heard this sentiment expressed in any way, nor have I seen anything that I believe can lead anyone to think that way.
While not everyone is asked to lead or to “sit up front” at the meetings (I am not either, but this is not the point), I hope you look where those sentiments come from inside yourself.
I do not dispute you are feeling this way, but you have to take responsibility for your emotional reactions. There is no justification for your constant blaming the Fellowship for everything.
To Somebody’s list of work I’s students respond with to the blog. Here is one that I use: whether true or not, I still have to do my Work, in this moment.
You can define your work any way you wish (whether it is to make efforts, or no efforts, to be, or just “live,” whether is involves doing one’s job, or octave, or sequence, walking through the fields of Isis or Irises, dealing with any of these issues…,etc.), I think what most people on this blog have in common is that we seek presence. Why not make that our destination?
Siddiq
April 29, 2007 at 10:55 pm
OP (8/2): “In my heart of hearts, I still believe in that dream of people coming together, working together to build a vision of what we want our world to be.”
Hello OP,
Very well said, and I believe the same.
All the best,
-2b
April 29, 2007 at 10:57 pm
I am still in the school but I am not a student anymore.
I joined the school 20 years ago with all my heart.
I survived several of the school’s big intervals, when Influence C was “shaking the tree.”
When other students left, I never wanted to know the reason. Each time, some “good student” or center director would act as a filter, saying that the student left because their instinctive center didn’t want to pay any more or because their American puritanical morality made Robert’s sex life into an excuse for leaving.
After a year in the school, a friend of mine left, and before she did she told me that her friend had a relationship with Robert. It was a bad experience, and he left in shock. I was actually relieved to hear that Robert was gay. I’d already been in a group where the teacher was gay. In a second group, where the teacher was straight, and very interested in women, his “wife” had me kicked out because she imagined I was having an affair with him.
In the FOF, I lost a husband, a house, and a lot of money that I didn’t have and don’t have, but none of that bothered me enough to make me leave. Robert has never spoken to me directly — I don’t have money, I’m not rich, I’m a woman. I’m not an artist or actor. I don’t have blue blood or a name of noble origin. So, my role in the school — according to other students — is to pay. That’s my role and for many years I’ve been paying my teaching payment.
I began reading this blog and the letters sent to me by ex-students. I told myself that I’ve been in the school so long that I wouldn’t hear anything bad enough to change my mind, my desire, or my love for Robert.
It didn’t take long to realize that I hadn’t been aware of the level of suffering that many students endured. When Elena wrote, it was as if she read my heart. Now I understand why friends who became Robert’s lovers are so depressed and unable to have a full emotional life. I’ve seen mothers who are happy that their sons were chosen to be Robert’s lovers, and encouraged them not to lose the opportunity to experience higher levels with an angel.
At Isis, children are the last concern. In fact, a friend who doesn’t have children told me, “I think that Isis needs an orphanage.” I was shocked and offended.
I believed that I was helping to build a new civilization, not supporting and paying for all this suffering. I can’t be an accomplice any more. This isn’t the school I was looking for. I’ve learned a lot, but at a very high price. I have a conscience — someone might call it feminine dominance, but I don’t care. All those years I’ve pushed down that inner screaming voice, and had — as many others have — health consequences.
I want to leave the school without a fuss, the way I came, but I want to give a warning to potential students so they have an idea of what they’re getting into. If this blog was available to me 20 years ago, I probably would have made a different decision.
Someone said — I wish I could remember who — that you can see the level of civilization in a country by looking at the way they treat children and old people. Elena, you’re right: I don’t recognize the same Ark that I boarded 20 years old.
During these 20 years, I’ve met some wonderful people, and leaving those friends is going to be a much bigger payment than I’ve ever made. I’m sorry, and I love you.
April 29, 2007 at 11:31 pm
Moonfood #31: From Rodney Collin’s book “The Theory of Celestial Influence” Rodney quotes from Guy De Maupassant’s notebook, April 7, 1888.
“All the progress obtained by our cerebral effort consists in the ascertaining of material facts by ridiculously imperfect instruments, which make up in a certain degree however for the inefficiency of our organs. Every twenty years some unhappy enquirer, who generally dies in the attempt, discovers that the atmosphere contains a gas hithero unknown, that an imponderable, inexplicable, unqualifiable force can be obtained by rubbing a piece of wax on cloth; that among the innumerable unknown stars, there is one that has not yet been noticed in the immediate vicinity of another which has… Well, what about it?
Our diseases are due to microbes? Very well. But where do those microbes come from? And what about THEIR diseases? And the suns, whence do they come?
WE KNOW NOTHING, WE UNDERSTAND NOTHING, WE CAN DO NOTHING, WE GUESS NOTHING. WE ARE SHUT UP, IMPRISONED IN OURSELVES…”
And so we seek the holder of the keys? The eternal seeking?
April 30, 2007 at 12:15 am
Crouching Tiger (29):
Perhaps some of this is semantics.
When you treat someone as you would have them treat you, are you “externally considering” them?
Or are you simply being kind?
Are you doing it because Gurdjieff/Ouspensky/Collin/Burton, etc., said we must do so in order to evolve?
Are you doing it because Jesus said you should love your neighbor, and it’s the way to get to heaven?
Or are you just being kind?
When you pay attention to what goes on within and without you, are you “self-remembering”? “Being present”? “Practicing vipassana”? “Doing zazen”? “Creating a soul”?
Or are you paying attention?
No big deal.
April 30, 2007 at 12:27 am
To Lady B who wrote: “So, my role in the school — according to other students — is to pay. That’s my role and for many years I’ve been paying my teaching payment.”
I am very sorry for you (no doubt many on this blog will applaud your decision to leave but not me) as you have apparently for many years accepted what you believed your fate should be–I hope for you that your experience included more than just being somebody who pays.
You see, I do not know any mothers who applaud their sons being Robert’s lovers (there are very few mothers in the Fellowship whose sons are Robert’s lovers–this cannot possibly be more than a handful, at most as there are few such families in the School).
I also do not see the depressed students and people unable to have an emotional life (I assume you do, so there must be more than just paying money in your life) any more so than anywhere else outside of Isis or the Fellowship.
I also do not know of anyone of nobility, blue blood, or artistic talent here that gets special treatment. The artists here pay, in many ways, as all do, and as the universe exacts from us, whether we are in or out of the School.
Finally, children appear to me healthy and well adjusted, not mistreated, not in any danger. There are hundreds and their parents (of which I am one and I assume you are too, which makes me wonder why we have never connected or if we did why you never spoke out against the abuse you perceived). Do you believe they are worse off here than let’s say in some big city with all its problems?
Good luck to you.
Siddiq
April 30, 2007 at 12:36 am
Disillusionment! I found out that Puppetji DOES want my money! You can’t even trust a sock any more these days…
April 30, 2007 at 12:44 am
Yes, Dana (8/33), those notes are real! Archive recently left on his annual pilgrimage to the Himalayas, but before he went he was kind enough to forward to me the complete contents of the mysterious Yale Library envelope, with permission to circulate them if it seemed appropriate.
The primary manuscript ends abruptly after the Precepts quoted in Archive’s blog entry (7/352).
In addition, there is a crumpled piece of paper which appears to have been torn from a letter written by Rodney Collin, as follows:
“You may be surprised to learn that we invented the Six Processes one night when O. had had several glasses too many, with a view to seeing if his students were by that time so gullible that they would believe completely incomprehensible nonsense. Amazingly, a whole pseudo-science was built from these obvious absurdities, as described in my comic parody, ‘The Theory Of Celestial Influence’.”
Other papers from the envelope are mostly receipts for alcohol purchases, together with a small number of grubby handwritten sheets, mostly indecipherable but with an occasional clear phrase or sentence such as:
Feed the cats.
I tink, therefore nothing.
G. made me do it.
Must think up some confusing “famous last words”.
Etc., etc.
There is also what appears to be a later addition, a piece of paper folded and stapled to the outside of the envelope, containing the following:
“Maurice Nicoll: Commentary on a line from Ouspensky’s Notes On The Fifth Way -
‘But false names are sometimes necessary’:
On first glance this seems obscure, but it is simply explained when one considers the little known fact that Ouspensky was born in Ireland. His original name was Paddy O’Spensky. O. himself did his best to keep this quiet, for obvious reasons. He once told me that even before emigrating to Russia he was prone to philosophizing and would present his theories to anyone who would listen. He was convinced that the Little People were a manifestation of higher consciousness, sent to help Irish people to awaken. There would be a global cataclysm which only the Irish would survive. They would create a new society based on their unique connection with the Little People. A messiah named Balmy Bob would prepare them for their role (see RC’s pamphlet ‘The Herald Of Harmony’).”
The following is written on the same sheet of paper but in a different hand:
“In the 1980’s this messiah was thought by many to be Bob Geldof. It was commonly believed in Ireland that the world would end immediately after Live Aid, thereby solving the problem of global poverty at a stroke. When this didn’t happen it was assumed by many that the Little People were deliberately misleading Bob, with a view to increasing his humility. Others were disillusioned by the non-occurrence of the prediction and began to look for a new Balmy Bob. A deputation visited California in response to stories of a Balmy Bob teaching a primitive version of the 4th Way there, but quickly returned when it became apparent that this Balmy Bob was just another imposter. ‘Even if blows of the staff fall like rain and shouts roll like thunder, we still haven’t lived up to the task of the fundamental vehicle of transcendence….’”
April 30, 2007 at 1:15 am
Siddiq (36) quotes Charles R. “Once you have given up your soul in the FOF, you actually cease to be a responsible full fledged adult – you become a ’student’” and says: “This is not what is suggested, we are asked to take responsibility for ourselves, especially for our evolution. (the purpose is to create a soul, not to give up one).”
The mention of the soul in this context confuses the issue, but the fact remains that by joining the FOF you become subjected to huge pressure to believe what everyone else believes (or pretends to believe), most of which is nonsense, eg RB is conscious, the FOF is the only real School, everyone else is asleep and food for the moon etc, etc. Voicing disagreement with any of these nutty ideas will draw heavy fire from other students. After a while it becomes more comfortable to stop thinking for yourself – that’s how you “cease to be a responsible adult”.
Siddiq quotes Elena “what I find most dangerous about the Fellowship is that I sincerely believe that it makes us, the students, believe that we are not good enough…” and says “I have never heard this sentiment expressed in any way, nor have I seen anything that I believe can lead anyone to think that way.”
Well how about being told that RB is on an infinitely higher level than us and so can do no wrong, and that we are incapable of making the efforts to wake up in this lifetime?
Siddiq: “I think what most people on this blog have in common is that we seek presence. Why not make that our destination?”
It’s not a destination. There’s no need for sequences, etc. We’re in the present whether we like it or not.
cheers, RB
April 30, 2007 at 1:22 am
Dear HigherM (post no. 10):
I am so very grateful to have found in you another initiate who understands the True Teaching of our Holy Father Robert Burton. As you so rightly say, “EMULATE ROBERT.” Indeed this has been my Guiding Star since both before and after I completed the Alchemical Work of Transmutation of the base into the fine and awakened into the Seventh Heaven under the guidance of Robert some fifteen years ago.
As you so rightly, if a bit crudely, put it, it is indeed the “succouring” of many others that enables us to perform the Alchemical work of the creation of the Philosopher’s Stone. Indeed I have “sucked” many young men as Robert taught me by example, although I choose to put it more discreetly than you; I prefer to refer to it as “Receiving the Effluvium.”
As you well know, Robert taught us this Work by example every day, indeed sometimes many times a day! And yet so many both in and outside of the Fellowship of Friends seem not to comprehend the the true nature of our Teacher’s Work; they think he is merely indulging in deviant sexual practices! Ah, how the secret protects itself, eh? The truth, the True Way, is only for those who are prepared, those who have the insight and the courage to proceed “beyond the fourth way” to accumulate our “hard won divine energy.” Thank you for those inspiring words!
As I wrote some time ago in post no. 163 on board no. 3, by emulating his example, I have come to the conclusion that Robert Burton is undoubtedly the greatest Alchemist of this age, one who has rediscovered the ancient Work of utilizing the male ejaculate to create the Aqua Vitae, the Elixir, in the Inner Retort, that which turns the “basest of metals” into the “finest of gold.”
And as you well know, this work is indeed Work and not for the feint of heart, especially for those of us who in actual fact prefer women to young boys. But our Teacher teaches us that succouring is what is required, so do it we must. But the rewards are many, are they not? If you are not already close to completing the Work of Transmutation, then I am sure you are well on your way, and you too may soon find yourself blessed with your own school, your own entourage, your own chauffeured vehicles, all but the outward marks of greatness.
I wish you all the best, and may your “immense magnanimity” continue to assist you with your succouring!
April 30, 2007 at 1:24 am
Crouching Tiger Says:
“all used a system to get beyond the system. Gurdjieff and Ouspensky adapted Sufi teaching to create a system for the Western mind.”
Very Interesting how people are either misinformed or in de Nile.
I am sorry. I love you.
I’ll Give It a Try Says:
“If you believe that Robert’s tastes and nonsexual behaviors, which have strongly influenced the form of the FoF, have nothing whatsoever to do with his sexual orientation, I would frankly be very interested in hearing from you”
As I stated before, do you REALLY think going to a concert, ballet or opera, is GAY?
Do you sincerely think seeking refinement in one’s environment is GAY??
Is Martha S. GAY???
HigherM says:
“…as a successful elite athlete i had experience of hard physical pain, i had learned to cherish the gift of pain, (as robert showed me he does…”
Oh, dear, you aren’t that student that R likes to have slap him around in bed, are you?
Well, there’s another cat out of the bag, I guess….
arthur Says:
“From Rodney Collin’s book “The Theory of Celestial Influence” Rodney quotes from Guy De Maupassant’s notebook, April 7, 1888.”
Without getting too intellectual here, RC was a failed student of PDO who was a failed student of G.. Connect the dots. Notice a pattern here?
April 30, 2007 at 1:50 am
Last night, the S.F. International Film Festival presented the West Coast premier of a documentary titled “Protagonist.” Since the film draws comparisons between the drama of Euripedes and the lives of four very different men, I entered the theater with a fair amount of skepticism. I figured I’d be checking my watch every 10 minutes or so.
Instead, after about 15 minutes into the movie, I realized the themes very much connect to everything we’re discussing here, and very much so to our experiences in the Fellowship.
I wish I had magic words right now that would convince all of you — all current and former FOF members — to watch this film. All I can say is it that I highly recommend it once it comes to a theater near you, and when it become available on DVD. It’s a very beautiful, heart-wrenching, and incredibly hilarious film.
http://www.protagonistthemovie.com
Synopsis
PROTAGONIST explores extremism through contrasting stories of personal revelation. The film features four individuals who have been devoted to personal odysseys — a cause, a quest, an ideal — to the point of total consumption. At first glance the characters appear disconnected: a former German terrorist, an “ex-gay” evangelist, a bank robber and a martial arts student. But as their stories unfold, one starts to see the parallels between the uncommon, common experience of these four men.
Each character embarks on a journey for valid reasons, only to find himself so deeply embedded in the cause that he becomes the opposite of what he had intended. He is blind to this fact, though, until the forces of fate and character boil and distill to a single moment of dark epiphany. In telling this echoing story, the film asks: what is the path to extremism? In responding to the turmoil of life, where does one draw the line between the reasonable and the unreasonable? And how does one recover from the delusion of certainty?
The four stories in PROTAGONIST are told in parallel threads and structured like a multi-layered Greek drama. Directed by Jessica Yu and produced by Yu, Elise Pearlstein and Susan West, this adventurous documentary is inspired by the works of the 5th century playwright Euripides. The film uses quotes from his plays as thematic chapter headings, providing a provocative common link between our contemporary stories and lending them a timeless quality. Wooden rod puppets, modeled after ancient Greek theater masks and designed by Janie Geiser, stage both the play excerpts and scenes from our subjects’ pasts. The film also features intricate title animation by Robert Conner, music by Jeff Beal and voiceover performance in ancient Greek by Marina Sirtis and Chris Diamantopolous.
Next screenings:
San Francisco
April 30 4:15pm and May 1 9:15 am Kabuki
Seattle
May 24-June 17
Newport, RI
June 5-10
Silver Docs
June 12-17
April 30, 2007 at 1:51 am
Rabbi & Archive-separated at birth. You are such a trouble maker. I love it.
April 30, 2007 at 1:55 am
Dear Rabbi Burns (no 43), re: Paddy O’Spensky:
I’m sorry, but Maurice Nicoll had it wrong. Paddy O’Spensky was not P.D. Ouspensky, but rather a legendary seventeenth-century Irish mystic, bard and tall-tale teller. Some fragments of his writings survive in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, but on the whole his legacy is an oral one.
I received my first visitation from his spirit many years ago while spending some time in the small town of Doolin, County Clare, on the West Coast of Ireland (a story I have published elsewhere). Paddy continues on occasion to “channel” communications through me, hence my taking of his name for submissions here.
Paddy does, however, seem to have some connection with what we call “the Fourth Way,” although it mostly serves as the butt of many of his jokes. He sends along the following limerick with his compliments.
+———-+
A LIMERICK from Paddy!
Hello dear, my name is Bob Burton
I have just what you need if you’re hurtin’!
You’ll divide your attention
But oh, did I mention?
That your member will need to be spurtin’.
April 30, 2007 at 2:07 am
In reply to Post #374/7 by Yesri Baba.
Thank you for the first two questions, not to sure about the third, i.e., how it relates to the wish to understand the Pain body more.
When I was first introduced to the idea, it was through Ekhart Tolle… The more I listened and ‘assimilated’ the incredible precision of his descriptions, etc., the more I noticed and ‘it began’, the separation process from this ‘pain body’ as something ‘me’ or ‘normal’.
The initial ‘waking up’, from its deeply rooted hold in this mind as a ‘me’ or a very ‘common’ way of being, lasted from 3 to 4 months, similar to being a big baby, with allot of naiveté… This euphoric, highly energetic state wore off, about forty five percent off.
The practical side of the time period remained, i.e., being able to recognize various depths and kinds of pain bodies, their main issues, tricks, gestures, etc. Organizations built up around pain body service/feeding, its relation to ‘relative awakening’, etc.
Most of all, I worked and continue to work, to build what I ‘know’ is me, outside the pain body lifestyle/being.
Dear Yesri Baba,
I would like very much to describe what it is ’specifically’, though this would be ‘my story, my pain body’s profile’. Rather I will point you and others to Tolle’s observations concerning it: try and find as much as possible from him on this.
What I can do is describe it a bit in using a few blog postings as practical examples of Pain body lifestyles and means of feeding itself. And a few personal events with the Pain body of others in an ongoing experiment of interacting with these phenomenons ‘out in life’ and in certain selected ‘esoteric schools’.
A note: Even once awakening to the realization of one’s Pain body and the subsequent separation from it does not mean that it is ‘dead’…It and many others remain to be transformed and dealt with.
It has been my experience that the more present you are, the harder you task your portion of love to work, this by no means is poetry in motion, its real becoming, being and has no foreseeable end in sight.
A few examples of Pain body:
See Post #10/8 from HigherM.
In Reply to Post #10/8 ~
Sarcasm is a refined ’science’ among Pain bodies, it is one of the most subtle forms of negativity in that it not only hurts the feelings of others, it simultaneously creates laughter, oftentimes even in those who are being hurt.
Sarcasm is a sort of ‘higher mechanic’: Yes, perhaps their are ‘things’ higher in mechanical jurisdiction than human beings.
Astrology points to the birth of ‘denying force’ mainly: could it be that it is a guide to specific types of Pain bodies, the painful self image that is not your being?
See Post #17/8.
In Reply to Post #17/8 ~
This post gives a sort of ‘grocery list’ of Pain body ‘thoughts’, a sort of lifestyle outline…All these ‘quotes’ reference the continuation of the struggle, which simply crystallizes the Pain body more so.
Any justification that chooses to struggle over separation and being beyond ‘the struggler’ is Pain body identification with life as ‘they’ know it, not as the real self knows it…
For certainly none here can see the tomorrow that this blog is part of, though it exists…Pain has no time to love problems up from their depths of drama, for their is nothing there to see them as objective circumstances, tests of one’s self as a ‘present being’.
See Elena’s Post #30. (quoted here)
“I am not free of making mistakes and you have no idea how difficult it is to tread my way above the fear of not having been considered “good enough” for seventeen years to consider myself “good enough” to question this institution down to the ground. But I am going to try. If I was not “good enough” to support them I might be “good enough” to go against them.”
In Reply to quote from Posting #30/8
Again, this is Pain body ego speaking. Spiritually there is no ‘real reason’ to suggest to another that since they do not know or cannot experience the pain one has felt that they themselves are at some disadvantage in relating to you: this only alienates the speaker more from ‘the real world’ and sets their particular Pain body away from the Positive Pain bodies who wish to sooth the pain by relating their own pain to it, i.e., ‘Misery loves company.’
Yet, even so, (if the Negative Pain ego does relate to the companionship of other more ‘jovial’ sufferers) this is a circular food chain, the snake swallowing its tail eventually breaks its own back.
Spiritual schools do this allot. The psychology of ‘Not being good enough’ is never satiated and ’spiritual schools’ are mostly those which worship the struggle, not the being who can separate, be and do apart from it…
The cross of crucifixion, worshiped by billions on earth is simply a Pain body totem, that is all. Although, on a larger scale, one must stand in awe, that such an image could perpetuate more of its opposite than that which it lived for…Yet, this is the nature of Pain bodies, they live to resent the one and only moment and interpret individual successes as ‘records to be broken’, ‘contests’, and ‘doubt that the winner really deserved it.’
A great part of ‘doing’ is not being a painful self, a ‘little vulnerable self’; all ‘adult vulnerabilities’ are ‘loose ends’ on the cape of the Super Pain body, the pain body of whatever particular nation, state or country one is from…Some call it ‘cultural programming’…
Historical recording provides a vast array of ‘tattoos’ for Pain bodies to wear when their own ‘little story’ runs its course.
If it were not for the phenomenon of the Pain body, 75% of this blog would not exist. This is not to say that this 75% is worthless, far from it, it is simply ‘canned food’ for future transformation, i.e., Now.
At best, the exposure of the Pain body’s of others, i.e., ‘their ‘personal lives’ revealed without their permission or will’
(Posting #5/8) can only serve three things.
1. To justify/add onto the revealer’s Pain body who is diametrically opposed (a more dense Pain body competing with another’s lightness) to another’s. Believe it or not, there are Positive Pain body’s and Negative Pain body’s who endlessly feed off one another’s ‘mood’ surrounding the stalemated position of having received a difficult set of circumstances,dwelling upon the ‘board as it is’ rather than consciously going into the tactility of the painful atmosphere.
To get in there and ‘be’, move about, be curious, inquire of the pain consciously, look into the mirror at the frowning face and ask ‘Who frowns with my eyebrows? ‘Who ‘does’ with these thoughts?’
2. To give pain-food to those who read the ‘newspaper of unreconciliations’… More doubt, more drama, more tension, more hiding, more definitions for the belief that the Pain body is ‘I’, ‘me’, ’she’ and ‘we’.
3. To be a sort of ‘footprint’ that someday one will go back to and ‘re-foot’, i.e., transform the ‘once then ego’ into the ‘Now I’, without identification with a painful struggling self jurisdiction and all those trespassing, camping, giving birth and attending seminars.
_______________________
In ending I will quote something a teacher of an esoteric school once said to one of his or her students in regards to what was then perceived as a circumstance connected to that teacher whose actions were ‘creating pain’, ‘contradictory states’ of reference to the sets of ‘morals and dogma’ the teacher ‘itself’ patrolled upon his or her students.
The student expressed the set of painful circumstances that seemed to be contradictory to the teacher’s expectations of his/her students.
The teacher replied ~ “Yes, it is a burden upon them, a burden they must work with.”
From the point of view (awakening from the hold of the Pain body ego ‘i’.) This statement from a spiritual teacher is simply a license for pain, not transformation and going beyond the self that builds itself a struggling-self-ego upon ‘burdens’.
Some burdens can be transformed, others, from a present-point-of-view are to be walked straight through and out the other side…No need to stay in the bowling alley if the robotic pin setting device is not working.
The beautiful part of this ‘walking straight through’ is that it is a conscious individual process, there are no rules or exact form to this ‘walk’, though conscience plays a great part of it and one’s real-self-present.
In the above quoted answer, the teacher here is not acknowledging ‘his or her’ working with the contradiction, only that the students must work with it, thus, making it a school of worshiping the cross, not the cross roads.
Yet, all is perfect in so many ways, one being that these circumstances often bring Ego-Pain to one’s Present Self in such massive vibratory bouts that ’something peculiar’ happens and ‘You’ are born.
Yes, the FoF is a womb, the birth pains are real only for that which dwells on the birth process… What chooses to gossip about the 15 hour labor, of which the man could never understand, then bypasses the real participant, the baby, whose miraculous 9 month ‘hanging in there’ has come to some stage of fruition?
Eventually ‘the baby’ finds herself standing on her mother’s grave, wondering, wondering and more wonder. From that point of view she can walk away from the ‘form and pain her birth took’ and become pregnant herself.*
*This goes for the guys too.
Love to you all.
April 30, 2007 at 2:26 am
Hi, Siddiq! You said: “I think what most people on this blog have in common is that we seek presence. Why not make that our destination?”
This is exactly it. You said it. People seek what it under their noses all the times. Do you realise that whatever you do, think, imagine, etc. etc – occurs only in the PRESENT? Even thinking of future or past happens in the present. Even identification, and imagination happens in the present. There is no getting out of present, ever – how can it not be clear? All possible experiences happen to us NOW and we are participating in them presently. There is just no absence, no past, no future, there is only presence, only now.
But here goes the mind trick – No, it can’t be so simple, I must be “not here”. I must be “somewhere”, not present. So, let’s try to find presence, get to present, and even “make it a destinaton”. Let’s spend the whole life getting to a place that was never left! Try harder, try this and that – and nothing seem to work (what a surprise)… Oh yes, many obstacles and adversaries are on the way, it’s difficult, complicated, for selected few on their 9th lifetime… Don’t you see how ridiculous it is? Where are you trying to go from NOW? Which REAL (not conceptual) obstacles are there to be where you already are? If presence is your imaginary “destination” – where are you now – in 19th century may be? You are here and now, buddy, fully present and aware, OK, so is everyone, no matter what their imaginary ideas tell them. Watch your mind resenting it, saying: No, I am not present! And what is it? Thoughts, mind games only, just see it for what it is. Presence is NOT a destination.
Unfortunately, the whole “seeker” desease is exactly that – to refuse the obvious and go on an addictive wild goose chase for a long time, often for life. Some smart “teachers” use this, and make a very good profit on those “seekers” who try desperately to get to the place they’ve never left. The cure from this disease is easy – just see that there is nothing to seek.
Open your eyes, friend, open your eyes. It’s all it takes, really. You are here, now, always. Admit it. No getting out of presence, even during imagination. Don’t create a destination of something that is here already. Admit the obvious, relax and simply enjoy your life – it’s truly worth enjoying.
Best of luck to you, and all the seekers.
April 30, 2007 at 2:40 am
Every time someone discusses the sequence, I picture the Macarena. Am I the only one?
April 30, 2007 at 4:16 am
To Rabbi Burns writes about presence: “It’s not a destination. There’s no need for sequences, etc. We’re in the present whether we like it or not.”
This of course would be wonderful, if true, but just shows you have not yet verified the concept of sleep, identification, and imagination. If you were always present, you don’t need a school or any work on yourself. I understand you and many feel that to be true, and that is why shools only exist for those that understand the nature of sleep. This is a basic premise.
Siddiq
April 30, 2007 at 4:53 am
Kiran
I would simply love to see you have the courage to mention all of us ladies, as well as couples that have turned down your slimey proposals, even after you became a cute little baby.
A higher state for you is when your penis travels from a vertical postiion to a horizontal position.
Please stop hiding behind Cassandra’s skirt trying to evoke pity and compassion. Her memory deserves better.
Lastly, you are not living the contradiction, you are the contradiction. You love you hate…it all depends if someone is going to give you a “higher state” or not.
Formermsamerica
April 30, 2007 at 5:20 am
“I’ll give it a try”8/13
Whats going on?. You missed the whole point of my post and picked 1 of 3 random examples that I used to illustrate my point about having incarnational variety and then went into a tirade about global warming.I noticed that of the 3 examples that you assumed that I was the redneck with 4 dogs and a gas guzzling car and not the muslim woman or catholic priest.I figure that this can’t be the thought processess of a sentient being so I went back through other posts you made to other bloggers and noticed that they all involve some major misunderstandings with what they said. There has to be a good reason for this I thought to myself so I tried inputting my post through a random word generator/decoder and sure enough the message that came out was ” Hi my name is Cathy Priest and I have a big gas guzzling truck, like global warming and you just try and stop me.”
What we have going on here is some sort of dimensional crossover where all the words and meanings get scrambled because I think you are writing from some other planet–I’ll bet my shiney green proboscus on it. You can pick up one of these word scramblers in the 3rd quadrant of the snartleblast sector If you want to take any meaningful part of this forum. Thanks
April 30, 2007 at 5:42 am
FenceRider and Lady B, and others:
Thanks for sharing your thoughts… really nice posts.
April 30, 2007 at 5:54 am
Just read Zach’s #337 posting
I laughed so much, such humor! Bless you, Zach!
And I needed a good laugh. I felt kind of depressed when Fence Rider jumped of the fence to continue his life without the FOF.
It felt safe sitting next to him, a fellow fencer in distress.
Don’t get me wrong, I admire him, he has guts and courage,
and I love the way he received so many supportive postings.
I hope when my time comes ……
For me a shift has taken place, I feel emotionally free, the veil really has been lifted and what I see is a beautiful place, wonderful people, but it is almost like a movie, I feel strangely detached. I was angry, sad, I mourned, but now some kind of peace has settled in. I will have to let this run its course, there are more people involved then just me, but when the time is right I will jump of the fence, just like William did.
April 30, 2007 at 6:37 am
To Lady B, (38)
Dear Friend,
Thank you.
Elena
April 30, 2007 at 6:46 am
Inner Confussion: all that I have wrote it was from a higher minds, I think you are the “RETERD”
All that one has inflicted one has to suffer.
Rodney Collin.
The deviousness of the human mind, and not truth itself, produces contradictions.
April 30, 2007 at 6:48 am
Sorry Inner Confussion about my spelling, I wanted to say that you are the “RETARD”
April 30, 2007 at 7:37 am
Lady B,
Love to all of you.
From the place of acceptance new possibilities can arise.
Leaving or not
You are.
A friend of mine has left 6 weeks ago.
The not talking to “ex students” rule does not seem to be followed much.
He receives so much love from people who are in.
It is a gift.
There is a group of people beside the fof and there are gatherings spontaneous of people, meeting the innies and the outies, very alive, real and sincere.
My guess is that some of your friendship might deepen as you are not the only one who is leaving. You might be in fo a surprise.
Love to you, joy and courage.
April 30, 2007 at 7:38 am
Traveler, #42, I feel your pain. But Puppetji only wants what’s best for you.
Charles R. #12, so well said, so clear, thanks.
(student=child,yes?)
Peter, #34, and anyone else who’s just left the fof, my 2 cents: Congratulations, it takes a lot of guts. Be kind to yourself as much as possible.
Rabbi, #43, rotfl
Siddiq=Howard Carter?????
Maybe people are taking shifts?? Just wondering.
Golden Fleece, your original “alchemical” post was brilliant and hilarious. Thanks.
JoelF
April 30, 2007 at 8:00 am
Dear Siddiq and other readers.
There have been mothers whose son have been Robert’s lovers or approached…many sons.
Many daughters who are marrying men and greencards play a role o, I am sorry it must be real love.
You do not see depressed people? Where do you live? Ask our doctors how often they prescribe anti depressants. Maybe not more then in Marysville. But we are very much more luckier as you REMEMBER.
Nobility? You might do some more research. Yes, we have blue blood in the fof who are completely sponsored, house, medical bills, education for children, cars etc. partially from “our” donations or when we go to events. I am not quite sure. Ask L for more details.
Ooo and then the children…
Comparing our children to an average American city is useless. Children in America are not a good example. A country who treats it children well is wise as children are the future. Comparing those children to healthy societies…you might be I for a surprise. Did you know that “our children” from early age on will tell non fellowship children, “I do not want to sit next to you because your mom is not a friend of my mother” and much more. Older children, express them selves less gracious to non fof member children.. Who are our children imitating? Bullying, no our children do not bully and by the way they do not use any kind of drugs….Where have you been all these years? O I forgot we are all much luckier not better.
I am sorry for you and I love you.
April 30, 2007 at 8:21 am
Post #16!
You have forgot few more titles:
Gold Alchemy, King of Heart…and one more just for “inner circle” use – ASS #7
(and as far as I remember Gurdjiev never spoke about that one).
April 30, 2007 at 8:39 am
46. Exlax 101
“Without getting too intellectual here, RC was a failed student of PDO who was a failed student of G.. Connect the dots. Notice a pattern here?”
Yeah, and Gurdjieff was a failed Sufi.
April 30, 2007 at 8:42 am
46 Exlax 101.
I forgot to add, “and you’re a failed FOF student.”
Maybe I’ll be one too. It’s always useful to apply one’s criticism of other to oneself.
April 30, 2007 at 9:09 am
Dear Siddiq
The school – we all seem to have created our own reality of this. In this instance yours, mine, Lady B’s.
In regard to Lady B, you say “ I am very sorry for you..” What about compassion, do you not feel the suffering?
“ children appear to me healthy and well adjusted, not mistreated, not in any danger.”
Did you read the posts 7/254 of Ms. Reality Check and 7/255 of Heather a daughter of students. Maybe will learn more of what our children actually experience as more of them are now accessing the blog.
Again to Lady B “…parents (of which I am one and I assume you are too, which makes me wonder why we have never connected…”
Not sure if Lady B is a parent but I am. And I guess I could pose the same question to you. But real no matter, there are worlds within worlds here.
And being a parent is not the only criteria for caring about children. Some have given up that opportunity to follow the will of the Teacher. Some far more than that.
As the terra firma now shakes beneath my feet, more and more of my thoughts turn to my children. Fellowship born and bred. Wonderful and magical, constant source of joy.
But also, my thoughts turn to the payment they have made for me to follow my path. Uprooted from centre to centre, city to city, country to country in my pursuit of the good student.
My solace was the students that formed a major part of their life.
Then we moved to Mecca.
Hey mama, your emperor wears no clothes.
This is a real school, real school. Wonderful students, wonderful students. I chanted.
Still love you ma, but really no clothes, no clothes.
Best to you Siqqid, may your children have the love and care of fellow students as mine have had, but have no illusions that this is a school with a heart for children… or women for that matter.
Cake
Shout out: Renald your mom says hi. Once you may have walked in my steps. Now, it seems I am walking in yours. Funny that, eh?
April 30, 2007 at 9:25 am
I’ll give it a try: BUT since you went down the global warming route i’ll stand up for our fictional red-neck by saying that she probably isn’t sitting in her air-conditioned environment with computer on 24/7 blaming other people for global warming just because her global warming efforts are hidden back at the power station.She has just as much right to create green house gas as you.
April 30, 2007 at 9:50 am
I left the FOF so long ago that it seems odd to be spending so much time reading hundreds of messages on this blog. Obviously I was not as finished with FOF as I thought I was! I still have feelings for people I left behind, many of whom I was open with in a way that I had been with very few others before. It pained me that they were under orders not to have anything to do with people such as me. I also have feelings for those who joined after me, people I never met. I am very glad for this forum, because it has made it much easier for people in the group to learn the truth, if they wish to do so. Thanks, Sheikh!
The most important truth to understand about FOF, as I see it, is that memembership in this “school” is absolutely NOT a requirement for awakening to your true nature. The time has come for such childish ideas to be abandoned. This abandonment is happening here and in many other places where former cult members meet and share experiences (i.e. the TM-free Blog, where, among other stories, you can read about people who would leave home to meditate all day while their children would be grouped together unsupervised and subject to horrible sexual abuse).
Most people will do anything to avoid truly seeing themselves. For spiritual seekers, a way to avoid seeing themselves may be to invest their hopes in a guru, a teaching, a group, a church. This is one way of escaping from their fears, because now they say can they “belong.” They are one of the “chosen people.” I would say that the true path (if one can call it a “path”) is incompatible with such comforting superstitions. And anyone who tries to convince you to believe in such superstitious nonsense is not your friend, and certainly not a “teacher” worthy of the name. Their aim is not to help you, but to use you for their own selfish ends.
It is both heartening and enjoyable to read the words of old friends, as well as people I don’t know. I really like reading what Joel, Charles, Bruce, Sandra and many others have had to say. All are very insightful. Duncan made me laugh today when he reminded me of his 40 days of silence, a period in which he was more overbearing than he was when he talked! (But hey, it was worth a try, LOL)
It saddened me to read the stories of those who distanced themselves from their families, the “sleeping life people.” I also did this to a degree, for a time, and as a parent now I can understand the pain my parents and siblings must have felt. I hope FOF is not still telling people to do this, and if it is, I can only say to people currently in the group: Don’t do it!
Charles R’s statement that a turning point for him came when he studied another teaching (that of Meher Baba) is very interesting. I had the same experience, but with another teaching (Ramana Maharshi’s). This teaching in fact helped accelerate my departure from FOF. It was important for me to see that there were other equally valid approaches to the truth. How naive and arrogant it was of me to decide, at age 22, that I had found the highest teaching of all!
Good luck to those of you who want to reform the school, whether from within or without (via litigation). I have strong doubts that anything significant can be achieved by such means, but I guess you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. More promising, IMO, is the idea of a website where all the facts can be brought together.
BTW, does anybody know what happened to Donald M., the #2 guy who left around ‘75? I wish I had called him at the time and asked why he left.
Mark H.
FOF member 1973-78
mkhovila@yahoo.com
April 30, 2007 at 10:43 am
I am a student as I mentioned in a previous post, but I enjoy the ability to make observations and to make criticisms constructive or otherwise that this blog gives the freedom to do.
Two things I have observed from living at Apollo/Isis is that if you want a job done properly do not hire a student ( with a few exceptions). ‘Life’ people are more reliable.
The second is that, has anyone else ever thought that the Galleria, from the outside, just looks like a Mc Donalds?
April 30, 2007 at 11:30 am
To I’ll give it a try:
Okay, I think we’re on better ground considering actual practice, rather than trying to beat theoretical partridges out of the bushes for evermore!
To take your example of ‘being kind’ and ‘external considering’… Being kind is obviously a good thing, you’re doing something for someone outside yourself. Now, can you continue being kind to them in the face of a hostile reaction – internally or externally? If you have found a way of continuing to pay attention to both their and your own inner worlds – and remained free of the demands of both – you are in pole position! You are much more likely to be able to find a way to CONTINUE TO BE GENEROUS…
External considering means being able to sustain that more complete sense of pleasure in oneself and others, whatever the circumstances – for as long we can. My experience is that, if you use external considering (or equivalent) as an actual practice, after a while you begin to love it. There is no place internally you would rather be, because you feel a sense of balance, and freedom from identifying too strongly with reactions (theirs or yours). In other words, you are in a right and harmonious relation to yourself, and everyone around can feel it!
So yes, there is a difference. Being kind, you may still be at the mercy of a negative reaction (“someone doesn’t appreciate me enough” etc..) and bounce back to its opposite. With a bit of awareness added, there’s less likelihood of a bounce-back, you can stay in your ‘generous’ position for longer.
Buddha said something about forgiving others primarily for our own benefit, so that we don’t carry the resentment around with us for longer than necessary. Enjoy your day, one and all!
April 30, 2007 at 4:08 pm
Hello all,
Some of you may have heard of Jeanette’s “aftertheFOF” Yahoo group:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aftertheFOF
For those of you who are interested but who are unfamiliar with Yahoo groups, here’s some more information:
You can connect with former members without posting any comments on the “aftertheFOF” message board. In other words, when someone posts his/her name and email address, you can connect with them by sending a private email.
Sheik’s blog is posted “in the clear” for everyone surfing the internet to see. However, only members of the “aftertheFOF” group can view comments on the “aftertheFOF” message board.
Similar to this blog, you can choose an anonymous screen name. Members can’t view your name and email address until you post it on the message board. Only Jeanette will know your name and email address initially after signup.
If you are not ready to communicate with group members, you can simply view comments on the message board.
If you’d prefer not to use your “regular” Yahoo email address for the group, you can create a new Yahoo email account that’s used solely for Jeanette’s group.
Signing up for a Yahoo email address is free of charge, and signing up for the aftertheFOF Yahoo group is also free of charge (Yahoo makes money from the advertising).
To create a new Yahoo email account and join the “aftertheFOF” Yahoo group, do the following:
Go to http://www.yahoo.com.
In the upper-right corner of the page, click the Mail link, or click the envelope icon.
Click the “Sign Up” link.
Follow the user interface for sign-up instructions.
Once you have created a new Yahoo address, open http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aftertheFOF.
Click the “Join This Group” button.
Follow the user interface for sign-up instructions.
On the aftertheFOF home page, Jeanette wrote: “This is intended to be a place where former members of the group, Fellowship of Friends, can find each other. It can simply be a point of contact for people, since we are spread out all over the world, or can be used to post questions or discussions. While we all have something in common this is not intended to be a place for discussing the FOF, we have all moved on, and I would love to hear of what people have found since leaving the group.”
The group currently has about 20 members. The number has steadily increased during the past month. Looking forward to hearing from you!
April 30, 2007 at 5:02 pm
This is a very personal letter ot Mr. Unoanimo,
So much for all your painbody theory, let me open your eyes a little wider and tell you ever so directly and without any softness in my mouth that you have not even come close to ever transforming real suffering and your posts show it consistently.
You are here like many others to show us your little strengths and undermine what is being said by superficially criticizing others avoiding the issues.
You have not understood that it is not mine or anybody else’s personal painbody what is at stake here and if you think schools are to produce painbodies that people have to endlessly try to transform then you must be some kind of sick masochist that would be doing a much better job joining Robert and his kind.
You show an intellectual verbosity that is trying to avoid real suffering at all cost as if you had never verified the value of being punched in the nose by someone who had gotten tired enough of your presumptousness.
You think quoting Ekhart Toll will give you enough back up to stand for what you’re saying but it is another disguise no better than those that hide behind Robert to think that what they are saying has any value.
Surely there is more to Echart Tole than this insignificant presentation of pain body that you are giving us pretending that you are so much above pain that everything in this blog is nothing but the
“little suffering” “canned food”
of schools, nations, and individuals for future transformation.
Let me ask you Mr. Unoanimo who must be trying to suggest by the uno that you are unified and by the immense superiority with which you seem to expose that you are above pain and can therefor “DO’, what you think the struggle of any individual, school, or nation is but the confrontation of suffering both real and unnecessary in our lives.
You sound so much like the sick people I’ve known for so long that think you can jump into consciousness avoiding any sort of pain, any actual practice of living that in the end your words remain just empty words because you show no practice and no willingness to consider what is being exposed in this blog about the Fellowship of Friends and not about your many theories on pain bodies.
Come on buddie, give us some real taste of your self and try to be less soft so that I can get a serious look at the stuff you are made of so that I can start respecting you because if you just want to act like those I have put up with for seventeen years, know that I have just enough practice with people like you to question you right down to the bones.
I had not bothered to look at your e-mails before you addressed me personally because they seemed an issue I was not concerned about and wished to respect your right to speak but if you want to pick a fight with me then let me tell you that I am eager to fight and since the Fellowship is showing itself so incompetent I do not mind filing my teeth with another similar opponent.
Why don’t you start by telling me about any suffering you’ve ever been able to transform if you want me to believe that you understand anything about pain body and you are not just a pain in the ass. Because if you want me to believe that you do not suffer then you must be an angel like Robert Burton.
Surely you haven’t heard the angle that the Absolute is consistently transforming suffering, that’s right, you’re an Echart Tole freak who thought you’d get into this discussion to show your infinite knowledge and superiority although you really have nothing to do with the Fellowship of Friends and are above everybody else here, but really because you’re so infinitely lonely having put off any toll freaks by your superiority that you have to come and do it in a blog in the hope of finding someone compassionate enough to help you look at the pea size of your heart.
Maybe I could get a little softer now and tell you dear that in the system I work with only false personality is willing to undermine others all the time so that it can keep itself pumped up. It can only see what it can criticize and put down, so if there’s anything besides false personality in your ‘little painbody,’ please let it out so that you don’t suffocate yourself in your sick state.
I take back my words on your honoring me with your sincerity, you insult me every time you address me so if you care not to address me you will not have to hear from me.
April 30, 2007 at 5:22 pm
Siddiq (53) quotes me “We’re in the present whether we like it or not.” and says “This of course would be wonderful, if true, but just shows you have not yet verified the concept of sleep, identification, and imagination.”
In fact I verified sleep, identification, and imagination over 20 years ago and worked long and hard to overcome them by making efforts to be present. A couple of years ago I realised that this was having only very limited results – short periods of presence, nothing permanent.
About a year ago I realised that the verifications of ’sleep’ etc were in my mind only and were nothing more than an intellectual construct that was actually separating me from reality.
Once the unreality of the mind is seen it becomes clear that everything occurs in presence and that there’s nowhere to go, no efforts necessary. It’s really just a small shift in perception. But the FOF and the 4th Way are for the most part pointing in completely the wrong direction!
On the other hand, if you enjoy being in the FOF in a country club kind of way, why not?
RB
April 30, 2007 at 5:45 pm
A great thank to Unoanimo, post 7/50, bringing so much information to the subject of “pain body”.
Pleaaaaaaaaase, keep posting!
You suggest gahtering as much material as possible and we can only agree.
Can you share with us what you have already found (Books, DC, and so on)?
Kiss.
To Another name 7/61.
I specially liked the “innies” and “outies” labels… And that they meet is wonderful fact to know!
On the subject of “destination”:
The validity of this concept is important in FOF tradition.
It is not for the non-dualists.
They can meet though, and they do, here, in the blog, like the “innies” and “outies”…
I am glad some voices of the “innies” are re-appearing here.
They make this con-versation (con-servation!) more energetic.
Let’s take turns:
I will be your stone of touch so you can verify you have gold and you will be mine…
“OUT OF A GREAT NEED…” (Hafiz)
April 30, 2007 at 6:42 pm
I read Clara Elena’s post #73 and unoanimo’s post #50. It’s amazing that I can relate to what BOTH of you are saying.
Clara Elena, I love your passion and directness and intelligence and courage to write everything you’ve written in this blog and I hope you continue to do so. Thank you so much for giving what you have to give to us. But I also really like what unoanimo is saying in post #50. I don’t know… Maybe if I hadn’t read “The Power of Now”, I wouldn’t be able to relate to what unoanimo is saying. But there’s something “to” what he/she is saying, and I truly don’t believe it was meant as insult to you. In fact, I’m sure he/she feels the same as I do, and is glad you’re here on this blog with us. I am being very open to what unoanimo is saying, because I think he/she is “onto something.”
I love you both.
-2b
April 30, 2007 at 6:49 pm
P.S. To Mr. or Mrs Unoanimo,
I thought I’d finished but it was a mistake that I wish to correct.
You refer to Higher M and myself because you’re so desperate for attention that you think that is where the action is in this blog.
And if I say:
“I am not free of making mistakes and you have no idea how difficult it is to tread my way above the fear of not having been considered “good enough” for seventeen years to consider myself “good enough” to question this institution down to the ground. But I am going to try. If I was not “good enough” to support them I might be “good enough” to go against them.”
it is not to put people in a “disadvantage’ in relating to me, it is to ask those less “cemented” than yourself to consider the place where I am coming from. Just “consider” it which I know you, Mr. Unoanimo cannot because no matter what people do you’ll say it is the snake doing it since you can see nothing but snakes so that you can feel more comfortable with your own:
You say,
In Reply to quote from Posting #30/8
Again, this is Pain body ego speaking. Spiritually there is no ‘real reason’ to suggest to another that since they do not know or cannot experience the pain one has felt that they themselves are at some disadvantage in relating to you: this only alienates the speaker more from ‘the real world’ and sets their particular Pain body away from the Positive Pain bodies who wish to sooth the pain by relating their own pain to it, i.e., ‘Misery loves company.’
Yet, even so, (if the Negative Pain ego does relate to the companionship of other more ‘jovial’ sufferers) this is a circular food chain, the snake swallowing its tail eventually breaks its own back.
You say:
Dear Yesri Baba,
I would like very much to describe what it is ’specifically’, though this would be ‘my story, my pain body’s profile’. Rather I will point you and others to Tolle’s observations concerning it: try and find as much as possible from him on this.
Yes, Mr. Unoanimo, you would much rather explain your theories putting other people down than exposing your own inexistent work on the transformation of suffering. You do a great job at showing the magnanimity of your being.
You say:
Some burdens can be transformed, others, from a present-point-of-view are to be walked straight through and out the other side…No need to stay in the bowling alley if the robotic pin setting device is not working.
You mean your robotic pin setting device is not working enough to actually allow you to not go through this whole blog avoiding the issued but side walking it with your theories so that you can do exactly the same Robert and the inner circle in the Fellowship of Friends is telling the rest of us to do? That our suffering is something to transform on our own and that the burden the teacher and they are laying on us is the necessary burden that we are supposed to carry.
You say:
“The beautiful part of this ‘walking straight through’ is that it is a conscious individual process”.
Indeed you are a poor inner circle student who has had to resort to Eckhart Tolle for your credibility because you cannot find enough on Robert and you are bringing us back to the
“beautiful process of INDIVIDUALLY transforming”
our suffering so that we leave The Fellowship of Friends unquestioned.
Then you say:
there are no rules or exact form to this ‘walk’, though conscience plays a great part of it and one’s real-self-present.
but what you really mean is that the rule is that one has to do it on one’s own if one is present enough so that one does not do it socially and actually takes any more serious actions against the Fellowship of Friends than individually transforming the suffering it has produced.
You tried hard dear but let me tell you, I will not indulge in fighting with the insignificance of the Fellowship responses such as yours for a long time and if this blog is not the right medium to sort our differences out and come to some sort of healing then there are so many other more serious means to be heard and understood and I will go as far as any medium allows me until you come and meet me face to face.
April 30, 2007 at 7:08 pm
MarkH, #69
“I left the FOF so long ago that it seems odd to be spending so much time reading hundreds of messages on this blog. Obviously I was not as finished with FOF as I thought I was!”
Ditto that, Mark. I’ve also found things I needed to say but never did, and been touched by connections to people I didn’t realize I still had. Thanks for your thoughtful post.
The Rebbe, #74
“About a year ago I realised that the verifications of ’sleep’ etc were in my mind only and were nothing more than an intellectual construct that was actually separating me from reality.”
In retrospect, doesn’t it seem that most of the so-called “work” of fof is happening only in the mind? When I flushed the 4way and fof teachings (as much as I could) it was precisely because these “intellectual constructs” were standing between me and what was in front of me.
As with many posts, Siddiq’s tells us more about Siddiq than anything else. I still wonder if the group of fof posters here are tag-teaming the blog and just changing names (Where oh where is Howard Carter now?)
Later…
JoelF
April 30, 2007 at 7:14 pm
To Rabbi who writes: “…no efforts necessary. It’s really just a small shift in perception. But the FOF and the 4th Way are for the most part pointing in completely the wrong direction!”
And to No Person who wrote:
“Open your eyes, friend, open your eyes. It’s all it takes, really. You are here, now, always. Admit it. No getting out of presence, even during imagination. Don’t create a destination of something that is here already. Admit the obvious, relax and simply enjoy your life – it’s truly worth enjoying.”
I respect your understanding which you both have expressed throughout this blog very well, however this still has me questioning, as I can verify that when I am in imagination I simply do not exist at all, there is just day dreaming, (perhaps in the present moment as it must be going on somewhere somehow), but if I am not there (present) to experience it, what is the point?
Our different understanding does explain why you both do not feel a need to be in a school. And I do enjoy my life, that is not the point. So when you say, “open your eyes”–that is exactly what I am trying to do! If you are already present always, as you state, why the need to even open ones eyes? Is is not to experience reality, get out of imagination?
To Cake Please who wrote: “In regard to Lady B, you say “ I am very sorry for you..” What about compassion, do you not feel the suffering?”
Yes I do feel compassion and that is why I wrote to Lady B with my observations. I really do not see the children the way she writes, nor a number of other issues.
One reason I write is, although I know that I may be blasted on this blog, it is may be useful for anyone to know that there are different viewpoints out there and that not all the complaints are shared by all.
The very proof of that is that Lady B was for many years very dedicated, and now is seeing matters very darkly. I do not believe that it is all dark, as some apparently do. (neither is it all sunshine and roses in my view–this is exactly where relativity comes in and seeing things as they are).
But if even one thought from one person on this blog can make a difference for one other person, the entire effort is worthwhile. I offer my thoughts for that reason.
Best to all,
Siddiq (not Howard Carter)
April 30, 2007 at 8:04 pm
To the Former Clara Elena Haven
There are a few of us who joined and left the FOF who went on to become delusional about our level of being. We dwelled in the land of imagination thinking how much we were valued, or how much influence we had over others.
Your sense of delusion, however, is a special case.
While I was in the FOF, I never understood how some ladies who shared a bed with Girard came away thinking that in addition to receiving his love, they also received, through some mysterious process of osmosis, his level of being.
Your imaginary picture of yourself was a joke then, and as I read your postings, it still is.
During those events when you would sit next to Girard, giving angles and taking up Girard’s space, we were all too polite to ask you please keep quiet and let Girard talk.
You were so filled with yourself that you were unable to realize that we weren’t making efforts to attend these events to hear you, we were coming to hear Girard.
You have yet to learn the fine art of simply being quiet. Now would be an ideal time to absorb the teachings of the System regarding one’s imaginary picture of oneself.
Wake up and smell the Columbian coffee.
Formermsamerica
April 30, 2007 at 8:17 pm
Reply to Post #75 and #73
Thank you You-me-us-they:
Thank you for your encouragement; Pain Body is a theory until you have a personal experience with it. For now I would stick with Eckhart Tolle: for shear emotional depth and being, he introduces the ‘aha’ the best.
His ‘personal story’ of how he became who he is today explains allot about Pain body, he uses it in many of his lectures as a reference point, much like the FoF uses the idea of the ‘machine’, though Pain body is not as obvious as ‘The Machine’.
It is the machine inside the machine… which must sound a bit too much for FoF members, yet, as you yourself know by now, the four lower centers are not always ‘painful’, yet something gets inside them at times and steers them over the edge.
Oftentimes even overlooking the most common-sense ‘boss’ of all, the King of Clubs; which many FoF people have often mistakingly called the same as Pain body…yet it is not.
The four lower centers are an entirely neutral phenomenon, it is the Pain body which brings hardness to the King of Clubs and doomsday predictions to the King of Hearts, Depression to Non-existence, Too many I’s about the same thing to the King of Diamonds and cleaning one’s brand new motorcycle with a toothbrush to the King of Spades.
________________________________
A Reply to Post #73
Dear Clara,
It looks like we need to meet pretty soon.
You know me, intuitively, deeply.
I am not shocked that ‘you’ would have such a response to my reply via one of your paragraphs. Honestly, this Post #73 is not you, I know you, it is not you.
The only part of oneself that can be insulted is the insulter in all of us who doesn’t get to be first when having received an insult…
Mostly it is just a surprise to vanity that it didn’t see the truth coming or that another pain body could be so similar to its own. It is ironic that Vanity cannot feed on the indifference of others, though does of its own.
I will refrain from quoting you until I figure out a way to meet you. Sometimes we have to take chances with one another to see if help can be received; perhaps eye contact is better than this blog.
I will say this, that the response you wrote is not subtracting to the sharing of my understanding of Pain body, it is verifying it for readers.
Often ‘presence’ looks like ‘vain indifference’, we cannot police these perceptions and simply have to continue becoming what we sense is our ’self’.
I will not justify my being by explaining the suffering I have transformed, particularly on this blog site, which already has enough ‘war stories’.
It seems that your Pain body is asking for more unnecessary trouble by putting a negative ’spin’ on my Post, not that the FoF issues fall in that category, though I do believe that only our real self knows when to stop transforming the same ole stuff for the sake of True Personality Hobbies. Your posting, the pain body’s desire to see my face in the mirror: projection is not going to help us escape the wheel of automatic life on earth.
It is interesting that Pain bodies save the ‘blood’ shed by others and paints with it long after those wounds have healed in order to continue its identifications.
Something in you has taken a very neutral article that I have written for all and interpreted it as a painful, worthless thing…this of course is not at all what is true to its place here…Reply #75 shows this.
To me the FoF is synonymous to something inside yourself, it is simply a symbol of that which we need or yearn to transcend.
It is an affirmation, like all ‘forms’ and until we truly start to consciously grow up and gain some conscious grip on our ‘leaks’ nothing will be built, no escape, no unconditional love, no self. Yet this is not ‘bad news’ it is simply what is often termed as ‘Chile pepper’ or ’spiritual urgency’.
The raw, negative energy that you express is an interesting ‘photograph’ for the FoF, for it is this kind of ‘leak’ that has been for 35 years artificially bent into a circular shape by your teacher… I ask you Clara, be a soul-superman, bend your circle into a straight line and love me, someone who, 5 years ago mirrored your own pain body… After all, it was through its reflective vibrations that we met one another and gained an immediate ‘affinity’…Yet, as most friendships start off, they unconsciously notice those parts of the other that will permit themselves to get away with the most amount of coffee table talk, weakness and mechanical strengths…(Not that we always did this, we did more than this, though the sentimentality of having led a painful, poetic odyssey was worshiped in a quiet way.)
It is a beautiful time that we have to not renew our friendship, rather, to tear down the comfortable pain-nest and walk around wearing egg shells on our heads.
Love to you all.
April 30, 2007 at 8:43 pm
An opinion (definition: a worthless grouping of words that purports to be worthy of purport):
Not an ‘I’ shared on this blog is truthful, including THAT. When words are believed, ‘I’dentification is a self-accepted addition to “I AM” that makes of the believed words – lies (including words about/of/in non-dualistic language(ing). Like ripples on the pond of being; words can produce images that quickly fade into non-ness as their blah-blah nature is intuited.
Worthless opinion #2:
Purposely standing in a place of “Not Knowing” is at least 44 times likier to produce some new understanding than standing in a ‘I know this’ place; almost, but not all, I’s related within this blog come from knowing – yet, even so, greater ‘not knowing’ stance occurs here than in most venues.
Wothless opnion #3:
Are you kidding me – After the first two worthless opinions, how come you continue to read this worthless ditty?
April 30, 2007 at 9:29 pm
Clara Elena Haven #73 : Once upon a time there was a house manager named Margret. One day we had an open meeting. Many people came. On the front row sat an anglo wearing the garb of an Indian guru all white.
As the meeting proceeded it was evident that Mr. all dressed in white was drawing attention to himself in a vain and cock-y way.
Anyway through out the meeting house manager Margret sparred with him it was one punch after another. I dont know what kept him standing.
Later when the meeting was over and we all retreated to the kitchen for coffee and cookies
I looked at Margret and motioned as a puncher and said,” one jab after another.” She smiled.
Margret was a martial. Elena you must be one tough Venusian.
April 30, 2007 at 9:29 pm
Rabbi Burns, #74 — great post. You wrote:
“Once the unreality of the mind is seen it becomes clear that everything occurs in presence and that there’s nowhere to go, no efforts necessary. It’s really just a small shift in perception. But the FOF and the 4th Way are for the most part pointing in completely the wrong direction!”
This was the great realization for me — the “dissonance,” if you will, of 1) being present versus 2) thinking of being present as a destination you had to work toward, and which you would arrive at in some imagined, better future. The absurdity of this contradiction hit me one day, and it released a floodgate of understanding.
It is a small shift in perception, as the Rabbi so aptly put it, and a very crucial one.
How can you travel to a destination where you already are?
Innernaut out.
April 30, 2007 at 9:57 pm
If this Harriet Baker (post #8/54), is so irritated about a natural orgasmic relationship based on full pleasure between couple(s). Than maybe she is just reinforcing and buffering the “innocent” orgies, between the Frogs. Please compare in this respect my other post # 211,blog 7 about FOrF “Freud or FROG”.
Anyway I have been together with Kiran for one year now and it has simply been the greatest year of my live. And the many “Higher States” were not only due to all the beautiful sex we had , but because of our new way of approaching all the challenges we are been given and the amazing transformation that occurs daily in his presence.
When I saw all the girls surrounding him after his return from Egypt, I did not yet have a connection with him, and the image that came to my mind was one of voluptuous vultures on an open wound , believing they were acting from the “9 of hearts”. As I perceived, they were more driven by their “G-spot”, I suggested him to invite them all for a group sex party in the style of the FOrF ‘s inner circle, this would have been the test for them all. But it was him who cautioned and said to me “They are not ready”.
For me the “Bakers woman” #54 is a good example of particularly American programming of “disgust towards sex” which is the FOrF basis, expressed in the fact of denial and the contradiction that America has more abused children and internet porn sites, than any other country in the world, beside being one of the leaders on Aids. For me as a Brazilian this is really totally foreign, as we are growing up with a much more natural relationship towards pleasure and sensuality.
The Christian-Jewish program, considers any sex that is not aimed at procreation as “Slimey”. By the way Hindu religion worships the erect phallus! Interestingly she writes “Slimy” as “Slimey” which contains “ME”, Freud would love this.
Maybe there is still too few Prices out there, that most ladies are fighting to become princes themselves and greedily are swallowing the frog …ops …too late
Those of you who are ready to see their relationship to sex just as any other “programming”, as a limitation and obstacle to awakening, I can recommend to do a course with http://www.ecstaticliving.com just as we did a month ago in Mexico and I can tell you this kind of learning is a lot more fun and many Higher states, even without penetration or the kind of mental masturbation which is so common on this Blog “for intellectuals”.
Kiss
loreta@beingpresent.net
below you can see a slide show how Kiran and me worship “the lingam” at a Hindu temple in the Fidji Islands:
http://flickr.com/photos/iloveyou2/sets/72157600160887676/show/
April 30, 2007 at 10:50 pm
To all that feel compelled to throw some stones at Kiran. What Kiran has gone through, few on this blog can even fathom. I do not feel he is “hiding behind C’s skirt.” There is no need to do so. Both were good friends. Cassandra is a beautiful and wonderful soul.
Although I may disagree on what Kiran or anyone else may feel is useful for evolution, as he sees it, at least for myself, far is it from me to be judging his postings.
I believe this Blog could be improved if we take less stabs at one another. There is a difference between pointing things out, observations, and rank negativity. The latter only detracts from the writer, as it must, of course, but does make this blog less than it can be.
Siddiq
April 30, 2007 at 10:55 pm
Innernaut and Rabbi,
Innernaut wrote: “This was the great realization for me — the “dissonance,” if you will, of 1) being present versus 2) thinking of being present as a destination you had to work toward, and which you would arrive at in some imagined, better future.”
Ultimately we all believe, I think, that no 2.–the thinking about present–is not the same as actually being present. My understanding however is that it does take work to get to no. 1–not that this work has to be a strained effort, but more of the effortless effort that Lao Tsu writes about, if that makes any sense. The reason I believe this is that besides the mind activity, which can detract and is not the presence, there still are impediments to simply being there, such as imagination being a big one.
Hope this explains what I think about this presence–dear to our hearts!
Best to all
Siddiq
April 30, 2007 at 11:12 pm
#85…
Sounds like a bunch of horse shit and bull pucky. Maybe it’s just vanity gone amok in search of power and more vanity. I think you’re preaching to the wrong choir.
It reminds me of a time when a “student” went to RB for a chief feature photograph. When they came back they said “He said it was vanity. thank God it wasn’t one of the others”.
April 30, 2007 at 11:45 pm
Given the new revelations from Peter Ouspensky via the Yale Library estate collection, I thought you might find the following web site to be of interest.
http://www.nonotgod.com
Claude Larson
April 30, 2007 at 11:54 pm
dear Harriet baker , post #80
you said to Clara:”we were all too polite to ask you please keep quiet and let …
That was called FEMININE DOMINANCE at the time
and is still now, beside the obvious jalousie
kiss
May 1, 2007 at 12:09 am
#50 unanimo
Thank you much for taking the time and effort to put together those thoughts. I will look at them a few times.
It is something important i think i and maybe others let slide by for too long. It seems everyone is injured throughout their lives to varying degrees and this tends to develope into a victim view of the world. The antidote oftem seems to be the flip side. Developing a toughness and strategies to show the world we are not the victim and we are in control even to the point that people may hoard billions of dollars and strive for more and more power and are still not content.
It may be that hurt is what leads us to search for “spiritual” answers. Yet it seems that can lead to the same game of victimization and pain and the attempt get the effort right so we are in control and advancing but it is only the other side of the coin when we could use totally different currency (to use a crappy metaphor).
Again, I appreciate your efforts and welcome any further thoughts you have along these lines
May 1, 2007 at 12:29 am
To harriet Baker 80
To the Former Clara Elena Haven
I am not that former yet but when I become I’ll take my name off that offends so many of you so pleasingly.
“While I was in the FOF, I never understood how some ladies who shared a bed with Girard came away thinking that in addition to receiving his love, they also received, through some mysterious process of osmosis, his level of being.”
You never understood too many things about the ladies that shared a bed with Girard but I am not about to tell you any more of them, you seem to like too much gossip.
“During those events when you would sit next to Girard, giving angles and taking up Girard’s space, we were all too polite to ask you please keep quiet and let Girard talk.
You were so filled with yourself that you were unable to realize that we weren’t making efforts to attend these events to hear you, we were coming to hear Girard.”
In case you havan’t noticed I realized it so clearly that I am way out here.
“You have yet to learn the fine art of simply being quiet”.
It won’t be happening as quickly as you would like.
“Wake up and smell the Columbian coffee.
Formermsamerica”
No wonder you have such attitudes, but they’ll do me such service in the next step.
And it’s so good to see the like of you come out into the real world and show what you’re like. Subjective and indoctrinated and unwilling to reason but delighted at insulting. Just too many of you hiding behind kisses to put up with it.
May 1, 2007 at 12:36 am
Rabbi Burns (74): Wow. That was very well said.
Whatever the Thinker thinks, the Prover will prove.’
And if the Thinker thinks passionately enough, the Prover will prove the thought so conclusively that you will never talk a person out of such a belief, even if it is something as remarkable as the notion that there is a gaseous vertebrate of astronomical heft (“GOD”) who will spend all eternity torturing people who do not believe in his religion. — Robert Anton Wilson
In other words, once you identify yourself with a particular belief, you will perceive reality in a way that fits with your belief. There is no escaping this, except to realize that it’s happening.
May 1, 2007 at 12:53 am
To Unoanimo, 81
I stand by everything I said. I am very glad that in this last post you are not trying to convince me not to question the FoF because that is what I am going to continue doing together with anyone who comes with sweet theories about how people whose role for twenty years was nothing but pay, pay, pay, should transform it on their own without questioning the Fellowship.
It’s just that you sound so much like the Fellowship itself. Leave quietly, nobody cares who you are or what you suffered. Pay and move on if you don’t like it. Money is always welcome but nothing else.
I do not believe in your innocence Unoanimo, not the slightest bit and you really don’t answer any of my questions.
This is as far as my conversation with you will go. I’ll listen to your answer if you wish but I will not answer you back. Just keep me out of your posts and your freedom of speech will be much freer.
May 1, 2007 at 1:02 am
Hey Claude. It’s old home week.
May 1, 2007 at 1:10 am
Helena, Loretta, folks… it is a moon.
May 1, 2007 at 2:15 am
Siddiq (79) “I can verify that when I am in imagination I simply do not exist at all, there is just day dreaming, (perhaps in the present moment as it must be going on somewhere somehow), but if I am not there (present) to experience it, what is the point?”
This is exactly the way the mind thinks about these things. The mind goes into imagination and when it emerges it says – oh terrible me, I was in imagination, must make an effort to be present. Then the mind intones the sequence and is present for a short period, then it goes into imagination again, year after year after year after year, until you die at more or less the same point as you started.
As soon as you see you are not the mind all these illusions and unnecessary activities can stop. The real you is never in imagination.
Sorry if this seems contradictory or confrontational, but once you see it it’s very clear.
Siddiq, your post 87 gets close to this, but it still sounds like the mind desparately trying to hang on to something vaguely rational.
Anyway, I wish you good luck, RB
May 1, 2007 at 3:04 am
Dear Elena and Inner Jewel,
‘The day before Jim MacLaren broke his neck, he woke up in his house in Boulder, Colorado, stirred out of bed earlier than usual by some strange energy. He left his then girlfriend, Pam, sleeping and went outside to sit in the backyard to eat his breakfast alone. The sun was coming up and the morning light was filmy and gold. MacLaren could hear his neighourr’s children playing next door. He’d bougfht a book outside with him to read, but he coulnd’t focus on it. He coulnd’t pay attention to his breakfast, either. He wasn’t even thinking about the Ironman he’d be competing in the next day. All he wanted was to sit in stillness and experience the inexplicable bliss that was surrounding him in this moment. And the the bliss started to grow within him. MacLaren moved from a state of contentment into a state of joy, and soon even the joy could not be contained, and it became a euphoria that spilled out over his whole body. He was overcome by a thrilling sense of what he could after only describe as anticipation. He’d never felt anything like this. He was laughing and crying at the same timne, elated beyond his senses.
Pam heard the noise and rushed out of the house to see what was wrong. He looked up at her through his tears and smiled. He was 30 years old. He was 24 hours away from becoming a quadriplegic, and he could not contain his excitement. ‘Pam’, he said, and he was never more certain of anything in his life, ‘Listen! Something amazing is about tho happen to me!’
There may be some who will say that this is only the mind playing tricks, or the King of Clubs coming to the foreground, some may say that this is a mere small epiphany or imagination. It matters little. To me it opened the doors to certainty that there are forces working on us, their motives unknown, and what we think may be helpful to our evolution or to our level of consciousness may not come in the form that we imagine it to be or wish for. All we need to do is to get out of our own way…
I have no personal agenda as to whether anyone chooses to remain in the Fellowship or not. I left at the beginning of 2003.
Alexis
May 1, 2007 at 3:23 am
It looks the Blog has attracted in Mrs. Baker another “becareful” to demonstrate to those who have ears to hear what some have come down to by being years in the FOF, the gods are organizing a parade of the fools.
This post by Harriet Baker # 54 really has the sophistication of style and the acidity that if seems to be inspired by being a long time FOF student. I do not know any Harriet, nor is she in the FOF directory but probably, its just another veil to keep her innocence. Just like her former name “MsAmerica” which really tells a lot about what she wants to be and her greatest identifications.
The only people in the FOF, I can remember to having asked previously, about group-sex together was coincidently Robert and Rowena T., Marla M. and Frederic Ch., Traci S. and Huib S.,…. So this post must be by either Marla, Traci or Rowena. The only FOF students we ever had sex with in the FOF, were our friend E. and Benjamin Y. who contacted me because he found us on an internet swinger site.
Dear Harriet / Former MsAmerica if you want to prove me wrong, just let us know your “real” name. Hope you were at least invited by Dorian and Mihail to one of their group orgies in RB bedroom… but certainly as a former Miss America this was easy.
Coincidently it was otherwise only Rowena and Robert T., at a dinner together with Cassandra that I proposed something like that. I did it, because even then I knew how fake Rowena was and I actually only wanted to give her a moment to ponder about her attitude. As good students they both took it without even a sign of surprise but politely declined.
Only month later Robert asked me, for a private talk and told me how disgusting this proposal had been for him and that he was worried I would be proposing similar things to new or young students. Now his own wife tried to betray him with me…. do you need any more prove that this is a divine comedy orchestrated by the gods to wake some of us up and put others to sleep.
Kiss
Kiran@beingpresent.net
Here is a video from us celebrating the phallus in an Indian temple in Fiji two month ago
http://video.yahoo.com/video/play?vid=466125&fr=yvmtf
May 1, 2007 at 3:35 am
Hello, I have a question.
How do you respond to someone saying that those students who get sexually involved with the teacher do so by their own free will?
I think this is a central point because the legal position is that these are adults who are capable of making a free choice and allow the teacher to do what he wants to do with them from their own volition as no one is pointing a gun at their heads.
Yet one of the fundamental psychological truths of the 4th way as presented by the Fellowship of Friends is that we do not have will.
I would be interested in hearing from those with direct experience. Does being close to Robert give you more of a sense of you being in charge of your life, or less?
How does this all equate with the esoteric idea of ‘giving up ones will’ to the teacher.
Thank you for your considered responses.
“Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.” Yoda
May 1, 2007 at 3:53 am
Radickieyo! And I thought all the trolls had left the building!! Welcome back, dear. And speaking of failures, I guess its true: A man’s weakness can be absolutely relied upon….
(weakness = feature)
May 1, 2007 at 4:23 am
Joel:
Yes, Lauren and I were married for many years, and have two sons, one of whom is older than I was when I joined the FoF. Times flies. Many of your angles were wise and entertaining, but I most appreciate you showing me how to mash garlic with a knife and salt. I now love to cook, and you were an influence.
May 1, 2007 at 4:42 am
March 21, 1950 It is extraordinary what doors the abandonment of talk, or words, seems to open–doors that talk prevented one from ever suspecting. First one has to get everything one can–and that is very much–from the right use of words; then when one has got from them all they can give, one must be brave enough to throw all that overboard and begin in a quite a different way”
“If one is not established in the present, then one is nowhere and nothing is possible.”
Rodney Collin
Oops, I forgot all quotes and Rodney is failure.
May 1, 2007 at 4:50 am
Hey has that Clara thing gone yet?
Talk about hurt your ears
May 1, 2007 at 5:22 am
To Siddiq or anyone with a good explanation:
As of today, there are 6,592,211,033 people living, seeking, breathing and being on planet earth.
As of today, according to Wikipedia, there are about 2,000 Fellowship members worldwide.
Is it true, then, that 6,592,209,033 humans are in deep trouble but that the remaining 2,000 are going to thrive?
Can anyone remind me of Robert’s exact explanation as to why 2000 humans are specially chosen and gifted and all the rest of humanity is not?
I’m having trouble wrapping my “useless” mind around the sheer numbers of lost souls and the blasted lack of fairness.
“To whom should I complain?” -Shakespeare “Measure for Measure”
Best of everything to everyone,
LL
May 1, 2007 at 5:38 am
Author: SACK, URSULA HILDE
Degree: PH.D.
Year: 1985
Corporate Source/Institution: University of Southern California
Source: VOLUME 46/12-B OF DISSERTATION ABSTRACTS INTERNATIONAL. PAGE 4414
Descriptors: PSYCHOLOGY, CLINICAL
Descriptor Codes: 0622
Purpose: This study takes a phenomenological, in-depth look at the process of voluntary disaffiliation from a religious cult or sect. A theory about the psychology and meaning of the experiences of ex-cult members, as they make the life transition of living independently from the former religious group, is presented.
Procedure: Three former, highly committed, long-term members of intensive religious groups (Nichiren Shoshu of America, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Fellowship of Friends) participated in weekly dialogal interviews about the process of leaving the religion, for a period of nine months. Case studies were presented, and the data was analyzed to derive common themes about religious group disaffiliation.
Findings: The following themes represent the psychological structure of the phenomenon of intensive religious group defection. The ex-members experienced the following:
(I) Relationship to the former religion: (A) Need for a sense of mastery over their lives; (B) Continued belief in the doctrines of the former religious group; (C) Ambivalence and loss; (D) Confusion and frustration; (E) Despair and meaninglessness; (F) Feeling betrayed.
(II) Relationship to the self:
(A) Need for control;
(B) Need for perfection and denial of negative life conditions;
(C) Self-blame and self-doubt;
(D) Feelings of worthlessness;
(E) Alienation from self through denial of feelings.
(III) Relationship to others:
(A) Rejection by significant others;
(B) Fear of rejection and relationships;
(C) Need for caring and emotional nourishment;
(D) Anger at others;
(E) Isolation and loneliness.
Conclusions: Former members of religious cults and sects experience loneliness and isolation from the former religious group, isolation and alienation from themselves, and isolation from other people. Voluntary defectors leave in order to make their own decisions, and because they feel betrayed by the leaders of the group. In the transition period, ex-members experience confusion and ambivalence toward the former groups, and maintain beliefs in some of the religious doctrines. Ex-members have negative self-concepts, are lonely, and are frustrated because they have difficulty establishing new relationships and new lives for themselves.
(Copies available exclusively from Micrographics Department, Doheny Library, USC, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0182.)
May 1, 2007 at 6:55 am
#8/70, Butterfly
“The second is that, has anyone else ever thought that the Galleria, from the outside, just looks like a Mc Donalds?”
I had not quite noticed the similarity. The amusement park for kids is missing. You are right to only point to the outside though, because most people would find the interior decor more attractive and the food more interesting.
May 1, 2007 at 7:37 am
Thanks Rabbi for the response. I believe the only thing I could add to my prior statements is that the “efforts to be present” I referred to in prior posts is not some form of mind activity.
Siddiq
May 1, 2007 at 7:46 am
#80.harriet baker Says:
“you were unable to realize that we weren’t making efforts to attend these events to hear you, we were coming to hear Girard.”
So, why are you reading the excellent posts of Helena?
Just follow Girard’s counsel:
“frankly I now feel that I have better ways to use my time and energy. Girard Haven”.
May 1, 2007 at 8:26 am
Hi Siddiq, I like what RabbiBurns said about mind activity. He described it very precisely.
I think it’s not the mind activity or any other activity that is “a problem”. In fact there is no problem at all with mind activity, even with imagination. Because what we truly are – is none of this. Our true identity is not in the mind or it’s activity, so why struggle with unrelated stuff? Because it was declared a “problem” by somebody?
It’s not possible to get rid of imagination anyway (don’t we realize it already after so many years of struggle to control it?). Imagination seem to be a part of natural functioning of the brain, just like heart beat, breathing, blinking of eyes, or digestion -leave it alone. It is not YOU, it’s not taking you away – it’s like a shadow – can’t ever harm you.
But habitually we think that “we” disappear when imagination happens. I believed it for many years too, even “verified” it… Well, now I see that it is not so! Awareness is actually always there, as a subtle background for all, and in it imagination happens and passes like a little cloud. And then something else starts to happen, and then – next thing – thought, emotion – whatever. But some”thing” is always there to experience this, like a canvas of a painting to hold all the paint colors. Notice the background of awareness, it is subtle, but permanent, notice this aliveness that is there always whatever you do, get a taste of it.
As RB said, once you see it – it gets very clear. It’s also very simple, uncomplicated. A small inner shift in perception – and everything changes in the way you relate to things.
I too think that your post #87 showed some glimpses, “effortless effort”, exactly – please keep looking!
Sincerely wishing you good luck and clarity.
May 1, 2007 at 10:02 am
To Helena, remember that Lao Tsu said that “he who does not trust enough, shall not be trusted.”
This appears to applicable to your situation now.
Good luck.
Siddiq
May 1, 2007 at 10:08 am
#89
Thanks for the link Claude. I liked the line:
“…we are waiting for something new to happen, when it is something old not happening.”
May 1, 2007 at 11:35 am
Thanks No Person–I have a newfound appreciation for your sharing!
Siddiq
May 1, 2007 at 11:40 am
To Laughing Love,
I cannot provide you with the “official” explanation, but what I do know is that there is little room in the Fellowship these days for “feeling special and chosen” in the way we heard it, or interpreted it, for years. Seems like the methods have been simplified as we have less time to waste and we have been humbled as so many of us in different ways. There is a lot to be grateful for however, a big part of my life, to be sure.
Siddiq
May 1, 2007 at 12:51 pm
Rabbi #97, “as soon as you see you are not the mind all these illusions & activities stop. The real you is never in imagination.”
What does the idea, image & mantra ‘you are not the mind’ have to do with being present? It is merely an idea, a mind construct with which you come to the experience and color what is in front of you.
And what is the ‘real’ me? Which book or system (or anti system) will reveal to me this ‘reality’? Does this idea of the ‘real me’ have to mediate my immediate experience?
JoelF #78; you qoute Rabbi Burns and recognize a similiar experience of liberation from tyrany of interprative constructs; “these ‘intellectual constructs’ were standing between me and what is in front of me”. But I think you did not read him carefully. He writes “separating me from reality” and means to say ‘the reality that everything is consciousness and that you are never in a state of immagination or of inattention.’ Does this also corresponds to your experience?
Isn’t that one more tyranical intellectual/mind construct that distorts what is in front of one?
The 4way is comlex and pretentious; this non-duality thing is simplistic and superficial. Both of them are trying to convince me to look at the world in a certain religious way rather than just be present in the simplest manner.
Rabbi Burns #74; “everything occurs in presence and there is nowhere to go”. That’s a metaphysical assumption and I don’t quite understand it.
Functionally I know that if I do not bring a degree of attention to something it does not exist for me. Some are fed up with the ’school’ terminology (as I am) words like ’sleep’ & ‘immagination’, so we can use other describtions: ‘being aware’, ‘attention’; but the obvious fact is that you have to become more often than not active in regards to your own immediate experience in order to bring more presence into your life. You have to lift the eyes and look in order to see, you have to think in order to process information, you have to sniff in oredr to smell. (If you direct attention to your toe you sense it). Sometimes you may be overwhelmed by sensations or thoughts even if you do not invest attention but in the the case you always wait passively for life to ‘happen’ to you, your inner life will probably be a poorer affair. And so it is if you read only one poet (the lovely ancient programmatist Rumi, for example) or read only Advaitist literature. There are many ways to lose your ability to live fully: not to learn how to be present is one; not to question and to think for yourself is another.
If this active awareness is done in a relaxed manner than it is indeed a sort of ‘effortless-effort’ (Siddiq #87), and the internal impediments can be elegantly bypassed.
Often I discuss with people who do not get the effortless-effort. Some of them do not get the effortles part, and some do not get the effort part.
May 1, 2007 at 12:57 pm
Kiran, that last post (99) was really tacky, as was the video. Just thought you ought to know.
May 1, 2007 at 2:16 pm
No person:
you make it sound so simple, like it’s….right here…could it really be that simple? ..and..is it real? to paraphrase a Margaret Millar
presence is something that happens to you while you’re making other plans.
subway:
a trailer is a good idea, just not on the property
as some wise sage said, maybe puppetji
“you cannot see the slowest for the be’s”
May 1, 2007 at 4:51 pm
It looks like formermsamerica is either experiencing irreversible hormonal changes in her body which made her incapable of producing any other thoughts than poisonous, either she just needs a good shagging.
Although it’s hard for me to help with the former, the latter is easily changeable, please ask my husband Biggus Dickus.
Madam, I do hope you’d chill out; your writings as unpleasant as they are pointless. You act like a little vile doggie barking at people behind a fence of anonymity. It doesn’t give much credit to your former beauty (if there was any) or your mental abilities.
These days there are good hormonal replacements available for menopausal women; there is no need to suffer so much.
May 1, 2007 at 5:43 pm
Veronicapoe (106):
“Ex-members have negative self-concepts, are lonely, and are frustrated because they have difficulty establishing new relationships and new lives for themselves.”
This is certainly not true for any ex-members I know. Kind of the opposite actually – the time after leaving is exhilarating and full of wonderful realisations and possibilities. I guess the survey chose an unusual ex-member, or maybe times have changed since 1985.
RB
May 1, 2007 at 6:53 pm
Shout out to Claude Larson #89. Howdy, nice to hear from you.
Paul, thanks for the update. Didn’t know about your family, congrats. I have one son and have become much more of a cook in recent years. Hope you are well.
JoelF
May 1, 2007 at 7:02 pm
To Clara Elena,
Who more than you would be willing to defend
“freedom of speach” ?
Yet, when the speach causes trouble
(any sort will do: from being unvalued to being offended and what not),
you ask for silence?
Freedom of speach as much as freedom of anything (read/teach the “Theory of evolution” in schools, wear a scarf or being gay, just name it…)
is FRAGILE and needs the best vigilence
(free from opinions, preferences and so on…) from us all,
so it can be defended,
when in danger.
In the name of “freedom of speach”,
I am more enthousistic about its existence
than I can ever be about my agreement or my dis-agreement with its content.
Eventually, it comes to this:
May I enjoy or not enjoy your posts,
I will defend you posting!
“En passant”, thanks again Sheik for absorbing/moderating so much!
Hope you can follow that.
I am using you because of the peculiar position you take, nothing else, nothing personal.
It seems to make the idea clear.
I believe Unoanimo came from the same place when he used your post to illustrate his ideas and share his discoveries on Pain Body (Ekhart Tholle concept).
Let’s stay strong and firm to combat the true enemies!
Much love to us all!
May 1, 2007 at 7:06 pm
On The Pain Body:
May 1, 2007 at 8:48 pm
This blog was started a little over a year ago.
The first comment came on June 24, 2006 from someone named Barbara. It was a negative response to FOF and Robert Burton in particular.
The name of the blog is Fellowship of Friends-a cult for intellectuals.
In the fourth way it is mentioned that different methods, systems, ways, should not be mixed but used as references. The vocabularies are different is the main point.
“Pain Body” does not compute. Eckart Tolle does not compute. We stand and be in effortless wonderment does not compute.
So, now this blog which was once for discussion of the Fellowship is now a free for all, all twisted and illogical?
Machine within a machine? I have no work being in this new language.
May 1, 2007 at 9:07 pm
Readers please change in my last post:
The facts will continue to show how Robert’s favorites and just the favorite boys have abused……
to:
The facts will continue to show how Robert’s favorites and NOT just the favorite boys have abused……..
May 1, 2007 at 9:20 pm
#108 Siddiq
“Efforts to be present” are always a mind activity.
Any kind, always.
May 1, 2007 at 10:33 pm
Reply to ~ Yesri Baba Says:
“It is something important i think i and maybe others let slide by for too long. It seems everyone is injured throughout their lives to varying degrees and this tends to develope into a victim view of the world. The antidote oftem seems to be the flip side. Developing a toughness and strategies to show the world we are not the victim and we are in control even to the point that people may hoard billions of dollars and strive for more and more power and are still not content.
It may be that hurt is what leads us to search for “spiritual” answers. Yet it seems that can lead to the same game of victimization and pain and the attempt get the effort right so we are in control and advancing but it is only the other side of the coin when we could use totally different currency (to use a crappy metaphor).
Again, I appreciate your efforts and welcome any further thoughts you have along these lines.”
____________________________________
Thank you Yesri Baba for the invitation for “further thoughts”…
Yes, it is a dynamic womb we jostle around in… I find that many have a difficult time seeing themselves as evolving beings, part then, part now, part future or brand new in this one and only moment. It is the pain body that excludes the moment, for it is the ‘brand new’ that interrupts its morning newspaper and coffee. Something in us simply will not let go of the mother and father points of view (Adam & Eve, God & Devil, Man #4 & Man #7 or #8).
The human psyche is born into a vast array of structure created by the four lower centers and their enslavement to the pain body appetite’s and reactions… A story to demonstrate this.
One day I went to see what some in your school term as ‘a life person’, this person was a sort of Harley Davidson kinda guy, tough, silent, looking for real man associative energies. I like these guys allot because they (to me) are the Viking psyches transferred, like in a time machine, from some time period where men drank allot of beer, took weird herbs and fought battles in their bathing suits.
There are 5 layers of ego covering ‘man’s possible evolution’…
Instinctive, moving, intellectual, emotional, spiritual. I like the Harley guys because they show me the beginning ego structures, the rock bottom so to speak, this does not mean that they are lower, far from it, actually they are more receptive to certain influences, since they have yet to be painted by the other 3 layers, that is, that most of them are ‘in essence’ although it is often times damaged-essence, this is not to be confused with false personality, which is usually an entity which has automatically obtained all 5 layers or at least 4.
So with that intro., we see a certain ‘type’ of spirit, a man (or woman, I’ve met with these too) who is both kind to children, though would punch your teeth out if he thought you were unkind to your mother based on his sister’s opinion of your ‘demeanor’.
I have often found that these sorts of ‘meat and potato meetings’ are very honest, that these kinds of spirits have an uncanny connection to their King of Clubs, wherefore (unlike so much or normal talk) eye contact is a must, whether it is ‘real eye contact or not’, this is not the issue; it is the ‘instinctive truths’ that they are looking for.
Their particular/practical pain bodies have been through allot and having some of the most outwardly dense pain bodies on the planet, one must be able to consciously resonate with them, otherwise any being-love-collaboration will simply falter immediately before you even step out of the car.
If they know your coming up or down the driveway, it is customary that there is ‘a seer’ always stationed either on the porch, at the window or somewhere on the peripheral of your view, that signals a chain-communication to the others that your particular vibration ‘rings their bell.’
So there I was.
We talked a bit, related the various sizes of motor bike pistons compared to oil powered turbine pistons, etc. His mother walked in and said something, to which I could immediately discern that he tensed up entirely (internally), he then scratched his head several times and pulled his hand down his face, like pulling down an invisible visor.
Later, out in the front yard I tried a little experiment, very little… I said, ‘You get nervous around mother, yes?’ (stressing the word mother in a similar way people stress the word ‘god’ or ‘jesus’.
He looked at me in a very matter-of-fact way, suddenly all his ‘armor’ and tension dissolved, I could see him as an 8 year old little boy, disappointed a little that some expectation was not being met.
He said “Yeah, she does that to me.” I told him a story about my phobia of dogs after being bitten by one once, the idea that dogs can actually smell trouble brewing from a person’s body odor, etc. How often our fear of an animal will be met by a corresponding fear of the fear, thus a bite or growl, etc.
This metaphor of the dog, referring back to mother or father, related, for in all my years I have yet to find any of the 1st class spirits of this type who do not know everything concerning the intuitive knowledges surrounding cats and dogs, so, its a good metaphor to use, so long as there is enough space between the subject of mother and the dog, so not to mistakingly trigger a Freudian Slip, relating mom = dog: this is not the aim, unless they initiate the slip, then its a different ‘triad’ altogether.
I spoke with him about taking deep breaths when mother shows up on the scene, creating space, etc. I was not trying to teach this person anything: it was a very in the moment exercise and actually brought our boyish-nesses closer by keeping it simple, acknowledging that my relationship to his particular pain body (and presence) stood for freedom, not exaggeration and tension… to this day it survives as such.
I kept it very quick, talking while walking style, nothing serious, I simply wanted to see him, the real ‘him’… and there he was, a forty something eight year old, we, like two little boys walking around wondering out loud what to do with ‘mom’.
Well there you have it.
“Varying degrees of injury,
Victim view of the world,
Antidote becomes the flip side,
Developing a toughness,
Still not content,
Hurt leading to spiritual searching,
Same game,
Different currency…”
All the above quotes relate to something beyond the human automatic psyche to monitor, keep, let go, give and receive.
Spiritual searching is simply ’searching’, it is no different than searching for the ultimate off road four wheel drive.
Keep it simple, searching is searching, finding three dimensional affirmations, whether it be a group of people or a group of high tech wind mills atop ‘your property’, it is the same ego ownership or belonging to a cause, to a form that points to what is missing inside one’s own inner life condition and solution to yearning …”Beelzebub’s Tales To His Grandson” outlines this in a very precise way.
Spiritual searching does not lead to the same game, it simply is ‘you’ who lift the fifth veil, seeing that it is a circular stack of dominoes pointing back to domino #1, hence the instinctive denying force that your school has been looking at for a long time. In other words, spiritual searching is already the same game…Yet, it is significant to be at this point of ‘having been painted five times in one season’…for it is here that Ouspensky states that “a man #4 is someone who knows too much.” Yet this is no guarantee that this theoretical #4 will give up the 5th veil… Usually spiritual schools are reciprocal reunions of problem and resolution, till the struggle to succeed in failure and inconsistency becomes a religion of ‘Maybe next lifetime.’
“Different currency”… Well, yes, perhaps a better metaphor is in the works, though money is the automatic symbol of our sex energy…See Benjamin Franklin’s opinion of the concept of ‘credit’. Credit cards here and now equate to your school’s concept of next lifetime, limbo, etc. This of course, the sheer un-pragmatic promulgation into the automatic psyches of Men #4 goes against everything Gurdjieff was taught and was. The theory of lifetimes is a dangerous idea, leading mostly to educating the sloth within us as to ~ How to build a rocking chair, that when rocked, can both show you a direct view of heaven and hell within one half-rotation while not being thrown either on your face in the mud or falling backwards upon the hard surface of gold cobblestones.
Love to you all.
May 1, 2007 at 10:34 pm
About Half-Life’s writing:
“…but the obvious fact is that you have to become more often than not active in regards to your own immediate experience in order to bring more presence into your life”
This corresponds exactly what I have been trying to convey. And the “becoming active” may well be of a passive quality, a “letting go” or “relaxing of some tension” or other dissolving or waning of an active feature, etc.–some beginning of not-doing.
Thanks to All,
Siddiq
May 1, 2007 at 10:37 pm
I forgot to add that I therefore do not see it quite as Yesri Baba in that I do not believe the efforts to be present are always “mind activity (#126)”–
I believe it may have an initial mind activity impulse (a thought-”Be” or “be here now” or “be Present”–etc.) but need not stay there and in fact should not.
Siddiq
May 1, 2007 at 11:08 pm
“I See” (100):
“I would be interested in hearing from those with direct experience. Does being close to Robert give you more of a sense of you being in charge of your life, or less?
How does this all equate with the esoteric idea of ‘giving up ones will’ to the teacher.”
There are no answers to questions about “free will” because the question is a creation of what we used to call “formatory mind.” This has enabled philosophers to argue for millenia about whether it exists or not; the debate can never end, because the question is unanswerable. Does cause and effect “really” exist? Or do events simply follow one another? Do events “really” follow one another? Or does everything simply happen in the present, with the rest being an illusion? So it goes.
The “4th Way” has taken the clever approach of asserting that “free will” exists, but only for those who have “created” it. It also says that, in the interim, we have to give up what we don’t have to our teacher. These are all mind games–not inherently bad mind games, but mind games nonetheless.
In my experience, and the experiences conveyed to me by others, having a “close” relationship with Robert entails mind games within mind games, in which various weaknesses are brought into play. For some, it appeals primarily to vanity; the victim may imagine Robert is interested in something in particular about him–his being, his remarkable looks, his sexual prowess, whatever. For another, it’s primarily about fear; if he doesn’t comply, he’ll lose something of value–his ability to “evolve,” his green card, whatever. In the former case, the situation will result in a hugely inflated ego, and a sense of being in charge. In the other, abject humiliation results, and a sense of having no control. In those instances where the victim says “no, thanks,” he will feel that he’s “really” in control.
Either way, it’s all mind games.
May 1, 2007 at 11:34 pm
Half Life (115): “Functionally I know that if I do not bring a degree of attention to something it does not exist for me.”
If you really want to take the next step from the position you outline, have a look at what you mean by “I”:
“I know…” – who is this “I” that knows?
“If I do not bring a degree of attention…” – which “I” brings the attention?
If you really look at this long and hard I believe you’ll see that what’s actually happening doesn’t support the assumptions behind your observations, though they’re reasonable enough from a logical viewpoint and even from an experiential viewpoint if you choose to describe your experiences in that particular way.
“My coming here like this has already missed the point, how much more so, to go on and draw a circle!” Ch’en Ts’ao
RB
May 1, 2007 at 11:43 pm
Hi OP ,
You said: you make it sound so simple, like it’s….right here…could it really be that simple? ..and..is it real?
Yes, presence it is incredibly simple. So simple – it’s boring to the mind and commonly overlooked and instead made into something hard to attain. It seems elusive exactly because of it’s simplicity, not difficulty. Mind dismisses the obvious as something “too common”. For the mind it’s much more interesting to “lack something” or to have “a difficult problem”. Then mind is in business – to solve it, to find the answer. A false identity of a spiritual seeker/student gets invented and built in the mind, with a destination and purpose, efforts, practices and constant restless looking for something elusive. It’s excited to hear that “presence is difficult”, because it means more work for the mind, more searching, more info, more efforts and then more blame for failures.
Let me quote someone Russian I like to read very much: ” We always embark on a journey which have already ended a second before our departure”.
But our mind loves such journeys! So we embark, and embark, instead of just stopping right now and seeing that there is absolutely nowhere to go and nothing to find except what is already here – conscious awareness in the present moment.
All it takes is honest looking within. Bypassing the mind for a second.
Nothing is wrong with a mind itself, it’s simply wrong tool for the job, so to speak. Loud, overactive tool that takes up way too much space for a tool.
In seeing the simplicity of it, or realizing who you truly are – there is a big inner relief, no more search, no more seeker/student/teacher games. Just simple life continues, very satisfying, rewarding, not “tomorrow or yesterday”, simply now, as it is, effortlessly.
Is it real? To me it’s as real as it gets. Feels great too. I would love for others to discover it for themselves, to live life in peace with yourself and joyfully.
Isn’t it what we all really want?
Much love and support for all
May 1, 2007 at 11:53 pm
Half Life (115): “If this active awareness is done in a relaxed manner than it is indeed a sort of ‘effortless-effort’ and the internal impediments can be elegantly bypassed. Often I discuss with people who do not get the effortless-effort. Some of them do not get the effortless part, and some do not get the effort part.”
This is brilliantly put. I’ve had a number of those kind of discussions too. What you’re saying illustrates perfectly how the mind simply cannot grasp that effort is not necessary. It twists and turns and confuses with phrases like “effortless effort”. It so desperately wants to give the impression it understands! But it never will….
You’ll laugh when you see it!
RB
May 1, 2007 at 11:58 pm
To: I See Said the Blind Man (#100)
I think I answered some of your questions in part 7, #187. I hope that’s useful for you, and that others will pitch in.
To: Clara Helena Haven (#124)
Please get a lawyer to give you general advice before you make any threats to the FOF, however subtle or unsubtle. You need to protect yourself in the visible world as well as the invisible world. Do not make the mistake of thinking Abraham Goldman is the mild, gentle man he projects himself as to so many. When it comes to protecting the Fellowship, he is to Burton as Karl Rove is to Bush—utterly and completely ruthless, and completely without conscience. For him, ANY means justifies the end. He has huge resources behind him, and can easily tie you up in expensive litigation; you might ‘win’ in the end, but you may also be bankrupt. Remember, this country may have quite a different legal system to the one you are used to. For example, in most cases, parties to litigation usually pay their own fees. That means, even if you ‘win’, you are unlikely to get back the costs of defending yourself, at $200 or more an hour, court costs, deposition fees, and innumerable more expenses, not to mention your own time.
I’m not trying to frighten you. I’m not a lawyer, I’m advising you to talk to one before you go too far on your own. I personally know how Goldman works. For example, he sent an employee of the Church of Scientology, an ‘investigator’ called Ingram, to threaten me and my family with harm if I did not help the FOF by withdrawing my help for Troy Buzbee. The sleazy Ingram at that time was wanted in two states for his abusive investigations. Ingram also went to Troy Buzbee’s mother (who knew nothing of the case) and revealed what was going on—not to obtain information (she had none), but to use her horror and dismay as a weapon against Troy. That is the kind of person Abraham Goldman is, behind the soft smile and the ‘harmless’ act.
Another piece of ‘non-lawyerly’ advice: document everything, from now on. Make copies of everything you have that is pertinent to your aims, and put them in the hands of people you trust (and at least one copy abroad, beyond the jurisdiction of a United States court). Do not let Goldman defeat you with a ‘gag order’.
I wish you well.
Regards,
Ames Gilbert
May 2, 2007 at 12:17 am
“Measure for Measure” #105
Please count the cells and neurons of all organs of your body and brains (including the many ‘I’s) and then the mirror cells of your Pineal Gland.
Good Luck.
May 2, 2007 at 12:23 am
#124 Clara:
I’ve been thinking about the best venue for your idea for a more structured, centralized approach on the documentation/history of the fof. I think the most important issue is the control over publishing.
Readers
Authors
Editors
Publishers
There are frameworks available that allow “Access Control Levels” to be implimented within a collaborative structure.
There could also be a member aspect, where members must register before obtaining full reader (and author) access.
There could be various areas of content. Here’s a quick proposed structure.
1.Historical
Written
Visual
Timelines
Centres
2.Philosophies
Practiced
Professed
Artistic (Music, Arts, Literature, Crafts)
3.Legal
4.Economic
There may be some legal issues to clarify before publication to the world.
My preference is a flat a structure as possible, but as seen in the wikipedia, that has caused a battle of the editor/publishers.
Cost is pretty minimal maybe 10-15 month , for a hosting solution.
I would be willing to kick it off, and simply have a paypal donation button to defray the expense. ( as our trusty sheik has done).
I would welcome any emails from anyone interested in pursuing this.
opuig@bits.es
Again, as always, thank you all for sharing
this lively and thoughtful discourse is…
May 2, 2007 at 1:26 am
Dear Kiran,
I noticed some posts ago that you said that people reading this blog but not posting didn’t have the courage. It made me feel inadequate like the professionel anglegivers did.
I do appreciate you in introducing the subject of sex into the blog (the personal side).
It makes it more real.
Jusr I would like a realtalk about the role of the excersize of not smoking..
Just be careful not to cloud the blog with too many very personal issues, please genaralize…
Loretta, I love you always
May 2, 2007 at 1:45 am
Greetings.
I was in ‘the group’ late 70’s and early 80’s, lived at a center and then at Renaissance. I left for several reasons: there was a pervading sense of superiority, separateness, fear and desperation. There was just so much that was about escape and I began to get tired of the desperate desire to escape (the machine, the ‘I’s, ‘life’, and life….etc.) For all the talk of RB being conscious he was not very observant, was way into himself and lacked compassion. I did not want to become dependent on the emotional group thing and it just seemed so small and rather petty wrapped up in big talk.
I wasn’t aware of RB’s predatory behavior – just thought he was gay. Being a predator is different.
What I have found post-fof has been very wonderful. I am very involved in community (more fluid than a small rigid group) and have been able to continue my spiritual interests. My life has not been easy, but the struggle has been alive. I didn’t feel isolated till I moved to another state, but with effort, that has completely changed.
I’m a very private person and I’ve just not mentioned the fof much since then. I guess I’ve felt somewhat embarrassed because of the creepy, sleazy, deluded dark side of this school is very apparent to most everyone except current students. As great and godlike RB and his followers think the fof is – it has that great a shadow which, it seems, they are still unconscious of. For me the process of leaving the group was one of facing shadow material – mine and fof’s of which I partook. Facing shadow is painful – accepting responsibility is worse. I knew that if I stayed longer and bought in any deeper I would not be able to face it – disavowing and running from shadow is deeply ingrained fof behavior. Its interesting…such a tiny group with such delusions of grandeur and light and no recognition of shadow– but the perception of the group my most people (and some former students) is that it is all shadow. (a parallel is the rigid Mormon communities in Utah and their ‘lost boys’.)
The released thoughts of Mr. O (#7-352 ) have been my findings too. My heart and mind are much cleaner and richer cleared of the superiority, rigid rules, desire to escape. Being present is for no reason other than it is its own reward. It is not a bargaining chip, or points accrued for a more ’saved’ status.
I had a lot of good, simple fun in the group and loved California (I was rather young at the time too). I didn’t keep the rules very well and mostly flew beneath the radar – never wanting to become a power position parrot student. Met some very cool, odd, fascinating people some of whom have remained friends and I’ve watched them mature. I don’t miss my ‘in the group’ fof friends since they became extremely negative and dogmatic. Besides, my involvement was very long ago and I’ve made and rekindled some wonderful friendships. Generally, the experience honed my BS-o-meter which has been very useful. Fof is life in tiny miniature- fundamentalists, power plays, control, secrets, politics…politics. Nevertheless, I think we are connected somehow and I have really enjoyed hearing the voices here!
May 2, 2007 at 3:53 am
Thank you “Cake Please” for your post #67 on children. It is so good to hear we are being able to get this suffering out and will not buffer it any longer.
“You me as they”!, post 121. I beg to differ and think you misunderstood. I questioned Unoanimo for standing for individual transformation of suffering while I’m standing for social questioning of the suffering The Fellowship imposes. I questioned his using me next to Higher M to exemplify his idea because I did not enjoy feeling like a guinea pig specially in an article that does not reinforce what I am trying to work on. My misunderstanding and intolerance. Agreed. And I did not ask for silence, just to keep my name out of his posts.
Yours doesn’t need answering but I thought I’d tell you I’m listening. Thank you, anyway.
It’s true that I’m tired and this has been a great way to buffer the fact that my husband’s walked out because I declined to continue being a decoration in his life and school which is all that is expected of anyone in the Fellowship if one is not making money for Robert. No matter what, the blog has helped me tremendously to understand why I am doing this. I thank you all for bearing with me.
What is most clear is that I have been emotionally starved for years. The Fellowship pretends that we are being emotionally fed by looking at pretty gardens and dressing decently, having some exposure to cultural events and dining with each other but it is starving our essence and emotional energy by not allowing us to express ourselves. Not just by talking but by not being able to have any kind of initiative of our own that is not directly supporting Robert. Living one’s life is more than doing things for Robert even if he were a God and he’s not. God’s don’t need one to live their lives for them.
May 2, 2007 at 3:58 am
To Pinocchio (135)
Why would I count “the cells and neurons of all organs” etc.
Is there a method for doing this?
Is this weird suggestion an obscure insult spiced with sarcasm?
My original question has merit.
I’m guessing that you propose that within each individual, billions of microcosms exist on the cellular level. This is true.
That truth is not relevant to my question.
You wish me “good luck” in a damning and sarcastic manner.
It is imbued with a sense of superiority over the damned 6,592,209,033 human beings who suffer from a lack of a magnetic center or metal detector or whatever one chooses to call it.
Please clarify your response. Think of me as a potential student who has a few questions.
LL
May 2, 2007 at 4:45 am
Loretta, on smoking: I was around RB when that exercise was first instituted. While the reasons given could easily be justified in that rarefied atmosphere, I remember it also had to do with someone foolishly estimating approximately how much money was being spent collectively by students that smoked (RB used to have a few puffs). I’m sure the mathematics was faulty, but at the time the fellowship was experiencing “not enough money”. So with all the other reasons (going against the machine etc.) it seemed obvious that on one level RB thought it was cutting into his potential money flow. After all, he is practical when it comes to certain things.
May 2, 2007 at 6:02 am
In Reply to Post #123/8
Dear arthur:
It is no small coincidence that your post got lodged in between a Youtube link concerning the Painbody and Clara’s courtroom foreshadowing… Somewhere I sense that whatever within you asks for clarification and unconfusedness, its on its way… Be kind my friend, its a long train this blog-engine is pulling to a station nearing you, slow enough that we’re able to build the caboose as it goes.
Love to you all.
May 2, 2007 at 6:58 am
Sheik – I request that you remove or abbreviate our names (m**la m**er and fre**ric cho**el) in Kiran’s post 8/99.
While I heartily encourage the free exchange of opinion and discussion happening on this blog, it seems that using full names in any post brings up the issue of privacy invasion. What Kiran has posted could easily be taken out of context and misinterpreted. F and I have NOT had sexual relations with Kiran nor Cassandra. Some of those participating on this blog have professional lives where this type of public reference could do lasting damage.
Kiran – I did not post the “Harriet Baker” post nor any other post to you on this blog. I realize that someone directed quite a bit of negativity toward you, however, it seems inappropriate to just throw names out there without basis for accusation. Even though I have left FOF you should have our contact information. If you would like to discuss something with F or me, please do get in touch.
MM
May 2, 2007 at 7:14 am
I guess it is easy for me to think about lawsuits or class actions lawsuits around someone like Robert Burton.
The man has been so greedy and ruthless, he definitively exploited almost all the members who gave money and time and energy in many forms.
Many ex members here mentioned legal action is a futile route…. Majority will win!
I personally do not have money, or knowledge, or leadership abilities to even initiate such thing.
I would have to know in advance if such effort could be rewarded after all. Someone was joking sarcastically about paying me back with Chinese pottery or some other valuable objects from RB’s collection I suppose…. but realistically I do not think about getting my money back. It would be nice perhaps, but it would not happen.
It is also true that not everyone gets on their feet after leaving the Fof, it has been a few years now and I am still paying personally the consequences for having invested in the fof…
This is hard to forgive.
I am sure someone here could come out and tell me that I should not blame any external circumstances, that it was my choice, etc., I was fully adult and was not “forced” into anything with coercion.
Ok, Ok, I can take responsibility for my foolish choices and can even thank the fate that overall brought me here and also past the fof, after all I have learned a lesson , a huge one and am still learning!
But what I would really like is to make RB’s great lie widely PUBLIC, it has already harmed and continues to harm many people.
There are many nice fellows in the fof among the less so, but even these decent human beings how can they not know of the horrible stories behind the great façade of the teacher? This is what bugs me the most: people continue to fall and to follow a very sick man.
The price in the end is really too big, is a loss of soul for sure, not a gain, unless one eventually realizes the illusion and wakes up, claiming back what is personal and real.
May 2, 2007 at 7:23 am
Veronicapoe Says:
April 30th, 2007 at 2:40 am
Every time someone discusses the sequence, I picture the Macarena. Am I the only one?
Hello Veronica,
I am very curious about the “sequence”, could you please describe it to me?
I was in the fof years ago, and am intrigued by the new “tools” used by RB.
Thank you.
May 2, 2007 at 8:11 am
Dear Ames,
Thank you so very much for those thoughts. I don’t have the money to even start such a thing. It is fortunate that the blog appeared and pulled me out. You’ve done a great job guys! Thank you. I’m out and well!
Dear OP,
Sounds good, thank you and to the Sheik nevertheless for having offered. How do we start? Is it alright with some others? Would you eventually look at it and if it seems agreeable make some input of your own? Let time answer if you wish.
My email is ludoteka@world12.net
May 2, 2007 at 10:09 am
Clara,
I apologise for the insult but I was angered at the use of personal insults and the violence of your post.However I do acknowledge that it was a particularly pratful ploy for captain unanimo to use one of your postings as an example of his pain body theory.There are plenty of axamples we can draw from life without using each others postings to illustrate our points (a version of talking behind their back but so that they can hear).
Arthur,
This may be a forum for FOF related topics but if it was just that then I would wonder why I was not back in the fellowship. It served it’s purpose for me and so I’m mostly here to see what areas other ex-students have been drawn to and if any share some of the realizations that I’ve come to since leaving. Personally I welcome the diversity.
May 2, 2007 at 10:22 am
Dear “I am that” (post#137)
You requested “…please generalize…”
You see, I am tired of 20 years of “generalized” angles and the aura of “objectivity” they promote. Hiding the personal frustration even to the person who is giving the “angle”.
All this had a purpose and initially they were doing well, but after doing anything for too long it turns into its opposite and leads to those “professional angles” and “angle givers” that serve nobody.
The same is with any standard advice like “Isiswideshut” post #96 cautioning Clara and Loreta “that it’s a moon”. These are so deeply ingrained believes that they become “unquestionable” and thus a form of identification and a loss of realization that this is a part of the form we have learned and not objective reality.
In other traditions they would particularly “on a full moon” make a big “encounter” to release un-useful energy, just as they would particularly support “personal approaches” rather than the “it and we-angles” that we have come so much in love with. To our subjective ears like for Bruce #116 it sounds really “tacky” it creates again “I’s” and judgment which really reveals our subjective nature (at least to some).
Most have become so “impartial and objective” towards any statements because they just developed good buffers through years of meetings. I am sure that most who read this Blog have a buffer that expresses it something like that “Those people are so identified with their I’s, thanks god RB has saved us from this dead end road”.
I would have the greatest respect for all of them, if they have the same degree of separation if someone for example scratches their car or they get a parking ticket. But certainly this would create way more suffering and reaction than all the thoughts expressed here. Simply because they either buffer what is said here with the usual FOF feeling of “superiority” or because their car has become more valuable to them then issues related to the FOF.
Its really a strange “contradiction” that you have chosen the handle “I am that” but apparently the last thing you want is that I directly points out to some “What they are”, its just so much more comfortable and of course “objective” to “generalize”.
We love you too…. How strange to get this from a person who has to hide “generalize” behind a handle…. But we like “Contradictions” don’t we?… at least as long as we do not have to face them
kiran@beingpresent.net
From beautiful Oregon House
http://flickr.com/photos/iloveyou2/sets/72157600108525312/show
May 2, 2007 at 10:46 am
#127 unoanimo
This is difficult. Trying to communicate is just plain hard. I can relate a little to Arthur’s post #123 but my situation is somewhat different.
I was expelled from the fof in 1980 and it was one of the most painful experiences of my life (that it was much my own responsibilty and fault for giving myself too much to it does not change the pain it caused me).
Most of my evolution has occurred in the 27 years since through my own studies, meditation and just living. Most of my work has been in construction related fields and i can relate to your conversation with the biker.
The idea of “pain body” struck a chord with me when i read it in your post because it seems to be an expression of “something” i have had a sense of but have never been able to grab onto. My best discription might be that “worn out ball joint that keeps steering us into the same old ruts.” It became more fascinating as i began reading these posts and watching my “shadow” reactions to 4th way terminologies (which i surmise are inextricably connected to the before mentioned suffering.) This does not invalidate or validate those ideas.
I value the contributions of the “non-dual” contributers and those like yourself who give their opinions and relate their experiences from as fresh a point of view as they are able so i can look from a differnt angle at the observations i have of the landscape that i am.
Thank You.
May 2, 2007 at 11:04 am
Rabbi Burns et al ,
Recently I was suggested the excercise(seeking inspiration)of repeating to myself each morning the phrase ” I am connected” as if in a prayer when I woke, and in the evening “I am released”. When said slowly and with intent on every word I find a remarkable sense of energy flow throughn the body and a good level of presence afterward. The excercise was to be done also with the intent of recieving whatever experience was offered throughout the day ahead.This is a complete reversal of 4th way theory and yet there is an I there,the one that says “ah yes” to all that has been and will be.
Any thoughts on this in relation to your discussion on the I’s. (Ive tried this without the I am and its not the same experience).Sounds a bit fluffy but I find myself now supporting the “I am”in my experiences and celebrating my existence alot more since I left FoF and started exploring different avenues such as OBE’s and subconscious mind.
May 2, 2007 at 11:09 am
#129 Siddig
There is that communication thing again!
The effort to be present is always mind activity. Being present contains mind activity, efforted or not.
May 2, 2007 at 2:01 pm
Clara Helena Haven: Sure, I can easily start another discussion forum like this one where you and other people can focus on the document. As has been pointed out by others, it may be a better idea to use a different format, such as yahoo groups. If you choose to continue using this blog format, I will make a forum for you.
Either one of the choices will cost you nothing, except time.
May 2, 2007 at 3:53 pm
#8/70, Butterfly
“The second is that, has anyone else ever thought that the Galleria, from the outside, just looks like a Mc Donalds?”
Anonymous Says:
“I had not quite noticed the similarity. The amusement park for kids is missing. You are right to only point to the outside though, because most people would find the interior decor more attractive and the food more interesting.”
Thank you Anonymous and I would like to use this as an example of a deeper malaise within the fof. You are allowed to have your opinion on what you think attractive or not as does everyone but there are many areas in the fof which as Kiran mentions above are “unquestionable”.
The architecture of the Galleria is of the same style as a Mc Donalds and thats fine, if thats all we could do at the time in terms of budget, but don’t fool ourselves that its beautiful just because someone says so.
I personally find the interior fussy, ornate and camp, and as i often feel after a concert, when everyone is saying how beautiful it was, I wonder what is happening. Yes, we do have some gifted musicians, the lady flutist was one example but she just left the fof. We also have a lot of amateurs and those concerts are not always good.
There is a lot of peer pressure to toe the line though and for everyone to forget to mention all the bum notes.
The Russian students who, incidentally, have a higher understanding of music and other arts from their education, do recognise the workings of the old communist party in the style of our own ‘benevolent’ dictatorship.
A piece of plastic is of a low ‘alchemy’, no matter how much gold paint you add on top.
The Galleria is a meeting place for the fof, you do not, however, have to check your critical faculties at the door.
yours, butterfly
May 2, 2007 at 4:08 pm
Thank you OP for your offer for a place. I think I would like to go ahead with the Sheik’s offer, but thank you again.
To the Sheik: We’ve already heard the problems with yahoo groups so it doesn’t sound good. The image I have is that if we could have the whole document in one article and keep adding to the different areas as people write in, that might work. What seems to need some attention is that it doesn’t seem practical to have the whole document re-posted every time anyone writes a small thing. My picture is more like one writes one’s little thing and it then gets put into the complete document where it corresponds.
Any reader would have access to it as a document but only you or someone helping you could add to it so that it doesn’t get cramped with material that does not go to the point. Once we established the guidelines for posting on it, positive or questioning articles but real and not propaganda kind of stuff and with some conciseness and efficiency, then they could be added to the whole document.
I must ask you, what rights do you have over the material that the blog or such a document presents? I am asking because eventually we might wish to publish such a document and then the issue of money comes in. I do believe that any one who has invested what seems like much time into collecting material like Veronicapoe seems to have done and others, would need to be payed if such a document were ever to be published and people like her or myself or any one else for that matter, would need to know where you yourself would stand in this matter. Would we need to come to some agreement previously so that people have no fear in offering their work, knowing that if it ever makes any money they would get payed for it? Having done that for so long already it seems necessary to be more careful.
So many people here have such valuable material, I would personally be very happy to also see the “historical” document put together and published so that I could have a copy. They could both be worked on. After all, the decadence of the Fellowship that needs to be questioned is only one of its aspects which doesn’t take away any of its beauty.
May 2, 2007 at 4:23 pm
Deare Sheik
I support that if you could please take out the two names : m**la m**er and fre**ric cho**el in mmy post post 8/99
I guess I was right with one of my other two guesses as our “Former Miss America” nor Rowena Taylor have not offered to show their real face
Thank you also always allowing the link to my pictures and videos, they find great response with these starving FOF people, for example my Fiji video from two days ago was already downloaded more than 100 times since then
thank you for not getting tired of all this nonsense
kiran@beingpresent.net
May 2, 2007 at 4:52 pm
To Kiran:
I do not know you in person, unless you are the same person years ago who came from Germany and was going to India (Calcutta?) with your young wife (C?) to open a center there….(I thought “you” and her were quite solar…)
In any case I wanted to tell you I enjoy some of your slides shows…
As an ex fof, I have been forbidden to enter the property and do not come around OH much anymore.
I am delighted to see old faces I have forgotten, shadows of friends, another life time…
Could you please post more slides if you have them? even from the time you were still in the fof? I am a bit nostalgic of the past, although I would never bring back myself to become fof again!
Oh My God! Never!
Thanks.
May 2, 2007 at 6:34 pm
BBWolf (150): “Recently I was suggested the excercise(seeking inspiration) of repeating to myself each morning the phrase ‘I am connected’ as if in a prayer when I woke, and in the evening ‘I am released’. ”
It’s interesting to look at what becomes connected when we wake up in the morning. Isn’t it just the mind recommencing its activity after being switched off for a few hours? It may be that sleep is so refreshing precisely because the mind is disconnected and the real me/you can bathe in a more unified, less separated reality.
I would hesitate to celebrate the reappearance of the mind! Maybe just let it get on with its business during the day but retain an awareness that you are not that, you are the awareness in which it’s occurring?
“Body exposed in the golden wind” Yun Men
RB
May 2, 2007 at 7:05 pm
The newer branch of Science called behavioral evolutionism offers this explanation for promiscuity in humans: it is likely a character trait buried deep in our reptilian (instinctive) brains that all men and women, gay, straight or bisexual share with the animal kingdom for survival. The majorities of creatures, big and small are naturally promiscuous, seeking to spread their genes among as many others as possible within their species. This insures the survival of their particular genetic lineage. The alpha male establishes and vigorously defends a hierarchical social structure (pyramid) through intimidation and brute force when necessary, fending off other usurping males, sometimes even seriously injuring himself in the process. This sends the would-be suitors to the margins of the herd as the alpha male engages in unrestricted sex with as many females (partners) as possible within his harem. Thus the sex drive among earth dwellers is, at its core insatiable. Sound familiar?
This would characterize RB as having transformed (evolved?) into more of a “man-beast” (satyr, Minotaur) than an angel or goddess. (Yes, he personally said to me, “Don’t worry, you are with an angel right now”.) Could a satyr give you a higher state if you met one? You bet. Is that why RB was so inspired by the cave paintings of the couple engaged in “doggie-style” sex (probably an early sex manual)? Did he recognize something in himself and buffer it with school language? And the sexual preoccupation with peepee and poohpooh, sounds fairly regressed to me!
As to RB’s notoriety contributing to the descending octave of our beloved winery, I am reminded of this:
In my home about a month ago I was engaged in a heated discussion on my cell phone with our real estate agent about a business partner who was obstructing the sale of our mutually owned property which would have been in the best interest of all of us, including him. Our partner seemed to be, “shooting himself in the foot”, I said to the agent.
My 7 year old son was nearby looking at his book on snakes, and kept trying to interrupt me with a question. I told him to hold on a minute until I finish my phone call. He waited patiently. When I was done I came over to him and saw that the page was opened to some old engravings depicting a snake in hoop-like fashion wheeling down the street holding its tail in its mouth.
My son asked me, “Dad, why does the snake bite his own tail?”
I felt the shiver of synchronicity shoot through me. “I don’t know, son, why does the snake bite his own tail?”
“Because he doesn’t know himself!” he said.
I felt tears welling up in my eyes. Here was my 7 year old child displaying the wisdom of a sage.
RB, listen to your children, know thyself!
An ex-member of no consequence, 1979-1985.
May 2, 2007 at 7:51 pm
A reply to Post #147/8 ~
“However I do acknowledge that it was a particularly pratful ploy for captain unanimo to use one of your postings as an example of his pain body theory.There are plenty of axamples we can draw from life without using each others postings to illustrate our points (a version of talking behind their back but so that they can hear).”
Dear BBWolf:
I like this blog: I wake up in the mornings, take a shower, dress, go to work, make some coffee and take a peak at what responses I may have from my recent post: yes, I like sharing, receiving real ‘ahas’
from myself and others…This blog can change one’s being, if used unselfishly.
With that said, I believe it is no small detail to mention that all of the negative response to my Pain body posting was completely pain-body-interpretation, there was no literal intent whatsoever to hurt the feelings of anyone; although, like my great grandmother used to say “If your looking for trouble you’ll find it.”
After all, what a farce that would be, to be writing about the Pain body while being possessed by it and demonstrating the hypocrisy in script proof; no, my friend, this is not permitted me. Not that I’m special, its simply not possible to be that asleep these days.
One question for you ~
Could it have been out of love that I introduced to a person I know deeply, by using their pain body literature, myself and my desire to assist from a point of view of not personally relating by the means of ‘more of the same’, rather from the sense that I care more about Clara than the FoF?
In the one and only moment we can have choices, many of which loose our awareness as to where we began, what we aimed to do when we started and how it is that someone we loved throughout suddenly is walking away from something we said or did not.
This we cannot be responsible for, although the pain body ‘loves’ to imagine it otherwise. One never knows how the other is filtering what is being said or written: this can change between 5 – 10 times every ten minutes of a conversation, thus, up to 60 times an hour the person your speaking to can either have that many opposite I’s, contradictory ‘internal’ reactions, add-on-interruptions, facial ticks of displeasure or resentment that you said it before they did and so on…
This does not include the ‘Uh huhs, yeahs, I know, you know, really, anyways and of courses, i.e., the positive half of the automatic self’. Certainly I have experienced more than this from people who ‘were with me’, from Clara too.
For me it is my license as a deep friend of Clara, whether I have her pain body’s permission or not (if one was to wait for that, love would never get to knitting)to orchestrate my role in what I saw as an invitation for me (by the nature of her posts, not their content)however I sense is appropriate to my ‘gut feeling’.
Well that’s that. We must take bold chances with one another’s ‘difficult selves’, there is no polite way around this. There is a great difference between a love-surprise and a negative-surprise, at least within the inner nature of the surpriser, one never knows about the surprisee…Nonetheless, it will all come out in the wash when someday I’m having coffee with Clara, turn, rip open my blue collar shirt to reveal the word Unoanimo.
I have no doubt she’ll smile and know that it was all for love, never as her pain body ‘thought’ it.
By the way…The name I choose was an affirmation for all on this blog, not my alter ego, though there’s a ‘little worm’ in all of use that loves to ‘think’ otherwise. To love is not to think.
Love to you all.
May 2, 2007 at 8:10 pm
#140 Laughing love
I shouldn’t butt in but i will anyway.
The way i read it Golb was making a retarded, kind of New Model of The Universe, Theory of Celestial Influence corrolation between humanity-students in the fof and cell etc. in the body-pineal cells. Totally bogus, retarded, imagination, wiseacring, stupid not to be given one half a second thought nor responded to drivel.
May 2, 2007 at 8:24 pm
It’s so bloody funny! I see that we have been sent a mail reminding us about our ‘great’ leaders birthday
Non fellowship readers of this most excellent blog might like to know what it said! . . . . . . . . . . “On saturday May 12th we shall celebrate our teachers 68th birthday on this auspicious year of our first anniversary of the sequence- six – and the – eight – wordless breaths.
if you want to wish our teacher a happy birthday, you may send him a card with a personal note. if you wish to give robert a birthday gift, you may enclose a cheque, made out to Robert Burton
if you are mailing a card and gift send to : Robert Burton, Galleria, Post Office Box 100, Oregon House. CA 95962″
so bloody funny don’t you think? “YOU MAY ENCLOSE A CHEQUE”
I imagine, (tut tut, shouldn’t be in my imagination), i imagine that many will take this opportunity to send the man ‘approprate’greetings! Sadly i suppose he won’t open the mail himself.
May 2, 2007 at 8:36 pm
Kiran (no. 99):
Loved your movie on the phallus worship! LOL.
http://video.yahoo.com/video/play?vid=466125&fr=yvmtf
Is that a baked potato on the tray?
May 2, 2007 at 9:11 pm
Unoanimo #142: When you look down the railroad track and see a lone figure swinging a latern that will be me.
BBWolf #147: I understand and thank you.
Yesri Baba #149: G. Haven expelled me in 1979. I took it as a task and it was painful. What he asked me to do, I had no being in, and I had to begin like a homeless person.
I too connected with the biker story told by Unoanimo. Once in Louisana at a Denny’s kind of place a group of students were in a booth and next to us were some biker “types”. The student sitting next to me was in one of those affected self-remembering, divided atttention, in the present moment stances. To me he looked like he was day-dreaming. To the biker in the next booth the student was staring at him. The biker looks at me (the closest to him) and says, “you better tell your friend to quit staring at me”. I did, and I felt very uncomfortable until we left.
May 2, 2007 at 9:13 pm
Good Advice to Elena from Ames G.
Elena, you may well be risking everything you own. You may not care today, but this can change rapidly when you get sued.
The potential for lawsuits for defamation for both invasion of privacy and the careless and libelous comments you have made about Robert, Girard, and many others now, could undoubtedly lead to successful lawsuits against you by any of a number of people.
To top it off, you are getting ready to launch another project dedicated to repeating your “facts”–with your uncontrolled outbursts of emotion, it is simply a recipe for your personal disaster.
A word to the wise!
May 2, 2007 at 11:26 pm
alice in wonderlust #138,
The whole idea of facing the shadow, acknowledging one’s wholeness instead of always focusing on the “light side” is a very powerful one for me, and missing in the fof.
Ignoring the shadow can be seen as almost a direct cause of much of the “creepy, sleazy, deluded dark side of this school,” and explains in a way why this “is very apparent to most everyone except current students.”
It also brings up the attitude of the entire 4way to the unconscious, about which virtually nothing was known at the time Gurjdieff was teaching his “system.” It has seemed to me that this attitude is basically to ignore it since Gurdjieff (or Ouspensky, etc) didn’t mention it. We do this at our own peril.
Thanks for the post.
JoelF
May 3, 2007 at 12:04 am
The idea of communication is gnawing at me.
The simple example of the misunderstanding between Siddiq and myself over the “effort to be present” is one illustration.
We misunderstand each other on so many levels. We even develope an imaginary picture of the anonymous person we are writing to! And people we knew in the past come into our minds as they were and not necissarily as they are now.
Another example is Elena’s reaction to unanimo’s response to me. I see it as a nuetral example being used but i also can see how it could seem hurtful as i remember the days years ago and how i felt.
When we came to the system it was suggested we do not understand each other and that we need a specific language to come closer to certain psychological truths. But all language and terminology becomes hackneyed, static and down right meaningless leading one around and around in circles if it not examined and re-newed.
That is why dialogue such as this blog is so valuable. We can ask “is this what you meant?” or “write it again differently” but in the end words deceive as much as they reveal. We are “grown ups” now and we can discriminate and compare meanings and experience.
When i started the dialogue about “pain body” the postings and links were helpful. Unanimo’s story about the biker brought more specific focus on the idea and i was not offended by the slight chastisement (if there was any) of my generalized discription of the “painbody” idea. I have plenty of mud on my face and more than a couple of bumps on the back of my head.
Likewise when i “opened a can of worms” (not intended to have negative connotations) with the “non-dualists” the result was a better understanding of where they are coming from. Some of the videos i watched seemed kind of “airy-fairy” but watching John Sherman and what he said seemed like looking in a mirror.
It may be that some (Claude Larsen perhaps) go from the fog of delusion right to the clear blue day. To me, though, hazy days have a distinctive charm all their own.
May 3, 2007 at 12:48 am
I would like to thank all those former FOF students who have posted. It has certainly stirred up a lot of thoughts and feelings as well as memories of people I had forgotton about. Parts of what have been written cause me to question and reavaluate my own veiws. As someone wrote I do need to give myself a positive credit for having sought a spiritual path.Even if I erred and as Goeth wrote in the end of “Faust” I have never ceased trying. Perhaps I can take cridet for leaving when patterns began to emerge which challanged my conscience.
I knew Don Birrel, Carl Werner and Roger Cavannah and am saddened at their passing.
I wonder if the Bruce who has posted is the same person who was edited and setting the type for the Renaissence journel. Interesting to me is that while that activity was going on it never occured to me to mention to Robert or anyone that I knew how to set type. I had gone to a High school with older presses. We published a weekly paper.I learned to set type by hand as well as operate a platten press, offset press and lynotype.
During my second time at Renaissence I was staying in the smallest and oldest Airstream “Caravan”. My roommate was a very attractive young blond boy who seemed to be very eager to spend time at the Blake cottage. He would volunteer to help wash the cars when Robert and Peter returned from tripps. Personnaly the only extensive time I stayed in the Blake cottage was on those days when some of the staff had to stay on the property as guards while every one went to the big meeting. I remember Joel sitting in the “ejection seat ” as I thought of it at the lodge doing his RB act.
Sheila and Randolh in the kitchen. Thomas Easley had a workshop and was working on adding a section to an Oak table for the Meissan room.
One memory I have is that on one Monday I was “Guarding ” the Ranch and I was at the barn and had a part that needed welding. Naivly I though it would not be difficult to figure out. While I was doing so a “Life” person came to the barn in their old pick up truck. It was an older “lower alchemy” “life” person who was however an experienced welder with some 35 years experience. Although they moved stiffly without much elegance or grace they did quikly show me how to do what was needed.he point being that the characteristic arrogance I had about my being was shown to be shallow.
Someone mentioned Doris Elizebeth. I had forgotten her name. The first time I lived at the Ranch I slep in a sleeping bag in the lodge near where she slept on the couch.
One reason I take the time to write this is because it is another verification of the enneagram. How things are connected outside of time. What I have read here is reaching back and changing my memories and understanding of the past.
Scott Duncan
May 3, 2007 at 12:56 am
Dear Ladies & Gentleman,
it´s now two days ago that a very good friend of mine and also a former student of the FOF, found this blog and we are still amazed about the amount of articles written in the last month. So first of all a very big “Thank You”! for the founder & moderator of the blog. We all think that You must be the one who must be shaken to the bone of the huge tidal wave that You started without knowing it!
In Robert Burtons words “A joke of the gods” and we think if this blog is still going on, it might be the end of the FOF.
If I would be Robert Burton or the board I couldn’t sleep anymore, ´cause this blog extremely diminishes the amount of new students! Good work!
So first of all a brief summary of my FOF career: My name is Ludger Kreilos, I have been a member of the FOF for seven years, You see I completed my octave. I joined in Sept.1986 and left in Sept.1993,
maybe some remember me, I was part of the so called “Bochum Bunch”. At our peak we were 22 students all coming from Bochum, Germany.
I started in the Cologne Centre, my center directors were “Rolf Disselhoff & Cheryl Disselhoff !
The first two years in the FOF were the most outrageous years I´ve ever experienced, ´cause they gave me a lesson that I´ll never forget my whole life.
The ideas and thoughts of Gurdijeff & Ouspensky were part of my whole being as we mentioned in school language, and being born and raised as a cold war kid. I wouldn´t ever dreamt of becoming a “Hitlerjunge”.
My whole education and socialisation was totally directed to the opposite,
not to become a follower of a cult, strictly guided by very obscure rules!
But the ideas and stories of Gurdijeff & Ouspensky that I heard, read and experienced were so strong, that the FOF seemed to be the one and only “Emergency Exit” out of my unstructured life, even of the weird rules, I was ready and desperately seeking for the guy to come and take me by the hand!
Robert Burton!
A very good lesson to learn. To find my self totally under control of a weird, self mixed theory by ignoring my needs, believes and moral structures. What I learned of it?! That no one as clever or intellectually structured is free from getting trapped. Every party, group, cult or movement works with the same emotional idea:
”You can decide, whether You are one of us or one of them! The sleeping machines with no souls!” And I wanted to be part of the saviour side!
I was the ideal German follower, I would have sold everything or do anything for the school, but fortunately the teacher never asked me to, otherwise I would have gone to “Stalingrad” and fight for the FOF.
I’m still gratefully for experiencing me, myself & the many I´s that everything is possible. For everyone here there is the right cult there outside!
So nearly everyone of my friends joined in the recent years, and we became a more or less stabile group in the FOF, in the end we were the whole Berlin Centre around 20 members the rest located in Renaissance.
Only one was left on our mission to awakening: Andreas Jewers he seems to be still in the FOF! Hey, guy we often think of You !
Strangely enough I must admit that the seven years in the FOF were great, they made me to the man I am!
The FOF was a great opportunity to learn , it was a cultural mind blowing experience. It is still the foundation of my thinking and cultural expression and profession! Thanks for that!
But also I must admit , I had luck, fortunately I never lived in Renaissance except harvest holidays, I wasn´t alone in the FOF , I had my friends with me and we had our doubts and a lot of discussion too, believe it or not the FOF is still a topic of interest for us. Nearly everyone of my friends from Bochum who joined in the mid 80´s and left in the mid 90´s is now living here in Berlin again. Even me, recently moved again in the apartment that was once called the Berlin Centre, funny isn´t it!? Everyone survived the FOF with his or her personal scars, but to be honest if we would have the chance of informing us about the FOF on the internet in the 80´s, we wouldn’t join it! So this forum is a big help for esoterically seekers!
Don´t sell Your soul, to the FOF, ´cause You have One;
The FOF is a degenerated 4th- Way School.
And don´t be naïve, most of all the ex-students didn´t have such luck and stabile social contacts as we all have! Most of them struggle with severe psychic problems after leaving it! Have that in mind!!
So playing with fire is the right picture, some have and will be Burtoned!
I was never abused or raped by Robert Burton, and as far as I know, only one of my friends had to go this way. Sadly enough, but that seemed to be the price of being in the inner circle! Getting a high status in Renaissance, Apollo or now Isis, you have to pay that certain price. And than You will be used and thrown away if You aren´t of any interest of the “Teacher” anymore, as many others experienced before.
Of course we all know Troy Buzzbee and the hundreds before and his followers. This is and was sick, unfair and extremely cruel!
But excuse me Mister Burton, this is Your price; You have to pay; the long ever lasting minute in the moment of Your death when Your little soul is chopped into pieces and every second comes back to Your mind;
where You abused all the people who put their trust in You!
You sold Your soul!
Not the little sheep’s, who gave life time, spirit, money and nearly the best of what they had to serve You!
In the end You´ll recognise it and You even know it !
You can fool some people some time, but You cannot fool all the people all the time!
So You got the best men & women, it was all in Your hands.
You have chosen! You are on the dark side of the moon!
P.S.: Feel free to contact me ,if You wish.
lkreilos@aol.com
May 3, 2007 at 3:46 am
To unoanimo:
I’ve enjoyed your posts, particularly the one about the pain body (possibly similar to the idea of “time body”?)
Does your name mean “one soul”? Why masculine? (Just curious.)
Like you, I read the blog every morning while eating breakfast and in the evening after work. I find many of the ideas and stories interesting (mind activity, I know), and the emotional undercurrent is quite touching at times. Your comment that reading this blog can change one’s being was interesting. I think much of what has been collected here could be having that effect for many readers. So thank you again, Sheik, for having us.
Scott #167: “How things are connected outside of time. What I have read here is reaching back and changing my memories and understanding of the past.”
This reminded me that many years after leaving the FOF, I would occasionally have dreams in which I was “back in the school.” These dreams would always seem fraught with meaning, often unusually lucid. I’ve wondered about the significance of these dreams. I’m not sure if I think dreams are simply a form of uncontrolled mind activity, or if they can sometimes be vessels for communication from realms beyond our ordinary waking life, from the realm of “soul” if there is such a realm. I wondered about Kurt Vonnegut’s idea of the “karass.” I wondered about the idea of lineages: people who are connected outside of time by the wisdom teachings transmitted through them. I wondered why I would have these vivid dreams about the Fellowship, when the relationship had ended long ago and I had processed (so I thought) all the material connected to it. Maybe not. On the other hand, I never dream that I am back in high school, or college, or in my marriage. I dream that I am back in the Fellowship.
Another of those mysteries, I guess.
May 3, 2007 at 4:15 am
Sadly i suppose he won’t open the mail himself.
—-
You would be surprised.
Sure the checks get fished out, but he does read the letters as far as I can tell.
May 3, 2007 at 4:18 am
Dunne on Wine: Renaissance perseveres in the Yuba foothills
By Mike Dunne – Bee Food Editor
On a sunny slope about 2,300 feet up the Sierra foothills of Yuba County, Gideon Beinstock points out an array of Northern California landmarks.
There’s the Coast Range. That snowy crown is Mount Lassen. The smudge off to the left? Sacramento. From way up here, you even look down on the area’s most prominent geological feature, Sutter Buttes.
Vision never has been a problem at Renaissance Vineyard & Winery. Realization is another matter.
Since 1994, the hirsute and slight Beinstock has been Renaissance’s winemaker and CEO. But over the past few years, the winery’s future has become as murky as the outline of Sacramento on the horizon.
At Beinstock’s feet, stubby silver stumps of vines curve across the shoulder of the hill, barely visible in waves of tall spring grass. Like other vineyards that not long ago rolled across these knolls in a rhythmic pastiche evocative of Tuscany, this plot is being abandoned.
On a hill across the way, a tractor yanks out vines of another plot. On yet another hill stands Renaissance’s monolithic three-story winery; only the ground floor now is used to make wine. Here and there, olive, almond, cherry and citrus orchards have replaced stands of chardonnay and riesling. Rosebushes bloom where pinot noir once grew.
“This has been a traumatic experience,” Beinstock says while driving his truck up and down the estate’s steep and rocky roads. “But it was financial suicide, the way this was farmed before.”
For-profit without profit
In 1971, the guarded, philosophic, spiritually seeking Fellowship of Friends acquired 1,300 acres of these hard and brushy hills 20 miles northeast of Marysville and began to build a community of refinement and quest.
In 1974, the group hired German winemaker Karl Werner, who upon first visiting the site reputedly scooped up a handful of the property’s red soil, took a bite and pronounced it just the stuff to produce great wine.
Vineyard development commenced the next year, and over the ensuing decade, the energetic Fellowship converted 365 hardscrabble acres into vines, built the winery, and released wines that drew praise and a following for their structure, clarity and daring. At its peak, Renaissance was making 20,000 cases of wine a year, and principals talked of doubling output.
But today, only around 100 acres remain in vines, and annual production is down to 3,500 cases.
Renaissance — which since 1978 has been a for-profit, wholly owned subsidiary of the nonprofit Fellowship — just never made money, and this retrenchment is necessary to survive, indicates Beinstock.
He doesn’t know how much money has been invested and lost in the enterprise, and the Fellowship’s president, Linda Tulisso, says that information is confidential.
Other complications arose. Pesticides and herbicides hurt soil and vine, and yields fell; today, however, the vineyards are farmed organically. Lawsuits accusing the group’s founder and spiritual leader, Robert Burton, of sexual improprieties scared off distributors, says Beinstock; one suit was dismissed and two others were settled by the Fellowship’s insurance companies to save the costs of litigation, says Tulisso.
“The Fellowship itself never paid a penny in settlement,” notes Tulisso, who added that the suits were filed by former members who failed to produce evidence to support their accusations.
Stress, but not distressed
Aside from the cutback in vines, Renaissance today doesn’t look distressed. Palm trees line the estate’s looping lanes. Spring sunshine ricochets off golden statues of Apollo, Victory, Athena and other classical figures high on tall ribbed columns about the manicured grounds. Migrating geese pause at ponds. A large and handsome amphitheater is nearing completion (the Fellowship includes a ballet troupe, theater group, orchestra and choir). And the former book bindery has been converted into an idyllic concert hall and tasting room, open to the public from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturdays.
Despite setbacks and an uncertain future, Beinstock is upbeat about Renaissance’s prospects. He’s a winemaker, after all, someone who knows that grapes infected with mold and looking rotten still can yield marvelously golden and luscious wines.
May 3, 2007 at 4:20 am
Dunne on Wine: Renaissance perseveres in the Yuba foothills
By Mike Dunne – Bee Food Editor
Print | E-Mail | Comments (0)
This isn’t collapse, but conversion, he says, noting that after three decades of experimentation, Renaissance knows what grape varieties will grow best on what sites. Chardonnay and riesling have been replaced with such varieties as grenache and syrah, which he is confident will adapt better to the steep, rocky slopes and the area’s hot summer days. Grafting and replanting continue, and new vineyard techniques are being introduced.
Beinstock isn’t interested in making mainstream “international style” varietals, but wines that represent the North Yuba appellation that is home to Renaissance.
“I’m looking for a real stamp of the place,” Beinstock says.
What might that be? Through three decades and three winemakers, certain stylistic threads have been consistent in the wines, and he intends to continue to capitalize on them. Renaissance wines are solidly structured, opening slowly and gracefully, and are long-lived when they do. They tend to be more lean than lush. They have an equilibrium about them, and by today’s standards, they are downright old-fashioned when it comes to alcohol levels. The newly released Renaissance 1999 Sierra Foothills North Yuba Vin de Terroir Cabernet Sauvignon ($49) has just 12.7 percent alcohol, yet it is rich with the smell and flavor of cherries and eucalyptus, with firm minerality in its feel.
Cabernet sauvignon is Renaissance’s signature varietal, as also shown by the ripe, supple and layered Renaissance 2000 Sierra Foothills North Yuba Cabernet Sauvignon ($30), but Beinstock is no less confident in the future of wines based on varieties identified with France’s Rhone Valley — syrah, grenache, viognier and the like.
In his corner are the bright and juicy Renaissance 2006 Sierra Foothills North Yuba Viognier ($30), abundant with honeysuckle, apple and peach; the concentrated, spicy Renaissance 2003 Sierra Foothills North Yuba Vin de Terroir Syrah ($35); and the unusually accessible Renaissance 2000 Sierra Foothills North Yuba Vin de Terroir Granite Crown ($40), a refined blend of syrah, cabernet sauvignon and merlot.
Renaissance wines are hard to find in the Sacramento area — Beinstock says San Francisco is a more receptive market for the wines — but they can be ordered online.
Toast to the future
A decade from now, he sees Renaissance comfortably stabilized. Vineyardists will be overseeing about 50 acres, he expects. Yields will be at precisely calibrated levels to produce monumental wines. The migration of the best grapes to the best sites will be complete. And Renaissance wines most likely will be sold only in California, largely through specialty stores catering to a clientele that appreciates the distinctive style that North Yuba produces.
“We have a much better understanding of this place now,” says Beinstock. “We’re getting the best varieties onto the best sites so we can focus on quality. We’re going small scale and being very precise. We’re building for the future.”
He can see it all around.
End of Article in TODAY’s SACRAMENTO BEE!
May 3, 2007 at 4:42 am
To 164 A word to the wise.
I would love to be proved that what I believed in for seventeen years is actually true. Please prove it to me.
Any action you take against me will turn against you sevenfold.
You, the students in the inner circle who knew the facts have ommited to tell us the truth about Robert, Girard or the school and kept us inside with your silence. You have been taking my money for seventeen years making me believe that Robert was a conscious being. Prove to me that Robert is a conscious being because the more I look the more unconsciousness I find.
It will never be as easy for you to deceive anyone after me. The more noise you make, the more you’ll loose.
Don’t threaten me because you do not elicit fear but the conviction that I must continue.
Does it surprise you that I am emotionally disturbed after realizing that the school I believed in for seventeen years is nothing but a fraud? Money, money, money?
Please tell me, what are the spiritual practices of the Fellowship of friends that I joined for?
May 3, 2007 at 5:04 am
I just finished Claude Larson’s web site, No Not God, and found it hilarious, entertaining, and, I think it may have done it for me. I highly recommend it. I think that Claude, whom I fondly remember, may have been undone in the FOF, and unable to re-do himself, created this gem.
Brace yourself Betty Lou!
May 3, 2007 at 5:37 am
To A word for the wise 8/74
No need to introduce fear and intimidation here.
Ultimately the most of most wrong places for that.
Haven’t we had enough of it. No more, no more.
I agree the legal route is futile. This legal system will eat you up and spit you out, good, bad or indifferent. No rhyme or reason.
But really haven’t we passed the point of using words like defamation. Too many tears have been spilt here. Public record. No longer any doubt, any disputation. It is what it is.
Elena needs no help from me to express her views. And I don’t pretend to Know or understand her experience but I applaud the process she is revealing to us. It makes me think and yes it makes me feel. So much gratitude to her and others here for that.
to Whalerider
An ex-member of no consequence, 1979-1985.
The one who can hear the wisdom of the child is of much consequence.
Much love
Cake
A current member of no consequence
May 3, 2007 at 7:15 am
Scott Duncan, #167
“I remember Joel sitting in the “ejection seat” as I thought of it at the lodge doing his RB act.”
ROTFL
2 true
Hi, Scott.
JoelF
May 3, 2007 at 8:33 am
Joel (165)
Yes, very insightful. And this a problem in some of the interpretations of nonduality that I have seen expressed here as well. It is very tempting to say “I am not the mind, I am not the body, I am Awareness.” Usually words like these are used as a means of escape, a way to deny the dark side, preferring instead the sweetness and light of Consciousness, where none of these yucky human problems exist. But how “nondual” is it to say: “I am not A, I am B”? Wouldn’t the true nondual expression be: “I am both A and B”?
Fractionated thinking, whether in the form of focusing only on the dark side (I am nothing but a miserable sinner, I am just a sleeping machine) or only the light side (I am pure Consciousness) is a mistake, IMO. One has to accept the whole thing, no resistance whatsoever.
Jean Klein was one of the few nondualist teachers who understood this, IMO. He too taught that all is Consciousness, but he didn’t reject the expressions of Consciousness. I fear that this neo-Advaita bunch (Wheeler, Gill, Parsons, etc.) do not understand this, and that they are merely encouraging people to substitute one fantasy for another.
Jean’s books are starting to come back into print, BTW.
Mark H.
FOF member 1973-78
mkhovila@yahoo.com
May 3, 2007 at 9:57 am
Hello and I’m sending so much Love and thanks to everyone for all the effort and time expressed here on the blog. We are once-again sharing a life that we all searched for and chose…the promise of a noble and Higher life.
It is verifiable that we shared a lifestyle named “The Fellowship of Friends” with extraordinary Beings of depth and passion and for whom any price was not “too high” should the
“ticket” possibly offer the “Gifts” of knowing God (“the Gods”) arightly and Eternal Life.
Hello to JoelF…I hold in the most positive part of my memory bank your words in the preface of Self-Remembering “to become Real”…
Forgive me, in my need (for now) to remain anonymous.
And, you have become Real! Your writing here on the blog is very real, very approachable…
words of a true friend to all of us…chivalrous
even!
I am truly happy for you and Jill on the addition to your family of your son. As far as
your increased passion for cooking, the rumors of the Thanksgiving Feast you prepared in San Francisco made it all the way to the East coast!
The FOF circuit seems to be very strong…even after so many years!
And to BBWolf(150)…absolutely loved your post!
In the a.m., “I am connected” and just before sleeping, “I am released”.
For a.m. and p.m. my first and last words are a
new relationship to Self-remembering that works for me,
“There is no selfhood apart from God…it
absolutely is not possible.”
It feels wonderful to express our selves out here…fear is still very real to me, even so.
My vote is to truly express ourselves and be less fearful of expressing negative emotions…
the fear is ironically “not” positive.
Can we possibly not go for eachothers’ jugular
veins and the possible nickname “The Boxing match blog”???
In saying “good-night” i share with all Christ’s
words, “Bear ye, one another eachothers’ burdens.”
And, from St.John, “Now are WE the SONS of GOD”
So much Love… “Angel Aware”
May 3, 2007 at 1:26 pm
Thanks ClaudeLarsen for #89 link. It maybe somewhat opaque for the overactive mind but crystal clear for the lucky mindless. My mind was particularly blown away by The Open Secret if I got it. But maybe I didn’t. At any event, at last I know what cononenessnessness is.(or isn’t).
NoPerson #132, “to live life in peace with yourself & joyfully, isn’t it what we really want?” & “relax and simply enjoy life”.
Yes, I enjoy the pain (body or not), the darkest shadows, the agony and the ecstasy, the sadness within rapture, the suffering that pleases; this is so good it pains me. It’s so sad I burst in tears of joy. And this tearjerker thing is so bad it’s funny. It’s so hilarious I can’t stand it anymore.
How sweet is the sorrow!
#132, “just simple life continues, very satisfying, rewarding, not tommorrow or yesterday, simply now as it is, effortlessly”.
My landlord wants to evict me. My wife took the kids and moved to another state. I work 5 days 8 hrs aday & daily commute 3. Not much is left after rent, ‘donations’, alimony & dinners with Rb. During the week I can eat only gruel. Yesterday I lost a finger while peeling potatoes and I don’t have enough on my credit cards to have the sex change operation. But, I remember now it all takes place within cotton- candy consciousness and I swim in freakin’ joy.
Yesri Baba #166, ” That is why a dialogue such as this is so valuable. We can ask is this what you meant?”
Until now I didn’t see you as a ’solar’. Are you kidding me? It’s more like putting messages in a bottle and sending across the ocean.
“hazy days have a distinctive charm all on their own”
(Yesri Baba # 166).
May 3, 2007 at 1:46 pm
The criteria for a genuine spiritual teaching according to Selim Aissel:
(taken from the website http://www.epag.org)
flee those who demand unconditional obedience to themselves or to their representatives or assistants.
flee those who require you to cut yourself off from your family or social relationships.
flee those who prohibit you from seeing the people you want.
flee organisations that demand large sums of money.
flee organisations that display their luxury and wealth.
flee those who deprecate other ways.
flee those who acknowledge their own teaching alone as valid.
flee those who teach you to neglect your family, professional, or social life in order to benefit their organisation.
flee those who make a rule out of limiting sleep and restricting your diet, and teach you all kinds of methods that make you physically weaker.
flee those who judge and condemn.
flee those who require you to believe instead of to understand and verify.
flee those who require you to confess.
flee those who make you believe you are guilty.
flee those who lack a sense of humor.
flee those who employ threats or fear.
flee those who only talk about spirituality without really practicing it.
flee those who promise Heaven after death (especially if you pay them!).
flee those who promise Hell if you don’t convert.
flee those who divide principles and people into good and bad.
flee those who adopt stereotyped attitudes, ways of talking, sitting, dressing, and moving.
flee those who take themselves to be prophets or messiahs.
flee those who often change teachings and teachers.
flee those who envy each other.
flee those who compete with each other or with other organisations.
flee those who only practice within their organisation and not outside of it.
flee those who claim that they understand everything and have nothing left to learn.
May 3, 2007 at 3:11 pm
Kudger Kreilos #168: To quote Kudger in reference to some departing FOF students. “Most of them struggle with severe psychic problems”.
The first mind activity that came to me was a quote from Jesus the Christ, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani” which means “my God , my God why have you forsaken me”.
For what it’s worth. I did not know how to spell sabachthani. My moving center grabbed a bible and turn to the page whence the quote came.
May 3, 2007 at 4:10 pm
Eckhart Tolle Pain Body
Last fall I was staying with friends in Seattle while I was exploring Gurdjieff oriented groups. My friend asked if I would listen to the Eckhart Tolle recorded workshop and tell her what I thought. My first response was that I didn’t trust anyone who claimed spontaneous enlightenment (went down that road before) and who had a book on the bestseller list. My opinion has not changed much since reading his two books.
Eckhart Tolle, (born Ulrich Tolle)claims that at age 29 he experienced a spiritual transformation (enlightenment)that dissolved his old identity. He then spent the next several years without a job, with no relationships just living in the here and now, (was he independently wealthy, did he live on the street, or what?) Many people approached him and asked him how he came to be the way he was and he realized that he must become a spiritual teacher. So he continued his studies and spoke with a number of spiritual sources and developed his system for transformation.
So he magically awakened, put on a happy face and went around proclaiming “I’m here, it’s now, I’m free, I’m free (thank you Mark for that one). He writes a book, gives some talks and off we go, global spiritual
awakening.
There are a lot of good ideas in the books, he is very intelligent and articulate, he draws from many traditional sources and he is very entertaining in a humorous sort of way.
The problem is that he does not name his spiritual sources, does not give credit to the disciplines that he has borrowed from and creates the illusion that his system is the result of his awakening (divinely inspired?).
Since his system is relatively simplistic (anyone remember Baba Ram Das and Be Here Now?) it makes great spiritual pablum for the masses. Easy reading books, funny charming workshops, a formatory system that has mass appeal (it’s one of Oprah’s favorite reads) and what do you get? Lot’s of money coming in.
Then bright, well read, articulate people come along, (like unoanimo), marry up Eckhart Tolle’s spiritual brew with Gurdjieffian brew (or any other esoteric brew)and you come out with quite a tasty porridge.
If one system is good then two must be better so let’s mix them together and see what we get.
So the questions I have for Mr. Tolle, first of all why change your name, because you are a fan of Meister Eckhart and it sounds more spiritual teacher like? And secondly why not give credit to the sources you are using instead of implying they were thought up by you? One clearly plagerized exercise is the body sensation meditation that is used in many traditions, Zen, Yoga, Buddhist mindfulness training, Gurdjieff work groups, etc. It may be a great meditative technique but he didn’t invent it.
You know, after reading the hundreds of pages in this discussion, it is clear to me that there are many intelligent, articulate people posting here. Some who have had extraordinary spiritual-transformative experiences and who are able to write about them in a clear and cohesive manner, even more so than Eckhart Tolle, but that doesn’t mean they think they should go out put on white robes and sell their brand of spiritual wisdom (no offense meant to Kiran). No, what I find from the more insightful writers here is the willingness and ability to share freely the experiences and insights they have had over the past 10, 15, 20 or 30 years. And curiously enough, there is not much psycho-spiritual new age babble in most of it. And we are all the better for it.
May 3, 2007 at 5:35 pm
Cathie:
I too have had dreams, all take place at the property and all have recreated my imaginary movie of the ideal “School”.
Having spent most of my adult life participating in the fof, and only away for the last 7 years, it’s not too much of a surprise. I am grateful, that I retain my naive idealism. I think to a large extent, I can differentiate between those thoughts and the realization of having been used by the fof.
This distinction, certainly encourages thoughts to recreate what I believed I was participating in.
I would like to hear from others about their sense of the community that they felt they were participating in.
Peace
May 3, 2007 at 7:32 pm
part 7 #147
Mark says “embrace life fully,100%. Welcome what comes. Don’t escape, don’t refuse, don’t resist anything.”
This is what I think the 4th way has been pointing towards all along. Acceptance of things as they are, myself as I am. Thanks for sharing your thoughts Mark.
May 3, 2007 at 8:23 pm
Clara Elena Haven wrote to “A word to the wise.”
and wrote: “I would love to be proved that what I believed in for seventeen years is actually true. Please prove it to me.”
The reasons you joined should have been based on your realization you were asleep and that you need help to awaken. We are asked to verify, not just believe. No one can prove your beliefs valid or not valid and no one will be able to prove the Fellowship, Robert, Girard, true or false, concious or unconscious.
You are missing the point. There is no fraud based on your paying money for 17 years, just as you cannot go to the Catholic Church, ask for proof of the divinity of the holy spirit and get your donations back. It does not work like that. Remember Jesus was crucified in his time.
The warning to you was simply meant to be helpful to you personally, not to instill fear. In your current state, you are likely going to commit actions you will regret. You mention you are emotionally disturbed. I recommend you seek professional help. You appear unbalanced.
You are entitled to all your opinions and to share them wherever you wish, but you have not observed the line where you cross someone else’s rights (this my include the Fellowship) and where you may be personally responsible to someone for damaging things you say, if they are of a factual nature and can be proven false.
I will not spend more time trying to warn you, because as Benjamin Franklin wrote, a word to the wise is enough.
May 3, 2007 at 8:29 pm
“I’m not sure if I think dreams are simply a form of uncontrolled mind activity, or if they can sometimes be vessels for communication from realms beyond our ordinary waking life, from the realm of “soul” if there is such a realm. ”
—–
Interesting post. I ocassionally have vivid dreams about FOF as well. Just before I left the school I had a dream where I was on a large rock island in the middle of the ocean and there was a big house that mostly covered this island. The walls of the house were giant 20 foot high windows looking out onto the sea. I was in a large room that looked like the Ming House auditorium sans carpets and there was a bookshelf on the wall. Several people – students?- were in the room and I went over to the book shelf and picked up a large brown leather tome that caught my eye. It was entitled “New Testament” version by FOF. As soon as I read this Robert came into the room and gave me a disaproving and friendly series of looks that spoke volumes. He indicated (without words) that I should not open the book and that I would not never need it. I put the bible down and the dream ended.
That dream was the final event that cemented my leaving the FOF for good. Dreams are powerful and can have meaning.
May 3, 2007 at 8:43 pm
“One has to accept the whole thing, no resistance whatsoever.
I fear that this neo-Advaita bunch (Wheeler, Gill, Parsons, etc.) do not understand this, and that they are merely encouraging people to substitute one fantasy for another.”
I recently spent a weekend with friends and John Wheeler was one of the guests. When I read John’s books I couldn’t quite tell the exact nature of what he was trying to share. It sounded almost too stark.
In person, all doubts were erased. John Wheeler definitely accepts the “whole thing” and if you can hear him in person his being and emotional tone “fill in the blanks” left by trying to convey knowledge by writing alone.
John did not encourage me to accept any alternative view of reality. In fact he helped to demonstrate how much things are as they really are as opposed to the fantasy we accepted during our time in FOF.
I definitely would recommend meeting John in person. It clarified alot for me.
Don’t try to become a student of his however. You will be waisting your time and he will definitely shoo you away. As far as I can tell he is willing to share what he knows because he is a sincere guy and has fun meeting people who are earnestly trying to understand who they are. If you get too needy and try to get him to form a cult or be your leader, even the life of the party, he will kindly send you in another direction.
Moon Angel
May 3, 2007 at 9:37 pm
Rabbi Burns,
Thanks for your reply.I am would have given the same; but surely there is more to it than that. No more reading Walt for inspiration, or not until after breakfast or before 10 am.Doesn’t one’s intent have something to do with it?
May 3, 2007 at 9:45 pm
Beware of people willing to teach. That should be your first red flag.
May 3, 2007 at 9:59 pm
#164:
I would think the fof is on rather shaky legal ground here. If allegations are followed up and certain behaviors are proven then the status of fof as church would be seriously challenged. No one really (legally) cares if RB is conscious or believes himself so, it is his church that is in question. I don’t know the specifics of the laws that govern this area, but it IRS might be interested too. Even the Catholic church is not allowed all behaviors – witness the large retribution payments for priest sexual predators.
The characters in this wonderlust-land are fascinating….it seems the breath of a Dick Cheney or Darth Vader is moving in for an attack. I almost hear Vader’s voice in warning: “uncontrolled outbursts of emotion, it is simply a recipe for your personal disaster”
Hello? Are you for real? Maybe this is just a joke – I can’t tell.
May 3, 2007 at 10:23 pm
Arthur #163
Is that short for King Arthur? It must be. Your post gave rise to thoughts about the variance of being. It reminded me of that christian story “Footprints”(continue on when the gagging stops).
For those not familiar it is a srory of someone looking back at the past as if it was a walk on the beach. The person sees that there were always two sets of footprints except at the darkest and most difficult times. The person addresses the Lord: “You were with me all my life yet why did you abandon me when i was suffering the most?” The Lord replies: “My child that is when i carried you.”
Occasionally that story comes into my mind and i think, what a bunch of “jack of hearts” religious drivel. Sometimes it shakes me to the bottom of my soul(or should i say ‘pain-body’?)
From the “non-dual” perspective it was the Lord taking a walk on his beach and the person was hallucinating while dreaming when there appeared to be two sets of footprints.
May 3, 2007 at 10:38 pm
Thank you, Sheik, for your work to make this possible.
I would like to say a warm hello to those people of my generation who have submitted entries to this blog. More importantly, I would like to express my appreciation and affection to each of you, whom I hold in deep respect and care. In hearing your voices finally speaking here, it is clear that evolution continues, that being grows beautifully and truthfully beyond the FoF.
I joined the Fellowship in Hawaii in 1974 and stayed a member until 1990 when Robert released me. I was let go because of physical illness and the subsequent financial pressures, which made payments impossible. That was truly a bizarre experience – to be so easily “released” after many years of payment, financial and otherwise. But what a divine gift that release was! It was just what was needed.
It was particularly strange when, several days after officially leaving, I suddenly “came to” – like when you wake up suddenly and clearly in the morning. I could never have predicted such a thing would occur, and yet there I was with the stunning, vivid and undeniable experience of emerging from a hypnotic state.
No doubt, in that moment, real work began.
I had absolutely verified higher forces long before joining the FoF, and undeniably, that connection seriously intensified after leaving.
To those people who have left recently, I wish you all the best. I encourage each of you to realize that you are not powerless! You are not doomed. You will not pine away from loneliness and isolation in the outer circles of humanity. Despite what you’ve been told, you can find and claim what is rightfully yours as a being who has courage, values and worth. Claim it, and move forward in your lives! You are not dead. You are merging into a greater level of responsibility – a true “spiritual emergence.”
Though many who leave the FoF do so with relative ease, obviously this is not always the case. For those who have been seriously violated and suffered emotional/soul damage, find professional help now. Don’t wait! There are qualified healers out in the world who are well equipped to help you experience clarity and real healing. EMDR is an excellent method to deal with trauma.
To those on the fence, good luck. You are in a difficult and uncomfortable position … not one to linger in … although timing happens. Doors open, and we move compellingly through them.
Best wishes and Blessings to all!
May 3, 2007 at 10:50 pm
#179 sub way
Solar? Don’t you mean knucklehead?
May 3, 2007 at 10:51 pm
Hey, quoter of Selim Aissel, who the hell are you in the first place, and on why do you think you are qualified to tell me what to flee from and to what?
Give me a break, you stupid poster of nonsense!
Can’t anyone think for themself?
May 3, 2007 at 10:56 pm
To Benjamin F.(A word to the Wise) post 185#
In this blog we are physically invisible to each other and messages can be mis-interpreted, so last night when I wanted to reply to your first post to Elena (165), I was feeling repulsion by the sense of fear your words induced.
Then I stopped myself and thought perhaps you were trying to help her.
Today you say so and I do hope it is a sincere comment.
But I wonder if you could be more precise in what you are saying by finding the questionable examples of defamation etc., and be more accurate as to where Elena (or maybe anyone else for that matter) is taking a risk.
Many people said a bunch of scandolous things here, this makes me think we are all taking the same risk?
Yes, Elena is in a big emotional transition at this time, she needs all the help she can get: compassion, open friendly advise, support, not obscure warnings.
Leaving the FOF after 17 years of investement and possibly ending a marriage for good is a BIG deal.
It becomes more of a deal when you find out that you have been betrayed all along by your teacher you entrusted your life, money, energy…and by some of the students called “friends”.
I wonder who should be hurting here….
May 3, 2007 at 11:22 pm
Ok, now brace yourself Betty Lous.
Cross my heart and hope to die the following is the “honest to god” truth.
This morning while meditating the “footprints” post came into my head (#188).
I wrote and submitted it BEFORE i read last nights submission #181 from arthur.
(the sound of twilight zone music in the background)
May 3, 2007 at 11:32 pm
“One has to accept the whole thing, no resistance whatsoever. I fear that this neo-Advaita bunch (Wheeler, Gill, Parsons, etc.) do not understand this, and that they are merely encouraging people to substitute one fantasy for another.”
The “I fear” in this posting is significant. The mind/ego can reasonably be afraid of what these guys are saying because they’re saying the mind doesn’t exist. The mind would also like to believe that what they’re saying is fantasy.
What they’re doing is pointing to reality as clearly as they can. Unfortunately words are always open to misinterpretation. It’s good to actually go and spend some time with one of these guys if you have the chance.
“Hereafter that lad will go to the summit of a solitary peak, build himself a grass hut, and go on scolding the Buddhas and reviling the Patriarchs.” Kuei Shan
RB
May 3, 2007 at 11:51 pm
Replies to Post #163, #164, #166 and #169
To arthur #163 ~
Think of it as looking ‘up’ the track; that’s your truer picture, if your still doing the Work.
LOL…. Yes, the ‘good student syndrome’ staring at the Biker, who is an expert at looking for trouble, representing Trouble looking, trouble already found and looking for friends and last, but certainly not the least, in trouble, looking for a better trouble to get into in order to sooth the lower trouble vibrations of boredom he or she feels simply isn’t enough to fill the day’s quota.
One early morning when I was fifteen or sixteen, somehow my specific ‘magnetic center aura’ attracted the assistance of a certain someone, who seemed to fit the need, i.e., that my car was broke and wished fixing.
The ‘certain someone’ later in the day proceeded to reveal themselves to be a Hell’s Angel. Digging deeper, as I was wont to do, I was dually educated in how to attach explosives to a human being, place them in an abandoned rock quarry’s deep pool and thus ‘ignite the sunday morning newspaper’.
This and many other events added to my being-palette. With this kind of pain body (who has actualized the killing of another) one must somehow get them to inspect first yourself, not to inspect you inspecting them. Like talking to the left or right side of one’s body when in the midst of such a ‘pain body’, though never directly in front, i.e., face to face: its a very ‘in the moment’ kinda thing…
Its really an art to deal with pain bodies one on one, with the aim of transforming their ’story’, giving out a kind of love that they can use to sense their conscience, though not feel as though their being petted, like some guinea pig in the hands of righteousness.
This is not the silly-expensive American Jack of Hearts kind of affection, that does not stay with you when you leave the barber’s chair: this can be real intent, this is a kind of ‘doing’, (my opinion).
Somewhere, in the deep non-recreational recesses of the human psyche there lays the ‘Feline of Common Sense’, and as cats are, it is indifferent to a person’s personal lifestyle as it automatically happens without deep feeling and conscience-payment; being a more recreational thing, like a poodle jumping through various fiery hoops one day and kinda hum-drum hoops the next.
May the blessing of feeding that cat be upon the student who was pushing the elevator’s ‘B’ button with the mind-aim of going Up.
_________________________________________
To A Word To The Wise #164
I will keep this short and practical:
Please, read your Law Books people ~
Whenever we ‘think’ we’re ‘right’ and we actually ‘are not’, there is a little Law that is watching all this ‘Wiseacring’ and believe me, outside of the greatest American hobby, (second to family tree climbing) litigation, court room say-so,
all our self-prided-forces are either gaining layers of armor or loosing them; either way, the earth loves ‘weight’, you can figure the rest.
Read those Law books, A Word To The Wise.
First, all the ’stuff’ in this blog can not be considered Libel Defamation.
First, ‘Actual Malice’ has to be proved, to which there is none because the malice has been performed by the person being defamed.
The courts see two things when looking at Libel Defamation, a victim and a victor…In the case of the FoF and RB, there are two parties playing the part of Victor, both are slanderous, both are ‘right’ and ‘wrong’.
It will be up to the various willy-nilly procurements of conscience by the Court to figure out who is the Lesser Evil and who is the Greater, ‘takes one to know one’.
RB is (in legal terms) an ‘All-Purpose Public Figure’ and cannot sue, based on Libel Defamation, anyone and I do mean anyone, otherwise you FoF’ers would be billionaires by default.
A public figure suing for Libel Defamation must prove without a shadow of a doubt that actual malice is being performed by this blog, that is, a sort of malice based on false information, which, believe me, the Yuba County, Sacramento, California and Arkansas officials would be hard pressed under nightly hypnosis, smuggled in their donuts peyote buttons and large sums of conscience numbing free wine, to believe otherwise…So, well, that’s that.
Associatively, To Clara ~
Remember Clara, you must know at least equal or more than the court will afford your curiosity in all matters put before them, they have numerous ’senior moments’ (often prolonged into ’senior officials) often ‘buffered’ by various facial and body stance of stoicism. They can’t possibly contain the vast Goliath of Lawdom and tie their shoes too.
In other words, Actual Law knows more than the judges and lawyers: a judge is no one special, he or she is simply ‘an old lawyer talking to a new lawyer’, they need constant re-programming, like software.
The one constructive thing you have working alongside you guys outside the FoF moving towards a possible group action, is that you live in the most litigious state in the world, next to Israel, they love the courtroom arena; yet, well, where else could two Saturn nations re energize their pain body’s batteries so well? Killing a million birds with one stone is where things stand these days.
It is no secret that the whole American- national law world moves when California moves, its the locomotive, the pain bodies are the ‘coal’ and coal shovelers.
I figure you’ll spend 15 hours per year of the FoF’s lifespan up to this point in material-gathering-processing-time, thus about 540 hours.
Remember, never go into court thinking its a battle field: the TV does the viewers a disservice in this respect. By the way, there is no Judge in the whole of America that is condoned by the principles & standards of ‘true’ law practice to have a gavel, this is TV drama. So, think of it as a place to go ‘prior’ to battle…
You see what has happened to your president’s cowboy stance with Iraq? One make believe cowboy against a nation of real cowboys…Wow, what material for Dali we have.
Also, take this to mind, that in such a case there’s going to be a drag-net phenomenon, where lots of people, who are and are not in the FoF will be legally hauled into court, like it or not, to answer to certain ‘objective allegations’ on behalf of the FoF and the not so on behalf category; i.e., accountants, book keepers, tax preparers, giver’s of letters for visa’s, the people who use their personal credit cards to side step FoF direct purchases for RB, fellowship doctors, center directors, who ever is storing FoF assets, etc.
Its gonna get humid, so bring a fan and another fan to point the opposite way, so to keep various objects from getting stuck in the fan that’s cooling you off.
_________________________________
To Yesri Baba #166 ~
Don’t worry about communication, I love ya, with or without your formatory center.
See, we don’t have to understand each other to support one another’s ‘gut feelings’…
Like the Hell’s Angel, did I call the police? No, of course not: why call the police and then call the next practical social institution, the local Mortuary so to size up my coffin for sooner than later occupancy.
We are moving through this life, hopefully growing, attempting to be brand-new every day, not automatically crystallizing into experts at having been issue-victims, non-swan-black-ducklings.
Asleep or Awake, the one and only moment is happening, it is not yesterday, it is not the future; there are those who do not choose to ignore it, yet it is simply bypassed by them for some mysterious reason, resentment and hopes point to this fact.
Yet facts are transient things, we die, we live…facts can change after making the same mistake 100 times.
Their is no ‘real’ competition between the spiritual and the material and when this is artificially displayed as being the ‘drama’ at hand, you get such phenomenons as spiritual ego schools, an us and them, heaven and hell, paradise and the moon.
This is not to say that a ‘real school’ cannot be established, yet these days the world is too overpopulated and intellectually suspicious to have it in a formal way, so its an unintentional ’school’ one formed ‘out there’ so to speak, in the many who are working on themselves or working to not work on themselves…
Perhaps a real school will rise, though it will be from the point of view of many teachers consolidating as One School, not a one person guru, this ’style’ of spiritual triad is fading quickly, the spiritual ocean is getting far too big and thirsty for Marlboro men types.
_______________________________________
To Cathie, Post #169 ~
Hello. To your question about Pain body being the same or similar to Time Body…well, yes and no.
Yes, its relative, though only in the content of Time Body, not the phenomenon itself. Sorta like calling a fly without wings a ‘fly’ or the wings ‘a fly’, together they are something, a fly, apart they are nothing.
So, the pain body and the time body move as one ’system’, so to speak…Like your Fourth Way System, many theoretical ideas and verifiable truths within one Way, all is All, yet we sure can talk and talk about the other side of the price tag we cannot make out from being on the window shopper’s point of view-side.
Time body is not verifiable on earth or at least so long as one cannot access the fourth dimensional environment that the theory of time body seems to point to or somehow miraculously originate from.
For if there is such a ‘body’, then there was a ’seed’. For me, the ‘good stuff’ begins not necessarily in climbing around the branches, fruits, lightning strikes and abandoned bird nests, rather, to the originator-seed… Who planted you?
Pain Body is verifiable, right now. Time body is spiritual candy for Queen of Diamond types and the False-True Personality types… It is a worthless theory so far as one’s condition of being a soul-seed within a fleshy-pain-body garden on earth.
The verification of Pain Body can lead to liberation from 95% of the mechanical suffering on earth experienced by the spiritual ’seeker’, yet, this of course is (as Ouspensky said) a mathematical process , which then puts ‘within’ the spiritual seeker, a nearly unbearable sense of conscience,while, a sort of ‘construction’ begins, one based on intensional suffering.
Meyer Baba is a perfect example of someone who lived this construction: imagine one of these California gurus saying to Meyer Baba or Gurdjieff, “You don’t have to make an effort to be in the moment because your already here, you never left.”
LOL…
Yes, that’s ‘true’ and yet,
One day from far away I saw my teenage dream car, a Lamborghini, my heart rate increased, my saliva glands even went a little dry…As I got closer it dawned on me that it was a Kit Car, the body of a Lamborghini, though not its internal-presence.
So there you have it folks, there are plenty of people who will look at Boss Hog from the Dukes of Hazzard and Meyer Baba and say, ‘Whose Who, what’s the big deal,
why the call to differ?’ Yet, that’s not what our magnetic centers were attracting when we stepped out of the clockworks, i.e., comparison and competition, ignorance and indifference.
I recall feeling, being, never did my mind activity, which loved to skirt around the work and effort of expanding emotional understanding and being quiet when the mind was screaming to ’share its opinion’, play a major role in the formation of my ability to love and recognize that ‘certain something’ within a person that sees beyond the obvious, beyond its little self, which our magnetic centers mysteriously cannot be planted in and truly grow.
After all, there are plenty of professional fledglings who say ‘Why fly, when I can drive that Lamborghini way over there?’
Yep, you go right ahead, drive that 360,000 dollar spirit-mobile, which humbly contains an 800 dollar Volkswagen engine and hydro plains when large trucks pass it by going uphill.
_______________________________________
Love to you all.
May 3, 2007 at 11:53 pm
Angel Aware #178
Thanks for your kind thoughts. I do Thanksgiving every year.
Fellow Traveler #180
Very helpful, thanks.
Keith #182
Interesting take on Tolle, haven’t read his books, but a thoughtful post nonetheless. Thanks.
Cathie #169 & OP, Moon Angel, others
I had a dream a few weeks ago that I ran into Burton. Haven’t had a dream like that for some time (that I remember, anyway).
About a week later, while my wife and I were about to have breakfast at the Highlands Inn, it happened.
We had gone down there because the Inn offered us a fantastic $rate if we’d go to the timeshare presentation, and there were plenty of others doing the same. On the last morning we went to the patio restaurant (one of the best places to have breakfast in Carmel, by the way) and while waiting for a table noted that the guests seem to have changed. We wondered if they’d done a mailing to gays, since all the couples had been replaced by tables of young gay guys.
Oh, and there was one older, dissolute looking fellow who was obviously the person with the $$.
Didn’t think much of it until we were seated (since my wife chased off one of the fellows who was trying to get “our” table) right in their midst.
I’m busy reading the NYTimes and doing the crossword and Jill says to me, “that old guy looks like Robert!”
I glanced over, turned back to her and said, “That’s because it IS Robert!”
The scene instantly made sense, with all the “boys” sitting silently, we heard Burton ask one of the fellows sitting with him to ask the waiter “if this is real maple syrup.” I almost fell off my chair laughing!
I was pretty irritated because it looked like my breakfast would be ruined, so I turned my chair around so I wouldn’t have to look at him and went back to the crossword.
I have to say, after 14 years he looked rather more depraved and dissolute than I remembered. The fellows seemed interchangeable with any others over the years.
They eventually left (very quietly) and, except for some mild paranoia for the next hour, my day returned to normal.
It was 2 days later that we ran into an xfofer who gave me the link to this blog.
Go figure.
Dreams remain a mystery.
These events, and the blog, as others have noted, has compelled me to process the whole fof experience again and, although I didn’t seek it out, and might not have wanted to engage this way, has been very helpful for me in trying to resolve some of my continuing issues.
Thanks for reading.
And remember to be kind to yourself.
JoelF
May 4, 2007 at 1:10 am
Fellow Traveller (180), thanks for that one.
May 4, 2007 at 1:18 am
A friend on mine, and former FoF student, suggested a morning wake-up ‘I’ that I have found to be a good starter for my days: “Ahh (deep breath), Another Perfect Day”.
May 4, 2007 at 1:38 am
Carpe Unum!!
I see
I see myself
I see myself seeing
I see myself seeing myself
I see myself seeing myself seeing
I see myself seeing myself seething
I see myself seizing
Geez
Old Dog…
Homer: After Odysseus returned to Ithaca only his old dog Argos recognized him. (Argos was the first son of Zeus and a mortal woman)
May 4, 2007 at 1:41 am
Joel,
Not even to say Hello to your former teacher for all these years? paranoid? Looking depraved?
Wonder what you look like now, you old pathetic slimey fart! Keep falling off your chair, with your contented, overbearing, puny hairbrained nature of yours.
Yes, you know me, you weasel.
May 4, 2007 at 2:20 am
BBWolf (188): “but surely there is more to it than that. No more reading Walt for inspiration, or not until after breakfast or before 10 am. Doesn’t one’s intent have something to do with it?”
I’m not sure what you mean here. Could you explain further? Reading Walt for inspiration almost always works for me!
regards, Rabbi B
May 4, 2007 at 3:21 am
unoanimo (198):
When I read Elena’s first lengthy post ripping into you for one of your many pain-body posts, I thought “Whoa, dude, this woman’s got some real issues! She’s killing flies with a sledgehammer–and they’re not even real flies!” Having read your #198, I’m not so sure.
I don’t mean to suggest you shouldn’t post whatever you please, but perhaps you’ll at least consider first figuring out what you’re trying to say, and then saying it in a way designed to make it as easy as possible for a reader to understand you, instead of just talking to hear yourself talk. “There are plenty of people who will look at Boss Hog from the Dukes of Hazzard and Meyer Baba and say, ‘Whose Who, what’s the big deal, why the call to differ?’ Yet, that’s not what our magnetic centers were attracting when we stepped out of the clockworks, i.e., comparison and competition, ignorance and indifference.” I’m sure that makes perfect sense to you, but it sounds to me like you’re more interested in typing than in communicating–and I know, based on some of your posts, that you’re perfectly capable of speaking articulately when you feel like it. If you’re going to give legal advice, why not just say what you know, which should take about four sentences, then we, too, will have the opportunity to know what you know. I’ve got nothing against surrealistic poetry sprinkled with fanciful metaphors, but it isn’t that useful to someone thinking about bringing a lawsuit.
May 4, 2007 at 3:43 am
Joel, I’m enjoying your posts, and wish we had crossed paths in the fof. By the way, did you notice howard carter or “word to the wise” sitting with all of the gay guys in Carmel? Anyway, good grief, what were any of us thinking.
May 4, 2007 at 3:52 am
Updated Blog Guide for dummies
coot (ever the polite): could you please consider not throwing baby out with bath water?
Good FOF student: (aside, “I think our friend has lost The Way, better call Linda Twolips and get him thrown out”), “could you repeat the question?”
Fence sitters: I don’t see the fluid….I don’t see the fluid…I don’t see the fluid …
Just Leave: baby may be OK, but water smell funny – let’s get the hell outa here
4th Way Kaput: throw baby out with bath water – don’t use funny words anymore either
FOF leadership: Heil bath water, turn in friends, RB give HC task to start blog tag-team
Non-duality: no baby; no bathwater; effortless effort eff e zzzzzzzzzz
Eckhart Tolle: pain-baby just reflex – find path to real baby
Kiran: baby hot, bathwater hot; ever consider a three-way?
God Larson: “if anyone blows his brains out for the baby, that’s good too.”
Esoteric Shiek: gotta laugh; you baby-lovers not all that unique
Bruce: don’t give me any of that bathwater shit
cathie: catch you later at burning baby
Bonita: baby worked; bathwater couldn’t get it up
Clara d’arc: Follow me, storm the basin !
SandraC: embrace of the daimonic baby
JoelF: baby, schmabie; bike up to Tam and “S’cuse Me while I kiss the sky”
Girard One-Angle (new second one): sharper than serpent’s tooth to have a thankless wife
DOOFUS (Defenders Of One Faith Under Siege – FOF tag-team including hc, abe, Money Matters, just observing, and siddiq): nya nya nya nya nya – you got bathwater too (and here’s your restraining order, fool)
RB: The blog is a play of crime, dear. And my beloved former students, though of course they mean well, are criminals with exceptionally poor fate. One has to have good timing to be OUT OF TIME – and by the way dear, could you do that a little faster?
May 4, 2007 at 4:02 am
“Eckhart Tolle Pain”
His book should have been called: “The Power Of Now What” only he doesn’t know what.
Being present is not the goal, its the first step.
People want instant enlightment, without any effort or payment. Sure, OK, keep dreaming.
“I will not spend more time trying to warn you, because as Benjamin Franklin wrote, a word to the wise is enough.”
Hey, Benji, didn’t BF write a book about farting?
“…but he does read the letters as far as I can tell.”
Not so. There is a buffer zone that deals with this. Nothing gets through except the do-re-mi.
I definitely would recommend meeting John in person. It clarified alot for me.
“Don’t try to become a student of his however. You will be waisting your time and he will definitely shoo you away”
Vanity, vanity, all is vanity…
“I wrote and submitted it BEFORE i read last nights submission #181 from arthur.”
OK, so, what comes first, the book deal or the lecture tour…?
May 4, 2007 at 4:12 am
unoanimo #198: Wonderful post, you do a very good impression of G…still chewing on your offering but uppermost in my thoughts at the moment is Meher Baba’s profound teaching, “Don’t worry, be happy.”
SusanK #192: Very nice to see you here. Beautiful feelings, elegantly conveyed. Thank you.
Joel #199: Great story!
As for synchronicity:
While I was driving to work this morning the car ahead of me had a bumper sticker: “I’d rather be
here now.”
While I was driving home from work listening to the radio, the announcer played a song called “You Gotta Be Real” by 3rd Force.
Go figure.
May 4, 2007 at 4:31 am
A Reply to Bruce’s Post #189
Bruce Says:
May 3rd, 2007 at 9:45 pm
“Beware of people willing to teach. That should be your first red flag.”
_____________________________________
Hey Bruce,
Actually, like it or not, the obvious is always last and the subtle always first, so
It is, for those looking for Spiritual Teachers and Vocational Instructors in Scandinavian Wood Working Techniques ~
Beware of people who are willing not to be taught. This should be your first red flag.
May 4, 2007 at 5:37 am
To 185 or whoever insults Benjamin F. by pretending he is the one talking:
“The reasons you joined should have been based on your realization you were asleep and that you need help to awaken”.
How does the Fellowship help people awaken when it denies them the right to be themselves?
“We are asked to verify, not just believe”. What when one verifies that it is a fraud? That it offered a conscious Teacher and School and it is only interested in one’s money or efforts to make it look real?
“No one can prove your beliefs valid or not valid and no one will be able to prove the Fellowship, Robert, Girard, true or false, conscious or unconscious”.
No, they cannot prove they are conscious, because they are not. It is a lot easier to prove that they are not because they use people and discard them when they don’t need them any more.
“You are missing the point”
NO, you are missing the point.
There is no fraud based on your paying money for 17 years,……”
The fraud could not be more blatant. I payed for seventeen years for the opportunity to live a more conscious life in what you said was a conscious school and you deprived me of the right to participate. You never gave me a job, no matter how many times I asked for one, how many students had that play? You were not willing to help me no matter how long I volunteered. Tell me, why did you let me continue paying if you were not going to let me participate?
Did buying a house at Isis show that I was not committed enough? Opening a center in Bogota for four years, not enough? Paying thousands of dollars to go to events? Giving my most precious understandings? Supporting Girard? Supporting Robert? Tell me because I still don’t understand, what did you want from me to allow my integrity to be part of your school? Why did you reduce me to participating only with my payment ? Why did you never help me when I trusted you, the Fellowship? The Teacher?
“It does not work like that. Remember Jesus was crucified in his time”.
Why are you still crucifying people? Or is using one and discarding not a form of crucifixion?
“The warning to you was simply meant to be helpful to you personally, not to instill fear. In your current state, you are likely going to commit actions you will regret. You mention you are emotionally disturbed. I recommend you seek professional help. You appear unbalanced”.
This must be the funniest irony about the Fellowship. After indoctrinating students it tells them to seek professional help because it cannot help them any more.
“You are entitled to all your opinions and to share them wherever you wish, but you have not observed the line where you cross someone else’s rights (this my include the Fellowship) and where you may be personally responsible to someone for damaging things you say, if they are of a factual nature and can be proven false”
Not one word of what I’ve said can be proved false because I am not lying to anyone like you lied to me.
There’s no love in your school, you promote inhuman behavior teaching people to not care for each other, to abandon the children and the old, to not trust themselves, to idolize mentally ill people.
You tried to teach me to abandon my family so that you could collect all the money I have, you tried to teach me to feel insecure about my understandings telling me that being in a place of not knowing is the ideal, so that I would feel bad if I said I knew better. You tried to deprive me of the right to be individually and socially responsible by labelling me for being under feminine dominance when ever I tried to question your sick ways.
You hid the truth about the Fellowship so that you could keep me paying. You damaged and hurt my integrity so that you could continue to exist. You manipulated me so that I believed that everything questionable about the Fellowship could not be questioned because Robert was a man number seven. A Jesus. You must have indeed damaged me sufficiently to make me believe such things. And the sad thing is that I was innocent enough to trust you. I wanted to love and be loved and it is not I who am wrong, it is you who are sick. Thieves, frauds. Blood suckers. Prove me wrong and you’ll do me a great favor because the truth is hurting so badly.
“I will not spend more time trying to warn you, because as Benjamin Franklin wrote, a word to the wise is enough”. Yes, go convince more people that you’re such a conscious school but practice a little so that you sound more convincing.
May 4, 2007 at 6:25 am
Of course if you were following Advaita lines of thought a great wake-up mantra would be
“nothing to see here – move along”
May 4, 2007 at 9:03 am
How about dreams during fof times?
This mirror like dream may be obscene or not so pleasant for some of you, please forgive me it is not my fault.
After this dream telling I am not going to tell you for sure who I am.
I was living at a FOF center as a young one year old student more or less.
I had already met RB like 8-9 months before, I knew how he looked like, I knew he was gay and that was ok with me, (did not know of his personal habits..),
I had already created a big aura about him which of course was totally supported by the center directors and older students.
RB was then visiting our city! Oh my…we were scrubbing the floors, shining the glass, we were even hoping he would come to dinner the next day, but for sure he was coming for a reception…
I felt like a Cinderella I suppose and the night before the big day I went to bed as usual…
and here is what I dreamt:
RB is sitting on a elegant little chair, European style, without much of a back support. He is alone in this huge beautiful sparkling clean living room at the teaching house, he is waiting for me.
I walk towards him and all of a sudden I find myself hugged and sitting on his lap!
He then resolutely places his mouth against mine and starts kissing me(french style)…
Then he says to me: Do you know who I am ? do you remember me from BEFORE? Do you?
That’s it! the dream I mean. Was this strange or what? In the dream I felt I had already met him, perhaps in another life time or through another human.
I had a feeling of slight incest, he was not like a boyfriend to me, he was more like a father actually, but at the same time there was this incredible sexual charge.
By the way, I take responsability for my dream!
May 4, 2007 at 10:44 am
There are a few Blogs on the FOF and RB in the net.
None of them has taken off like this on. But the others have interesting information too.
****************************************
Dave Archer who was with Alex Horn in 1966 has something to say about Alex Horn
Maybe he met RB and can tell his version of the story.
The Gurdjieff Work, also known as “Fourth Way Schools,” upholds teachers with direct lines leading back to Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, among others. Teachers who are “officially” acknowledged to have studied the “real Work” with the “right people”. In published statements the “Fourth Way” disavows Alex Horn as a legitimately connected teacher.
Yo, my Gurdjieff teacher wasn’t a real Gurdjieff teacher.
http://www.davearcher.com/alex.html
http://www.davearcher.com/magus.html
****************************************
fellowship of friends and palm trees
http://forum.rickross.com/viewtopic.php?t=430
****************************************
Looking for other kids affected by the Fellowship of Friends
http://forum.rickross.com/viewtopic.php?t=1440
****************************************
Looking for exmembers of the Fellowship of Friends
http://forum.rickross.com/viewtopic.php?t=1488
http://forum.rickross.com/viewtopic.php?t=429
****************************************
More on Alex Horn
http://forum.rickross.com/viewtopic.php?t=1445
http://forum.rickross.com/viewtopic.php?t=653
****************************************
On the FOF
http://forum.rickross.com/viewtopic.php?t=666
****************************************
Victims to Robert Burton or Alex Horn
http://forum.rickross.com/viewtopic.php?t=612
****************************************
May 4, 2007 at 12:33 pm
So, ExLax 101, has Joel revealed his “homophobia” by imagining that the overdressed, manicured pretty boys that he noted hovering around Robert like flies (rather glum flies, no doubt) were gay?
May 4, 2007 at 1:02 pm
Clara Helena Haven: I have started a new forum for you here. Feel free to use it as you wish.
I don’t have the time to re-post the document every time that it gets modified, neither am I going to allow anyone else to moderate here on animam recro. So, you will need to figure out for yourself how you want the project to go. I warned you beforehand that a blog may not be the best place to start such a project. Maybe if you post the document first and then people post the sections that they have filled in, it won’t be such a big mess.
As to the costs, there are none. As to publishing it, I don’t think that it will happen, and if it does it will probably be to you to decide how to go forward. Don’t forget that anyone has access to any information posted on the blog and that there are no copyrights.
Shecrolck Holmes (214): Thanks for the links.
May 4, 2007 at 1:15 pm
JoelF #199, I hope you do not mean to say there might be something supernatural in running into Robert Burton & harem- entourage at a fancy restaurant in Carmel. Running into them at food4less or at Denny’s, now that would be unnatural (& maybe supernatural).
Nor is there anything unusual about dreams with RB in them. There are many here who devour such things being superstitious or having the need to project, particularly on him.
To many of us his image became one of our Archetypal Images. Thoses are images used in dreams to compose the dream stories that symbolically look into the strategies of dealing with problems, attitudes & behaviours in our daily life. In the arsenal of these Archetypal images are Cinderella, cats, the Madonna, Christ, and for many of us, willy nilly, Robert E Burton. He may be subconsciously used as what Jung calls ‘Mana’ personality; a symbol of extraordinary power and wisdom. The problem is that we are not that good at not projecting this power in our waking life onto someone else. A dream with RB may show (to the one who can pay attention) to what degree we are free or use him to disown our own wisdom, power & independence by giving him power over us (or to someone else), even after leaving the school.
MoonAngel #186, despite symbolically rejecting the FOF ‘bible to live by’, your very rejection depended on Robert’s ‘disapproving and friendly looks’. You may have left the school but I don’t know if you completely outgrown the need for such a dependency. But I’m not a proffessional.
#187; How did Wheeler in person ‘fill in the blanks’ for you?
May 4, 2007 at 1:42 pm
“Shecrolck Holmes (214): Thanks for the links.”
The snake-blog is beginning to bite its own tail!
Guessing why?
Children Know.
May 4, 2007 at 2:43 pm
Unoanimo, I enjoyed post #198. I live near a drug house that inpressed me as a half-way home for the state prison system.
They do a lot of garage sales which lures me in. I am almost certain they have ‘eye-balled’ me to their satisfaction.
One member has already gone back to prison. While he seldom came to the garage sales, I wouldnt go while he was there. A tear drop tattoo at the corner of one eye and a vest that had sargent of arms on the back.
One time there was a confrontation between a woman and a man ( power-struggle). The woman called for help. The offender came to my house to rest a bit then left. No sooner had he left walking he comes the woman and her help. One big man, wearing a long pony-tail carrying a foot long flashlight that look heavy.
His advise to me, “don’t risk your life by helping him out”. I’m safe because him is now in prison.
You’re absolutely right about them looking for trouble. Over the years lots of blood has been shed over there and lots of trips by the cops.
May 4, 2007 at 3:43 pm
#180, Fellow Traveler wrote:
“flee those who demand unconditional obedience to themselves or to their representatives or assistants.”
Etc.
Now you tell me.
May 4, 2007 at 5:04 pm
Hi all,
Wow, it’s gotten grittier and more contentious in here since the last time I dropped by. Seems like the idealogical lines are more fiercely defended than before. I have to laugh when folks quote Gurdjieff as if he were the definitive authority on all matters spiritual. Some part of everyone still wants to believe that someone else has the answers. He understood that as deeply as L. Ron Hubbard. That may be the greatest hook that G. came up with: “A man who has escaped”, “A man who knows the way out.”
And the little voice says:
“Boy, I got to find one of those or I’ll spend my life breathing, eating, working, living and dying, just like all these other mugs; now that would be criminal!”
No problem, however. I just drop by every once in a while to see the sound of my own voice, pop out something that amounts to a non sequitur and move on. Mostly I look for interesting personal stories that reflect people’s ways of living their post-fof life, rather than the tortured prose that I still associate with meeting angles. Could it be that we live our lives and then choose the philosophy/system/religion that best fits it?
So, here’s today’s question: Has anyone else who’s gone down the therapy road since leaving had trouble explicating the whole of your fof beliefs to your therapist? I could not lay the whole thing out there all at once.
“Well, you see Doc, I used to have 44 angels looking after my spiritual evolution, all of them famous, every single one… What?..oh..Abraham Lincoln, Benjamin Franklin, J.S. Bach, Vivaldi…No, no Thomas Jefferson.”
It took me the better part of five years to admit out loud what I’d believed or been asked to consider believing as a member of the fof. That’s quite a lot of shame to work through.
As Brian Wilson says: Love and Mercy to you and your friends tonight.
May 4, 2007 at 5:11 pm
#210….Both are true.
May 4, 2007 at 6:00 pm
Kid Shelleen (221): Great post, I wholeheartedly agree that we all have this desire and need to believe that the answers to our questions exist. Because if there were none and we found out, we would have spent our lives searching for a dream.
Last time I contributed I tried to put forward my ideas on why so many of us are capable of believing the strangest things. I do not think that we choose the belief system that best fits us, on the other hand I believe that we are capable of choosing and defending any belief system, however ridiculous it may be.
Believing that there is this all-powerful, all-knowing being above us, watching us play (on the word of a book), is as ridiculous as it is to believe that 44 angels guide us in our life. Equally so, believing that there was this guy 2,000 years ago (on the word of a priest) who came back to life after he was killed, is as ridiculous as it is to believe that the only conscious being on the planet is Robert Burton.
If a ridiculous belief gets repeated a certain amount of times and if enough people believe in it, it stops being ridiculous. It may even appear to be true.
If, for whatever reason, we adopt a belief (whether true or false), we are capable of explaining reality to fit that said belief. Rather than viewing reality without judgement, we view it to fit what we already believe.
Robert Anton Wilson, and to a lesser extent Aleister Crowley, wrote extensively on the subject. One of the experiments they recommended was to passionately adopt one strong belief (or set of beliefs) and as soon as it sets in and becomes natural, drop it, and adopt another one. Crowley recommended worshipping a random deity (yes, that would include the Christian God) and once it manifested in whatever form, dropping it and worshipping another.
Both experiments show how easy it is to believe any old nonsense.
May 4, 2007 at 6:50 pm
Thank you Sheik,
I will try to give it more structure and start working on it.
May 4, 2007 at 8:13 pm
Hi
I have started a discussion group on Google (SchoolBreak).
It is not intended to cover the areas published on this Blog – it is to investigate ways forward in inner, both in and out of the FoF.
It’s private (viewable by members only and not exposed thru web searches).
By invitation only (by me or other members).
You can post anonymously or under your own name.
The member list is not viewable except by me, the moderator, and I will respect your privacy.
It’s free.
It is a threaded discussion list with daily digests and all mod cons.
If you are interested then drop me line (I’m exFoF) at:
vale.m.smith@googlemail.com
and I’ll send you an invite.
Here is a snippet of the first topic (Is Advaita the 5th Way?):
“…Adyashanti, Wheeler, Parsons, Sailor Bob, Klein, and some older names
like Ramana and Nisargadatta, these are now as familiar in FoF and
exFoF (especially ex) circles now as Rumi, Whitman, Shakespeare and
Rilke were, back in the day.
The big difference being is…”
Sheik – thanks for letting me post this message in your space.
See you there,
ManFromMars
May 4, 2007 at 8:18 pm
Hello Everyone,
I’ve been reading for a few days and enjoying seeing familiar “faces” turning up from time-to-time. I joined FoF in Hawaii in 1976 and left from Palo Alto in 1984.
My departure had more to do with the overall direction the group was going than with RB-related matters because I didn’t learn about those matters until after I was out. I was struggling with doubts, then met someone who brought me out of that hypnotic state.
Hi SusanK!! You said:
“It was particularly strange when, several days after officially leaving, I suddenly “came to” – like when you wake up suddenly and clearly in the morning. I could never have predicted such a thing would occur, and yet there I was with the stunning, vivid and undeniable experience of emerging from a hypnotic state.
No doubt, in that moment, real work began.”
This is exactly what happened for me except that it occurred about a week before I left. Things had been building (disintegrating?) for a while, then I spent time with someone who succeeded in popping the hypnotic bubble in a single, clarifying moment. Sam, if you are reading this, it was Steve G. It was an amazing experience!
My leaving was made easier by having already established some outside-FoF friendships. Those people eased the transition considerably.
To those still in the throes of decision – there is a great big, beautiful world out here full of spiritual promise and possibility. There is nothing to fear, and the Divine is much too vast and generous to confine itself to 2000 people.
Arisha
May 4, 2007 at 9:02 pm
To Sheik on Robert Anton Wilson suggestion:
“to passionately adopt one strong belief (or set of beliefs) and as soon as it sets in and becomes natural, drop it, and adopt another one.”
This is were Robert Burton wins!
He keeps changing and his focuus to the “new” is so uncompromised that he appears “at ease” when dropping the “old”.
Is the “old” made of people, ideas, themes, omens, objects ?
Yes, it is all and everything.
Why do you think many FOF are experiencing confusion and doubts ?
In that sense, this man is bloody creative and dearing!
Facts:
There is nothing left or almost nothing of the 44 angels…
The word “Self-Remebering”, a key word in the 4th Way tradition,
and title of Robert Burton’s book,
is kept for the gallery of new visitors of the site and or prospective student meetings,
but to be replaced, as soon as possible, by “Be” (belonging to the Sequence).
The tools of the 30 work I’s
- monosyllabes enabling the students to identify better the central point of their work/presence in a moment like,
“smell”, “taste”, “look”, “kneel”, “drop” and so on,
even excluded the word “Gods” for a while!
Everything can go and do go
while Robert Burton and the FOF stay…
Sheik, I am trying to understand your proposal though and the only way one can/could benefit from making the experiment would be to trade Robert Burton and the FOF passionate adoption for another.
Did I get your point ?
To Clara Helena:
What about a brand new website instead of a hanging on a branch in this Blog?
To Unoanimo: yes a bit lyrical and very good. Take care not to caress yourself too much with words, you seem too gifted for that!
Rita:
Where are you ?
Please, come back as soon as possible!
Much Love.
May 4, 2007 at 9:15 pm
Hello, everyone, warm greetings to you!
Joel F., this missive contains nothing but Fourth Way jargon, so you might want to skip it! For myself, “I take the honey and throw away the sting…”
Bonita’s reminder (#7-194) of Burton’s ‘crystallization’ and celebrations by the body of the FOF in subsequent years made me go back to my notes on the subject made in the couple of years leading up to my ‘release’. I, and my good friend at the time, former member Alan C. (upon whom be many blessings, wherever and whenever he is) worked many an evening on this subject together. Here are some thoughts on crystallization and what this means for the two ‘conscious’ people in the FOF. This invitation to a conversation is laid out in terms of the Fourth Way.
By the way of prelude, it’s more than ironic that the founder of a “Gurdjieff–Ouspensky” school is rather proud of having never read anything written by Gurdjieff (Burton himself boasted of this to me and others), because the old man had quite a bit to teach about the process of becoming conscious and its ramifications. It’s true that this valuable information is rather difficult to get at, but I’d have thought that someone with a magnetic center (a strong ‘seeker’) centered in the king of hearts, with the usual close connection to the king of diamonds (but not in this case—just read ‘Self-Remembering’ to see what I mean), would have regarded the nuggets to be so arduously mined as priceless. Now, I’m not going to claim to be an expert on even the contents, let alone the meaning of,“Beelzebub’s Tales”. I’m not intellectually centered. But, I have read it cover to cover once, and several times over if one counts the note-taking and looking up of references and so on, over the last thirty-five years. Yet, for all that, I needed a ‘cheat sheet’ to make it more accessible; that would be the Leibovian compacted edition, (published in SF and a bargain at $42 all those years ago), and the help of a knowledgeable fellow explorer, that would be Alan C. Enough ‘wiseacreing’ and chit-chat, and on to the essentials. (I’m assuming readers are familiar with the enneagram according to Gurdjieff/Ouspensky, rather than the bastardization culminating in the Helen Palmer mess.)
Here is the executive summary. Let us imagine Burton or anyone else as a man number four developing the potential to become a man number five. This is a very hazardous place on the enneagram of development possible to mortal man (movement of man 1, 2 and 3 to man 8). This is what Gurdjieff called the ‘place of maximum tension’, harnel-aoot, equidistant from the beginning and the end of the octave, under least influence by either, and the point of turning (Workwise) from the external into the internal. This is the correct time to envision, pray, and ask for help. One is, after all, hoping to crystallize and realize the Vision that was the ‘do’ of this octave! Think of Jesus spending his forty days fasting in the wilderness.
So, at the culmination of extraordinary efforts, one crystallizes…Here one incorporates the Ideal that was visualized at the ‘do’. This ideal was drawn from the unmanifested world, and reflected the being accumulated at that time. After crystallization is complete, the person acquires real creative power. Gurdjieff had something to say about this particular point in the octave of crystallization. He said (I paraphrase) that at that moment, the person crystallizing has a choice, which cannot be denied since it is the final note in the octave of crystallization. Between stations 5 and 7 on the enneagram is the region of maximum disharmony. This place is the region between the world of sex energy (world 12) and the world of thought (world 6). Things can seem deceptively easy after the incredible payment to reach there. There is a choice on how to use the creative energy. If one chooses to be the master of it, one becomes the slave of it. This is a major thought, so I’ll restate it in other terms. The choice is stark: does one choose to put these creative powers into service? Or does one choose to indulge oneself and become addicted to pleasure and control? Since it gives one a ‘rush’ to use it (one has opened channels to previously unavailable quantities and qualities of energies), and one can do whatever one wants, one can choose to indulge the power and what it brings. The other choice is to place the acquired power in service, THEN one truly becomes the master of the creative energy.
Readers with me so far will reach their own conclusions. Here are mine, for what they are worth. I concluded that Burton brought all his strengths (and they are many) and weaknesses (and they are many) to the “crystallization party”. He was phenomenally greedy, a liar (to others–and infinitely more dangerous–to himself) and already a sex addict. He was also kind, emotionally extremely perceptive, and an idealist in the best sense. Both sides of his nature became crystallized. He may have been in imagination that somehow the dark side would be ‘left behind’, I don’t know. At that moment, he had to choose. He was unprepared to do so, both by his teacher and by his being (too arrogant to read and heed Gurdjieff, for example). He did not spend his ‘forty days in the wilderness’ examining and coming to terms with his dark side, humbling himself and asking for help (grace). He made his choice exactly according to his being at the time. He was offered the ‘riches of the world’—and took them. In contrast, Christ rejected the temptations, and instead offered himself to service (Luke, ch. 4).
Crystallization is a serious and important subject within the Fourth Way. So, you good folks in the FOF who want to crystallize ‘rightly’, think, what is the example before you? You only have Robert Burton, who “has no other gods before him”. And, to those in the FOF who have ‘become conscious’, you say you are a man number 5 (there are excellent reasons, both theoretical and practical, for supposing you are not, but let’s leave that aside.) Thus, you are a mini-Burton. You cannot be otherwise, he taught you all you know, you molded yourself on his version of reality, he drew his map, you followed, and he initiated and energized you. Your vision is to be “just like him”. Any chance of the individuation REQUIRED before taking his place as he theoretically ‘moves up’ (another subject for a meaty discussion) you threw away, as Burton practiced his version of “I am a jealous god…” Tell me, what use is a conscious clone?
To those who aspire to follow in Burton’s footsteps: my (of course, unwanted) advice would be start praying earnestly that you haven’t actually crystallized yet. Study “Beelzebub’s Tales”, in particular Ch. 39, Holy Planet Purgatory, and—beware of the three wishes…
Warm regards to all,
Ames Gilbert
Relevant reading: Talks on Beelzebub’s Tales (Bennett) pp. 71-72, 77
Theory of Celestial Influence (Collin) pp. 189-198
In Search of the Miraculous (Ouspensky) pp. 226-227, 308
And one quote to good to be left to look up later…
From “In Search…” p. 256 onwards: “But it must again be remembered that only a person who is completely normal as regards sex has any chance in the work. Any kind of ‘originality’, strange tastes, strange desires, or, on the other hand, fears, constantly working ‘buffers’, must be destroyed from the very beginning. Modern education and modern life produce an enormous number of sexual psychopaths. They have no chance at all in the work.” And so on, to the end of chapter 12. Please, if you have the time, read once more every one of these relevant words, and maybe make the connections to “Living the Questions” post (#7-363).
…and if this is all irrelevant because the FOF is no longer a place to study the Fourth Way—quit advertising yourselves as such (starting with the bookmarks and website). Be honest, and call it by a truer name—the Church of Robert Burton.
May 4, 2007 at 9:18 pm
In one of the many links proposed by Sherlock Holmes, Post 214
“If they say: “BOO! You’ll die like a dog!” lift your leg and piss on their brogans.”
BOOHHHHHHHH!
May 4, 2007 at 9:19 pm
In Reply to Sherlock Holmes Post #214/8
Thank you for those links…wow, to say the least. Now one can complete the FoF circle, without a break, right back to the original ‘garden’ that the FoF was transplanted from,
i.e, Alex and Sharon Horn…wow again…
This pretty much tells it all when looking at the circular drone-ship of this ‘esoteric school’.
RB is simply the si-do of the triad concerning Alex, Sharon & himself.
I recall hearing that the FoF spent considerable money and time into finding the whereabouts of Alex Horn several years ago. He’s harder to find than a groundhog at Christmas time. Yet they found him eventually at RB’s request…You’ll figure out the rest I’m sure: and don’t be too surprised when they are summoned to court as possible co-contributors to this FoF ‘play’.
Love to you all.
May 4, 2007 at 10:33 pm
SusanK #192
Hello to you. Thanks for your very healing post.
Fleeing #203
Fleeing, your posts give us an accurate picture of your thought process. And although I don’t think I know you, do please keep posting.
2b, #206
No, didn’t see “Howard Carter” who is MIA or tag-teamed out. And whatever I was thinking, it was in neat little compartments that did not “leak” into each other. Oh well…
Coot, #207
Hilarious, please keep updating!!
(still working on my baby/bathwater/bathtub/bathroom post)
Half life #217
Good point. Next time I’m at Smart & Final I’ll look around more carefully.
“…to what degree we are free or use him to disown our own wisdom, power & independence by giving him power over us (or to someone else), even after leaving the school.”
Very apt, insightful, well put, thanks.
Kid Shelleen #221
“Has anyone else who’s gone down the therapy road since leaving had trouble explicating the whole of your fof beliefs to your therapist?”
Having waited 14 years, I’ve only communicated the parts that seem to keep me stuck, not the stuff that fell away pretty quickly and was obviously “junk food spirituality” (by which I mean all the crap like 44 angels, “prophesies”, etc.). At one time I thought only someone familiar with cult dynamics would be able to deal with this stuff, but now I realize it really isn’t necessary. And it has helped me tremendously, continues to do so.
But I did have an experience that taught me something. A few years ago I ran into a woman I’d known pretty well in college and hadn’t seen for 30 years. We agreed to have lunch and catch up. I had been wanting an opportunity to “tell my story” to someone outside the universe of “spiritual seekers” and thought she would be perfect.
I listened with interest to her story of “what had happened” to her in the intervening years. About a week later we had lunch and it was my turn.
Central to my account was the fof and how it had impacted “what had happened” to me. I didn’t go into all the wacky beliefs, just the basic story line, why I had moved to various places, been married, all in the framework of the fof.
She listened intently if a bit incredulously (she’s a therapist/social worker). At the end, she looked at me like I was absolutely bonkers and perhaps dangerous. She seemed repelled by the whole account, almost disgusted. We haven’t mentioned it since, and I’ve made no other attempts along those lines.
JoelF
May 4, 2007 at 11:20 pm
Hello, all of you gorgeous creatures. What a deal, huh? I just read some of this blog for the first time, and Holy Shit, I had no idea. What an incredible, juicy, intense Dramedy. I have a theory. The FOF either turned us against ourselves or towards not personally being ourselves, or both, or neither. Also, I do have one piece of advice. Wholeheartedly, vigorously, and unflinchingly express negative emotions. I know because it took me a while to get caught up…then, the toxicity disappeared.
May 4, 2007 at 11:41 pm
What a fascinating blog! I’ll put in my two cents, even though it may be similar to what’s gone before.
I left the FoF long ago, but it certainly influenced my life. Those were some interesting years. I thought I’d found the coolest thing going. The only thing. O, lucky man. O frabjous day. And in some ways, it was, at least for me. I didn’t learn about self-remembering from the FoF, but joined it to deepen my practice, and I did that. I met some really intelligent people who were serious about working on themselves, and hanging out with them was a good thing. I learned a lot about art, and a little about music and opera and ballet and good food, and that’s a good thing. I learned to work hard, to push myself, which has stayed with me ever since, and I’m grateful for that. I also learned a lot about myself, that I was desperate to escape my unhappiness, desperate to be acknowledged as spiritually superior, desperate to find a mate, as well as many other mundane things that are common to many people, in or out of the FoF.
I continue to believe the FoF taught me many important things, but I eventually realized that my many personal weaknesses blew those valuable things into a fantasy that, in hindsight, now seems embarrassing and ridiculous. So much of the FoF trip is based on extrapolating far beyond the basic facts to such fantasies, which is a shame, because it spoils what might otherwise be useful. I also think the idea that it only spoils it for those unfortunates that buy into the fantasy, leaving an “inner circle” of those who see through the fantasy to the “reality,” is just another fantasy.
After many years experiencing different traditions, I see the FoF tool chest as containing some very valuable tools, but it’s really a pretty sparse set of tools, and the tools in it can be found in many, many other places, assuming a person wants to be part of an organized group.
Self-remembering: great. No need to critique it, I found it valuable then, and I still do. It’s a core Buddhist practice that’s been used for more than two thousand years and can be pursued with, for example, zen groups in every city in the world. Many cities have hundreds of dedicated zen practitioners, among several groups, trying just as hard, I’ll wager, to be present as any FoF member, being intentional, and so on. For those who are hard-core about wanting to be present, they can sit for a week or two or three in a zen sesshin, doing nothing but trying to be present, and can continue practicing night and day while they work in the kitchen, etc., just like in the FoF. (Ring of Bone zendo in Nevada City has a wonderful teacher in Nelson Foster.) People somehow seem to find the motivation to continue their efforts for many years without turning over huge sums of money or buying into fear- or vanity-based fantasies.
Working with negativity? In addition to my observations of myself, I’ve known some people before, during, and after they were in the FoF, and I don’t think membership, even for many years, made that much difference one way or another. I found many very kind people in the FoF. I’ve found many kind people out of the FoF. I found people, in and out, who were nasty as can be. I don’t think the FoF’s approach is as helpful as it could be, because it teaches (in practice, if not in theory) that the whole purpose of not expressing negativity is to further the evolution of the individual, which just serves to further strengthen the individual’s illusory sense of individuality. Even “external consideration” is viewed as a way to further one’s own evolution; members do nothing for anyone without calculating a personal benefit. Using selfishness as the motivator has some real limitations. It caused me to become more, not less, selfish, and I began to see that many of my fellow FoF members were just constantly looking at everything in terms of what they could get out of it for themselves, on every level—and believing this very fact was a mark of an evolved person, rather than its opposite. As Gordon Gecko said, “Greed is good.”
Robert Burton, from what I could see, adopted a couple of the tools he discovered in the fourth way, but never learned many of the others (such as the movements) that apparently have been used, and tried to turn this ignorance into a strength by saying his was the “way of love.” I was in the FoF for a number of years and I never saw any remarkable manifestations of “love,” beyond what I’ve found in different social situations over the years. Appreciating art is good, and being present to it, great, but it’s not exactly a blockbuster, “esoteric” tool for awakening. Not a bad thing, just not much of a basis for a lifetime commitment to an institution. I didn’t lose my ability to go to art museums and be present to paintings when I left the FoF.
The few tools the FoF offers are overlaid with so much stuff that, in hindsight, pretty obviously serves only to perpetuate a business. That Robert Burton is “conscious,” whatever that is supposed to mean. I don’t buy into the idea that a person becomes “conscious” once and for all, and thereafter everything they do is perfect and wise. I’ve seen nothing of Robert Burton or any other “spiritual teacher” to support this theory. No experience, or series of experiences, with Robert Burton can prove he is always “conscious,” so what’s the purpose of making that a cornerstone of FoF ideology? Why even mention it? That a certain member is on her “seventh lifetime.” That a certain event will occur in the future. That so-and-so historical figure is “working with the school.” That the FoF is the “only conscious school.” That no one can become “conscious” if they leave, but everyone has to pay whatever is asked in order to stay. This may be an excellent business plan, but trying to see it as divinely inspired is sad. For a group that prides itself on “verifying everything,” it’s amazing how much everything was permeated with the unverifiable, really no different from the Catholic Church plus self-remembering. There was so much in the FoF that people were unable to see simply for what it was, without interpreting it through a lens of unverifiable propaganda. What looked to everyone else to be selfishness can’t be selfishness, it must be something else. What looked like greed can’t really be greed. Lust can’t be lust. A lie isn’t really a lie. Everything that gave the appearance of being a human frailty was explained away by reference to something Robert said that people liked to think they had verified, but really hadn’t. All weaknesses were really strengths. But people could feel comfortable by telling themselves they were expected to verify everything.
It’s kind of freaky to think that at least some of the same people I knew so many years ago are still wandering around the same grounds, just decades older, now middle-aged men with less hair and more weight around the middle, just like me, or middle-aged women with more wrinkles and sagging. I don’t think I’m any better than anyone else just because I left, any more than I think someone who didn’t leave is any better than I am just because they didn’t. But sometimes it helps to get some perspective.
May 4, 2007 at 11:44 pm
#187; How did Wheeler in person ‘fill in the blanks’ for you?
I realized that I am everything that I am. No more, no less.
May 4, 2007 at 11:46 pm
“You may have left the school but I don’t know if you completely outgrown the need for such a dependency. But I’m not a proffessional.”
Please, don’t be so fast to pass judgement. It is really irrelevant if I have or have not outgrown the need for such dependency because I know who I am now.
Thanks.
May 4, 2007 at 11:53 pm
“Beware of people who are willing not to be taught. This should be your first red flag.”
Hey we all got to start somewhere.
May 4, 2007 at 11:58 pm
Non-duality: no baby; no bathwater; effortless effort eff e zzzzzzzzzz
- Actually, the efforts you make are a trap that keeps you unaware of who you are. The more effort you make, the tighter the binds become. The real effort is to loosen the binds by being who you are, conciously.
May 5, 2007 at 12:37 am
#187; How did Wheeler in person ‘fill in the blanks’ for you?
Go meet him and see if he fills in your blanks.
May 5, 2007 at 1:24 am
Re Joel Friedlander author of “Body Types” running into RB but being too paranoid to even say hello–this shows you are still not outgrown the influence this man has over you.
You hide your inferiority by judging his looks (having aged, etc.) and the glib comment of interchangeability of his companions. But you hide your smallness poorly. Who are you to judge the friends of RB who are there around him, learning, as you presumably once did too.
Glad that the likes of you are are not around any longer to reduce the Fellowship to your low level of judgment…A sad statement about yourself.
Misc.
May 5, 2007 at 1:39 am
#218 Golb
Yes the snake is eating its own tail while shedding its skin.
Exlax 101, unoanimo, old dog, coot, Rabbi burns, no person, others are all angels to me right now.
What the “non-dualists” are presenting combined with the idea of “pain-body” are just what the doctor ordered for me and it does not matter one whit what anyone thinks about that.
I hope you all get what you need from wherever you get it from.
May 5, 2007 at 1:40 am
An assortment of “I’s”
Hello to Joel-I remember many meetings at the Masonic Hall on Slout in S.F. when you spoke with Linda. When I was in the FOF everyone called me Duncan because that is my name. After leaving the FOF I started a band. My partner thought it was funny to say “beam me up Scotty” (STARTREK) because I am of Scottish descent. This occurred so often that all the musicians I worked with thought it was my name and called me Scott so I grew used to it. Now after 20 some years it has become a habit.
.
Legal Action- personal legal action against RB is unlikely to have much of a possibility of success. How ever it may be possible to use the FOF legal status as a church against the currant leadership by claiming that RB and the FOF leadership have been misappropriating funds and forcing anyone who object’s to this to leave. This has some potential because there are more former members than currant. If the FOF was forced to allow a vote of all those who chose to consider themselves members of this church it may possible to elect a slate of candidates with an independent agenda. I say this because it appears that RB is a master bureaucrat. Few in the FOF have the level of being and separation to deal with him as a opponent ( CARL WERNER was an exception to this)and he has no hesitation using his position as “spiritual” guide to out maneuver any opposition. An example that comes to mind is sending Stella to EUROPE away from the FOF office that controlled the funds before evicting her. I remember the disappearance of Donald Macdonald and the lack of discussion on this “almost conscious beings” departure.
Collecting personal history is a practical tool to combat the criminal aspects of the FOF.
unfortunately to be really effective former members who were complicit in questionable activities need to write honest histories. That is if you lead meetings, counseled students, collected money and in any way promoted the FOF while having knowledge of RB’s misuse of authority, funds and sexual manipulations you need to document this and any pressures to conform to the FOF party line. These acts while in them selves not necessarily criminal in the sense of being illegal would be criminal in the objective sense and certainly would be good indications of a pattern of discrimination and misuse of the church’s legal status.
This is a challenging area of law because of the constitutional separation of church and state and special status of a church. some research into this area of law would help as even the threat of losing its exempt status as a church would be serious to the FOF and R’s postion as head “minister”. another aspect of this is that the IRS has the autority to review the FOF exempt status and assess back taxes if it finds that the FOF is in fact not a church. such a course is unlikely to recover much for individual students it would however do serious hurt to the FOF. Even a review could cause a serious inconvenience. As shallow as it sounds I find for myself that when someone does me wrong it offers some emotional satisfaction to return the favor. This is not expresessing negativity and as it is as useful to try and not identify with the emotional sense of satisfaction of exacting a revenge as the feeling of being victimized.
By the way one reason I think this was is that while a student I worked with a tax attorney ( student) and accountant selling fraudulant tax shelters in Orange county. the fraud part was in the not following up with the placement of copy machines and video games. what a mistake of course the video game market exploded and there was a lost potential for being in on the beginning of a very profitable business.
so two possibilities-
ONE a class action suit to allow former students to vote on the FOF leadership.
TWO complaints to the IRS and franchise tax board.
SCOTT DUNCAN
May 5, 2007 at 1:45 am
A storey
An esoteric student was once studying old manuscripts and after dilegent study and reflection he addressed his teacher. Master I find these confusing, some things make sense to me, other s seem confusing or foolish and yet others I cannot comphrehend at all. The master said-you show wisdom in your question because indeed this is true- there are some things meant to be understood by any reasonable student, others are only available when a teacher reveals the truth to the students. There is yet a third catagory this is what you see as the foolish things – in truth there are certain things included because any one with common sense will see that they are of interest only to fools and avoid those who find them of interest.
Scott
May 5, 2007 at 2:27 am
To Sacramento Bee (172)
There is also an interesting article on the Rick Ross site about “cult labor”. It mentions the Fellowship and articulates the notion that it is unethical to buy the wine since its employees are comprised of “cult labor”.
To Yesri Baba (160)
Thanks for your response to my question about the strange response I received from M to my simple question.
I also agree with you that communication is amazingly complex. In particular, the written word, without gestures, facial expression, tone of voice, etc., can be particularly pithy.
One can glean quite a bit about character through one’s written expressions.
For instance, “Fleeing” (203) reveals a deep cesspool of anger, angst, agitation, etc., through puerile insults and scatological references directed toward Joel.
Siddiq, in general, chooses to adopt an even and gentle tone which does not demand adherence to his opinion. He seems curious, rather open to a dialogue, as opposed to a monologue and seems receptive to ideas.
Although this discussion offers anonimity, one’s state, character, emotions, etc., clearly emanates.
Best of everything to all.
LL
May 5, 2007 at 3:22 am
From this week’s Thoughts From The Teacher:
“The Duomo in Milan is an elegant and monumental expression of the sequence.”
May 5, 2007 at 5:54 am
The Sequence,Bible Keys and Body types are an eruption from the same infected mind.
A sick imagination of MESS # 7
May 5, 2007 at 7:01 am
Hi Sheik,
re:#223,
“Believing that there is this all-powerful, all-knowing being above us, watching us play (on the word of a book), is as ridiculous as it is to believe that 44 angels guide us in our life. Equally so, believing that there was this guy 2,000 years ago (on the word of a priest) who came back to life after he was killed, is as ridiculous as it is to believe that the only conscious being on the planet is Robert Burton.”
I thought this was an interesting post. But anything can sound ridiculous when put literally. For example: money. Is it simply a mental construct? Or tradition, or love. Anything, pretty much.
The mythos of a story is where the life is, and in a way, that is why this discussion is actually important (as all such discussions are.) All of this – and really, everything in a human life – has a deep meaning. An archetypal meaning.
Also, I think that belief is as strong as anything. I remember engaging in an online ‘argument’ with a highly educated celebrated man regarding science vs religion (actually it was really science vs any other way of thinking whatsoever.) He simply could not see that he “believed” in science – the scientific method. To him it was objective reality, without any clouding of his mind or eyes. But his belief opened the doors of that reality.
In my way of thinking (having sat with Buddhists as an influence here) belief carries our Mind (Buddhist term- can it translate to soul?, awareness?) after death. Belief also carries us in life – providing meaning and direction. Sleeping dreams are a form of awareness where our deeper levels of awareness are sort of available to our awareness. I really thought it was interesting about the comment that Mr. G’s work happened before much of the very fascinating 20th c explorations on the unconscious. ‘Mind’ is a wholeness and includes our will, our habits/patterns, that which we just don’t see about ourselves, and probably much much more, like our possibilities. And ‘mind’ is so informed by belief. Really, in a person’s life it is of the most importance.
All myth has rippling deeper meanings. Like the Greek mythologies which added so much to the study of astrology, of which the ‘body types’ is a simplistic version of. The story of the fof and RB and the folks who worship him (or Believe in him) and the group, can be taken literally. But it also contains layers and layers of myth and meaning. Literal perception is formed by meaning.
You don’t believe me? Here’s an example that most everyone above the age of 25 will most likely relate to: OK, say you are you and in high school you adore someone. He or she looks REALLY GOOD, and is great and funny. God, almost perfect!! then, later, maybe after a bad kiss, or a kick in the ass, suddenly he or she doesn’t look so good. You are looking out of the same eyeballs, but the perception shifts and the eyeballs actually see differently.
The ability to entertain truth even tho, juxtaposed, it is at odds with literal truth, is a really creative talent. I think that you, sheik, have that in spades. Ever get the tingles at your connection with this group? (of course ‘group’ is exponential, and even quantum.)
I truly think it is a good practice to be respectful of other’s belief. It’s a good starting place. I guess it could be said that we are a ship of fellow fools.
If the fof falls apart from the weight of its own shadow – well, good. And, sorry – but that’s what happens. It will be a story no matter what.
May 5, 2007 at 8:29 am
Hello everyone. I’m kind of astonished at the “level” at which people are communicating. Just because you reject the FOF doesn’t mean your comments need to be so “hip”, or glib. I don’t mean to judge, but it seems like amidst all the suffering I find on this blog, there’s a good dose of false personality. It seems like a defense.
In any case — this is my 20th anniversary of departing from the FOF. I’m so sorry that things have continued to descend in the same vein as when I left, but there could be no other course when one is living so many lies. Still, I personally received things from the Fellowship that are immensely dear to me, and that I could not have received from any other place. It was an amazing place to spend my twenties. But recovery from it, took me through my thirties. I am so glad that these issues are no longer present time for me, and send my sincere sympathies to all those who are making the journey out. It is a journey worth every pain that you will go through. Because the reality of which the fellowship pretends to claim a patent really does exist. Such a shame that Robert had to twist things so. Love, Katharine
May 5, 2007 at 10:16 am
Rabbi Burns,
I used the example of reading Walt because we generally see such an activity as an acceptable form of mind activity in order to recieve some inspiration. Read a few passages using our “mind” and then put the book down,gaze around, and feel present. Yet If I choose to do the same with my own words,i.e a more personal and direct experience,it is considered a little dodgy because I am connecting to mind activity unnecessarily,rather than just attempting to be present.What if my INTENT is to affirm the authorship of my own experience , and the day ahead, and to let that resonate as long as it can for me. I think that we have become too critical and suspicious of our own “I” through being in the 4th way for so long (yet we spend all our time intellectualising about it) , are fully accepting of someone elses I’s(Walt in this case), and are holding back from taking responsibily for creating our own center of gravity around the deepest feeling of “I” that we can muster in ourselves. How long does the work I that we have no permanent “I” wash; surely once we gained the feeling that we no longer needed the school and moved on it then becomes the time to take that responsibility and start working with excercises that start to reinforce that deepest feeling of “I” or “nothing” that exists within us.Nothing is definitly something.
I am … friend
May 5, 2007 at 5:05 pm
Please Get Off Of My Pain Body (205) says to unoanimo:
“If you’re going to give legal advice, why not just say what you know, which should take about four sentences, then we, too, will have the opportunity to know what you know.”
Very good. I wonder why every so-called spiritual teacher doesn’t follow this excellent advice. Probably because “a fine living can be made….”
“I’ve got nothing against surrealistic poetry sprinkled with fanciful metaphors, but it isn’t that useful to someone thinking about bringing a lawsuit.”
Nor even, possibly, to a person in the process of awakening.
One time I tried to re-read Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson. I had struggled through it mightily and skipped over much of it the first time, so I thought I’d give it another try. I realized after a few pages that the author had a deep-seated contempt for people. He was, perhaps, the kind of person Bokonon had in mind when he wrote, “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.”
May 5, 2007 at 5:14 pm
# 239 “Miscellaneous Says:”
The newest incarnation of the FOF tag team horse shit brigade.
May 5, 2007 at 5:30 pm
Dear Katherine and others
Thanks, people will leave when it is their time.
If things could be different they would.
Words…mind activity..
Truth is maybe in the moment a truth. The next moment it can be completely different lie the sun disappearing behind the clouds. The sun is still there.
Love to all of you and thanks for this blog.
May 5, 2007 at 5:54 pm
Moon Angel: Could you please write all your reactions in one comment? It is kind of painful to have to read 5 or 6 consecutive comments from the same person, especially if they are all 2 or 3 lines long. We all try to keep this forum as easy to read as we can.
Cake Please: Have you ever heard of Eddie Izzard and his famous cake or death joke?
You-me-us-they (227): I am sorry, I find it incredibly difficult to explain myself.
I guess that going through the many transitions in the FoF (and the changes in the teaching) will show you that you are capable of believing anything. 30 years ago you believed in this, today you believe in that. Has the strength of your beliefs changed? I doubt it, you just believe in different things with equal passion. Most people identify with their beliefs quite strongly – hence why the FoFers will defend their group to the last drop of blood and why the non-dualists repeat the same thoughts nonstop.
From personal experience I know that I am capable of believing any old nonsense, I am even capable of defending that nonsense as if my life depended on it. I have learnt though that many of my and other peoples’ beliefs are either wrong, untrue, or unverifiable. I therefore try to view them in this light (ie. nothing is set in stone) rather than to believe things wholeheartedly and be incapable of seeing the other sides and the other ways of viewing it.
The experiment I was talking about with consciously changing your beliefs is an exercise with the aim of proving to you without any doubt that you too are capable of believing any old nonsense, which may make you question how many of the things you take for certain are actually true. It’s quite smart of the FoF to demand devotion to the teaching and the avoidance of other teachings in order for the student not to have the opportunity to question his beliefs.
I brought up the name of Robert Anton Wilson because he was undoubtedly one of the biggest promoters of smart, intelligent, and ever-questioning spirituality. He didn’t limit himself to any one teaching and his knowledge of different belief systems (including a deep understanding of Gurdjieff’s Fourth Way) made him able to figure out just how much of the things we believe in are a lot of old toot.
I especially recommend his book ‘Prometheus Rising’, which explains some of the ideas I have been writing about in much more detail, and in a way that is far easier to understand. If you are interested, send me an e-mail.
Alice in Wonderlust (246): Great post. You are so correct about the scientist and his belief in science. Very often people mistake science for objectivity and truth (forgetting some of the scientific truths that no longer hold).
I also think that it’s a good thing to respect other peoples’ beliefs (including the FoF). But I disagree that belief carries you far, or that it gives (true) meaning to your life. I think that that’s a part of the illusion.
May 5, 2007 at 6:39 pm
To the Sheik,
You say “Don’t forget that anyone has access to any information posted on the blog and that there are no copyrights”
Does that mean that any blog material can be taken and used in another blog legally? It is what it sounds but I just want to be very clear. Also in terms of thinking of accessing other sites offered here.
May 5, 2007 at 7:00 pm
Sheik,
Great last post on belief systems…but now you have me afraid to say what I was going to say.I tried to work within the 4th way belief system for 15 years(mostly coloured by the Burton belief system) after falling out of belief with the religious beliefs that I was raised in. I now find out that no actual historians of those times ever made any reference to a guy called Christ or any of the characters out of the new testiment other than Pilate,and although I’m not denying that there is a possibility that the guy existed ,I now see it as more a tool for manipulating the masses.I also see the need for the majority of incarnational experiences(now there is a belief system) to have the structure and belief of a deity outside of themselves..mostly because they have emerged from the initial incarnational experiences(there it is again) which are completely body identified and interested only in physical survival and experience.Then you have the minority cults such as FOF who cater to the lower to mid advanced incarnates who are starting to question the placement of divinity outside of themselves and yet can’t fully own it yet so must work with a system based on verification but still have an outside deity who has been there before. Their major work is now recognising the spark of higher self(belief system) that has been directing all these experiences,gradually strengthening this thread until awakening in the final incarnation and thus exiting the game to rejoin higher self and then to move on to the next level of existance and so forth.
So does it matter that I have just dumped my working premise out for all to see.I have no doubt that this premise is going to change.It,s happening exponentially .I have met so many different premises since the relative but necessary stagnation of the second half of my time in the fellowship,and each one is gradually refining my picture that is ultimately judged by a small twinge inside that says “that feels right”, and of course this is diffrent from everyone elses picture because evrey higher self is unique also.There are many many levels until we all return the source.
A very good source of information on the effect of belief systems is Robert Monroe who did alot experimentation with OBE and was a pretty neutral source in terms of belief systems.
Now before I run away and hide my head in shame for so having exposed myself(not just for the bad spelling that has occurred in my posts),I’ll relate one experience that happened to me when I attended the Monroe institute for their Gateway program about 3 years ago. The monroe institute uses what they call hemisync ,which is diferent audible sound waves applied to each ear which create a resultant unified “product” sound wave in the brain and helps to connect the two hemishperes together.Much of your time there is spent in private booths listening to different tapes that they have found to produce different states of consciousness.Too involved to go into deeply but during one of these sessions which involved some guided immagery to take you to a certain “place” and then left you to experience whatever came,I was suddenly met by a person whos presence shocked me to the core.This person I suddenly remembered as having been the one who had repeatedly been in my dreams as an early child, someone who I had had an incredible sence of love for(there was never a face)and who I hadn’t thought about for 35 years.Her words to me were ” It’s alright, You’re doing fine, I’ll be here when you get back”.
At this point I had this sudden vision of looking down on the earth ,and the distinct memory of having made the choice to go down there and experience it. Having a sudden surge of emotion I jumped out of my booth and went outside so that I could express myself freely so to speak.Afterwards I sought out one of the facilitators and related the story to her and asked her “was it real”. She said “Does it matter”.
So here I have an experience which totally colours future information that comes to me and yes I do pick out those bits that support my experience,or belief of my experience,until the next overiding experience comes my way.It doesn’t matter much that I keep working and refining these different premises if I also hold in my mind that it is a constantly changing thing.
thanks
May 5, 2007 at 7:04 pm
coot #207:
You tickle the baby and pour bathwater on the abandoned garden.
Namaste baby!
May 5, 2007 at 7:11 pm
One of the main things this blog successfully did and keeps doing – is exposing lies and dishonesty at the base of FOF. It’s shocking to realize how many lies small and big were deliberately fed to us by the teacher, and how amazingly we managed to buffer them or call them something else – but not lies. He started FOF with dishonesty, supported it with lies and false statements and continues to BS people now with more unproved lies. FOF still uses dishonest techniques to recruit new members, conceals the real state of affairs from existing members, distracting them from seeing that the leader is immersed in lust, greed, decadence and abuse of power. As a “church” we should be well informed about what’s going on in our church that we support, right? And majority of us were too afraid ( and too brain washed) to ask questions or admit to ourselves that the emperor has no clothes. After all there are so many beautiful things around and nice smiling friends and lovely experiences to focus on – why rock the boat? Just look at the flowes, do the sequence… We all know what happens to those who ask questions…
It’s funny how many similarities I see between FOF and old Soviet Union, where I was born and raised. Saturated with propaganda, a state based on false promises, corrupted, full of fear, empoverished, constantly blaming and negatively labelling the world “outside” – “us” and “them” – the whole system was based on supressing free flow of information and using lies to cover up greed, excess and decadance of the leaders. What’s interesting that so many soviet people actually believed that we were the “luckiest in the world”. My poor mom, who in her whole life never had a chance to travel abroad (it was not allowed for regular soviet people back then) sincerely told us kids: “You are incredibly lucky to be born in Soviet Union. This is the best place on Earth, where you can have great life”. She really believed it, in spite of the fact that we were poor, there were always long lines for food and clothes, and no one could speak their minds sincerely in fear to be prosecuted or listen to the Western music you wanted to listen.
It turned out later that USSR was actually one of the worst places to be, with very limited opportunities for professional and spiritual growth – but we couldn’t know it until later, when the cage collapsed and the gates finally opened. It all ended surprisingly quickly when the truth got exposed during Perestroyka, people were suddenly able to talk freely and see what’s really “out there”. The monster state lasted for 70 years, and it felt pretty real, but then it rapidly vanished and got removed and replaced – like an old theater stage set with all it’s red flags, bronze Lenins and meaningless red-and-white slogans.
The lie can only exist until it’s fully exposed. Then it looses it’s power, it’s hypnotic potency. Lie needs to be believed in, it needs constant support, cover-up, distraction.
The truth stands by itself and needs no defense but it does take some courage to see it and listen to your own conscience, especially if the crowd around you is chanting and praising the naked emperor.
Thank you Sheik, for providing the space, and thank you all the contributors for exposing the “other side” of FOF.
May 5, 2007 at 7:11 pm
Hi BBWolf (248),
Thanks for clarifying. I’ll attempt a response:
To me it’s a fact that the “I”s are not real, and that in this sense “I” don’t exist. It’s also clear that we are awareness only. That’s all there is to it really.
There is no other reality than awareness in this moment. The past and future only exist as mental constructs. So making efforts to achieve something in the future is nonsensical. This is it!
Everything just happens.
We can only “awaken” in this moment.
Walt Whitman expresses this much better than I can.
But looking at it in a slightly less “pure” way, maybe there are in fact some useful exrecises. One might for example spend some time looking within to see if there is anyone there. If one looks and looks one will most likely eventually see, at which point it all becomes non-theoretical.
You say: “How long does the work I that we have no permanent “I” wash?”
I totally agree. Having an I about it doesn’t help at all, even if it’s true.
“Then becomes the time to start working with excercises that start to reinforce that deepest feeling of “I” or “nothing” that exists within us.”
Exactly. But bear in mind that paradoxically nothing needs to happen. We’re already there.
“Past mind can’t be grasped, present mind can’t be grasped, future mind can’t be grasped.”
The Diamond Cutter Scripture
best regards, RB
May 5, 2007 at 8:48 pm
Reply to Post #249
“I’ve got nothing against surrealistic poetry sprinkled with fanciful metaphors, but it isn’t that useful to someone thinking about bringing a lawsuit.”
_________________________________________
LOL… Then my friends, its time for you to visit Amazon.com or Ebay and type in the words ‘Case Book’, particularly the case books dealing with civil disputes, that is, everyday people who sue one another…
In there you will find some of the most startling fusions of common sense and surrealistic endeavoring on this planet.
If Dali ever ran out of ‘his own material’, there are two books I would send him, one on Civil Case Studies, the other, a copy of this blog.
Come on lovers, do you really think that giving law advice is so serious? If you re-read my post I believe you’ll find the advice not so obscured by ’spice’ as you seem convinced it is. I like to have fun with ’serious’ stuff, otherwise we’ll never get off this little planet with any real love.
Am I being sarcastic or indifferent, transcendental or egotistical? I really do not see it as this…Sure, I write mainly for my own unfolding, though this does not mean I live in a house of mirrors. I like you guys, your questions & comments rake the bottom of my barrel, yet, please be sincere with yourselves and not so ‘formal’ when it comes to law or law advice.
Law is not as serious as one’s pain body would like to believe it to be…It is mostly a patriarchal monolith that pales religion by its now-power of finality and make shift introductions to uninstructed consciences, who wily nilly blink off and on throughout the court proceedings.
See, the Court is the symbolic giver of Heaven and Hell, here on Earth for real-time-pain-bodies, whereas religion is the symbolic giver of the same for the daydreaming-not-caught-yet-pain bodies…
So its serious stuff for those still wrapped up in the this-that drama down here; cocoons were made for walking, not talking.
Lighten up a little, Law is only as serious and heavy as your true relationship to your conscience is…
You can learn allot about the incredible human being by watching how they ‘change’ in the midst of a Judge, Jury or a Lawyer giving advice to a ‘Know It All’.
Truly, it is similar to hypnotism, the entirety of the person changes in regard to the proximity of this external phenomenon, similar to movie stars, church service, etc.
Cheers, here’s to being the same person everywhere you go, no matter what external proximity gains your automatic utmost to make it more important than your internal proximity.
Love to you all.
May 5, 2007 at 9:27 pm
Hi all, if anyone is interested to continue this interesting discussion that is taking so many pages a google group was just created the address is:
http://groups.google.com/group/fellowship-of-friends
Enjoy
May 5, 2007 at 9:32 pm
Re #236–Moon Angel wrote: “Beware of people who are willing not to be taught. This should be your first red flag.” and states: “Hey we all got to start somewhere.”
To me this is very appropriate. Until probably all of us on this Blog came across the idea that we could be actually present to our life, in a new way with divided attention, we simply did not know. And yes, we had to be shown that we could be present somehow. It is easy to forget this.
We can miss the most obvious, what is in front of our nose!
Good luck to all.
Siddiq
May 5, 2007 at 9:35 pm
To the Esoteric Sheik of Inner Confusion 252
When given the choice “Cake or Death”
Always say. “Cake please”
Much thanks to Eddie and to you too.
Best to all
Cake
May 5, 2007 at 9:52 pm
Reading this blog has been a very visceral and emotional experience for me, which I am grateful to transform into presence, for I live the work every day of my existence. When reading it I perspire heavily. In the past week since I was informed of it and dived in, I have had many instances of energy shooting down my sides, and I am moved to tears several times a day when I reflect upon what I experienced in the FOF. Yet the sheer energy contained in this blog, both raw and refined is quite impressive as I am sure the venerable sheik and knight will agree, and I cannot stop reading it. I find myself hoping of recognize my story, only to realize that it is not there because I have not told it.
I want to be clear that I do not wish to be part of any lawsuit against RB or the FOF. I am not motivated by any hope of financial gain, nor am I willing to join a crusade to end the FOF. It will undoubtedly collapse under its own excesses, or not, I could care less. Each person, in or out, must choose for themselves, which I believe is one of the reasons this blog is so valuable. I have built a comfortable, happy life and successful business post-FOF for myself and my family which I wish to protect. I ask anyone whom may recognize my identity to please respect my privacy and keep my name anonymous. Although current FOF members may wish to argue that in divulging my story I have violated the personal privacy of RB, that his public life is distinctly separate from his private life. My response is this: when a teacher brings his student into his private life and uses “work” language in his seduction, that distinction is gone. For each of us, no matter how long we have contact with the FOF; it is and will be a deeply moving and personal experience, not because of the man, but of the possibilites of growth within each of us.
To Golb:
Now that your tail is out of your mouth, you glibly strike at this blog-my air, at the children, and at me? You have no idea who I am and what I have been through, Golb, whatever the heck that name is supposed to mean. I am WhaleRider. I have ridden the BIG FISH into the deepest, darkest, coldest depths until my lungs have screamed for air, my soul choking in my throat, and I have survived. I let myself be swallowed whole, have kept myself intact, had my semen drained nightly by a sex maniac who gave the most wondrous, intentional, conscious blowjobs, had my essence gouged open as I lay resting on the Goethe Academy floor as a human shield for the precious artwork, the lights left on the LeBrun all night to keep my exhausted body in first-state deprivation, my king of clubs bound and gagged, unable to protect me from this terrible angel who would rouse me and lead me secretly, stealthily into the dark of his gilded bed-chamber to service his need for the good of us all, in this school of “shut up and be present”, this silk-lined labyrinth of luxury complete with the matching salt and pepper shakers, where I puke out his semen in the imported porcelain toilet along with the fine wine and pepper steak from the teaching dinner earlier that night and wipe my face on the Egyptian cotton towel just before I’d retire until dawn cracks open another day and he slumbers peacefully until lunch dreaming of sugar plums because they remind him of testicles…while the rest of us toiled in the searing hot sun the next day still weary from our lunatic efforts the day and night before…not once was I told that I was loved in this school of love, but he loved when I returned the favor-only to have to excrete myself one year later, quietly leaving in a gentleman-like fashion, not making a splash, barely a ripple, so as not to disturb anyone else who might be sleeping…to remain alive, and carry out my prophesized soul death sentence as a life-person-oh yeah, that’s right, there was no gun to my head…but thankfully his predictions don’t come true either, do they?
And Howard, Girard, Golden Fleecer, the brave-new-man and miscellaneous moon angels…with your eloquent tongues and trite, text-book explanations for our suffering…I have seen 50 like you dis-“membered” by the insatiable Minotaur at the center of this perpetual labyrinth you call haven, home, Isis… do you have the balls to hear the truth?…the graphic truth?… the painful truth? The truth I paid for with my own hydrogen 12? Do know why he calls himself a goddess? You think an angel told him. Did you know the prostrate gland is the male G-spot? He would orgasm from anal sex without any penal stimulus, and think he had awakened his female side, just as a woman does during anal sex without ever touching the clitoris… He taught me that, he’s such an elevated and exalted teacher! Look it up on the internet, or better yet, try it for yourself sometime…
And can you even FATHOM the nauseating, soul imploding disgust I felt the night he did “rimming” on me, without my consent, and then brought his fecal coated lips to mine and kissed me? Try separating from that. The Darvons he used to hand out were not enough to quench the pain, for this pain is exquisite and it leaves no visible marks! Think of me the next time he kisses your forehead…once those lips had been planted firmly on my asshole and probably countless others from all corners of the planet. And that’s the ultimate of all ironies; he kisses your third eye with those lips, coating the seat of your very soul with fecal matter from the seat of his inner circle. Please, by all means, stay in the Fellowship as long as you like! Stand by him! Support him! Bring him fresh new, exotic meat, he’s HUNGRY! Or if you like, have a look down the escape hatch he had installed in his closet just in case C-influence happened to be on vacation and he read the tea leaves wrong. Then you will know the darkness that resides under that silk suit. You might want to have your own plan B just in case the Earl has run out of man number five party hats that you have been so patiently waiting for him to bestow upon you…
WhaleRider
1979-1985
May 5, 2007 at 10:23 pm
My e-mail now is ludoteka@succeed.net
May 5, 2007 at 11:36 pm
Ames (#228): I never made it through Beelzebub — not even close. But your post was so interesting it had me wishing that I had. Then I read Cathie’s post (#249), in which she said, “I realized after a few pages that the author had a deep-seated contempt for people.” I think this gets more to the heart of why I never made it very far in the book. When I purged the 4th Way from myself, I tore up almost all my “workbooks” in a burst of catharsis. I got particular satisfaction ripping up Beelzebub — I remember thinking, “This is the worst book ever written!” at the time.
#239 Miscellaneous says:
“You hide your inferiority by judging his looks (having aged, etc.) and the glib comment of interchangeability of his companions. But you hide your smallness poorly. Who are you to judge the friends of RB who are there around him, learning, as you presumably once did too.
Glad that the likes of you are are not around any longer to reduce the Fellowship to your low level of judgment…A sad statement about yourself.”
Wow. You’re “photographing” Joel for judgment? Pot, Kettle, Black?
May 6, 2007 at 12:13 am
#248 BBWolf
I may be confused, but what you are describing is what i understand to be what the “non-dual” idea is. To keep coming back as often as possible. To look into the source of ego, mind, body, whatever and see it all as arising from I am. All that arises even the most automatic is still part of us.
May 6, 2007 at 12:49 am
252
“Moon Angel: Could you please write all your reactions in one comment?”
Okay Sheik, sorry to bug you.
“228 From “In Search…” p. 256 onwards: “But it must again be remembered that only a person who is completely normal as regards sex has any chance in the work. Any kind of ‘originality’, strange tastes, strange desires, or, on the other hand, fears, constantly working ‘buffers’, must be destroyed from the very beginning. Modern education and modern life produce an enormous number of sexual psychopaths. They have no chance at all in the work.” And so on, to the end of chapter 12. Please, if you have the time, read once more every one of these relevant words, and maybe make the connections to “Living the Questions” post (#7-363).”
Wow what a post…no wonder why they don’t use G and O anymore.
“…and if this is all irrelevant because the FOF is no longer a place to study the Fourth Way—quit advertising yourselves as such (starting with the bookmarks and website). Be honest, and call it by a truer name—the Church of Robert Burton.”
Hey they are just using it as bait. R claims the sequence and the knowledge of the Egyptians and other ancients is simpler and more direct that G and O. They are hoping to attract magnetic centers that are attracted to G and O and then get them to become customers…oops I means students of the business…oops school.
I have noticed that this blog seems to have become an arena for competing to produce the most intelligent/entertaining/or provocative angles.
Can only good writers, whits and provocateurs be good spirituality?
May 6, 2007 at 12:58 am
Dear Sheik
re#252
“I also think that it’s a good thing to respect other peoples’ beliefs (including the FoF). But I disagree that belief carries you far, or that it gives (true) meaning to your life. I think that that’s a part of the illusion.”
You might be right about it being part of the illusion. But, then again, illusion goes pretty deep. I’m not a scientist but I have a friend who studies and teaches quantum physics and is good explaining to lay folks. It seems that the very basis of material existence is questioned. Particles flicker in and out of what we call existence, and can be at two places at the same moment. I just get the picture that matter somehow clings to a non-corporeal. Spirit. Mind. Awareness.
Then too, the brain is simply an organ in the body. Sensory perception and language are products of this organ and can be changed with changes to that organ. Awareness can be impacted (ever been under general anesthesia? Drugs?) what is left? Is there some essence? Is it individual, collective, both?
I think belief underlies attitudes. Someone asked me some time ago if I had faith in anything. Its just not a word I use. So I pondered and sat with it for a while and came up with this: (and, I apologize because this is going to sound seriously sappy) I believe in possibilities. Actually very different from dogma and I get the heebie-jeebies in the face of rigid dogma (pre-determined belief structures.) So attitudes impact perception and belief structures attitudes (in my way of looking at things) which implies that we have beliefs that we are not aware of but which lead us, and open doors of perception.
So I agree that belief can’t carry one ‘far’ – it doesn’t seem to be a direct tool in our control. But I do think that the personal exploration of one’s hidden beliefs can carry one deep – a decent place to loosen bonds of illusion.
May 6, 2007 at 1:20 am
Joining the fray once more, hopefully to add a note of perspective that as far as I can tell, and from my knowledge of some of the posters here, there is no “tag team” of FOFers trying to undermine the blog. Why bother! The extreme opinions of some former FOFers make sure that everyone knows it ain’t better “out there…”
I agree with Laughing Matter on this point, the true voice of the person blogging somehow comes through, it must get out, and it shows a lot about where we are at! Bruce’s posts for example are so angry, I wonder if he has learned anything in all these years since the FOF! Some people unfortunately can only respond with extreme negative emotions.
This entire blog has somehow made it seem that it is OK to just vent as much as one wants against the FOF, without regard for the truth and falsity of the accusations (Helena is a case in point–she is wildly flinging around whatever comes into her head).
I believe we are FREE to create the experience we wish in it, and of course outside it. If we choose to remain bound by these chains of emotions, good or bad, we are ending up enslaved. Who wants that? I guess perhaps too many of us! I do not yet see the FOF accurately or adequately described in this blog–if this is the love affair for so many that once was beautiful–why try to detract so much? And the funny part is, it does not work!
So I choose to remain Wild & Free!
PS to Esoteric Bullshit-why condemn the sequence with unreserved hostility? This is not something RB or the FOF “invented”-it has an old tradition, going back thousands of years. Why judge what you do not readily accept in your life? No one is forcing you to! Keep an open mind. There is a lot to it–the loss of course is entirely your own.
May 6, 2007 at 1:51 am
“I’m kind of astonished at the “level” at which people are communicating.”
Sad, but true Katherine. Seems False Personality has won over True Personality here.
“Just because you reject the FOF doesn’t mean your comments need to be so “hip”, or glib.”
Right on. Comments need to be as devoid of ANY personality what-so-ever.
“Still, I personally received things from the Fellowship that are immensely dear to me…”
Uh, you mean like “Photographing” people, right?
May 6, 2007 at 9:34 am
This made me wondering how the Sheik for himself reconciles his last statement in post #252 that it is a “good thing to respect the beliefs of others” with the many, many posts in which he has openly shown disrespect for the Fellowship, ridiculed it, judged and labeled it/put down current members and the ideas that are followed.
Perhaps he does not see this as a contradiction–it strikes me as one. I am posting about it because it seems often there are blinders on where it concerns our very own statements, made in different moods, at different times, etc. If we could all see them at the same time, we would possibly be horrified by the contradictions!
It is not that they are “bad” or that it is bad to have contradictions. But they do point to a nature that lacks unity, is not consistent, permanent, qualities some of us are seeking to acquire. If we are only tolerant some of the time, our tolerance is worth but little. If we can be tolerant all the time, then it means something.
In the system we have the understanding (idea) that we are many “I’s”–they all say “I” this and “I” that–frequently contradictory. Perhaps this is an idea he can verify at this stage.
It therefore is not bad in and of itself, just a sign of sleep, and a reason why some believe that they need a school, and school work.
As you should have gathered from many posts, the Fourth Way is not about belief but about verification. There is a place for some belief, but this is more subtle and definately not anything religious, or blind in nature.
Best to All,
Siddiq
May 6, 2007 at 1:13 pm
Moon Angel #235, I apologize If my post offended you; I thought the highlighting of the ‘approval aspect’ in the dream may reveal something that you, me & many of us can learn from.
#234 & #238,
Moon Angel #187 writes “When I read John’s (Wheeler) books I couldn’t quite tell the exact nature of what he was trying to share” & “in person his being…’fill in the blanks’”.
That’s exactly what I hear from people who continue to go to RB’s outrageously expensive meetings & dinners. It goes something like this: “I don’t understand his reasoning, his jumble of metaphors & references is confusing, but he ‘fills in blanks’ with his ‘presence’ & ‘being’ & ‘consciousness’. I’m inspired”.
And that’s from grownups, highly educated & otherwise intelligent. Is it a virus that affects the brain that’s going on?
dear Yesri Baba #240; If you got to go non-dualistic on us, go ahead. But please don’t leave your wonderful mind at the door of the religious sentiment.
I sometimes am moved by religious stories (such as your ‘footprint’ story), but overall I find the various God speculations nonsensical, empty & infantile, (whether the image of God is abstracted as ‘consciousness’ or a cadre of 44 or whether he is the white bearded one). Can the sentiments that are behind that need be answered in mature & intelligent ways?
And if you go non-dualistic please check out the superb world philosophical texts before warming too much to the shallow popular junk; most serious thinkers tried intelligently and poetically as well (not only intellectually) to deal with the ‘problem’ of apparent duality (substance vs. appearence, etc). Many of them came to very elegant sort of non- dual solutions that can fill the heart & mind, & not with junk-food.
But long live our guilty pleasures of laziness and our cute & necessary damness the witch doctors promote, as long as we don’t throw our ‘god given’ mind with the bathwater of too much effort.
May 6, 2007 at 2:15 pm
Ames,
I appreciate your postings and reading recommendations very much, thank you.
Allow me to ask you a question: How do you understand the 3 lines of 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?
Or do they change their nature somewhat when we leave schoolwork organized by others?
May 6, 2007 at 3:41 pm
Siddiq (260): Don’t forget that a lot of people here have had varied and extensive experience with being present. Many have dismissed the ‘higher’ state and given their reasons in a quite a lot of detail. I don’t feel that lecturing on the relevance/importance of being present is appropriate. I am intrigued though, have you studied the notion of being present (and the exercises taught) from the perspective of zen buddhism and sufism?
Alice in Wonderlust (267): Quantum physics really does not prove all that much. It proves that we don’t understand how things work (we never did previously, so why should that surprise us?), instead it brings the concept of particles acting randomly (not exactly being at two places at the same time). The other idea quantum physics brings is that there can be instant communication between two unconnected particles (ie. between cells in a human body). Both of these observations are interesting but do not prove anything that would be relevant to the discussion, ie. they do not give scientific proof to spirituality, mysticism, or what have you.
We have beliefs that we are not aware of but which lead us, and open doors of perception.
I think that all beliefs are probably conditioned, I am not certain of it, but at the moment it seems most logical. If it is so, then they have very little ‘reality’ to offer. The only real thing (and here I will have to agree with the non-dualists) seems to be consciousness.
Siddiq (270): It’s good to see that it took you 12 hours to come up with a reply to my comment from the time you commented on Moon Angel’s comment. At least you get to practice your brain cells as well as your higher states.
It is not that they are “bad” or that it is bad to have contradictions. But they do point to a nature that lacks unity, is not consistent, permanent, qualities some of us are seeking to acquire. If we are only tolerant some of the time, our tolerance is worth but little. If we can be tolerant all the time, then it means something.
You are searching for a dream, my friend, no one is tolerant all the time. One of the biggest dangers in the journey is to seek something that does not exist. It is possible to act as if you were consistent, permanent and in unity all the time but you will soon find out (whether from personal experience or from watching those who claim to be such) that it is impossible, ie. the illusion will crumble and you will understand that inconsistency is an unavoidable human trait (not only of those who are asleep). Do you think that RB is consistent and in unity? Seriously, man, do you?
On belief.
Believing in many I’s and in the concept of sleep is a belief. Beliving that RB is the only awakened being is a belief. Believing that everyone who does not work on themselves through the FoF is asleep and food for the moon is a belief. Believing in the C influence is a belief. Beliving in the importance of coincidences is a belief. Beliving that higher states can become permanent is a belief. Beliving that the Teacher does not answer to morality and ethics is a belief. Believing that the so-called ‘higher states’ are the only non-ordinary state of consciousness worth exploring is a belief. Believing that Gurdjieff and Ouspensky had the answers is a belief.
As you should have gathered from many posts, the Fourth Way is not about belief but about verification.
Yes, Siddiq, obviously. Hmmm, you still don’t get it, do you? Whether you back your beliefs through verification (you are capable of verifying anything, however foolish it may be), through authority (Gurdjieff started the Fourth Way so he must have the answers, Ouspensky was his disciple so he must have the answers, RB is an awakened being so he must have the answers), or through whatever other means, your beliefs keep on being what they are, they do not change to being the truth.
And, to take a little poke at the FoF, how much of the FoF teachings are Fourth Way? (ie. sequence, prehistoric,…)
May 6, 2007 at 4:20 pm
Elena (253): Does that mean that any blog material can be taken and used in another blog legally? It is what it sounds but I just want to be very clear. Also in terms of thinking of accessing other sites offered here.
As far as I know, yes.
May 6, 2007 at 4:59 pm
FOR EVERYBODY
Seeking is such a dramatic game that Life plays with itself. Seeking to fill that empty hole in ‘my life’ which seems so painful. Seeking for some kind of permanent security or satisfaction. Hoping that ‘one day I will find what I’m looking for’.
Whatever is, right now, never seems to be enough.
This is the end of hope. The end of seeking. The end of the assumption that there is a ’someone’ who can find something. This is the end of pretending to look for that which has never been anywhere but right here. Nothing to look for, nothing to find. The end of pretending to know or trying to know. This is absolute not-knowing. Forever falling in absolute insecurity. This is what I am. I am what you are. Life itself.
This is the expression of Life, directly as it is.
I AM LIFE ITSELF
Life is. There is no one living it. It is not ‘my life’. There is no ‘me’ that lives. But I am Life. This ‘I’ is not a personalised ‘me’. It is not an assumed separate person. This ‘I’ is all that is. It is Life itself.
That I am Life itself, is known. This knowing goes beyond knowledge and intellect. This knowing is a knowing beyond experience, beyond thought or emotion. Knowing in not knowing. I don’t know how I know, except that, I am. As this knowing of what I am, the character goes on playing the game of being a character in a play. The play is no longer taken seriously, but still everything can and does happen. It is simply known that whatever happens does not happen ‘to me’. It simply happens.
These words are not pointing to anything new. In fact what is being expressed here is timeless. It has always been known. It is known. It is most familiar and ordinary. It is what I am.
May 6, 2007 at 5:04 pm
WhaleRider #262: An old angle from RB in reference to drug abuse was that the human body can take a lot of abuse.
Evidently the psychic body can also take a lot of abuse. I couldnt place a period at the end of your post if my life depended on it.
While reading your post I was slowly becoming speechless (loss of mind activity). After I finished reading, I looked up and read from a T-shirt I use for a slip cover. It promotes Jack Daniel’s Distillery.
“Every day we make it
we’ll make it
the best we can.”
Retort-distillation. And may you have the best outcome every day.
May 6, 2007 at 5:10 pm
Rabbi Burns @ Yesri Baba
Your replies were much appreciated,
Thanks
May 6, 2007 at 6:53 pm
Dear Whale Rider,
Thank you for your courage in sharing this nightmare of a story. How anyone with the awareness of this kind of thing can continue to have any affliation with RB or the FOF is beyond me. I feel outrage for you and the others who were subjected to this depraved behavior and especially as he uses the pretense of spirituality to support it. I only wish more men would speak out. Enough of these personal stories might begin to build a momentum that could put a stop to this obscenity.
May 6, 2007 at 7:04 pm
#268 “Bruce’s posts for example are so angry, I wonder if he has learned anything in all these years since the FOF! Some people unfortunately can only respond with extreme negative emotions.”
I think you’re reading into my statements what you want to see to reinforce your own beliefs. I state what I see, no more, no less. Don’t mistake it for anger. I have never enjoyed my life as much as I am presently. I value where I’ve been, I love where I am going. I wouldn’t change anything in my past, but at the same time shit is shit, and I’ll continue to call it thus. Mistaking that for anger is “your” choice. That’s too easy a buffer, unless that’s what’s needed to make you feel better about your own choices.
May 6, 2007 at 7:50 pm
There is a very tricky thing about verification. It comes through our subjective filters and is dependent on things like belief, cultural, national and racial identification, religious background (or lack of), education, economic circumstances, social circles, peer pressure, who we admire and trust, and a longer list not touched on here.
Of course I can verify that if I drop an iron on my foot it will hurt, but where less tangible things are concerned, it gets tricky.
I’ve concluded that the best I can do in the way of verification is to have a current working model that well . . . works. It won’t work forever because I grow and change, learn new things, expand the limits of my understanding, see the fallacies in my beliefs, have old bubbles popped and create new ones, etc.
A current working model is a really good thing to have. It provides a container and a structure from which to learn and explore. After a period of sincere learning and exploration, that model’s limits may be reached and another one may replace it. This isn’t failure or inconsistency. This is growth.
May 6, 2007 at 7:52 pm
Siddiq (270): “As you should have gathered from many posts, the Fourth Way is not about belief but about verification. There is a place for some belief, but this is more subtle and definitely not anything religious, or blind in nature.”
Gosh, this post is so typical of the FOF. It sounds so reasonable, but when you look a little closely it contains so much deception.
Siddiq is trying to defend the FOF by equating it with the 4th Way, which as we all know has been more or less completely abandoned by the other RB.
There are aspects of the 4th Way that can be verified and verification is indeed emphasized by G. and O., but the FOF is now a long way from this. There is almost nothing in the FOF teaching that is susceptible to verification. How do you verify that the FOF is the only real school, that you might awaken one or two lifetimes hence, that the sequence was developed in pre-historic times, etc., etc.?
What can be verified within the FOF framework? That making efforts to be present by using eg the sequence produces short periods of heightened awareness. That the “I”s are not real. Maybe a couple of other things. Yes, this is not nothing. But other spiritual teachings can take you a lot further than 30 seconds of presence a few times a day.
The rest of FOF teaching is dependant on belief. For example, you believe that Robert is conscious so you believe everything he says. You abandon common sense and conscience. After a few years you become a Grade A true believer. Eventually you might acquire the smooth style of the professional liar, as Siddiq.
“He adds frost to snow” Hsueh Tou
sadly, RB
May 6, 2007 at 8:12 pm
I’m going to use some of your posts in the scrapbook of the Fellowship. I’m mostly interested in extracting personal stories and information so that anyone looking for Fellowship data can take a look without having to indulge in the personal discussions on this blog which serve another purpose, not at all useless. In them, the questioning we continue to do on each other is a process of refinement. If anyone of you does not wish me to use your post, I will be glad to not do so. Please e-mail me at ludoteka@suceed.net
Thank you WhaleRider, Ames and everybody else, for your posts.
We each did what we did in the fellowship and taking responsibility for our personal actions does not mean that the Fellowship as a whole is not also responsible for promoting situations in which people are used and abused, probably those in high places, more dramatically so than others. This is the deep questioning that I am willing to continue.
In the same vein, the fact that I love my husband and the Fellowship, (and I do not care wether you believe that or not), does not mean that I am willing to condone the way in which he has been damaged and has helped support Robert blindly with both his strengths and weaknesses. Neither he, Robert or the Fellowship can continue unquestioned if any healing is to take place in the individual and overall process.
Unoanimo, your information on courts was cooling and I am appreciating much better where you’re coming from. The bigger view is as necessary as the magnifying glass. I have been definitely confused enough to take a blow at anyone and everything and while I am happy to apologize for that, what is valid about what I am saying continues to be there and it is mainly that it is not the young men, blown up by Robert that are only being hurt, it is all of us in different degrees, in as much as we are being asked to close our eyes to Robert’s and the Fellowship’s very questionable “Forms” in almost all areas: Money, sex, children, old people, friendship, idolatry, intellectual and emotional programming, conditioned behavior, cult.
The inability of people to assume social responsabilities is not consciousness. The “me, me, me” attitude is just selfishness, not self remembering or presence. The reinforcement of such attitude is what is so dangerous about what is happening in the Fellowship and I am not willing to respect that. It goes way beyond people’s beliefs.
May 6, 2007 at 8:58 pm
Miles B., where are you?
We know that for quite some time before you left the FOF you counseled many young men who had been victimized by Robert’s predatory behavior. Did you confronted Robert about this. What did he say? What is the full story? We have read on this blog various bogus justifications he gave to people, such as “Higher Forces want you to externally consider your teacher,” etc. But of course he has never come out publicly, as far as I am aware, admitting what he was doing and giving a full explanation for his “reasons.” Undoubtedly he knows that to honestly do so would destroy his last shred of credibility. I think that that it would help many people, current and former students, if Robert’s motivations for his behavior, in his own words, were given maximum exposure. For anyone with a lick of common sense it will be the equivalent of seeing the emperor parading down the street without any clothes.
Miles, this blog is being very widely read, and I have no doubt that a detailed statement by you about what he did to these young men and what he said to you when you confronted him (if you did) would be of great interest and would be circulated widely. I understand that you probably want to put all of this behind you. But obviously you really wanted to help these men, and I think a full public statement about these matters would help far more people to heal, both former and current members and their friends and families. I think that getting it off your chest would help you, too.
And I would make the same request of anyone else who was in a position to counsel people who were victimized by Robert.
Will someone kindly forward this on to Miles and ask him to respond?
Mark H.
FOF member 1973-78
mkhovila@yahoo.com
May 6, 2007 at 9:11 pm
For those of you who ‘believe’ in omens and signs from C influence: This morning I received a phone call that was very strange and amusing. A very formal recorded male voice said “You have a collect phone call from Robert in Placer County Jail”. Needless to say, I did not accept the call.
We have friends visiting, who are also former FoF’ers, and we had a mighty good laugh over breakfast.
May 6, 2007 at 9:21 pm
In reply to Post #273
Hello Sheik:
A thought about a line you wrote ~
______________________________________
To me, this blog is a sort of holy place with a bar room and poker table in the back. Sometimes, a sorta TV – mafia safe-house for all kinds of wiseacres, mind games and just, out right silly stuff.
So, I find your post playing ‘A full house’, in this respect. What you wrote,
“…your beliefs keep on being what they are, they do not change to being the truth.”
Well, yes, and that’s a belief too…LOL.
Laughing with tears coming from his eyes, Buddha reared back and forth, howling at the top of his lungs, saying ~
“There is no Is.”
________________________
For me, its a matter of trust, not comparing your experiences with another’s and visa versa. Anything can be de-emotionalized by psychoanalytical planning and intellectual demolition.
Yet, to me, a belief can be two things, which have yet to be distinguished from the one prevailing opinion that it is always one: this is not a belief, by the way.
For instance: I used to believe that I was indestructible, until I had a near fatal motor cycle accident. I used to believe that motorcycle helmets would protect me, until I had my shredded off my head.
I used to believe that I was in control, till one morning the phone rang, I planned ahead of time not to say this and that, if it were who it might be on the other end and it was….I went to the phone, picked it up and said everything I planned not to say and more.
For me, belief is two phenomenon’s, often imagined as one. First, it is a kind of daydreaming, wishful thinking, faith-like, fairytale-ish thingy: something that writes odes to dead people, without ever having really ‘believed in them’ from a present point of view; a kind of imagination of sorts, like, “I believe someday they’ll be able to bring the dinosaurs back to earth using DNA strings and string theory, coupled with the secret vibratory crystals yet to be found in bedded in the paws of the Sphinx.”
The other ‘belief’ is a very private sort, one mostly, accidentally let out, after all, I know for a fact that I think out loud at times while giving the illusion I’m relating to someone else, my friend or argumentative co-conspirator.
So, this second type of belief is moot, very moot. It is based on personal feelings, personal direction, perhaps even prayers actually being answered, which happened allot in my childhood.
Somewhere we have forgotten where not to stick our noses,who, by the way, are much closer to our Minds, than our Hearts.
Trust, that’s it, though conscious trust, not the ‘Yeah, go girl, kinda trust.’
We experience an immediate judgment of what another is doing or believing, then, quick as lightning, we either distrust them and step away or have an opinion, which we think, if they’ll except it, altering theirs, we’ll trust them then. What a strange web we weave.
This second ‘belief’ is actually mislabeled, or misinterpreted as ‘faith-belief’, the sort that is unverified and simply, too lazy to get beyond the window seal, steamed window paintings.
It is actually connected to an experience, a tactile record within a person, something physically and emotionally real for that entity.
So, when this second category of ‘belief’ is spoken about, we mistake it for ‘wiseacring’, ‘imaginary’ and ‘foolish’.
Yet, very few people seem to have the space or time between their thoughts to go deeper than first impressions. What I have found is that 9 out of 10 times, the person expressing this second category of belief is actually, thinking out loud, looking for a soul-mate, being-mate or a mate, all are valid; or looking for additional relativity to an already, at times, overly saturated with the self-as-my-hobby.
I try to give every individual room for their own halo and muck too. What someone believes is not always what they have experienced, yet, oftentimes it is and it is only for them, not the listener: there are such things as 100% yours, all yours.
There are events that have taken place in my life, that, the more I used to try and relate them to another, the further away I got from that friend, the deeper the ego-pit became: 99% of ego is based on the unconscious permission given to the egoist, by other permitted egoists, to dance his or her dance, to their instruments; yet, this is the dream-of-form we are journeying through.
I have to constantly remind myself of the nights that I would sneak out of my parents house, creep across the frozen, snow covered forest floor, with my dog close by, and sit, looking up at the sky, at what I knew for a fact was closer to my home than having landed with a thud down here. That there I am, was, is, are, now, is.
I believed my dog kinda knew what I was feeling, though even at a ripe old age of fourteen, I knew she might not know and gave her plenty of space to be a dog, not god or the momentary incarnation of St. Francis of Assisi.
Love to you all.
May 6, 2007 at 9:41 pm
Whalerider #262
I was struck by the emotions evoked by your posting, your descriptions came across as extremely vivid and immediate even after over 20 years of having left the FoF! My stomach churned with the injustice of it, and my heart goes out to you and all the others who have basically been raped by this man, with the support of the rest of us because of our stupidity and ignorance. I am sure the majority of bloggers join me in saying I am so sorry and I love you.
“Only love and right thinking will bring about true revolution, the revolution within ourselves. But how are we to have love? Not through the pursuit of the ideal of love, but only when there is no hatred, when there is no greed, when the sense of self, which is the cause of antagonism, comes to an end. A man who is caught up in the pursuits of exploitation, of greed, of envy, can never love.” J.Krishnamurti
May 6, 2007 at 9:43 pm
Half Life Says:
271
“’fill in the blanks’”.
That’s exactly what I hear from people who continue to go to RB’s outrageously expensive meetings & dinners. It goes something like this: “I don’t understand his reasoning, his jumble of metaphors & references is confusing, but he ‘fills in blanks’ with his ‘presence’ & ‘being’ & ‘consciousness’. I’m inspired”.
And that’s from grownups, highly educated & otherwise intelligent. Is it a virus that affects the brain that’s going on?”
–
Hello,
Now I understand what you were thinking. No problem. I agree with you. I have had that experience you describe with RB once before in the past and I know what it is like.
No my experience with Wheeler was different. He wasn’t confusing at all, very straightforward in fact, and after listening to him for a short while his message was very easy to understand.
What I meant was that his writing style is rather one dimensional, and he answers other peoples questions, not your own, in the book format. In person, he was much easier to understand and many of the subtleties that can’t be conveyed easily in writing, e.g. nuances of word meaning, situational context, personalized answers, making things easier to understand.
Talking to Wheeler was like asking someone for directions. Go this way, that way. Okay. Thanks goodbye.
As Shiek pointed out we can believe anything, and can verify anything we want. Right now I am “getting something” from the understanding I got from Wheeler, but it is not the end all be all and more could happen, or be experienced, to change things/viewpoints. It helped me at this time, however.
May 6, 2007 at 10:31 pm
I left the fof 10 years ago after 11 years of membership. There is no intention to go back.
But I would like to know what is the meaning of the word ’sequence’.
May 6, 2007 at 10:56 pm
Alice in wonderlust (#267) wrote:
“Awareness can be impacted (ever been under general anesthesia? Drugs?) what is left? Is there some essence? Is it individual, collective, both?”
Unfortunately, I have been under general anesthesia a number of times (somewhere between 5 and 10). What has struck me as remarkable is how time just disappears while you are under. While in bed asleep, there is some level of awareness at least some of the time. The time under anesthesia disappears in the blink of an eye. The only time I had some awareness was during a long operation, when I believe they let the anesthesia get too light, and I remember an odd dreamlike state involving doctors and surgical equipment. Otherwise, there has been “no one home” during the time spent unconscious. This to me is the closest I feel I have come to verifying what happens after death — that is, nothing. I would be lying if I said otherwise. I hope I’m wrong. This does not account for all the experiences people have had with near-death experiences. But I have never had one, and can only go with what I have experienced personally.
May 6, 2007 at 11:02 pm
Robert says,
“The sequence is irrefutably objective truth.”
Another possible view:
The sequence creates a state that connects with the right side of the brain and inhibits the left side. The right side of the brain allows impressions to enter and be digested.
Long Be represents a state where the left side is passive. The other steps use the left side (Be, Hold, Back, Listen) to through focused effort, inhibit functioning of the left side. This is a nice example of the snake (left brain) eating its tail. It is similar to stopping thoughts or meditation where you focus on a single sound, thought or action (like your breath).
The right brained state is pleasant and similar to the state created with drugs like LSD which block neuro-inhibiters like serotonin. Neuro-inhibitors are required for focus, logical mind, and right work of the left side of the brain. When we block neuro-inhibiters the nerves that respond to impressions are no longer inhibited and allowed to fire wildly. This explains the highs, the distortions of reality, and the burnouts associated with LSD. It also explains the ability to digest impressions when we are present.
The right side of the brain is the seat of instinctive urges, emotions, presence and creativity. Since it functions independently from logical mind it allows us to see the world in a new way. Hence most creativity is initiated by functioning of the right side of the brain.
When the right side functions, it generates a magical interpretation of events (the world really is pretty miraculous) and is open to possibilities of angels and God, in addition to many absurd world views. The right side of the brain does not understand generalizations or observations over time. To the right side of the brain there is no such thing as a ‘tree’. The word ‘tree’ represents a generalization of characteristics. The right side of the brain is based on “Now”.
We are born with a right side and a left side. The left side houses logical mind which can take impressions acquired by the right side, analyze, generalize and connect observations. It has the ability to take a long series of observations, weed out the contradictions, make rules and guidelines for living, and create a world view. Both sides of the brain are important to a balanced life.
Imagination is sometimes the background processing by the left brain of previous impressions from the right brain. It takes time to digest our experiences.
Without the right side, we crystallize in the formulations of our logical mind. We become our imagination. But if we minimize correct use of the left brain, our rules, morality and worldview become overly simplistic. Our left brain allows us to take what we observe, work through the contradictions, and make good, balanced decisions.
Our western culture pretends that the left side is more worthy and has trouble explaining the workings of the right brain. Our western morality is based on focus, logical mind, and control of our instinctive desires. Those that are successful in life are often those that can focus, generalize, verbalize, and make good decisions.
Robert apparently believes that the right side is more important. He encourages connecting with the right side permanently allowing for a sensitivity to beauty and the miraculous but with a corresponding difficulty making balanced decisions, consideration of the future, and the ability to analyze and learn from mistakes.
Rodney Collin suggested using both brains: “be in the present with an eye for the future”. We do have both sides and it may not be practical or even possible to be completely devoted to one side or the other.
I think we want to develop an observer that knows when it is appropriate to think and when it is appropriate to be, without the moral judgment that one is superior to the other. Imagination is not the devil. It is our left brain trying to catch up to the workings of our right brain.
The sequence, along with other forms of meditation and efforts to be present, promote the right side of the brain, which is an important element in the development of our essence.
Robert’s statement: “The sequence is irrefutably objective truth.” is perhaps the kind of over simplification that occurs when we block appropriate functioning of the left brain.
I look foward to any comments on this way interpreting what we call presence and higher centers.
FenceRider
May 6, 2007 at 11:29 pm
Two bits for relativity:
Not all so-called advaitists disclaim the need for any practice or effort. From Adyashanti:
“for almost everybody that really comes into the true truth, the truth that’s actually true rather than that sort of taffy coated nonsense that they sell as truth in many spiritual circles. Like you’re gonna do this nice little end-around around all of your illusions and desires and hangups and you’re gonna get to enlightenment. You might get to go there as a vacation, but sooner or later everybody gets the good fortune of plowing headlong right through everything they thought was true and literally watching it as it’s summarily torn off of you, thrown on the ground as so much dust.”
And RB was not without his secret heroes and role models. He repeatedly referred to Osho as someone “who had his sleep shaken” and who “was not naïve”. Given that RB had barely concealed contempt for almost everyone, I took this to be his way of expressing admiration for Osho. So, this from Sheela, Osho’s “#2″ for many years:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=bwBMW7KAZ_U
If you’ve the time and bandwidth, I would recommend the whole series from Sheela for a hilarious and, for FOFers, quite familiar story of the politics of gurudom and the gullibility of worshipers. Part 2, for example relates how Osho built “his inner circle”(yes, Sheela uses that term).
May 7, 2007 at 12:30 am
#262 Whalerider
Dude.
Thats some fucked up shit you (and so many others)went through, glad you came out of it OK.
Here is an interesting quote from R.B.’s book “Self Remembering “pg.205
“Infra-sex: The use of sex energy for purposes that are not connected with procreation or regeneration; for example, it’s use for personal gratification or to influence others”
Hmmm.
#270 Siddiq says;
“As you should have gathered from many posts, the Fourth Way is not about belief but about verification. There is a place for some belief, but this is more subtle and definately not anything religious, or blind in nature.”
Siddiq,
Many have responded to you regarding this already, but just remember that there isn’t one ex-student out here in blog-land that didn’t believe the above just as ardently as you do now. So what changed? Did we really “lose the work”? For me, I began to notice many of the “teachings” Robert was dispensing had nothing to do with the fourth way, nor were they verifiable. If you look critically at many of these ideas you might find that the wizard is just an old man hiding behind a curtain…but the old man knows how to put on a believable show.
Some things to verify;
~Celestial City of Paradise
~44 famous angels working with this, and only this, school (C influence)
~9 lifetimes must be lived before going to said City
~If you’re not on your 9th lifetime then when you die your soul will be put in a jar in limbo for a number of years (can’t remember #)
~ladders
~alchemy
~”I am an angel in a mans body”
~California will fall into the ocean in 1998 (oops)
~ There will be armageddon in 2006 and only those in Renaissance/Apollo/Isis will survive (oops)
~A billion year old angel who wrote the play of the Fellowship visited Robert in the 90’s
~(during a dinner) Leonardo da Vinci(or other member of 44) is in the room right now.
~When someone leaves the school they become “food for the moon”.
~The sequence (Wild and Free #268 This is not something RB or the FOF “invented”-it has an old tradition, going back thousands of years.)
~ Mother Theresa is on the moon
~This school will produce seven conscious beings
~Feminine dominance
This list is not meant to poke fun (but it was fun to remember all of it), like I said ,I and other ex-students believed this at one time or another. All of the above examples are part of Robert’s teachings but they are NOT a part of the fourth way (although the “Moon Food” idea is a bastardization of a fourth way concept). I guess my point, Siddiq, is that you are correct in stating that the fourth way requires verification but IMHO RB left the path of the Fourth Way long ago. The teachings of RB now seem to require faith as verification is not possible.
Jeanette
May 7, 2007 at 12:33 am
The post by WhaleRider #8/262 was very moving. I could feel the angst profoundly. It is so obvious that there is no love involved in Robert’s sexual victimizing.
WhaleRider, I am deeply sorry that you had to endure that situation, and I regret and apologize to you, and to everyone else who had to endure such a thing, that I could not stand up for you. I did not suffer the sexual advances of Robert, for whatever reason, but I feel violated whenever I hear about them, because I was supporting the cause all during that time.
To anyone reading this who is in the Fellowship, please help your friends – free them and yourselves from this travesty. Better late than never.
Charles R.
May 7, 2007 at 3:39 am
“I feel outrage for you and the others who were subjected to this depraved behavior”.
I am going to play devil’s advocate here for a moment. Although the story from WhaleRider is nothing new it must be remembered that anyone who steps into R’s bedroom does so under their own free will.
…”he did “rimming” on me, without my consent…”
Seems to me you must have been quite naked at this point and had already been engaging in sex, so why the “without my consent”? You already consented when you entered the bedroom…
I have known MANY of the inner-circle and when speaking with them they ALL had their own agenda’s as to why they do, even when I spoke about the dangers of STD’s.
Given the repeated journeys to the bed that one “agrees” to, I no longer see the boys as being victimized. OK, so the Russians are in fear for their VISA, but many Russians have said NO. If anyone reenters the bed after the first time, I can only assume that they do so with full consent otherwise they could certainly refuse. It must also be remembered that R is 50 YEARS THEIR SENIOR!!! So, let me put this another way, STRAIGHT boys, some in their early 20’s are having sex with another MAN nearly 70 YEARS OLD. And they do so repeatedly. Perks? Sure. Features? Sure. False Personality? Sure. ETC., ETC.
Once, someone from the circle, who lives at the Galleria, came down with hepatitis. The dishes and flatware from the dinners are only washed in a basin in the sink with soap and water. Although they are cleaned, they are certainly not sanitized. When I spoke about this to the staff no one seemed concerned.
So go figure…
WhaleRider, I forgive you and I love you.
May 7, 2007 at 3:49 am
“Joe Average Says:
May 6th, 2007 at 11:29 pm
Two bits for relativity”
I did not watch YouTube but I knew Sheela.
Does she mention how much jail time she spent for embezelling money away to Switzerland? She was responsible for crime big time and had a “Shadow Commune” within the commune.
May 7, 2007 at 4:02 am
This is primarily Whale Rider and Clara Elena related.
About two hours after reading your post, Whale Rider, going along about my regular day – I unexpectedly burst into tears. I cried for you, for all of “Robert’s boys” and maybe a little for my old lost innocence.
It was a process so long ago. For the longest time I hadn’t known about Robert’s behavior, despite my leading centers. It was only later – and after many dropped buffers – in retrospect, that scales dropped from my eyes.
I then “saw” what had happened, sensed the flow of vulnerable young men — and realized what people returning from Renaissance (called then), again in retrospect, had been trying to say to an uncomprehending me.
I remembered the breakdowns – one young solar required his father to come from the East Coast to the Property to pick him up; another going back from the Property to Europe was found wandering in the subways of New York in a psychotic condition and had been committed to Belleview psychiatric hospital. He was later medicated and shipped back to Europe.
In my mind, based on experiences in two small centers I later guessed that Robert may have had sex with as many as 25% of the male students. I’m not sure if this number would hold if generalized over time and geography. But, it floored me. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear if the number of students thus compromised were in the hundreds, and possibly more than a couple thousand.
Some of these young seekers, to my deepest regret bordering on self-disgust, were people whom I helped bring into the Fellowship.
The other thing I later realized was that there was a largely hidden (to many of us) homo-erotic subtext to the school. The 44 were sprinkled with homosexuals. Plus many of the sculptures, some of the paintings, and etc. etc..
Also, the isolation of the young men should be noted. In the earlier days at least, many of the “older students” like me were in the dark. So, who could they get reasoned advice from? Robert had a very closed and secreted system. Any problems, they were asked to leave the school. And shame must have been a terrible cement.
I also want to confess that – in classic blame the victim style – for a short time after discovering these facts, I thought these young men chose their path – it was consensual. Fortunately, that buffer fell in short order. And I quickly removed myself from any leadership role – and found my way out. Not particularly noble, but there it is.
I thought that I personally gained a great deal from my experience in the Fellowship of Friends. But, at what cost? I’m still tallying.
This blog is very dynamic to my perception – in strange way. It seems to provide the means to leave the Fellowship at a higher and better level. And also, somewhat oddly and disconcertingly, to provide a more comprehensive personal narrative – that doesn’t just note the gains. But hints at one’s past personal deficits and what they might mean. Overall, it’s positive, but it scares me a little.
Whale Rider, I am so deeply sorry that this happened to you. Thank you for your story and for your courage.
Clara Elena, if my aim were to stop the Fellowship, I would also (and perhaps even initially primarily) utilize the California State Franchise Board.
The Fellowship is basically a church; and this is reflected in its IRS status and the past major challenge. Fair enough. Where it is likely most vulnerable is in the area of private gain – meaning that no one may privately financially profit off of a church.
Its strength is its greatest weakness.
The financial dealings of the Fellowship will likely be of great interest to the tax collecting body of the State of California – the Franchise Tax Board. My experience with them is that they are like a pit bull compared to the IRS poodle.
In the mid-90s Robert was buying houses in Palm Springs and Graeagle (California), and other places. Did I say buying? Actually, he was trying to get students to put these houses in their names – and I think some Fellowship funds were planned to be diverted to help pay for these houses. I’m not sure what happened here, if anything, but it is definitely worth pursuing.
Also, at one point earlier, Abraham Goldman may have been in charge of a somewhat secret fund whose aim was to buy Robert things. I’m not fully sure of this, but I did hear something to this effect. I’m not sure what happened, if anything, to this possible slush fund. It may not be true, but is definitely be worth exploring.
You should also check out the Swiss bank account angle.
Others (on this blog – or later) may know of other possible financial impropriety. I suspect that many here believe – deep in their hearts – that there was financial impropriety.
If the California State Franchise Board acts, then – based on findings during discovery – the IRS could later be brought in again, possibly with a very different outcome than in the past.
There’s a sequence for you.
Robert Burton’s deplorable and egregious behavior and abuse of power over these many years, coupled with those of his long-standing enablers, has finally created a wellspring of second force – that could likely bury the current form with a very small intelligently placed push.
Finally Clara, could be wrong here – possibly real programmers on this blog who might know more, but I’m not sure that a side channel of THIS blog is the right instrument to create the document that I imagine that you may have in mind. May need more of a “semi-private” wiki – or other appliance for social publishing.
Plus, if you want to hit the Fellowship hard, you may want some privacy at the beginning to attack in ways not fully anticipated. You might as well utilize that primary lesson courtesy Robert Earl Burton.
By the way, his birthday is actually May 13th. Scratch a liar, find a thief.
May 7, 2007 at 4:29 am
#293 Esoteric Sheik of Inner Confusion Says:
“Believing in many I’s and in the concept of sleep is a belief. Beliving that RB is the only awakened being is a belief. Believing that everyone who does not work on themselves through the FoF is asleep and food for the moon is a belief. Believing in the C influence is a belief. Beliving in the importance of coincidences is a belief. Beliving that higher states can become permanent is a belief. Beliving that the Teacher does not answer to morality and ethics is a belief. Believing that the so-called ‘higher states’ are the only non-ordinary state of consciousness worth exploring is a belief. Believing that Gurdjieff and Ouspensky had the answers is a belief.”
Well said! And, in not putting ‘belief’ into either the ‘good’ or ‘bad’ shopping cart – just for a moment – the world becomes somewhat unbounded. You have appropriately named yourself- very cool name, actually. Reminds me of a surfer riding the big waves.
That was a statement of de-illusionment IMO, not just disillusionment. Ever read Jacob Boehme? His thoughts on what he calls the “unground”?
Innernaut Says: #289
“Unfortunately, I have been under general anesthesia a number of times (somewhere between 5 and 10). What has struck me as remarkable is how time just disappears while you are under. While in bed asleep, there is some level of awareness at least some of the time.”
I had the same experience – a skip in time. It would have made no difference WHATSOEVER if I had activated both hemispheres of my brain before with reciting the ’sequence’
. The interim conclusion I have come to is that life is really a mystery – it can’t be figured out and controlled. Nevertheless I did not die, and came back. I don’t remember being born either. But is that just conscious memory? I had an experience of having a real memory of some event and then afterwards finding out it was a particularly powerful moment of my grandmother’s. It has been recorded that holocaust survivors have memories of blood relatives they have not met. My point is, maybe I’m just too attached to consciousness as I’m used to it. Maybe I use the experience of memory as an identity. Maybe death is not death only. Maybe I’m just too scared to let my awake consciousness go… And maybe I’m just so conditioned by the experience of memory to be fluid/open in my concept of self.
#290 fence rider, the sequence
Interesting, thank you. You put this clearly.
Wouldn’t it just be easier to be reborn as a left handed artist? Or just recruit such for the fof? The brain is just an organ. But balance is not a ‘bad’ idea.
Whale Rider, its been said, but you have the respect of many for your honesty, courage and eloquence! What a dark place to have to go thru. Again I say, this is predatory behavior. Not a “private life” but one that depends on concealment, darkness, collusion.
May 7, 2007 at 7:10 am
Whalerider, I am so sorry you had to go through such horror!
I knew Robert was very sick, but your post gives me even more convinction that it is complacent not to do something to make him stop doing what he is doing.
I respect your wish to remain anonymous and not wanting to be part of any litigation …but telling your story here is indeed a very powerful gesture.
It is part of continuing to break the silence that seems to fall over again after each piece of truth emerging here.
People are reading this blog, and hopefully even the most naive and gentle FOF members will stop buffering, enough is enough!!!
I wish things will become right, Robert E. Burton has an immense karmic debt HE MUST START PAYING IN THIS LIFETIME.
Whalerider I am sending my deepest compassion and healing wishes to you!
May 7, 2007 at 7:23 am
Dear All and Whale ridder.
I am so sorry for you and try the Ho’onoponona. That I am partly responsible for your suffering and I love you. I do this too for RB…Not easy.
Thanks Charles R for your suggestions and honest words…
Any suggestions, how we could approach men in this situation?. The men do not seem to be very approachable.
Maybe do Ho’onoponona, all of us at a certain time of the day? I really do not know?
Hope my silence will speak
Love, love , love to al of you.
May 7, 2007 at 7:28 am
#262 Whalerider
This was so intensely expressed that I could hardly breathe as I was reading it. Over 20 years in the FoF and I had my head buried in the sand the entire time, and had only hints and allegations before I left. I can only hope that this Blog will continue to expose what is going on among the existing current students. And I hope that students talk about it openly among themselves- for there are many who are afraid to read the Blog (it has been touted as negative by the powers that protect RB- just like any truth that was spoken in the past) How can anyone even suggest that this very sick man called Robert Burton is an enlightened being? How many more pained stories does one need to read/hear to wake up to reality? How can anyone funnel a single cent further to this sick f-ck and call him a teacher?
Whalerider, I am glad that you survived and have thrived in your life after the FoF, although I am sure the scars remain. I am not so sure that others have or will be as lucky.
I am grateful everyday that I got out when I did, and only wish this Blog existed 15 years ago.
All the best to you
May 7, 2007 at 7:36 am
Whew, more tears, more sweat…I tossed and turned all last night…In the spirit of sharing and completely divesting myself of the FOF brand of personal improvement, cuz’ I’m feeing a distinct Hawaiian vibe here, thanks Arthur, Charles R (I remember you well), Jeannette, Vena, and everyone else for your kind thoughts…what made up my mind to take Morpheus’s little truth pill and flush myself from the Matrix 22 years ago was this: (for which I paid dearly) being close to RB afforded me the chance to see and understand first hand that his relationship and use of the concept “C-influence” was actually in fact ‘magical thinking’ (angels are hovering over the table right now) and ‘ideas of reference’ (the number 44 appearing somewhere just for you), which are two neuroses that function as defense mechanisms for individuals with ego deficits. I am deeply thankful to Miles Barth, who introduced these to me when he followed his conscience out of the school; it awakened mine. I left the FOF five months later.
An easy way to understand how ‘ideas of reference’ works is to assign strong personal meaning to a number other than 44, which I did, and voila, there are just as many shocks out there for those willing shed their FOF blinders and look for them. Don’t take my word for it, do it yourself.
When I began the work, I understood that Gurdjieff’s original definition of C-influence was this: it originates from the lips of a living, breathing, conscious teacher to the student, directed specifically to them, for furthering the student’s evolution. B-Influence was whatever the conscious being produced and left behind when they pass over. (After all that effort, who’d want to hang around on this plane, anyway?) Everything else was A-Influence. Ergo, you do whatever you can to be close to a conscious being to get what you need to evolve. But that was not RB’s brand of “C-Influence”, and it irked me.
My direct experience was that RB was not intellectually sophisticated enough for the task of focusing that much attention (and love) on any one student, he likes to play the field so to speak. So he merely projected his own defense mechanisms into the group to mask his inadequacies. (If shit happens, it is God’s will, not mine.) He diverted our ingrained religious beliefs to the 44, and we bought it. He’s a master of spin.
After posing the question at a meeting in Renaissance, “how does one prolong a higher state?” after much silence and one helpful angle, I received a photograph for vanity feature from Belinda and the subject was changed. Undaunted, I asked Robert the same question during a discrete lunch, with only two others attending so as not to put him too much pressure on him. His answer was to place a wine cork under his French sleeve cuff and to show me how a person in his position could create a memorable state in others who look up to him, but that would not be enough for awakening, the rest is left up to the individual. In other words, he didn’t have the answer. (The thought of doing the sequence 24/7 doesn’t seem to be the answer either.) It then became clear to me that Robert’s self-assigned role as teacher was how he kept himself dialed in and relatively present, but not fully awake in his higher intellect. He wasn’t one for “long thoughts”. All the emphasis on being present seem to inhibit critical thinking, lofty or not. We students were his reminders to pay attention, and he was feeding on us because he had a role to play.
A good example of “ideas of reference” is RB claiming the detention at the airport being a grand play designed by higher forces specifically for him and his entourage to transform into a higher state. (Jeeze, I get that friction every day just riding the bus!) The detention at the airport was a indirect result of his actions, in that he created and maintains the FOF, and it’s always been an odd bunch, to say the least. They raised the suspicions of the airline workers. That’s pretty understandable post-911. “C-Influence” providing friction just for him…I don’t believe so, that’s the snake biting his own tail, he doesn’t know himself. Robert caused this friction on himself and the others by virtue of surrounding himself with a “school” of entitled odd ducks that behave strangely. The idea of not losing your temper and going off at some underpaid, over-zealous republican homeland security dude with an attitude because you have ballet tickets… well, that’s common sense, unless you are looking for a full body cavity search or something.
True C-influence is designed for you (customization- 5/318-innernaut) based on direct observation and means you actually get to evolve, eventually becoming equal or surpassing your teacher (which I don’t claim to be)…but wait…evolving students? That presents a dilemma for the teacher who happens to have developed narcissistic personality disorder (not a disorder that would meet the legal definition of insanity, by the way). Here’s the rub, the nature of that disorder would instinctively compel that teacher to undermine anyone’s evolution if they were to get anywhere close to his level because that teacher always has to be top of the heap, maintaining an unreachable status. (First people RB clears from the playing field, women, no WOMAN will awaken in HIS school, by God. He personally prefers men.)
In groupthink the commonly held myths (i.e. beliefs that cannot be verified) function as an adhesive, binding the group together. Most of us have the need to belong, to feel part of a bigger identity than our small subjective one (a school is for those who know they need one) and the fear of abandonment (shunning) is so strong it keeps the members in line, censoring themselves and putting up with more and more cognitive dissonance. Fear manipulates the members into making excuses for any shortcomings or glossing over the glaring contradictions in order to maintain the status quo and retain membership. And by fear, what could be more frightening than losing your most prized possession, your soul? (In other less materialistic times, it was the fear of everlasting pain.)
So how can you debate the belief that “C-influence” had its hand in creating this school and will determine its fate? (Howard espouses Robert’s beliefs the best.) Or angels guard the gates? Or that God made the world in a matter of days? Or that Allah is the ONE and ONLY prophet. You cannot. Religion is not subject to debate, it is based on faith. You either buy into because you need the eggs, or you don’t.
Discussing these realities to others within a groupthink structure though, would be the equivalent of attempting to describe water to a fish. Besides, I was in my mid-twenties when this was happening, who would listen to me? I’d just get the boot on the spot. Given all I had experienced with RB and that at the very core I disagreed with his definition of “C-Influence” but could buffer that no longer, there was no choice but for me to walk. I did it on my terms, without fanfare. I went out, made a life for myself, and created a family with someone who had no relationship with the FOF. I love them deeply. I am eternally grateful to have accomplished this and worked hard not implode.
I still do believe in synchronicity IN MODERATION. Would I stake my children’s life on it? Hell, no! I use for personal validation purposes only, not to divine the future for others. Remember, the house always wins, as long as you choose to play.
Now I can have some peace.
WhaleRider
1979-1985
May 7, 2007 at 7:51 am
Very Dear Sheik,
I am realizing more and more the amount of work you are doing.
I am depending on your good will every morning and night to read the posts.
It is really an amazing and fascinating time for the FOF with former and current members.
I am thinking that perhaps there is a Divine Justice because the TRUTH about RB and FOF is emerging seemingly on its own accord in a time where communication is extremely easy and suppressing the written word is almost impossible!
The FOF has managed to hide the truth one way or another for a very long time, there have been problems from time to time (Troy B…bee lawsuit for example and more), but eventually things seemed to have been put to sleep once again. But not this time I hope.
Thank you Sheik!!!
To Wild and Free:
I smile with a slight bitterness at your comment in wanting to add a note of perspective by joining the fray and choosing to be W&Free….
I am afraid you do not know yet what is taking place here, one has to live through the FOF experience to understand the reality of it. Are you experienced?
To Scott Duncan:
You mention class action lawsuit. I mentioned it too in a couple of posts.
How does such thing can take off? Would it be very expensive and time consuming? I truly and honestly do not know anything about it and I would like to know.
May 7, 2007 at 10:17 am
#271 Half-life
I will start this post off with a big WOW to #262 Whale rider.
Then to good writers, wits and provocateurs (#266 moon angel) along with siddiq’s “many I’s”.
I don’t think i have posted but one or two things that i did not regret posting because i didn’t think i said what i meant to say or it didn’t seem like it was written very well. This blog is about the only prose writing i have ever done post high school.
I usually brace myself a bit for a bite from Exlax or talk myself into believing there is some profundity in unonanimos presentations and everyone here is just plain smarter than me but i know i can stand toe to toe with them and look them straight in the eye or any “devil” or “angel” that may happen by.
Yeah this blog is just “I’s”. But some of them are “I’s” from the bottom of the soul like Whale rider. Some are weak little imagine what it would be like to get slapped across the face- as opposed to getting slapped across the face “I’s”.
As for “shallow popular junk” non-dual stuff i wonder what is making that judgement. Why is it some “great philosopher” some where has the corner on deep thinking. This man’s scope and that man’s reason are always admired but i myself have experienced many things of heaven and earth. I am not giving anything up to anybody. I am what i am non-dual and fragmented.
There is magic in this blog. As long as people keep saying things in their unique way and Bruce and Exlax keep calling the bullshit I’ll keep hanging around.
If you would be interested at all in how i see the “non-dual” i will refer to the work of Ken Wiber. The book “Integral Spirituality” is a good start.
May 7, 2007 at 10:42 am
The post by WhaleRider, #262 shows great courage and humility in confronting a betrayal of trust and hope by a so-called “teacher” who has been motivated in his essence by lust and greed (and mediocre taste in art). My own experience was less fecal, but still was something I tried very hard to suppress for many years, in the FOF and after leaving. After basically failing the first go-round with me, RB managed to get another shot 8 years later, using my failed marriage as a stepping stone. The fact that my wife left me for RB”s current “secretary” at the time, only made me more vulnerable. I later realized that this was often “the way out” for RB’s bed mates, to bag a fine lass that would save them from RB’s “goddess lips”.
The second time around, I finally had the courage to say no after being broken down during a 10 week trip with RB in Europe, where I was subjected to psychological games I cannot begin to describe here. Yes, I was the one who barfed on the tour bus in Greece with Miss Lelli. While I was indeed truly sick and exhausted, it was also a sign to all on that trip of the state of “the teaching”. Few or none on that trip are still in FOF or even alive.
To get back on point: My experiences with being pressured to give in to sexual advances, no matter how unwanted, gave me a profound understanding of what women have no doubt endured though all of time. The testosterone fueled aggression of men, who wage wars, rape and kill and will not consider the wish of another to just be left in peace. Relentless aggression.
Then there is a male’s pride. A loving relationship, gay or straight, is a main cog in the divine clockwork. When there is no love or mutual sexual interest, like most of RB’s escapades, the other guy has a lot of pride to swallow (no pun intended). I think, many of the old guard FOF men who have had their time with RB, but still man the fortifications in his defense, have simply not accepted that they were used as boy candy in their younger and slimmer days. These are the ones with huge egos and much vanity. Several are now the pillars of the FOF leadership. It is a fitting end for them.
To all the women who’s strong voices have been heard in this forum–the world needs more like you. It’s too late for the fellowship. The Queen will only off your heads.
May 7, 2007 at 1:52 pm
FenceRider # 290 – oh, dear! more theories and unnecessary mind activity. The idea of the left/right hemisphere functions is only more drivel to fill your mind up with and keep you from experiencing what is in front of you. However, if you want to learn some more useful facts about the brain watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tQVnQ-kuWk
or, more seriously, the following, which also relates to the discussions about so called ‘verifications’ and ‘beliefs’. By the way, many people here seem to be trying to make a distinction between the 4th way and FoF; but has it occurred to you that any group that claims to show you the ‘way’ is yet another load of theory, ideas, and practices that keep you in ‘sleep’? Has it occurred to you that there are no ‘schools’ and there is no way?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUc2NrnklUo&mode=related&search=
If you watch this, please note the similarities with the Hawaiian therapy Ho’oponopono (let go of past conditioning, thoughts and ideas) and, if we are to give it a go (live it, not just think about it) lets get it right!( Exlax 101 # 294 and others) It is not “I forgive you” but “please forgive me”, as the cause of everything is within ourselves;
Dr Len, the guy who worked with the forensic criminals said:
“If you want to improve your life, you have to heal your life. If you want to cure anyone, even a mentally ill criminal you do it by healing you.”
When asked how he went about healing himself. What was he doing, exactly, when he looked at those patients’ files:
“I just kept saying, ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘I love you’ over and over again” he explained.
May 7, 2007 at 2:45 pm
#262
Thank you fake imaginary character for help cleaning the school from the last few fellows that cannot discriminate your poor contradictory porn-fiction drama from reality.
Of course out here the moltitude is in awe for your fine (for them) wording.
Please keep entertaining them, it is free and effortless: there is no denying force to negative imagination.
This blog is all just about it. GOlb
May 7, 2007 at 5:15 pm
I only wish this blog had appeared soon enough for Brian Sisler. It may have given him the opportunity to heal his terrible wounds. It seems clear that his almost thirty years of tormented suffering was the consequence of his relationship with RB. One evening some months ago he went to the gatehouse and asked to see Robert. He was turned away. He drove to Marysville, checked into a motel and hung himself.
May 7, 2007 at 5:54 pm
GOlb 306.
I’m truly sorry for you. The scale of your denial feels about one inch from total panic. Enjoy.
May 7, 2007 at 6:22 pm
Dick Moron (304): “many of the old guard FOF men who have had their time with RB, but still man the fortifications in his defense, have simply not accepted that they were used as boy candy in their younger and slimmer days.”
Very true. It’s sad for me that several of my former (they stopped seeing me when I left) close friends are in this position. There are similarities with the abused child who defends the abusive parent. Such children often do not want the truth about the abuse to emerge because they are deep down so ashamed of it, both for themselves and for the parent. I’ve heard students in this situation defend Robert by speaking of his love for them. One such student even said to me that after being loved by Robert no one else would do. That’s why relationships with women sometimes don’t work well for Robert’s boys after he abandons them. But fortunately that’s not always the case….
Thanks to WhaleRider for both his excellent posts.
RB
May 7, 2007 at 7:40 pm
Dear Siddiq,
#270 “If we are only tolerant some of the time, our tolerance is worth but little. If we can be tolerant all the time, then it means something.”
You are obviously one of the smug, patronizing, inner circle who are tolerant of Robert’s sexual abuse all the time. You’re right, it does mean something. It means you’re a sad little person who believes that their ability to consistently buffer and reframe is a sign of emotional development. Even sadder, you would like others to be like you.
By the way, your phony poor English fools no one and I’m not tolerating you for one more second.
Love,
Ryan.
May 7, 2007 at 7:52 pm
To #294 Exlax101.
It IS hard to argue with your logic about consenting FOF students.
If one is stupid enough to totally give up their will to a lunatic posing as teacher, they have consented to pretty much anything, right?
Members of that Heaven’s Gate group each made their own responsible decision to put on the identical Nike shoes and kill themselves. You can’t really say that about the people who took the Koolaid at Jonestown, because they literally DID have guns to their heads, but you get the idea I hope.
May 7, 2007 at 7:52 pm
294 Exlax
“under their own free will”
THATS PLAIN BULLSHIT!
All of them were victimized, some may not realize it cause of the brainwashing.
REMEMBER THEY ALL THOUGHT “HE” WAS THEIR GOD!
Just because some were older than 21 years of age MEANS NOTHING you need to realize if one has a disablity say like depression and mentally younger the law is DIFFERENT!!!!!!!!!
ex member of 2005/2006
May 7, 2007 at 8:50 pm
Thanks for the invitation 8/291 on Osho and Sheela.
I went through the all thing.
7 sessions!
Powerful material…
I specially “felt” under this one (7/7):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNMbzJLbn1c
Sheela seems very honnest and amainzingly consistant.
Hope we can benefit from her experience, including emprisonment, which she talks about.
Is she right, is she wrong
(self thinking/loving or brain/heart washed) ?
In many ways, who cares ?
She is simply beautiful to me…
May a lover of Robert speak about him in the same delicate and graceful manner!
I am afraid this is, for now, a dream of mine…
I did hear once, though, the story of a girl friend’s Robert’s “boys”
(complicated introduction already!)
having to recognize that
after a “session” with Robert,
her partner was just more luminous and alive than ordinary!
This was a direct talk, not a second hand gossip!
Is there anyone out there able to recall any intimate encounter with Robert in a positive manner ?
That no one would show up, someday, and talk about Robert as a lover, the same way Sheela talks about her beloved Osho,
would be ultimate humiliation!
Sheela saw devotion as well as stupidity among the Osho’s “people” and even confronted him with that!
May one of the “inner circle” memebers be able to obseve the absurdity “devotees” can dispaly and how much “work” it might be for Teacher to view/absorb them!
She saw absence of fear in Osho.
She makes interesting distinctions:
“practical” issues:
including the building of specific constructions via the labour and service of a miriad of humble people,
as well as a special list of “enlightened” rich people able to fund this projects, or enable him to purchase his last wanted car or watch !
And “spiritual” issues.
Sheela asks, very blankly, meaningful questions:
Why are you so interested in enlightendment ?
She identifies some interesting stand points:
in doubt, say “YES”!
She even says about Osho’s influence on you:
do not let yourself be shaken, troubled, confused by his words…
Go back to when you said YES, first!
This blog is amaizing since it feels like each time I open and read the posts, there is a “before” and there is a “after”!
Much love to us all.
May 7, 2007 at 9:19 pm
Hello GOlb (306),
I’d be really interested if you could explain why you think WhaleRider’s posting is “negative imagination”. There seems to be so much independent evidence in support of this kind of story. Do you think it’s all invented?
Personally I’d prefer it if these stories were not true, so please let us know why you believe so fervently that they are in fact lies.
thanks, RB
May 7, 2007 at 10:26 pm
Re: post #306
Perhaps it is best to ignore this troll.
GOlb — Oh, I get it, like Go Pound (lb) Sand Up Your A**. Very clever and it suits you well.
May 7, 2007 at 10:48 pm
Dear Whale Rider and Friends,
Thank you for both your posts. It makes me think that just the first one would be enough to detract anyone from joining the Fellowship ever again and I think I’ll go ahead and post it in the scrapbook as the first article after the layout. I think your first one is about “The Teacher”
I also appreciate your attempt to tap into the subtleties of our “indoctrination” in your second post. They are more difficult issues to grasp but they are the thin threads that held us in place.
I hope you agree with those titles but it would be so much better if anyone writing titles his input, if he can so that he doesn’t then feel I’ve missed the point in how I titled it.
I thank the Sheik for calling it a scrapbook, which felt a bit offensive at first but being realistic, it can only be a scrapbook since we are in a stage that is little more than a “scrap.” I do think we can move from there and keep distilling it into a clear enough material that even a convinced student can understand, so that he/she can heal more easily. Here some of us are screaming and reflecting and trying to find out what it is that hurt so badly, others have already healed enough to remind us to breath and smile.
I thank old FOF for his thoughts. Interesting that the seriousness of the Franchise Tax Board scared me. I do not think I can stop the Fellowship or that that is my aim, I think my aim is consciousness. No one can stop the Fellowship now for many generations, even if the whole vineyard and Galleria were pulled to the ground. And why would we want to do that? After all, aren’t they the witnesses of our hopes?
It is not the money or closing it down what I think is the issue. It is the human issues that continue to matter to me. The long reflection necessary until the last one of us is able to deal with the facts and heal from the wounds. The individual one’s of being denied the right to be simply human and labelled with “men one, two, three” “lower self”, “false personality” “not good enough for any role” “good enoug to play this role and be discarded” or “just good enough for the King” and the social ones of having spent thirty years with each other neglecting our presence for the sake of a sick man who nevertheless must also heal.
A lot of that is already happening in this blog. Time is necessary (as we well know) to allow the knowledge to become organic. Personal suits, group suits or whatever else takes place is not nearly as significant as our willingness to talk and hardly anything has been said yet. In the end, it is not about “hatred” even if that is what one feels in moments of greater despair.
Without self pity, I must say that the condition of my eyes will not let me fill the scrapbook in the orderly manner that I would have liked, after going through all the material in the blog and presenting it in some consistent order relative to the titles. There’s no way I can attempt that right now, if anyone else wishes to and send me their own way of fitting it and try it together (ludoteka@succeed.net) or even just post it on the scrapbook, that is fine.
After all it is just a scrapbook and maybe once the material has been titled, it’ll be easier to get the titles and give it a third run.
It will be slow but it won’t be late.
May 8, 2007 at 12:17 am
Post 208:
> There is a very tricky thing about verification. It comes through our subjective filters and is dependent on things like belief, cultural, national and racial identification, religious background (or lack of), education, economic circumstances, social circles, peer pressure, who we admire and trust . . .
This is nonsense.
May 8, 2007 at 12:34 am
““as well as a special list of “enlightened” rich people able to fund this projects, or enable him to purchase his last wanted car or watch”
Its easy to talk when OSHO is now dead (murdered) and cannot defend himself. Not that he would, mind you.
Sheela was responsible for the downfall of the commune. She orchestrated it and had her goons intimidate those who would not kowtow to her whims.
As to the cars and watches, they were ALL GIFTS. He did not buy any of these, don’t be so stupid/gullible.
I KNOW BECAUSE I WAS THERE.
She went to jail for her crimes, well, at least some of them…
I KNOW BECAUSE I WAS THERE.
May 8, 2007 at 12:52 am
In response to Lust-For-Life: FenceRider # 290 – oh, dear! more theories and unnecessary mind activity. The idea of the left/right hemisphere functions is only more drivel to fill your mind up with and keep you from experiencing what is in front of you.
What is in front of me is a question – the nature of presence as Robert teaches it. This is a question that I am living and a question that is very relevant to the assessing the worth of the FOF.
Interestingly the only way to know the value of presence is by doing it and observing. My post on the left brain and right brain was based on a lot of observing, a lot of doing the sequence, and trying to understand what I observe without preconceived ideas of what presence or the sequence does for us.
I know it seems like a waste of time for those that have verified the value of presence to step back and question it. But I am not really questioning the value of presence, but rather the value of shutting out thinking and judging ourselves for not being able to do the sequence all the time – the concept that presence is all that is worthwhile in life and that presence is only acquired through effort.
Presence is the foundation for all that Robert has taught since day one. It is the only reason that many stay in the FOF. For some it is reason to overlook all the rest and to ignore Robert’s excesses. It is what fuels this blog and it is what causes former members to have difficulty letting go of the FOF. It is worth stepping back and looking at. Many of our lives are based on this concept. Many are afraid of leaving the FOF because they think that they will lose presence.
What is the value of presence? Is it a moral issue? Is it good for the pleasant state that it brings, or does it have more value than that?
We have the model that presence leads to higher states of consciousness and that through proper effort (the sequence for example) we can become more and more present until eventually we develop permanent higher centers and become a higher being on earth, perhaps even immortal. Is this a beautiful model or a myth? How much is true?
The right-brain-left-brain model says that presence (right brain) is just another part of our physiology but that analysis (left brain) is also important. Neither is superior. Each has its place and is essential for balanced psychology.
Imagination (at its best) is the left brain trying to process and understand what the right brain has observed.
Is Robert correct when he says “The sequence is irrefutably objective truth” or is the sequence an exercise that promotes one part of us while suppressing other valuable functions. Does suppressing these functions eventually lead to higher man or does it lead to an unbalanced life or does it just give us a moment of presence? Is Robert’s life an example of what happens if we throw out analysis. I don’t pretend to know the answer to these questions but I am interested, and I see the right-brain-left-brain model as one way of looking at this basic question. One of many. But it is an alternative model to the model that calls imagination the devil and presence divine truth.
Dear Lust-For-Life, You are right, that without looking out, this is just useless “drivel”. So lets together try to be present – try to look out – try the sequence and observe. Try to observe without the I’s that say, “Its happening! This is great! Finally I am getting somewhere!” but with an I that objectively and quietly continues to look and see what is occurring. Does the world open up to us – ah that is nice – can it go futher?.
The right-brain model at best is only a way of nullifying our other preconceived ideas about what presence is so that we can see for ourselves. But we do have many ideas that have built up after years of expensive promotion – ideas about presence that are not useful and need to be broken down so that presence is not an athletic contest connected to our self worth.
Robert’s daily quote, “The sequence is irrefutably objective truth” which seemed a bit over stated, evoked my question and my blog.
May 8, 2007 at 12:53 am
Elena (316): I apologize for offending you.
Plain (317): Could you please elaborate?
May 8, 2007 at 12:55 am
6/357: Rabbi Burns wrote:
>My conclusion after many years was that self remembering does not lead to awakening.
So, awakening does not lead to awakening. This is fascinating stuff, Rabbi!
May 8, 2007 at 1:31 am
To Whale Rider, and all…
WR, we know each other, as fellow “Academians” for about a year or more in the early 80s. I can vouch for your truthfulness, your story is 100% real. I know. I will never violate your wish for privacy.
My heart bled, when you left, even though we were not close at all, me being the “junior” in the then group of 6 residents.
I am glad you found your way in the world and hope that your posting brings you peace.
Strange to meet up here in cyberspace–I have often felt that I would see you again, in some city some time, with the very powerful and unique presence you shared. I do not know why. Yes, you were, and I can read, are still, a gentleman. I can tell you, when you left, there was silence at the Academy. Also on the part of Robert.
I will never forget the time when WR had to make a key decision on life’s cross roads (not the decision to leave if I recall), standing in the room, for hours without moving, eyes closed, in silence, one of the most intense and moving things I ever witnessed. He then got up, and made his decision.
So Whale Rider, thank you for posting, and as you did not say goodbey to me at the time, I hereby take the opportunity to wish you well.
Peace to your noble soul
May 8, 2007 at 1:51 am
Exlax 101 (318)
I was there too, in the early days of the FOF, but I didn’t know everything that was going on, not by a long shot.
You will find some very interesting pages at http://home.att.net/~meditation written by a guy who knew Rajneesh (Osho) in the early days. For instance, on the subject of the “gifts”:
“Rajneesh’s favorite Rolls-Royce dealer stated that “the Bhagwan” had spent hours on the telephone talking to him about his often weekly purchases of new automobiles. All of his over 90 Rolls-Royces were paid for from general commune funds on his direct orders, not “gifts” from outsiders as he would later try to claim. Rajneesh was the only person who wanted the cars and he was the only person allowed to drive them. After bankrupting the commune, he claimed that the automobiles were owned by the commune, not by him.”
What was most fascinating to me, after reading all about this man’s greed, drug addiction and sex addiction (sound familiar?) was that the author still thinks Rajneesh was enlightened! Go figure…
Mark H.
Seattle
FOF member 1973-78
mkhovila@yahoo.com
May 8, 2007 at 1:58 am
A general reply to the subject of the FoF, specifically RB and the inner, inner circle.
Please guys, remember, I am writing out loud to myself, hence, take it as reading my diary, with my permission of course.
__________________________________________
There is something, after reading in, about and throughout several thousands of blog entries that still puzzles me to the core, that is the + and – approach going on here, the typical ‘crime’ and ‘victim’ portraits:
yet its not as easy as the formatory mind would like to assume it is, to say that RB is the perpetrator of all this ‘crime’.
Its too easy to point to one person, like people point to ‘god’ when a tornado misses their house and to the other neighbor’s ‘hidden evil deeds’ when all their left with is a cement slab.
Although, I would certainly agree that he will be held spiritually responsible for having planted the first plant of ‘the jungle’ we are hacking through, writing the checks for the ’super thrive’ fertilizers, overall guru wiseacring, giving it’s tropical-ness a ’something good is coming all too soon, but the world will probably end before it gets here’-ambiance and cataract appeal;
yet, when and if I’m called to the litigator’s office, this will be my appeal to them, with such story’s as Whalerider’s post on the forefront of my sense of things.
A word of advice to all you lawers, private I’s, airplane photographers, spy satellite picture goers at Beale Airforce base, mothers, fathers, singles, married, human ex-members and astral x-men : do not go after RB alone, exclusively, you’ll miss the bigger picture for sure.
RB’s role in all this is a no-brainer, his portrait will paint itself, though only after the following get’s going.
You must consider those aiding and abetting RB as well, first, foremost. Is is these people who keep the food chain, chained and fed. These people will be the hardest part of the picture to un-paint, so to get a better picture of RB.
First off, there is not only RB’s lifestyle being served or serviced here. For 35 + years there have been many others who satisfy and feed upon RB’s contradictions, bringing their own to the forefront, leisurely justifying his with theirs and visa versa.
The ‘boys’ don’t only go into RB’s bedroom, they go into each other’s as well, on and off the grounds of Isis.
Too, RB’s lifestyle is carried out throughout the school in ‘little playhouse’ renderings of his ‘big playhouse museum’, i.e., student’s who emulate him, both in the color of their houses, their artwork, etc. (you figure the etc.)
The boy’s do not only hunt for RB, they hunt for themselves too, others as well, women and women homosexuals too.
I remember in the past that many letter- ’shocks’ fell upon RB’s shoulders ‘to seem-to-bear’, yet, his body was being held up by certain people as well, who, for sure, knew of these ‘crimes’, though fed from them, making the school into a very sophisticated merry-go-round of mechanical appetites and showmanship, a kind of show that can only be pointing to ‘a last show’, very similar to the one which occurred with those two famous lion tamers… Now that was something from the god’s for sure!
This is what I see coming…
First, the money handlers will seek out compensation for the ‘church’ never having really been a church, a true fraud indeed, this will not be difficult to figure.
Taxes, fines, etc., will be applied to the FoF as a ‘body’ not just RB.
The FoF will be sued by multiple parties, both class action (which may not be actually termed that in this specific case, but it fits for symbolic purposes), past members, current, etc.
All, and I do mean ‘all’ inner circle members will be served papers to give accounts of the FoF ‘way’, under oath.
The FoF bank accounts will be frozen.
Various computers will suddenly disappear, then reappear in other strange places.
The FoF assets will be liquidated by a state agency and (believe it or not) homeland security will even find a little something to do here.
The liquidation-funds will be put into a trust fund and distributed to each member according to their ‘level of damage’; also, for the FoF lawyer fees, who of course will not be A.G., these will be appointed by the CA District Attorney’s office or the like. A.G. and the FoF book keepers will be too busy shredding files in their offices to be bothered with ‘group issues’.
The FBI and INS will have a field day at the Collin Office: hold on to your hats folks, its gonna get stormy in Oregon House.
How will this all happen. You don’t see it, but it’s right in front of your eyes,
now step back about 10 feet and look at this blog site, all this ‘powder’ waiting to blow.
Look with presence, because when this one point is made to State Authorities, Hades will rise and the 1998 fires will seem like a Q-Tip on fire compared to this. Here’s the point:
RB and the his ‘body-supporters’ have put everyone in Oregon House (including non-members) at risk, a serious risk, a risk not so far from the VA Tech senerio.
All, nearly all, Clara (or anyone who has a telephone) has to say is,
“Look at this blog site, look at these situations going unchallenged, unanswered, look at the collection of individuals here, what is occurring and on going…It’s situations like this that can attract another VA Tech.”
Hands down folks…California has a mechanical ‘gotta-do conscience’ that would make Mother’s day look like just another day at the sanitary landfill.
Put the ingredients of the FoF contradictions beside a practical, communal,family concern and wa-la, you have action, you have interest.
California will not let the FoF just sit here and be a risk to its incredible image of Matriarchal Duty, that’s right (matriarchal) and that’s not a plus for RB’s (patriarchal island), that’s actually geographically and geologically connected to an entire mountain range called The Sierra Nevada Foothills) not once they are ‘implied’ care-holders of this situation, and, after all, we are on California soil.
California authorities will seize the FoF land, sell it and RB…? This will be in the hands of those very forces who led us into this jungle for a higher reason than the predictable earth-drama that will no doubt unfold, yet, I am sure, if you surf the web enough, you’ll find several hundred other’s to match the one that’s about to step out of its den from a very comfortable and cozy hibernation onto a very, too quiet patch of soil, which is located in the middle of a slow moving hurricane.
____________________________________
This has all been a dream, I have written this from a dream, though saw myself as I was writing it.
Love to you all.
May 8, 2007 at 2:12 am
So RB’s activities are OK because the boys partipate voluntarily for perks and Osho’s fleet of Rollers was OK because they were gifts (ExLax 294 and 318)? Hmmm…
May 8, 2007 at 2:36 am
Re Plain 321:
What an odd response! I was saying that in my experience self remembering leads to periods of presence lasting for a few seconds or occasionally a minute or two, but nothing permanent. No one on this blog, whether for or against the FOF, has offered any personal experience that contradicts this. I’ve never encountered anyone who has achieved a permanent awakening through self remembering.
You might claim that Robert has, but that’s pure supposition. It seems unlikely to me for a number of reasons. For example, if he is “awake” how come after 35 years no one else in the FOF has awakened, despite countless sincere seekers following his every instruction. In fact Robert tells his best students that they’ll wake up next lifetime, not this one.
We’ve been through this before, but perhaps you have something new to add? One of the peculiarities of this blog is that none of the FOFers have yet come up with any evidence that their system does what it says it does, other than quotations and statements of dogma.
yrs, RB
May 8, 2007 at 3:06 am
#262 and #306:
I’ve talked to enough people to know these things happen and have been happening. But I heard a story that was very upsetting many years ago; that it also has happened to children with the parent’s consent. Some sort of spiritual baptism? Has anyone ever heard this? I’ve kept it inside me for 14 years. Maybe some brave soul would speak up?
May 8, 2007 at 4:08 am
In post 8/38, Lady B writes:
“At Isis, children are the last concern. In fact, a
friend who doesn’t have children told me, “I think
that Isis needs an orphanage.” I was shocked and
offended. (snip) Someone said — I wish I could
remember who — that you can see the level of
civilization in a country by looking at the way they
treat children and old people. Elena, you’re right: I
don’t recognize the same Ark that I boarded 20 years
old.”
Response:
There was no golden age before the fall, but there was
once an orphanage of sorts…It was called the kid’s
house.
It was a double wide pre-fab installed at the base of
the long drive near the entrance the farm, Via del
Sol. Kids who hadn’t been given away lived there. The
big house was about a mile up the road and the barn,
which later became the auto shop, was at about the
half-way point. The kids were allowed as far as the
barn to work milking the cows and such, but were
forbidden to go further. We did of course, steering
clear of the adults, roaming the woods, having fun and
being kids. Food was scarce. People were supposed to
come take care of us, bring food and such and
sometimes did, but often did not. Twelve kids lived
there. Another dozen came on weekends. sometimes
bringing snacks, and a lively pomegranate-centered
economy developed. Sometimes we’d pool money, walk to
Oregon House store and buy loaves of bread to divide.
A certain male student used to come around a lot. The
older kids were suspicious of him and poked fun behind
his back, but the youngest ones, who felt their
parent’s absence more acutely, seemed to take comfort
in his attention. Cold water showers in winter:
“Arctic Regions!” was a running joke. You’d shout it
out when showering and everybody would laugh.
My association with the FoF continued until 1980, most
of that time as a student. I was a free worker then on
salary. and know hard work, long hours and little
sleep. My education was spotty, but I have since
corrected that. Incongruous gaps remain. My upbringing
was remarkable: both bizarre and traumatic, but also
instructional, and for me, foundational. In fellowship
language: the FoF was my influence B. I now take the
Buddha’s advise and follow my own path. The fellowship
broke me…repeatedly over many years but I survived
and eventually grew strong. Life is good.
Peace to Every One and best as All Ways.
I bear no one ill will.
And I am not naive.
I am
No Kid
May 8, 2007 at 4:15 am
To Fence Rider #319
“I know it seems like a waste of time for those that have verified the value of presence to step back and question it. But I am not really questioning the value of presence, but rather the value of shutting out thinking and judging ourselves for not being able to do the sequence all the time – the concept that presence is all that is worthwhile in life and that presence is only acquired through effort.
Presence is the foundation for all that Robert has taught since day one. It is the only reason that many stay in the FOF. For some it is reason to overlook all the rest and to ignore Robert’s excesses. It is what fuels this blog and it is what causes former members to have difficulty letting go of the FOF. It is worth stepping back and looking at. Many of our lives are based on this concept. Many are afraid of leaving the FOF because they think that they will lose presence.”
Some people’s brains are naturally more balanced, and the right brain dominates in some. The brain is an organ. And engaging the creative brain while stilling thought can lead to heightened intuition, and creative vision. You can learn this in so many ways and places. Is this presence? Rather, is this the ONLY presence? It feels good, and so many people get attracted or addicted to suppression of brain function.
What bothers me is presence, consciousness, proper brain function, whatever, without conscience is like a soulless wraith. Why is it so easy for some to dismiss conscience? What you call Robert’s “excesses” indicate a permanent lack or loss of conscience in him. It calls into sharp question his motivations to ‘teach’ and have students which in turn calls into question his very teachings.
If current members are restricted from reading this blog why are so many sniping away here? It is wrong to think that someone leaves the organized group and just pretends it did not exist for them. We ARE part of the fof. We are also part of our families, schools, universities, and so on. Bonds don’t just go away. I think that is a wholesome thing.
May 8, 2007 at 5:15 am
To 321 Plain.
Like Rabbi Burns, my conclusion after many years is that self remembering as practiced in the Fellowship not only does not lead to awakening it leads to massive sleep. A huge number of students have made of awakening the sole practice of an awareness that is much more “self consciousness” than self remembering.
A certain greed for “higher states” characterizes the predominant attitude as if consciousness were some kind of drug that you can take and forget about the rest of the world. Pretty narrow outlook.
Self remembering on its own cannot lead to awakening, that idea and practice is only ten percent of the system and work.
If the rest of the system and work had been incorporated in Robert Burton’s Church, the Fellowship might have developed a School and not a cult.
You’re too plain and formatory and it won’t help anyone. You think you can solve things with one sentence and it is because you are not really daring to think.
You might consider what actually happened to the ideas of
non identification,
imagination
lying
unnecessary talk
external consideration.
And ask yourself what is the use of being identified with one man,
in imagination about the Fellowship,
Lying to yourself about what is really going on inside,
swallowing Robert’s unnecessary talk about anything and everything
and not considering anything but yourself.
May 8, 2007 at 7:00 am
To GOlb and my detractors:
RB says this blog is a play of crime. Do you know what actually IS criminal, abusing someone who places their trust in you, then pretending they don’t exist. That’s textbook emotional abuse. Ask a therapist. That’s what causes mental illness. These are dangerous times…for who, pray tell? Information is power, and the truth will set you free!
If Jesus Christ, the son of God, asked you into his bedroom in the middle of the night because he wanted to “cuddle”, what the blue blazes would you do? I didn’t even get the “its good for your evolution, dear”, all I got was, “you’re with an angel now” and down he goes. Gee, do I give him the benefit of the doubt here, I mean, what do I have to lose? Only MY SOUL!!! So in fact, there was no consent. I was scared shitless! I was 24. Then the yo-yo mind games began…
GOlb, I think I know who I’m dealing with now. You want proof of life. You need evidence. You probably get paid to read this blog. After reading your post, I was inspired to spend some time in my storage space. After some digging, there they were! My pay stubs from when I was on salary during the time in question. Yup, still have ‘em, proving I was there.
Most of the other evidence was swallowed, pun intended, leaving us at a “he said, (s)he said”, mexican stand off. But then, I remembered something else. I happen to still have in my possesion a pair of 23 year old brown wool pants that I purchased in Italy while traveling with guess who. The tag is in Italian with a metric size. Inside the fly by the zipper, is a white piece of fabric lining with some old stains. Semen stains, from when guess who was engaged in guess what in our hotel room and suddenly the phone rang. I think it was Laura Bishop, if I remember correctly. (And we do a lot of remembering in the FOF, don’t we?) Well, good teacher that he was, he left me mid-stream, so to speak, as I was, well, climaxing, and I spilled on my pants. Not being able to drop them off at a dry cleaners because we were on the go, it stained. It is not the smoking gun, but it is the best I can do.
I have a digital camera and a marker. Now I’m going out on a limb here just in case there are any more fence sitters left with sore butts, but with the help of the venerable shiek, I can provide proof of life. I can mark out my name, ssn, check number, and member number, so that only the Rennasiance Winery logo and date can be seen. I can photo the stain on the pants and the Italian label.
GOlb, are you a reasonable guy? Do you think I would just make this crap up because I want some anonymous attention? I’ll call your bluff.
Shiek, are you game? The souls of many, many people are at stake, here. How can we post the photos so they can’t be traced back to me? You have my email address, email me yours, and I will email you the photographic evidence. You can post it for me.
I do exist, and I am being sincere. This shit happened to me. We’ll let the court of public opinion decide for themselves.
By the way, anyone check out the trap door in the floor of RB’s closet? Is it still there? Mole…Walls have ears…anybody? Does he even still live in the old Goethe Academy/Galleria? There used to be access from outside the building to the crawl space. Be very careful. Hmmm…or has the building suddenly been put off limits?
WhaleRider
1979-1985
May 8, 2007 at 7:04 am
—– Forwarded Message —-
From: Announcements
To: Students
Sent: Monday, May 7, 2007 7:15:29 PM
Subject: Fw: [Students] New Direction for the School
Dear Students,
The Teacher has enacted several new rules and policies that will take effect immediately.
Reversing a task that has been a major part of his teaching for many years, he now encourages all students to interact with former members. This change, the Teacher has stated, will promote the right work of centers, lead to thoughtful dialogue within the School, foster healthy relationships with people in the community, and enable students to decide for themselves about the perils of rejecting Influence C. Students are encouraged to make their own observations, reach their own conclusions, and develop their own understanding through personal experience.
“There has never been anything to hide,” the Teacher said, “so there is nothing to fear. Do not inner consider your good fortune.”
As part of this objective, the Teacher is asking students to organize several open meetings, where all topics are open for discussion. He said these meetings will be a metaphor for the “School observing itself,” because after all a key practice of the Fourth Way is self-observation. He believes the meetings will lead to new insights and discoveries in the search for ancient knowledge, as well as promote our efforts to raise the level of being of the School.
Additionally, the Teacher encourages all members to read the online discussion group, often called the “blog.” The criticism within the blog is a welcome denying force for our work, and we must learn to embrace this challenge rather than fear it and buffer it. As part of that work, the Teacher encourages all students to read and participate in the blog while using their own discretion. But he asks that members not engage in arguments during their participation.
“Only lies need defending, while the Truth defends itself,” he stated. “It is feminine dominance to be concerned with negative opinions about the School.”
As part of the above guidelines, the Teacher is encouraging open discussion about the Sequence and other new ideas being discussed within the School, as well as to all ideas connected with the Fourth Way and to the Teacher’s interpretation of these ideas. Several meetings will be held that encourage open discussion. “I have always said that you must make the School your own,” the Teacher stated.
To encourage wider participation within the School, online discussion groups will also be launched on the School’s website. Also, several seminars will be held at centers worldwide to help students cope with problems related to physical and mental health, teaching payments, career, family issues, relationship issues, and more.
Finally, reversing previous directives that discouraged community service and community involvement unless they furthered the aims of the School, the Teacher is asking students to take an active role in their local communities to promote the common good.
This new direction will lead to a new level of being for the School. The Teacher believes these new rules will emphasize good householder for the School as a whole, and also promote good householder in the lives of individuals within the School.
In Friendship,
Howard
——
Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it.
-Andre Gide
May 8, 2007 at 9:42 am
FenceRider #290 & #319,
Thanks for openning other books now (other than the FOF book ).
So all is brain activity. But maybe its an illusion and it’s all inside a super brain with only non-dual holistic right lobe. A super lefty.
No wonder I often feel exhausted: instead of an internal harmonious division of labor there is a fightclub going there; in the left corner a bespectacled proffessor in suit & tie, and on the other a non-dualist motorcycling rabbi in white robes, they fight for who will look thru the eyes, take hold of the tongue, approach the girl, drive the car.
And who the heck is present here anyway.
May 8, 2007 at 9:46 am
Dear friends,
RB will lead a meeting at the Galleria on Sunday May 13th (his birthday) at 10 AM (PST)(In London 6PM)
Let’s everybody who wish to cure him from his terrible disorders apply Hawaiian therapy Ho’oponopono towards him. Together! Sincerely!
I am sorry. I love you.
Let’s start exactly at 10 AM and continue (kinda sequence, also 6 words) for how long as we can. OK? Any contra?
fa
May 8, 2007 at 12:14 pm
Thank you FenceRider for your two last posts.Very interesting.
The nature of presence as Robert teaches it is a question that I am living too and yes it is a very relevant to the assessing the worth of the FOF!!
May 8, 2007 at 1:55 pm
Whale Rider,
The well written account of of the unpleasent sexual experience is effective. But as soon as I’m done reading, I remember it was just bad sex between two consenting adults, with some manipulation involved. So I cannot join the chorus of the sympathizers & the mia culpas. Nor do I feel responsiblity regarding your chioces or anybody’s. I read it as a cautionary tale about gullibility.
The purgation may be necessary for you but that’s only first step. More importantly is how you have matured since and if you are now free from falling into situations in which you feel used, exploited, victimized & abused.
Yes, I think that these stories should be told, the facts known, the pimps & the enablers exposed.
The gap between pretention & reality should also be made clear.
And the money should stop supporting this individual’s eccesses.
This is only one expression of the gullibility of young students: an example of far more damaging expression is allowing oneself to be exploited for years being in ’salaried’ position that pays less than the legal minimum wage.
But the enormous indignation is somewhat wasted on RB.
It’s target should be the individual gullibility (mine, yours, many of the current members) that inflates another person to such a stature. You listen to RB’s nonsese ideas with reverence, pampered him, spoiled him, indulged his every whim, You have given him the power to make for you even the decisions regarding your own body.
You are the one who played the leading role in this drama and feeling victimized, ‘ponopooonig’ or mia culpaing does little to make ourselves better and outgrow past mistakes. See if you do not let yourself be unproportionally taxed by other things in your life today.
If a more independent, well rounded, well adjusted, enlightened person emerged as a result, even the past very bad experiences are, in a sense – very good.
May 8, 2007 at 2:57 pm
326: Rabbi’s looking for “a permanent awakening”
What on earth is “a permanent awakening”?
May 8, 2007 at 3:56 pm
Dear readers.
To do ho’nopopono at 10.00 on Sunday morning is a great idea. May I add something?
I am sorry
You are part of my creation, of my world..
I love you.
The results for you and the other are much more powerful with step two.
Watch it.
Love to all of you.
RB will lead a meeting at the Galleria on Sunday May 13th (his birthday) at 10 AM (PST)(In London 6PM)
Let’s everybody who wish to cure him from his terrible disorders apply Hawaiian therapy Ho’oponopono towards him. Together! Sincerely!
I am sorry. I love you.
Let’s start exactly at 10 AM and continue (kinda sequence, also 6 words) for how long as we can. OK? Any contra?
May 8, 2007 at 3:57 pm
PS.
Now for the crowning touch…The coup d’grace. As I was tossing and turning again last night I remembered something else. Something about RB’s anatomy that will substantiate my claim that I do exist, I am not an imaginary person, and all that I described happen to me.
Has anyone out there had the privilege(?) of seeing RB in his bare feet? Now that’s a select group, for sure. RB has a condition called “hammer toe”. I don’t remember which foot, but one of his smaller toes, the second or third one over from his big toe, the tip points downward. All the other toes are on the level, so to speak. Just to be clear, instead of being parallel to the floor as most toenails are, this one toenail points straight down to the floor. This is something that a Podiatrist can fix, and maybe he’s had it fixed by now. Can anyone back me up on this, has anyone else noticed his “hammer toe” or that at some point he had some minor surgery on one of his feet?
WhaleRider
1979-1985
May 8, 2007 at 4:14 pm
I’m curious as to why several responders have seemed so offended by FenceRider’s posts re right side/left side of the brain connected to the current FoF practice of self-remembering. What is so offensinve about thinking?
I wonder if some people bother to actually read and think about the blogs before they respond? I can understand skimming through without making the effort to digest every one, but if you are going to take the time to respond, why not take the time to fully read what you are responding to?
Personally I find it quite refreshing to look at our long-cherished *beliefs* (myths?) from some different point of view. I really dislike the concept that any tenet could be “sacred”, not to be examined (verified?), dissected, thought about dispassionately, or even, yes, joked about. All of these different points of view about something so “sacred” as self-remembering and “higher states” – it reminds us that we none of us know squat about any of it.
May 8, 2007 at 4:48 pm
On the subject of ‘awakening’ in the FOF
I agree with John (#331) and Rabbi Burns, that many practices in the FOF lead to deeper sleep, not awakening. A German woman student shared an exercise to help ‘self-remember’ that could be used for long periods, far longer than the ‘twenty minutes’ that O. claimed would lead to breakthrough. The exercise consists of deepening presence while clenching first one buttock, then the other, very slowly. For some reason, one can do this and not go into imagination for quite long periods; I was able to do it for as long as half an hour. Imagine my disappointment when I didn’t break through!
Another practice that leads to greater, not lesser, sleep are meetings. They are especially dangerous, because this is where the group comes to get inoculated with the latest groupthink. I gather the format of meetings has changed since I left, so some of the details of this letter I sent to Girard Haven on this very subject have changed. But, not the gist. I’m sure these observations contributed to my downfall!
For those interested, here goes:
Either I’m nuts or nearly everyone else is!
Sunday, November 7, 1994
Dear Girard,
Thank you for leading the meeting on Saturday night. I’m sharing some observations and opinions about what went on then for two reasons; I hope they will be useful for you, and I want also to clarify my own thoughts.
There are several areas I wish to write about.
To start with, I assume that to some degree you were intentional when you chose the people who supported you on the podium. It was certainly an imposing array of the ‘old guard’, and had its intended effect. When you and those who you associate with are up on the podium, have you considered what is happening? You are transmitting borrowed power (which comes from Robert, who get all of this particular kind from us). It may make you feel good, but it is not real. And all those in the meeting receive the radiations and also feel good, aligned with you, aligned with the organization, facing the sun—Robert. And we mistake this energy for spiritual energy, and say “If it feels good, I must be more awake!” But, not so! I say this because it relates to what follows.
It is only at a few special periods, such as the one presently unfolding, that an amazing process becomes clear to me, and on Saturday night there was crystal clarity. What I saw was the phenomenon of using the work angles to send ourselves to sleep. A strong statement indeed! Yet, consider this. What were we after when we joined the Fellowship? For me it was an environment that would allow me to wake up as soon as possible. And what does that mean? It means waking up my conscience and learning to distinguish its voice from the surrounding rubbish. Why wake up conscience? So I can listen to it and act on it, making it my internal master, the only valid and real master. If this happens, and it is the only reason to me for living, there becomes no need for an external master. There is only one valid objective for temporarily hiring an external master and borrowing his will, and that is to speed the waking and learn to serve one’s own Ideal the quicker. If I dedicate the perceptions and fruits of my Self to an external master and to an external ideal, no matter how noble, then all I am is a noble slave. This is for me one of the few absolutes.
So, what I saw was that whenever our consciences stir against slavery to Robert’s ideals (which may be noble, but are outside ourselves, and so are just enticing mazes where we lose our individuality), we use the work angles to squash the discomfort. During this extraordinary period of possibilities, the consciences of many students are stirring. But you, I hope unwittingly, used the dead, misused, abused, now lifeless work tools to squeeze the messy struggle of life, and encouraged us to do the same. When you demanded that the angles be objective, you enlarged intellectual center was mistaking dryness and impersonality for objectivity. You set the rhythm for the hypnotic, sleep-inducing delivery of the angles. And so again we simply stopped daring to ask personal questions, or give personal answers, the kind that are bursting with blood, and anguish and caring. If only you had looked, you would have seen from the sappy looks on the faces of those supposed to be your friends the familiar hypnosis of students at meetings, the weird mixture of mild comfort and mild guilt. The same look was on your face, and on the faces of your companions. I only heard two angles that dealt with transformation on a level accessible to us—the ones that used the word ‘love’. That is how difficult the subject is, how mysterious, how out of control and far from our intellectual understanding. The first beautiful angle of the evening, from Ivy, could and should have set the tone for the rest of the conversation. But instead we decided to use the work against ourselves. Any decent emotion has to be “transformed”, not lived. Any questionable attitude has to be euthanized. Any genuine feeling has to be stifled. Any sense of wonder has to be squeezed to death. All this is “transformation”. And this is good because Robert seems to want it. We can support this with dozens of angles that he has passed on, or hundreds of suitable quotations from the work books, or any number of testimonials to Robert’s consciousness.
The second time the word love was used was in your quotation at the end, and I thank you for that. You seemed to come to life, and we responded by coming to life a bit. And we even changed the energy in the room to something higher than comfortable self-congratulation. How can things be wrong when the meetings feel so good? Did you mean it when you called for us to put off childish things, become men? None of us so far seems to be able to. We are satisfied by being told that we are all men number four, that everything is fine, that the gods are on our side. And you are told you are a man number five, or whatever! I hope you don’t believe it. Girard, when we begin to listen to our consciences, and swear loyalty to our internal Ideal over all other ideals, then we will become men number four. When we make our verifications more important than anyone else’s, then we may become men number four. Only then will the shackles that we voluntarily put on ourselves fall away, and the words you quoted start to come true.
Girard, you seem driven by your intellectual center. I’m dominated by my moving center. We can’t solve the real problems by using our centers of gravity alone. If we try, then when we can’t find the answer through them, we just go back to sleep. You told us you are attracting something new when you start skipping. So, why don’t we try ‘skipping’ at meetings? We could try to move in the opposite direction—no poppycock, no unverifiable angles (for example, talking for five minutes about Robert’s consciousness). We can intentionally make them more personal. If we can’t, let us abandon large meetings and try smaller and smaller ones until we reach a size where we can give and receive personal energy among ourselves. The form of our meetings hasn’t changed for twenty-five years! Not very successful results when our watchword is supposed to be to change patterns! My conscience is stirring and making me uncomfortable. It needs room to stretch. Our consciences need exercise. Our job in the school is to exercise our consciences and learn to trust what they tell us. We cannot make any real mistakes if we do this.
To end, I’d like to share some words by Kabir Helminski that another student sent me recently.
“In this time when spiritual fellowships are confused with cults, leadership with tyranny, and submission with the abandonment of conscience, I want to speak for the unpopular and easily misunderstood values of spiritual leadership and the group process… A saying has it that one log will not burn by itself, but with a little kindling a number of logs leaning against each other will make a good fire. A group, any group, generates energy, but the quality of energy and the use to which it is put will determine whether that group becomes a mob, a cult, or a circle of lovers… The power of love is waiting to do its work, and if we independent and isolated people would allow ourselves to overcome our separateness, our suspicion, and our pride, the miracle of unity and affection is still possible. According to a Sufi saying, “Grapes ripen in the sun smiling at one another.”
Sincerely,
Ames Gilbert
P.S. I enclose a copy of a letter I sent to Steven Dambeck after he led the last meeting. I think there is a strong correspondence between the contents of that letter and this.
My illusions fall with the leaves.
The wind—it doesn’t care!
Phew! Just finished keying all that in because the original file is lost. As I mentioned above, this letter, and other letters and activities, surely led to the Big Boot a short while later. Although the format of the meetings may have ‘changed’ superficially, I’d guess that the combined effect of the Big Kahuna pontificating and the distribution word-wide of the subsequent video (a known hypnotic medium in itself) would make the sleep even deeper. I did not receive a reply to this letter, or any others. To be fair, Girard did try to corral me outside the Lodge soon after this one, but I was too angry to stick around to hear what he had to say. I had just been watching him and a couple of flunkies go through the letter boxes, removing what he judged to be subversive material from all the slots. The fact that he took this task upon himself showed me something important about the FOF, and I hadn’t had time to digest it.
The haiku is my own.
With love to you all, ‘in’ or ‘out’,
Ames
May 8, 2007 at 5:41 pm
I just heard a hugh, “woe is me” coming from Northern California.
G. Haven, you have 24 hours to leave the premises. I suggest to you as one criminal to another that you change your name, before you’re accused of being the ‘kingpin’ of the operation.
And also, stash some cash for your new life in Mexico. While you are on your way to Mexico drop off Bobby at a San Francisco bath house where he is sure to find comfort and protection from FRIENDS in FELLOWSHIP.
Venuian/Mercury Mexico would be more more appealing to your Mars psychology. Better than San Quintin.
May 8, 2007 at 6:18 pm
“334
That is a very good idea and I will join in.
There are hundreds of studies on the effects of prayers on health.
Many of them have been designed according to the highest scientific standards (randomised double or even tripple blind studies).
Most of them seem to proof the effects of prayers even over far distances.
Sources:
- “Western Journal of medicine” 169, 356-363
- Jeff Levin “God, Faith and Health”
- Randolph Byrd, Southern Medical Journal, 81: 826-829
Yes, a collective prayer for Robert Burton,
Girard and all the others, who need healing on so many levels will have effects for sure.
It can create a healing field in and for the FOF, in which healing can happen.
On a deeper level everything is love.
Love is the matrix, which connects all of us. Members, exmembers, Robert and all the others – the whole humanity.
I have read the page on Ho’oponopono.
The therapist also says, that the healing method works, because he feels a responsibility.
He goes inside and sees how he also had created his patients illnesses and takes responsibility for it and than he says: I am sorry and I love you.
This method might not only heal the person, that one does it for, but has also a deep healing effect on the person who prays.
I assume that everyone who reads this blog needs some sort of healing connected to the experiences, which did not reveal their inner most truths to us yet, that everything is Love.
One has to go very deep for that and might have to face a lot pain on the way, but the result will be this: Everything is love.
Byron Katie once said: I know that everyone loves me, it is just that some are not aware of it yet.
May 8, 2007 at 6:51 pm
#332…Is this real?
Pretty astounding if it is.. The blog motivating RB to cover his own ass so abruptly and sweepingly…”See, I’m putting everything in the open…I’m obviously not the person everyone on the blog is saying I am.”
If it is, though I’m skeptical, it not only DOES NOT change everything, but makes it far worse. It shows what RB’s real concerns are….RB, cash flow, opinions of others, loosing the “fodder”. Extreme panic and damage control. The “commander guy” losing control.
Whale Rider, you certainly have nothing to prove to those who experienced the real “inner circle”, and you have nothing to justify, explain or convince to those who are so invested in their heads being in the sand (or up their collective asses). Screw them and their doubts. You’ve laid open an incredibly tender area of your life, and the vultures from the shit pile think they recognize weakness and hesitatingly fly closer. It’s a microcosm of what’s happening in our criminal government…striking out at anything that comes close to truth in it’s laughable and pitiable attempts to justify the unjustifiable.
Onward and upward.
May 8, 2007 at 7:42 pm
Anonymous (337): “What on earth is ‘a permanent awakening’?”
In the 4th Way it’s described in a number of ways: acquiring a permanent connection to higher centers, becoming a man number six or seven, creating a conscious soul or astral body. Robert claims that it happened for him when he “crystallized”.
In Advaita it’s described as seeing your true nature as present awareness. John Wheeler: “You settle down with the understanding that there is something bright, clear and steady right within you at all times.”
Hope that helps, RB
May 8, 2007 at 8:10 pm
Hello Ames (341),
It has slid even further downhill in the last couple of years. No one articulates “angles” anymore. People read from cards and sheets with content that is pre-approved. It’s a very controlled environment — not that open discussion was ever a part of the program, but we are now even further removed from that possibility today.
May 8, 2007 at 8:23 pm
To Fofanatomy, post 8/334
Lovely idea!
We can only gain by giving it a try.
Are you sure a 10 AM at ISIS is a 6PM in London? I think would be a 1AM!?
Because the right timing is important
(for simplicity and efficiency)
is there anyone out there willing to clarify this point?
Perhaps via posting a sort of table listing equivalent timings valid in several Countries and even Continents?
Shall we not try to gather the most of us?
Gratitude.
May 8, 2007 at 9:22 pm
to Whalerider re #231:
You do not need to produce physical evidence to be believed. Blake said: “Truth can never be told so as to be understood, and not be believed”
GOlb and others who have responded to your stories with doubt, are probably professional defenders and lackies of RB, who have built their status and pathetic careers within FOF by eloquently denying or justifying any “funny business”. They know the truth of your story–they probably were in the same position(s) as you in their younger days.
Many of those who submitted, even just once or twice, to RB’s “desires” and then acted like it was a wonderful thing, or, more often, simply kept quiet and continued in their devotion and service to the FOF, were “taken care of” by RB from then on. This ususally took the form of perks and gifts. Fully paid “Traveling preacher” trips to Europe or other exotic centers. Golf trips to Palm Springs. Some were set up with “important” roles within the FOF hierarchy, drawing salaries(while still paltry by “life” standards) that were many times greater than the standard FOF salary. Some have been probably been assisted in setting up businesses, art studios and little wineries around Oregon House. One method was to have expenses and purchases deducted from teaching payments. Others, had businesses and never had to make teaching payments. There were many creative approaches to rewarding the loyal.
Those who chose not to stay around Oregon House, still were rewarded with attention, expensive dinners at fine restaurants with RB and more gifts.
I know this, because, I was one of this group. I was basically silent at meetings and stopped attending them entirely 5 years before I left. I was never a center director and generally scorned the directors in the centers where I lived when I left Oregon House. I had no need for them as I had a direct line to the teacher himself. He would always answer my phone calls. I was RB’s loyal friend, who would usually be invited to dinner etc. when he was in town. I would run errands for him in NY and call him if I found a particularly exotic big bottle of wine for him to purchase. I monitored the auctions of some of the bland old master painting collected at the time. My one-bedroom apartment was always available for entourage members to stay at. One of RB’s secretaries actually made a set of keys to my place without telling me, so he could let himself in.
At Oregon House (I use the town name because I cannot keep up with all the name changes of “The Farm”) there were the gatherings to watch football and basketball games, where RB would often invite one of his new “projects”. I now realize that my being there with a couple of other “old-timers” helped create a relaxed and normal appearing environment, where the “guys” rooted for the home team, drank lots of beer and actually casually conversed and made jokes with RB. So, while there was no intent by me, I was no doubt a part of the scheme of manipulation that eventually ended up in the bedroom for some of the naive new guests. I participated, mainly because I liked the attention and had developed a taste for the finer things in life like wine, good food and comfort. Basically I was taking care of my instinctive center like all the rest.
Since I left FOF about 10 years ago, I have heard the excuse of some of my friends who remain in FOF, that they stay mainly for the social structure of friends and community and that deep down inside they feel RB is full of it. They have no where to go if they left, or no financial security. Again, the instinctive center ruling one’s life.
Some advice to any of those old friends who might read this: Your simply remaining a member who still looks RB in the eye and smiles around him, makes you an accessory to his lie. Get up off your asses and make some real effort to live in truth.
So, Whalerider, I apologize to you if we knew each other back then and I anyway supported an environment that led to your painful experiences. Truthfully, my conscience WAS telling me to speak up or just run, but my ego and lazy instinctive center managed to rule until I finally found strength.
I hope that writing and sharing your terrifying experiences with others on this Blog is helpful. I never thought that it would have been as cleansing for me as it has.
I hope you can continue to find peace with your past and use it to become stronger and wiser in the present.
May 8, 2007 at 10:36 pm
‘Catching up’ with the blog after a few days…
To Innernaught (# 264), thanks for reading. But, I was speaking 4th Wayspeak, another language, just like French, to 4th Wayers. I was referring to thoughts recorded in 1993-96. I certainly do not claim this is my ‘native’ language. Regardless, I try to separate the message from the messenger. And to this day, the 4th way explains some things (especially natural law) better than any other pattern I have met. Since my DNA makes me helplessly curious about so much, I enjoy myself immensely solving perceived riddles! And I reckon that if I don’t enjoy myself (as an interesting stranger and in every other way) and life itself, I’m simply chucking away my birthright.
To Shaman (# 272). I assume you are asking the questions in good faith, and I will answer likewise. I think a practical way of looking at what makes a rich and satisfying life might be: eight hours of the day is spent sleeping (first state). Ten hours is spent grooming, earning a living, recharging, resting, and so on. The other six hours can be set aside as follows, the proportions depending on the individual person, but for me: 2 hours working on things that please myself. Two hours on raising my own food or otherwise in contact with nature, including being a steward of ‘my’ land. Two hours on things that benefit my community. These are just averages. This way of looking at the lines of work I got from the Nearings, but they were able to devote four hours each to the last three, since they were ‘self-sufficient’ and didn’t have to go outside their farmstead to earn a living. So, this is a bare minimum. If you can extend the ‘lines’ into the “earning a living” segment, meaning you are doing worthwhile work that suits you and dignifies you, whatever that means to you, you are in the minority—be grateful! If you are not, look for such a living if possible. But I’ve found some of the jobs in my career have depended on my attitude; a few were unbearable, but most could be changed for the better by adjusting my internal state, looking for opportunities to learn, to make friends, make common cause, make light.
Whether this affects ‘evolution’, I don’t know. I no longer think in those terms. But I do know, for myself, that the ideas of balance are true for me if I am to enjoy my life and live it more fully. There has to be time for oneself beyond food and sleep, developing one’s interests and talents, whether it is ‘philosophizing’ or anything else. There has to be time to ‘give back’ to the community in which we are in, and engaging with other people always brings unexpected rewards. There has to be time to be with nature—we are her creatures—and exchange energies, from feeling the rich soil our bodies are soon to return to, to trimming the woodlot (supplying intelligence where the fecundity of nature threatens to overwhelm). All these lines can be done with mindfulness, gratitude and wonder.
I’m grateful for the work of all kinds I did in the FOF, but I felt that the ‘selfish’ turn of second and third line of work was unhealthy—for me. That is, most third line was developing the FOF property and possessions, most second line was just with other students (and rather limited at that), and so on. In a Parallel Universe (#332) has pointed this out beautifully in his post. The FOF as an organism cutting itself off from essential energies of the outside world has bred stagnancy. Engaging with the whole world brings continual refreshment and health.
With warm regards,
Ames
May 8, 2007 at 11:24 pm
On “brainwashing”
Looking at Robert Jay Lifton’s study on “brainwashing” I would like to make some parallels with the Fellowship that others might find useful.
In his idea of Milieu control, it says:
“The basic feature of the thought reform environment, the psychological current upon which all else depends, is the control of human communication”.
In the Fellowship this is done by institutionalizing what one must think, read or talk about as much as with whom, where and when.
The control of communication in the separation from “life” or the outside world couldn’t be more aggressive with statements like “life being the six million dead people outside of the fellowship”.
Students have been given the exercise to not read newspapers and many life books, influence b, books and it is suggested that we read only what the teacher is publishing and researching on.
The aim is not so much to enlighten students, as to keep them from reading, thinking and talking about their own inner life because their own inner life is labelled the ‘lower self’. It is very smart programming because it disguises itself with being a noble enterprise between students and while there is nothing wrong in these readings, what is extremely harmful is that the students are not given any opportunity to express and validate their own interests, inner life, search, understandings and struggles.
The treatment of life families as “biological families”, increases the separation and students become more emotionally and intellectually, as well as instinctively dependent on the Fellowship.
In their “inner life”, students are told that every thing they think or feel are just I’s, ten thousand idiots, nothing is worth the effort except mindlessness. This is justified by the acquisition of an enlightened state beyond functions: presence
But the milie control in the Fellowship is also given by the form of the school in any of its aspects. The simple imposition of the way people should dress is a basic arrest on the individual’s feeling for his own self expression. While this is done with the justification that dressing beautifully makes people make more effort about themselves, it also takes the aspect of programming that self expression is given up to the collective will.
The only ones with individual will accepted in the Fellowship are Robert, Girard, Asaf and the few chosen ones by Robert. The rest of the students are expected to give up their will to Robert and are then told that they are more awake by doing so in meetings. “You are all present now. Together we are more awake”
Giving up the individual will is justified by the old form of teacher-student relationship but there is no teacher-student relationship in the Fellowship and the individual will is expected to be given up to a collective will in which the only thing that is demanded from the student is that he refrains from expressing himself, his interests or wishes and pays money to be able to participate in every event. It is the money that determines the student’s participation in the school, not the will he gives up. The student is programmed to give up his/her will so that he continues to pay without questioning the form.
Lifton: “Such milieu control never succeeds in becoming absolute; and its own human apparatus can -when permeated by outside information- become subject to discordant “noise” beyond that of any mechanical apparatus. To totalist administrators, however, such occurrences are no more than evidences of ‘incorrect” use of the apparatus. For they look upon milieu control as a just and necessary policy, one which need not be kept secret”
In the Fellowship, the master mind which has kept the “milieu control” without serious questioning is mostly Girard Haven with his artistry in returning all questions and obstacles into forms that students cannot argue with and still remain in the school.
Ideas such as:
Since Robert is a man number seven and the rest of us are barely men number four we cannot question him because we do not have the being.
This angle by Girard or others in the inner circle have two aims, wether they do it consciously or unconsciously. One is to justify the separation between students and Robert and with it all of Robert’s inability to have simple direct contact with individual students and the other is to put students into a frame of mind about themselves that they are inferior beings, that they do not have the being to question the dissonances.
In both Girard’s and Robert’s behavior we have consistently seen how they are unable to relate to individuals in a personal, normal, simple interaction. They keep themselves separated by an act of “good manners but stay away”, so they greet people, they may even kiss them or embrace them but it is clear that this is just a formality and that there is no direct human contact or acceptance or love in it. When they do establish direct relationships with people, sex mates or wives, they treat them as necessary objects that are not to be given more than a functional role. They disguise and justify this behavior by the assumption (which the Fellowship has made us all believe) that they are higher beings than the rest of the students, that they are busier, more important, have counted time, but what they are really saying is that who ever you are, you are not worth their time or their being. They put students in a lower state, condition, social status, so that they can continue to manipulate them intellectually, emotionally and instinctively. By doing so emotionally they do not need to force students like a dictator would have to do, students volunteer to serve them because they become emotionally identified.
At the same time it looks very legitimate because although they neglect to establish simple, spontaneous human contact, they have given their lives to serving students in made up situations, shows, such as meetings, dinners, events, in which they show themselves benevolent, loving, understanding and with this keep the emotional identification students have of a higher being, loving them. Girard’s commitment to Robert is the most inspiring force that has kept the Fellowship running.
When students can see the motives behind Robert to keep his role and Girard’s and Asaf’s to keep Robert’s and his own role, they will begin to understand how they’ve been “set up” by these men.
May 8, 2007 at 11:33 pm
#323 Mark H.
Wonderful link. Thank you!
#324 unoanimo
I don’t know what to say but this post demands to be responded to.
Keep dreaming and keep writing!
May 9, 2007 at 12:16 am
FenceRider, Sharon and others who disliked my response to the left/right hemispheres of the brain theory; sorry to offend, it is just that I have given up on thinking, often it turns out to be literally mind games which may feel like they are real at the time, but lead no where. Ideas, theories, concepts are just that, neither do I pursue ‘prescence’ any more, in fact I pursue nothing much, just being satisfied with whatever I am as fully as possible, do whatever I am doing as intently as possible, experience whatever I am experiencing within and outside myself as it happens….shit, does that make me a ‘non-dualist’?! I don’t know and I don’t care, labels dont change the flavour. It took me a long time after leaving the FOF and examining other ‘trains of thought’ to come to this place, and it is the best so far! Not that I am wallowing in lust and selfishness, but I am acknowledging and being sensitive to everything I experience and find there is an inner intelligence that manifests without effort the moment you give up on this part that seeks and seeks for some kind of understanding or identity.
I will be trying the ‘mantra’ on Sunday morning. Does it matter if you believe or not???
Lots of love and lust for LIFE!
May 9, 2007 at 12:27 am
“I didn’t even get the “its good for your evolution, dear”, all I got was, “you’re with an angel now” and down he goes. Gee, do I give him the benefit of the doubt here, I mean, what do I have to lose? Only MY SOUL!!! So in fact, there was no consent. I was scared shitless! I was 24.”
Its time to you grew up, dear.
“I happen to still have in my possesion a pair of 23 year old brown wool pants that I purchased in Italy while traveling with guess who. The tag is in Italian with a metric size. Inside the fly by the zipper, is a white piece of fabric lining with some old stains. Semen stains…”
Gee, again WITHOUT YOUR CONSENT….?”
“I can mark out my name, ssn, check number, and member number, so that only the Rennasiance Winery logo and date can be seen. I can photo the stain on the pants and the Italian label.”
If, dear boy, you were LUCKY enough to travel with R, it meant that you were able to pay the price, so STOP WINNING. It also meant you were able to provide your services without objection.
“There used to be access from outside the building to the crawl space. Be very careful. Hmmm…or has the building suddenly been put off limits?”
I have been FOF for many years. What you say is nothing new nor unique. All is known.
You are a victim of your own stupidity. R is more clever than you, nothing more, nothing less. If you indeed joined a school for awakening you seemed to have missed the bus. By travelling with him you have “passed the test” of his pimps and scouts but have failed in the category of conscience. You are simply jumping on the bandwagon and I have no sympathy for those who want to exploit their own stupidity by blaming someone else, in this case R.
Again, its a bad cliche, but no one held a gun to your head.
May 9, 2007 at 12:30 am
Dear Ames and others who left a while ago,
Yes the meetings have changed very strongly since you left. They change to the worst. Slowly, the life was choked out of them.
First (about 2 years ago or so) in the centers we were given paper quotes to read at meetings, to mix in with personal angles. Some quotes were beautiful sayings from prominent beeings. Soon quotes started to have “Robert’s comment” added, often unnecessary, bizarre and kind of made fit… Then images from various sources were added, also with “Robert’s comments” and often some Photoshop editing, also to make them fit his point. Personal angles were reduced to almost nothing – questions and personal observations were not encouraged. (to prevent law of accident, I guess, or – independent thinking). In some centers personal angles were completely banned for a while (in Russia, for example). The meetings become lifeless and uninspiring.
Then we were asked to maintain a steady eye contact with the speaker. Those who didn’t or forgot to do so were “photographed”. The reason for staring – to promote presence, of course. So the meetings turned into very rigid quote-interpretations readings with staring in each other eyes and passing the weird images around… It became very heavy and serious – no more laughing at meetings, no jokes, no “personal anecdotes” (observations, that is). It became really, really bad. No, it honestly did not promote presence, or any thinking, any exchange of thought – it was really sleep inducing, and very difficult to bear. It used to make one rather upset and frustrated more than anything else. Often students would confess, that this was a painful part to endure, but at least it was relatively quick and after the meeting you can have a glass of wine, relax and chat with a friend. But our “believers” really thought this was the best meeting format we ever had – totally controlled, serious, no fun allowed.. “We never had it so good!” Right, guys?
Lots and lots of students all over the world were unhappy with a “new form” and were complaining about it.
Soon in Isis the big meetings were completely stopped and instead not 1 but 2 Galleria meetings per week were introduced, both led by RB and Asaf. It was pre-staged quote-image-interpretation ping-pong exchange between two of them, with everyone staring in their eyes. No personal angles were allowed. Oh yes, these meetings also cost money, they are not free. The prices used to be $50 for standing, $100 for seated. Every performance gets filmed and then sold again in centers as a “Teaching video” for $10 per watching. You do the math.
Once when I was at Isis meeting something unexpected and funny happened, and everyone relaxed and started to laugh, even Asaf. It felt as if the “spell” was broken for a second and everyone became alive, like a breath of fresh air came to a stuffy room. And it was shocking to see how RB without any smile on his face suddenly got very intense and almost yelled: “Let’s continue, let’s continue! Look at me! Asaf!” His face was scary and very unkind in this moment – not his usual “nice” face. Within seconds everyone was quiet, glued to the next bizarre image and the hypnotic show continued. This was the first time I considered these meetings to have a hypnotic element, where everyone gets “inoculated” with new teaching no matter how mad and absurd… Before this episode I strongly rejected any notion of hypnosis or brainwashing during meetings.
It is amazing that people can tolerate this much crap force-fed to them AND pay money for this. How can anyone still believe in it – is a mystery. It’s not even esoteric ideas anymore, not a system, not anything one can possibly verify. RB counts and interprets or “keys” painted stuff like hairs in giraffe tails, 6 poops, penises, breasts, hands, mating scenes, counts wordless breaths, imagines endless battles between Steward and the devils, engages in weird numbers games that make no common sense.
This is all RB talks about these days, prolifically, at every meeting, and people go there and pay to hear this. It’s not 4th Way, not Gourjieff-Ouspensky, it’s RB’s own mad creation that requires faith, obedience and loss of critical thinking. Faithful “researchers” supply him with more material to decode and regurgitate, so the meetings “show” can go on. It’s like some strange decoding machine – everything it encounters is supposed to have deep meaning, and it’s all related to the sacred Sequence (this time around).
Please have some respect for yourselves, dear friends! When will you really see that this is only selfish madness, decadent and excessive, and quit supporting it? Open your eyes.
If you are generous – please donate to charity, help your neighbor, or a friend in need, or our environment, or local community – do something truly good, something kind, selfless, beautiful. Do not support a false teaching by an abusive dishonest leader – no matter how sweet he looks when he smiles to you.
SIncerely wishing everyone inner freedom and courage to see things as they truly are.
May 9, 2007 at 12:39 am
PS:
“Has anyone out there had the privilege(?) of seeing RB in his bare feet? Now that’s a select group, for sure. RB has a condition called “hammer toe”.
Are we picking at straws or what? Hammer toe is an extremely common occurance in the vast majority of humans on this planet. WHAT IS YOUR POINT???
“Now for the crowning touch…The coup d’grace. As I was tossing and turning again last night I remembered something else. Something about RB’s anatomy that will substantiate my claim that I do exist”
You are a little far from the part of the anatomy that you are expert at, dear. Aim a little higher.
May 9, 2007 at 1:02 am
Some thoughts on “Self remembering”
There seems to be some confusion going on with this term. I am probably about to make it worse.
We have all along this blog been confusing “states” of consciousness with “stages” or “structures” of conscious development.
The “states” might be described as “gross” ordinary waking consciousness, “subtle” (3rd state) dreamlike waking “self-consciousness”, “causal” (4th state) void consionsness and “non-dual” ground of the “One Self” consciousness. (one would choose to view this as a continuum as opposed to a series of rooms or boxes though there may be particular flavors)
These states can be experienced (often through meditation) and are interpreted by the stage or structure of consciouness (the human being is the highest evolutionary development and contains the highest potential structures for consciouness) one has developed in oneself.
An example might be an Indian guru who experiences a “non-dual” state and interprets within an “ethno-centric” structure of conscious development and therefore will not eat meat because they see that all creatures are of one creation. This is the cultural moral structure they have been educated with. It is possible to exprience “causal” or “non-dual” states and interpret the experience through an “ego-centric” structure combined with undigested “shadow” elements and one can imagine the “jungle” which might result from that.
Another example of stage or structure development might be this. In one post someone kind of criticised unoanimo for mixing and matching systems of knowledge (4th way and Tolle). Another way of looking at it is that unoanimo is functioning from a higher structure of consciousness which sees subject of a lower level structure (particular knowledge) as object within a higher structure and can move it around to express a certain idea a unique way.
I am certain that this is confusing and may seem like a lot of b.s. but it is very interesting to me.
Relating this to “Self- remembering” goes like this. If one takes “self- remembering” as the effort to “divide attention” , be aware of oneself and surroundings and trying to be present then it does not necissarily prove fruitful. If one interprets “self-remembering” as the “One Self” realizing itself within one (sorry about the dualistic implication) then this is a different interpretation.
Combining the two interpretations might shine a light on the statement: “watch do not sleep for you know not the hour or day the master may come” (sorry if i hacked up the quote)
May 9, 2007 at 1:25 am
Left/Right
How can a non-dualist formatory mind exist?
Former students were right when they left.
Self-remembering is the only right left.
May 9, 2007 at 1:43 am
The most obvious thing is often overlooked, so I’d like to recommend Sheik’s description of his first (and last) prospective student meeting on page 1 of this blog.
Another well written first-person account (by yet another lowly “life person”) can be found in: “When the Rain Comes: An Encounter with the Fellowship of Friends”:
http://cadeveo.wordpress.com/2007/03/18/when-the-rain-comes-an-encounter-with-the-fellowship-of-friends/
Meanwhile…
Barbara (1/1), I’m wondering what became of you after you posted to the blog on June 24th, 2006. Are you aware of what’s been happening in the last 10 months? At the time, did you have any idea?
May 9, 2007 at 1:59 am
#357, GOlb…very glib, proud of yourself? Morons on parade.
May 9, 2007 at 2:21 am
WhaleRider, I can vouch for your story, as it mirrors my own in many details. And of course we knew each other well. I was 23 in 1978 when Robert came on to me. Not as many times nor as intensely as you describe, but otherwise the same story. Some historic context: in those days many people slept on floors in sleeping bags. For some of us the Blake Cottage was simply an upgrade from sleeping at the Lodge under a dining table. When I moved in there I had no idea that Robert would do what he did. I think it happened less than ten times to me altogether. This covert sex life was emotionally stressful for me, but not unbearable. During my time in Robert’s entourage I received only three gifts that I can remember: a rosewood pen & pencil set, a special-press edition of the Rubaiyat, and an Hermes cashmere jacket. The jacket had actually been purchased for another student but didn’t fit him, so someone had the idea it might fit me. I was married in that jacket less than a year later. Not difficult to do the math in hindsight. There were no orgies back then, at least that I am aware of. There were no Russian students hoping to get green cards, or sex for vouchers either. I worked with a chain saw clearing land in advance of the vineyard landscaping and planting. Lots of poison oak. I remember distinctly that I did not want undue gifts for what I did. The pervasive sense of service, shared conviction and shared affection was very satisfying, probably addictive. We would work hard during the day and take turns serving each other at night. My evening job was providing wine, which strangely has remained my profession to this day. It’s hard to say exactly when I realized that I was not the one and only lover Robert had, but at whatever point I did realize this fact, I also assumed there were probably no more than a few others. I also had no awareness of people getting hurt at the time. I never talked about it, nor did my housemates. In hindsight this seems incredibly naive, even at 20-something. What needs to be understood is that the men close to Robert were envied by many in the community, and continue to be today. Not because of the sex or the gifts, but because they were allowed to be close to the teacher. This is important to understand because when you envy someone it is extremely difficult to think of that person as a victim. And when you are envied by others it is also difficult to think of yourself as a victim. This dynamic has become even more acute lately, as Robert has substantially withdrawn himself from personal contact with most of this run of the mill students.
The big difference in my story from WhaleRider’s is that I stayed in. It has only been one month since I left the FOF, and 31 years since I joined. Consequently I have many friends in the FOF today. Some are probably reading this. If I had known what Ames or Charles or Miles knew, I may have left earlier. But I did not know everything they knew. Even now I think many FOF members do not know, and some absolutely do not want to know. Although no longer an FOF student, some of the revelations of this Blog have been shameful and horrifying to me, and I agree with the many comments regarding conscience as a glaring weak spot, both within myself and in the FOF. In my own case it was not the sex or the abuse of power that provoked me to leave the FOF. I left because I lost all respect for the teaching. It has no integrity for me now. The “real school” I thought I joined in 1976, the practical school that urged me to verify everything and remember myself always and everywhere, that valued being over knowledge, has been turned into a weird circus of revisionism, numerology and inane ritual. With four children at home I simply could not justify paying $15K to $20K per year merely to attend concerts, community markets and potager lunches. Going to a meeting or dinner with Robert had become a dreaded experience for me; and yet I tended to blame myself for no longer being able to connect with my teacher or with his obtuse and increasingly delusional teaching. Being free is an unexpected relief. I am happy and grateful to find myself in the role of a beginner once again.
With love,
Joseph G.
1976-2007
As a postscript: A few months ago I received a letter from my high school regarding a Jesuit priest who had been institutionalized for having sex with students. His name was Father Bradley. He had been a disciplinarian at my school when I was a junior and senior. It was a strange shock. I realized that in hindsight several of my Jesuit teachers had clearly been homosexuals, and that the scandal in the Catholic Church had come uncomfortably close to touching my own play. What would I have done if that man had forced himself on me as a 17-year-old? Could I have avoided it? Would he have thought it was consensual? How different was it that Robert took advantage of my youth and inexperience a few years later? In point of fact there was one huge difference: Father Bradley was an unpopular sadistic-looking priest in a religion I had already turned away from, while Robert was my spiritual teacher, and the man who brought me the magic gift of self-remembering. For the record I still believe self-remembering is a great gift, despite all the interesting counterpoints within this Blog. And I am prepared to allow for an ongoing glimmer of karmic gratitude to Robert, in spite of what I now know about him. Just don’t mistake this for condonation or support.
May 9, 2007 at 2:26 am
No person wrote:
“SIncerely wishing everyone inner freedom and courage to see things as they truly are.” I do not doubt your sincerity.
Your interpretation of “how things truly are,” is just not shared by all. Can you respect that too?
Personally, I find the meetings rather improved. A tremendous amount of research goes into the subject, with literally dozens of students researching quotes from all kinds of esoteric traditions–most are inspiring.
Then also because of this new format we do not need to listen to someone’s subjective interpretation of what is being said, nor some story of what happened to them at the grocery store, etc. etc. some jokester trying to be funny, etc. I find this uplifting too.
So, I guess, that “how things truly are” is once again, in the eye of the beholder…
Good luck to all!
Siddiq
May 9, 2007 at 2:45 am
To Sheik (#273) “have you studied the notion of being present (and the exercises taught) from the perspective of zen buddhism and sufism?”
YES, sheik, we do study these presently in the FOF, and this is good stuff! I do not believe the starting point matters much, what matters is where we are ending up.
and, Sheik, you wrote: “You are searching for a dream, my friend, no one is tolerant all the time. One of the biggest dangers in the journey is to seek something that does not exist.”
I agree again, yet it is possible to be somewhat more aware, somewhat more awake than we are now, a little less in imagination, identified, negative, etc.–this is what I am after.
We may never achieve moral perfection, as Benjamin Franklin was seeking (Autobiography) but as he wrote, and proved, he became a better person for having attempted it.
To Rabbi (#281) who wrote: “Siddiq is trying to defend the FOF by equating it with the 4th Way, which as we all know has been more or less completely abandoned by the other RB.”
Rabbi, I am not trying to defend the FOF in any way. There are indeed many holes, but also, yes, there is also the donut, at least the way I see it! I just try to focus on the part that I feel is useful for me. I agree the Fourth Way has been largely abandoned, as also Jeanete points out. It was the foundation for the practice of being present that is its chief value.
in this context, I like the quote from David Archer’s site on Alex Horn, that even Gurdjieff was not a true Gurdjieff teacher.
To Jeanette, (#292 ) who wrote that to “remember that there isn’t one ex-student out here in blog-land that didn’t believe the above just as ardently as you do now. So what changed? Did we really “lose the work”?
Jeanette, I do not believe anyone would lose it just by leaving. There may be many reasons, many paths–I am trying to not judge anyone on this blog, including myself.
You also write: “For me, I began to notice many of the “teachings” Robert was dispensing had nothing to do with the fourth way, nor were they verifiable.”
I agree, absolutely, all the ideas you mention, to me are insignificant, I heard them too and just let them penetrate, often without being able to use them at all (9 lives, etc.).
However, the few ideas that I do consider to be important to verify, are not on your list, the possibility to be awake, free from identification, imagination and that we can transform our suffering…this is enough for me, to use, for quite a few years already. I can do without the other stuff.
I totally agree with you that “RB left the path of the Fourth Way long ago.” The question is, are we on a path going somewhere? I hope so.
Siddiq
May 9, 2007 at 2:57 am
Bruce Says #344:
“re: 332…Is this real?” etc.
NO IT IS NOT!
Your further response shows however that no matter what is done, ignoring or responding, there is not a good way for RB to deal with the blog as he will not be believed, even the best actions will have the worst motivations ascribed to them!
That is no doubt why he doesn’t.
May 9, 2007 at 3:10 am
Elax 101 #355 & #353:
From the latest flow of runny turds in these posts, sounds like the laxative is working.
Keep up the good work, you are contributing so much here.
Do I detect a hint of jealousy of Whalerider’s experiences with RB?
May 9, 2007 at 3:11 am
Elax 101 #355 & #353:
From the latest flow of runny turds in these posts, sounds like the laxative is working.
Keep up the good work, you are contributing so much here.
Do I detect a hint of jealousy of Whalerider’s experiences with RB.
May 9, 2007 at 3:23 am
#363. Then shall I assume you are knowingly speaking for him. It seems you are wearing the authority. Or are you just full of both yourself and shit?
May 9, 2007 at 3:36 am
#332 Please excuse my dumbstruck partial gullibility. I failed to note “parallel universe”.
May 9, 2007 at 3:56 am
Re: In a Parallel Universe (332) Robert’s memo: New Rules for fully mature adults!
Robert’s recent memo to his followers is fascinating and belies his great interest in this discussion board and its participants.
He is attempting to open up to and “know” his “enemy”, which he has perceived as a breathing entity with growing energy who have an increasing sense of community.
We’ve become an “enemy” force, even though we’re all just benignly talking, thinking & exchanging ideas in an open, uncensored and civil forum.
In other words, he has become paranoid.
He is displaying his fear and anger toward ex-members.
“Allowing” his followers to know and investigate their “enemy” will allow him to answer their interesting questions with more twisted pretzel logic. But, first, he needs to know what the questions will be!
So, the current members who have been participants in these discussions, are, in fact, simple drones sent out to spy and instigate ridiculous conversations to see how the poor moon feed will react.
Amazingly condescending.
Has anyone ever read “The 48 Laws of Power”? (Just google that phrase and they come straight up.) (They are a bit ridiculous, but interesting.)
Here are but a few that may apply.
Law 14
Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy
Knowing about your rival is critical. Use spies to gather valuable information that will keep you a step ahead. Better still: Play the spy yourself. In polite social encounters, learn to probe. Ask indirect questions to get people to reveal their weaknesses and intentions. There is no occasion that is not an opportunity for artful spying.
Law 11
Learn to Keep People Dependent on You
To maintain your independence you must always be needed and wanted. The more you are relied on, the more freedom you have. Make people depend on you for their happiness and prosperity and you have nothing to fear. Never teach them enough so that they can do without you.
Here is one that Robert may need to work on:
Law 5
So Much Depends on Reputation – Guard it with your Life
Reputation is the cornerstone of power. Through reputation alone you can intimidate and win; once you slip, however, you are vulnerable, and will be attacked on all sides. Make your reputation unassailable. Always be alert to potential attacks and thwart them before they happen. Meanwhile, learn to destroy your enemies by opening holes in their own reputations. Then stand aside and let public opinion hang them.
He seems to be working on the following law with his new “rules”:
Law 18
Do Not Build Fortresses to Protect Yourself – Isolation is Dangerous
The world is dangerous and enemies are everywhere – everyone has to protect themselves. A fortress seems the safest. But isolation exposes you to more dangers than it protects you from – it cuts you off from valuable information, it makes you conspicuous and an easy target. Better to circulate among people find allies, mingle. You are shielded from your enemies by the crowd.
I can’t wait to read other reactions to Robert’s new rules!
Best,
LL
May 9, 2007 at 4:05 am
“I know this, because, I was one of this group”
And so, my moronic friend, no, I do not envy any of you.
I am sure you were once proud of serving the Master,were you not? But now you criticize those who have no sympathy for such actions. Why should anyone? It’s your karma, it’s your play, it’s your life, it’s your conscience, the blame lies with you, stop passing the buck.
May 9, 2007 at 4:08 am
Parallel Universe #332: It’s about TIME.
Ames Gilbert #349: Now we are talking 4th wayspeak IN LIFE!
Elena Haven: Some people on this blog HATE fof.
Some people HATE the 4th way. They speak a different language. Keep your ears tuned.
About the Hawaiian therapy. Rodney Collin said that we must be careful with negative thoughts because someone a thousand miles away could be coming out of a deep depression and our thoughts could send him back into a depression. So, good thoughts of healing could also work.
A fourth way theory states that thoughts are material and could be measured.
May 9, 2007 at 5:49 am
Fence Rider and Sharon,
I don’t think I’m completely clear about the ’sequence’ but it sounds like a mantra (which are assigned, usually, and the sound is important.) I certainly would not argue against that. I’ll take your word that it is helpful to you too. I also think there are multitude ways towards brain balance and this has been an interest of mine for a long time too. Using the creative brain does unlock intuition and ‘higher states’. Often it is called ‘being in the zone’. It is not owned by ’spiritual’ groups. Athletes, long distance runners, artists, musicians all experience it – where ‘thinking’ thought disappears, time slows down and the art appears. Like when a pianist moves from playing notes to playing the music. It is my theory that whatever a person’s essence is – if that is expressed wholeheartedly with focus, endurance and energy – that is what becomes the doorway of the zone (higher states). I also think it is something that cannot be prolonged artificially – that is with conscious effort. It is the ego (identification) that wants that state with greed. The act of letting it go is really important. Its humbling and human. It’s ‘kissing it as it flies’ (Blake) It’s unexpected, and invites the state back.
Letting it go also leaves space for conscience which seems to need quiet to hear the nagging ‘voice’. And letting go leaves space for critical thinking – which is a truly excellent activity. Very underrated. Allowing for consciousness and conscience and other states (emotional, critical thinking etc) IS a brain function balance – and more.
Another thing from my point of view is that the Self appears in all states (if recognized) and the Self is a whole, not some glorified fragment.
#354 no person
“It’s not 4th Way, not Gourjieff-Ouspensky, it’s RB’s own mad creation that requires faith, obedience and loss of critical thinking.”
Really interesting post IMO, and well said.
#355 exlax
“You are a little far from the part of the anatomy that you are expert at, dear. Aim a little higher.”
Do you realize how creepy you actually sound?? Like a caricature, and I can’t truly believe you are real and not just a parody. Are you?
May 9, 2007 at 5:57 am
Re 334, 338 & 347. May 13, 2007 Meeting
Here are the same times around the world for May 13, 2007 at 10 AM at Isis.
Isis (Sacramento) Sun May 13 10 AM
London Sun May 13 6 PM
New York Sun May 13 1 PM
Moscow Sun May 13 9 PM
You can use the link below to calculate for up to 4 cities.
I entered May 13, 2007 for Sacramento as the 1st city (dropdown list) and followed with the other 3.
When you click Show Timetable, it will calculate for every hour of the day for the first city and you just find 10 AM for Sacramento (Isis) and read across for the others. It adjusts for Daylight Saving Time and there is no guessing.
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/meeting.html
May 9, 2007 at 6:09 am
Reply to those who may still see coincidence as some sign of this incredible dream we live in and are ‘cobble by cobble’ stepping away from.
_______________________________________
On the night that I found this blog-site, I typed into Google, the phrase ~
Robert E Burton, simply to further educate myself…The below posting was #1 at that time.
Longtime Trustee Robert E. Burton dies suddenly
Robert E. Burton, member of the. Board of Trustees of City College of … such as the passing away of longtime Trustee Robert E. Burton. …
http://www.ccsf.edu/Offices/Public_Information/Archives/currents2001/Currents032601.pdf
___________________________________
Now, this was a little ‘wow’ for me, since I like ‘wows’ I went to YouTube and typed in Robert Burton. Big wow this time…A musician named Robert Burton with the following song titles, I lie not, check for yourself, here they are ~
Through the Wild Country
Three Little Words
Hubele’s Coyotes Singin ‘d’ Blues
The Sleepy Time King
Hubele’s Night Games at the All Night Cafe
Hubele’s Red Wine
_________________________________
Then I went a little further into the web and found a page containing only these quotes from the Author ~ Robert Burton, from his book “Anatomy of Melancholy”.
A blow with a word strikes deeper than a blow with a sword.
Robert Burton
A dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant may see farther than a giant himself.
Robert Burton
A good conscience is a continual feast.
Robert Burton
A quiet mind cureth all.
Robert Burton
Great feelings will often take the aspect of error, and great faith the aspect of illusion.
Robert Burton
Like dogs in a wheel, birds in a cage, or squirrels in a chain, ambitious men still climb and climb, with great labor, and incessant anxiety, but never reach the top.
Robert Burton
No cord or cable can draw so forcibly, or bind so fast, as love can do with a single thread.
Robert Burton
No rule is so general, which admits not some exception.
Robert Burton
Old friends become bitter enemies on a sudden for toys and small offenses.
Robert Burton
One was never married, and that’s his hell; another is, and that’s his plague.
Robert Burton
The men who succeed are the efficient few. They are the few who have the ambition and will power to develop themselves.
Robert Burton
To enlarge or illustrate this power and effect of love is to set a candle in the sun.
Robert Burton
We can make mayors and officers every year, but not scholars.
Robert Burton
What is life, when wanting love? Night without a morning; love’s the cloudless summer sun, nature gay adorning.
Robert Burton
Worldly wealth is the Devil’s bait; and those whose minds feed upon riches recede, in general, from real happiness, in proportion as their stores increase, as the moon, when she is fullest, is farthest from the sun.
Robert Burton
_______________________________
The above quotes from the book was an incredible find, since I did not arrange or choose them: I simply found them in this order on the page, highlighted and copied.
Then to Google again and found this ~
Robert Burton
* Born: Aug 13, 1895
* Died: Sep 29, 1964 in Woodland Hills, California
* Occupation: Actor
* Active: ’50s
* Major Genres: Drama, Western
* Career Highlights: Fast Company, Sky Full of Moon, Desperate Search
* First Major Screen Credit: Desperate Search (1952)
Biography
American actor Robert Burton had the haunted eyes and funereal manner of a city coroner. As such, his film roles were confined to such stock parts as the crooked politician, the unfeeling physician, the self-absorbed scientist, the crooked attorney, the weakling politician, the hidden killer, or the surly fellow whom the heroine shouldn’t have married. Burton’s movies seldom made the “classic” category; while he appeared in several “A” films like The Big Heat (1953), Compulsion (1959) and The Manchurian Candidate (1962) (appearing in the latter as the convention chairman in the climactic assassination sequence), most of his movies were along the lines of I Was a Teenage Frankenstein (1957) and Invasion of the Animal People (1962) (for which he was top-billed). Robert Burton was also a frequent TV guest star, though his credits should not be confused with those of soap-opera regular Robert “Skip” Burton. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
__________________________________
I started to feel a little ‘woozy’, pictures of some weird Twilight Zone conspiracy flashed in front of my eyes… Now that’s just silly, I thought. And regained my ‘composure’, so to speak.
Then , as the first ’shock’ was the ‘thread’, I understood the message, wove it together, for me of course, that again, this is all a dream, a dream of flesh, mind, form, opinions of that form and the ever most automatic promise of Hope and tension regarding its ever changing tomorrow. If we do not intensionally, consciously handle with care this great ‘movie’ we become what?
_________________________________________
Then I went back to YouTube and typed in Robert Burton again… Now guys, for real, this ’snippet’ came up in the category realm of RB and was the first stand-out that struck me as coincidental, so I copy it here for your ‘entertainment’.
For me, a very haunting verification that this dream is turning to dust and we, our mind and body ‘dust’ with it. Often, words and pictures are all we need, explanations are more than oft best left in between our ears.
Although not a fan of this sort of ’stuff’, the lyrics are incredible in relation to the untransformed material in this blog and the pictures, well, they are worth a thousand words that I will leave you to write.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WElvEZj0Ltw
_________________________________
Love to You all.
Rock on…LOL
May 9, 2007 at 6:09 am
On the subject of the FoF currently studying sufis and zen, I would add that although quotations may indeed be selectively taken from these sources, Robert reinterprets them through his own understanding of the world, not at all in the broader context of the particular tradition. For example, we get Burton-zen:
Robert’s Comment: [original quote in square brackets] ["What does the expression 'becoming a Buddha' mean?" "When you take what I tell you and make it your own."] The steward is telling the student that he is going to introduce a sequence. ["When you take what I tell you and make it your own"] – you make it your own by reaching work ‘I’ number six – ["so that you have not the slightest doubt about it"] – so that you have no imagination – ["right at that moment you become a Buddha"] – work ‘I’ number six. Right at that moment you become a successful steward.”
If anyone still thinks in terms of centers of gravity, have you considered that the way Robert expresses himself through his ‘angles’ is closer to jack of diamonds than the fabled king of hearts? Very fragmented, black and white, run-on associations, not constructing a deeper understanding but seeing the same old thing in everything he encounters.
A couple of weeks ago there was a beautiful double rainbow in Oregon House. Someone took a photo of it and showed it to Robert. Robert was shown the picture and “immediately commented”: “pre-dynastic, prehistoric”. According to LT, he thought it was an “omen of confirmation”.
Are you serious, people? Does this comment by Robert tell you anything? The man sees a beautiful rainbow but doesn’t see a rainbow; he is so caught up in his head that he thinks the rainbow is an omen signaling that he is right!!! And you are to believe this!
Oh well. That email about the rainbow just really did it for me. Showed me clearly what is going on with him. I’m totally supportive of the idea to send him our apology and love on Sunday, 10 am PST, which is 6 pm London time and 7 pm CET (for sure). You never know. If it doesn’t change him, at least it will change us. “What one gains we all gain”
To give some credit to Girard, I believe there was at least one meeting recently where he actually said there would be space for personal angles and observations. Through a combination of Girard talking all the time and people not being used to speak up any more, only one personal observation was given, towards the end, by Ana V. She had a long question-angle that I didn’t really understand and sounded to me like she wasn’t getting right out there and asking what she had to ask. Listening to her produced the thought: Oh yes, that’s why we stopped having personal observations at meetings. (Sorry Ana. I’m sure it was well intended.) So I was wondering if opening up a meeting to personal angles has reoccurred recently, or was it a one-time experiment. If anyone knows.
Anyway, just one more thought I wanted to share with everyone today, related to all that is going on:
“Things aren’t what they appear to be, neither are they otherwise.”
Good night
May 9, 2007 at 6:54 am
Rajneesh, and the famous Greek-Armenian mystic George Gurdjieff, often used the power of the Atman for clearly personal gain. Both men used their cosmic consciousness to overwhelm and seduce women. Gurdjieff was ashamed of his behavior and vowed many times during his life to end this practice, which was a combination of ordinary male lust backed up by the potent advantage of oceanic supermental power. Rajneesh went even further and used his channeled cosmic energy to manipulate masses of people to gain a kind of quasi-political status, and to aggrandize himself far beyond what was honest or helpful to his disciples. In Oregon, Rajneesh declared to the media that “My religion is the only religion!” Diplomacy and modesty were not his strong points.
To my knowledge, George Gurdjieff never reached the extremes of self-indulgence of Rajneesh, and he even warned his disciples not to have blind faith in him. Gurdjieff wanted his students to be free and independent, with the combined abilities of clear mental reasoning and cosmic consciousness. Rajneesh, by contrast, seemed to believe that only his thoughts and ideas were of value because only he was “enlightened.” This was a grand error in judgment and revealed a basic flaw in his character. Unfortunately, when Rajneesh achieved the ability to fully channel the power of the Atman, he failed to apply the needed wisdom of self-restraint. His human mind so rebelled against Asian asceticism that he failed to ensure that his borrowed power was only used for the good of others. Rajneesh was driven by strong personal ambitions, not just compassion.
“Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.” – Henry Kissinger
May 9, 2007 at 8:17 am
Dear Siddiq,
you have my respect, and I am glad that you see things as “uplifting”. As I said, some people do see it this way: “We never had it that good”. What can be said? It’s great! Good for you, really.
Good luck, and hopefully you are on the Path, going somewhere.
May 9, 2007 at 8:38 am
Dick Moron says to Exlax:
Do I detect a hint of jealousy of Whalerider’s experiences with RB?
Joseph G. shares:
What needs to be understood is that the men close to Robert were envied by many in the community,(…)This is important to understand because when you envy someone it is extremely difficult to think of that person as a victim. And when you are envied by others it is also difficult to think of yourself as a victim.
To Dick M. and Joseph G.,
Thank you for your observations and for telling your stories as well, you have lots of courage and I respect you deeply.
May 9, 2007 at 8:42 am
To Siddiq (#361)
I agree with you, that the new form of the meetings at isis has been more effective than the meetings that were student lead. The latter were filled with anecdotes and quips, but what did you expect- the teacher had stopped teaching (or, stopped leading meetings). I also agree with you that the time and research that goes into preparing the meeting does produce some very fine quotes from a varity of sources and they are inspiring. However, it’s Robert’s comments or interpretations that trouble me.
The quotes from the various disciplines do seem to penetrate something “higher” in myself, but Roberts comments additions seem to create confusion and doubt.
Once, at a Christmas dinner, he mentioned how he had been visited by Jesus Christ the night before. What am I supposed to do with that info? Should I be impressed? Can I verify it?
At another dinner he mentioned how when he cups his hand to his ear, it’s not because he’s hard of hearing, it’s because it slows down his higher centers which operate at an extremely high speed. Again, what do I do with that info, regard him as a superman?
He stopped attending many of the Apollo Arts events because from the surface, it looked like he’d rather stay home and make a bunch of cash serving 150.00 dinners- where you can’t take a bite of food unless Robert takes a bite of food.
The “higher state” we all swear we have at dinners and meetings is most likely produced by being with 50-300 people that are making an effort to stay in Kings of centers. When in life are you EVER in a room with 50-300 people trying to stay in the kings? The answer is NEVER. That’s why we love the fellowship. It creates an environment you can’t find anywhere else. But at what price and with what long term result?
By the way, here’s a quote from the Theory of Conscious Harmony (pg 154). “Someone said to Ouspensky in 1947: ‘I know I am a machine and that I cannot work by myself.’ He answered:’who told you that? Do not believe anyone that tells you that.’”
May 9, 2007 at 9:49 am
I am going to squat to your level, exlax. I took responsibility for myself, and I got the bleep out of the FOF as soon as I was financially and emotionally able. The point is a person doesn’t just evaporate when they leave the FOF as RB would like them to. We are all accountable for our past. GOlb engaged in the standard FOF practice of emotional abuse and wrong work of centers by claiming I was an imaginary person, and I took that personally. Silly me! By the way, do YOU have a hammer toe, too? Amazing coincidence! They are so common, you know, mundane even! But it’s the new fashion now that I spilled the beans that RB has one. If I stepped on yours, I am so so sorry. I didn’t mean to cause you any unnecessary suffering. It must have been my lower centers at work.
“…so STOP WINNING.” Brilliant! This is your conscience shining through your words. (You do have one!) What kind of second line work is that? I believe you meant, “whining”. To whine. Gee, but you wrote, “stop winning”. You want me to stop winning…? Hmmm, interesting, that’s kinda what I was saying about RB undermining anyone who comes close to his level due to his narcissism…maybe it’s rubbing off on you. Have you been near him lately? I’d be careful if I were you, especially if you are young, male, and naive, like I was, I hear he has herp…oops, I am so sorry again! We must refrain from gossip. Guess you are on your own, pal! (See how it works?)
Just because a person is clever, doesn’t make them a conscious being. I am not claiming to be clever, dear. Now that Karl Rove, he IS a clever dude; he helped a complete and utter idiot get into the White House twice. He fooled even more people that RB did. That’s pretty clever, don’t you think? He must be conscious then!
Yes, I am lucky. Darn lucky. FUCKING INCREDIABLY LUCKY I DIDN’T GET AIDS you twit, after all, this was back in 1984-5…nobody, not even his holiness knew much about HIV then. Brian S., now he was not so lucky. He died. He killed himself after hanging around RB. And Richard the hair dresser, he died, too. OF AIDS! So, yes, I am lucky. And I did grow up, thanks. I started living my life on my own. Good advice!
But if you don’t mind, dear, I’d like to continue at winning, thank you very much. I did aim higher. Why take the bus when you can fly?
*******************************************
On a completely different level:
Subway, it is what it is, but you weren’t there. I didn’t ask for your sympathy, how about some compassion? Ever learn a lesson the hard way?
Roommate, thank you for your acknowledgement, I am finding peace in my postings. I cried when I read your post. You saw me working through some pretty tough feelings. What’s your story?
Dick Moron, thank you for your support. I take great comfort in having my suffering acknowledged. It’s like I’ve discovered a room in my house that has been walled shut, and now that I opened it up and am airing it out, I can start to enjoy having more living/breathing space. Feels lighter…
Joseph G, thank you for your post, I remember you well. You speak from your being. You listened to your conscience, and took action. I admire that, it takes real courage.
WhaleRider
1979-1985
May 9, 2007 at 10:13 am
my mystical experience
It was a dinner, outside, heavy, full bodied September. I think the table was glass by then. Facing the rose garden, a small party, maybe twelve. Those who I remember were two prominent American students, a wonderful French student who kept apologizing because he was involved in munition manufacture, a beautiful solar maybe with saturn from Berlin. I still remember his name after all these years.
During the dinner, we talked about salmon in some esoteric sense. Which was of great interest to me, coming from a place where they (salmon) are a part of our psyche, In fact, this shy girl even commented.
The two American students recounted a ice cream eating contest they had taken part in that involved the teacher. Doesn’t sound quite right, I remember thinking. Oh well.
The dinner ended. My dress had pockets, I slipped my hands inside, maybe out of nervousness. It was a no-no at the time, the no hands in pockets exercise. I felt Robert touch my hand, was it a gentle photograph or what seemed a gesture of affection? No matter. A kiss to the forehead. We were on our way.
We walked back to the Lodge / now Apollo D’Oro. We three, the French student, the solar from Berlin and myself. It was dark by then and the stars were collapsing upon us. The German student talked about how bourgeois the best of the best American students were.
But words started to have no meaning, It was already happening. This state. I think but cannot know, was happening to all three of us.
This magical state of not wanting. Euphoric. Perfection had found us. The moment, this moment was all and everything. So full it brought you to your knees.
To be on this gravel road, in the dark and so cold with these two strangers was all you ever wanted or needed.
We wandered about the Lodge like masts. Wanting neither food nor drink. It was what it was and it was good, so good. Eventually we were scooped up by our respective countrymen.
It has reverberated within me ever since. I have no doubt (emphasis no doubt) it was because of Robert. It shocks me how indebted to him I feel for those few mystical hours. Never duplicated after excruciating effort or suffering for that matter.
II also know how far I would have gone to experience that again. Nothing to do with consent or guns. Only magic. Virtue here by lack of opportunity.
But now, not connected to my teacher by either proximity, gender or a myriad of other things must I finally be responsible for my own spirituality, states and life, finding my own magic.
Kind of glorious isn’t it.
Siddiq, referencing a post early on here, feeling sorry for someone and having compassion are definitely not the same thing, One is a wall the other a door.
Best to all
Cake
May 9, 2007 at 10:32 am
I want to voice my appreciation for the posts by WhaleRider #262 and Joseph G #360 and #304 Dick Moron (and many others I have not noted) and share my sadness as others have done that you have had such traumatic experiences at so impressionable an age with someone you trusted and believed in. Your courage in coming forth with your stories inspires me.
As I have mentioned, I left FoF in 1992 after 20 years, 10 years of which I played a ‘leadership’ role, and I am JUST NOW actually beginning to come to terms with the personal impact of RB’s sexual behavior.
It has taken this long, I believe, to have the strength to bear it. And these heart-rending stories are helping. As I read them, I feel a heavy sadness and wonderment at the lingering power of ‘the trance’ to protect from unwanted truths.
I have been surprised also by how much has been stirred in me by the humanity coming through this exchange. I have been gripped with an achey grief about it all, something I thought I had thoroughly worked through long ago, but now it goes deeper.
I have been away awhile here, catching up, I want to share with you a few things that have happened in the past two weeks since I first encountered this site.
1) For the first time, I actually felt the kick-in-the-gut wrenching of having been lied to the first ten years. Not that I haven’t known about the lies, not that I haven’t been furious with myself and raged at Robert –in group, in therapy, to myself about so many things, especially in the early days after leaving — not that others here haven’t stated the same things I am about to say with more passion and eloquence, but after the way it has hit me this time, I just want to express my outrage to Robert here for this record:
How dare you lie to us? I believed you, I trusted you, I listened to you, I worked for you, I supported you, I influenced others on your behalf — I represented you to my shame, you, the celibate, heterosexual, loving, conscious being.
How dare you lie to me and other mere children in the name of ‘God’. Why? to have your way, to satisfy your appetites — mostly, I am afraid, to fuel your delusions. I have a 21-year old daughter now, and know how young, how green, how impressionable we are in the early 20’s.
2) With this has also come a wave of intense self-hatred: The voice goes: How could I be so blind, so naive, so susceptible to narcissistic manipulation? How could I waste my life, throw away the most productive years and misuse my talents and gifts? How could I let myself be used for a corrupt, even criminal enterprise, supporting addictive, harmful behavior and helping to keep the whole thing going with my energy, my money and my work, how could I not have noticed what was going on, how could I have unknowingly continued to procure new student victims with a smile on my face (any Portland, Paris, NY students who are still in FoF, it pains me to hear your names mentioned and to realize you are still there), all along imagining myself to be something special, evolved, turning away from whisperings of sexual misconduct, continuing to look only at the ‘work’, and never, never at Robert, allowing myself to be enthralled to the charisma, the thrill of contact and attention from ‘the teacher’.
3) I have also felt more deeply, as reconnections are made here with old familiar names and voices, the extent of the loss involved in having been ex-communicated from people I had known for 20 years of my life, how stiffling it has been to a huge part of myself to be involved in a gag-order of the first degree, to have a small army of old friends holding me as ‘fallen, moon food’. The cruelty involved hits me more fully now.
Meanwhile, I have recalled some things that have helped me make sense of it all along the way. Things that have helped me to forgive myself and other victims, even to experience compassion for the predator side of RB, to realize I have both predator and victim in myself, and so on.
I pulled out “Trauma and Recovery” by Judith Herman again. While published in 1992, I still find it helpful in understanding how the experience in FoF was an experience of psychological captivity (See Cpt 6 and the chapter on child/domestic abuse, the similarities to closed religious environments are striking. The sections on rape I believe could be helpful to those who were/are involved with him). Peter Levine’s “Waking the Tiger” also may be helpful in understanding and resolving the mental/ neurological/emotional aftermath of long-term FoF membership.
The explanation of symptoms concomitant with complex chronic trauma (denial, numbing/ dissociation,and intrusion of traumatic memory) have helped me understand the state of mind that allowed me and so many others to remain in this scarey environment for as long as we did and still not be able to SEE what are now the most obvious things.
I also have found myself asking again: what was my part? Soul-searching, asking, who in me attracted Robert Burton? And as of today here is what I come up with: an innocent, trusting, dependent, child-like part of myself, a powerless someone who is afraid of the big world, insecure in herself, someone who wants to believe somebody out there knows the answers, is powerful and can shelter me.
I don’t recall who said it, (and not that I believe in ‘evil’), but the saying makes a point that I begin to understand: Innocence attracts evil, perhaps needs evil to grow into maturity, into wisdom. The ignorance of naivite seems to me now only a part human state, for which we cannot absolve ourselves of responsibility. Apparently some of us need the RBs of the world to shake us out of this innocence into a fuller humanity. (In no way does this possibility absolve him of his responsibility, of course).
___________________________________
Thank you to Susan K (hello, Susan!) for #192 and your suggestion there for anyone leaving now, and I would say any long-time members, to get help in dealing with the trauma aspects of FoF. The effects do linger.
Bruce, your postings make me laugh, they contain what I always have enjoyed about you — a blunt certainty, saying it like it is, that seems completely congruent with who you are, special appreciation for
#344.
To whomever is the PAIN BODY proponent, I think that the idea (explicated in “Power of Now”) is one of the most amazingly useful I have ever encountered, so helpful for disempoweing an entire range of habitual, draining emotional states. I LOVE the idea, pure genius, I believe.
Thank you for reading.
Sandra
May 9, 2007 at 10:38 am
I want to voice my appreciation for the posts by WhaleRider #262 and Joseph G #360 and #304 Dick Moron (and many others I have not noted) and share my sadness as others have done that you have had such traumatic experiences at so impressionable an age with someone you trusted and believed in. Your courage in coming forth with your stories inspires me.
As I have mentioned, I left FoF in 1992 after 20 years, 10 years of which I played a ‘leadership’ role, and I am JUST NOW actually beginning to come to terms with the personal impact of RB’s sexual behavior.
It has taken this long, I believe, to have the strength to bear it. And these heart-rending stories are helping. As I read them, I feel a heavy sadness and wonderment at the lingering power of ‘the trance’ to protect from unwanted truths.
I have been surprised also by how much has been stirred in me by the humanity coming through this exchange. I have been gripped with an achey grief about it all, something I thought I had thoroughly worked through long ago, but now it goes deeper.
I have been away awhile here, catching up, I want to share with you a few things that have happened in the past two weeks since I first encountered this site.
1) For the first time, I actually felt the kick-in-the-gut wrenching of having been lied to the first ten years. Not that I haven’t known about the lies, not that I haven’t been furious with myself and raged at Robert –in group, in therapy, to myself about so many things, especially in the early days after leaving — not that others here haven’t stated the same things I am about to say with more passion and eloquence, but after the way it has hit me this time, I just want to express my outrage to Robert here for this record:
How dare you lie to us? I believed you, I trusted you, I listened to you, I worked for you, I supported you, I influenced others on your behalf — I represented you to my shame, you, the celibate, heterosexual, loving, conscious being.
How dare you lie to me and other mere children in the name of ‘God’. Why? to have your way, to satisfy your appetites — mostly, I am afraid, to fuel your delusions. I have a 21-year old daughter now, and know how young, how green, how impressionable we are in the early 20’s.
2) With this has also come a wave of intense self-hatred: The voice goes: How could I be so blind, so naive, so susceptible to narcissistic manipulation? How could I waste my life, throw away the most productive years and misuse my talents and gifts? How could I let myself be used for a corrupt, even criminal enterprise, supporting addictive, harmful behavior and helping to keep the whole thing going with my energy, my money and my work, how could I not have noticed what was going on, how could I have unknowingly continued to procure new student victims with a smile on my face (any Portland, Paris, NY students who are still in FoF, it pains me to hear your names mentioned and to realize you are still there), all along imagining myself to be something special, evolved, turning away from whisperings of sexual misconduct, continuing to look only at the ‘work’, and never, never at Robert, allowing myself to be enthralled to the charisma, the thrill of contact and attention from ‘the teacher’.
3) I have also felt more deeply, as reconnections are made here with old familiar names and voices, the extent of the loss involved in having been ex-communicated from people I had known for 20 years of my life, how stiffling it has been to a huge part of myself to be involved in a gag-order of the first degree, to have a small army of old friends holding me as ‘fallen, moon food’. The cruelty involved hits me more fully now.
4) Meanwhile, I have recalled some things that have helped me make sense of it all along the way. Things that have helped me to forgive myself and other victims, even to experience compassion for the predator side of RB, to realize I have both predator and victim in myself, and so on.
I pulled out “Trauma and Recovery” by Judith Herman again. While published in 1992, I still find it helpful in understanding how the experience in FoF was an experience of psychological captivity (See Cpt 6 and the chapter on child/domestic abuse, the similarities to closed religious environments are striking. The sections on rape I believe could be helpful to those who were/are involved with him). Peter Levine’s “Waking the Tiger” also may be helpful in understanding and resolving the mental/ neurological/emotional aftermath of long-term FoF membership.
The explanation of symptoms concomitant with complex chronic trauma (denial, numbing/ dissociation,and intrusion of traumatic memory) have helped me understand the state of mind that allowed me and so many others to remain in this scarey environment for as long as we did and still not be able to SEE what are now the most obvious things.
5) I also have found myself asking again: what was my part? Soul-searching, asking, who in me attracted Robert Burton? And as of today here is what I come up with: an innocent, trusting, dependent, child-like part of myself, a powerless someone who is afraid of the big world, insecure in herself, someone who wants to believe somebody out there knows the answers, is powerful and can shelter me.
I don’t recall who said it, (and not that I believe in ‘evil’), but the saying makes a point that I begin to understand: Innocence attracts evil, perhaps needs evil to grow into maturity, into wisdom. The ignorance of naivite seems to me now only a part human state, for which we cannot absolve ourselves of responsibility. Apparently some of us need the RBs of the world to shake us out of this innocence into a fuller humanity. (In no way does this possibility absolve him of his responsibility, of course).
___________________________________
Thank you to Susan K (hello, Susan!) for #192 and your suggestion there for anyone leaving now, and I would say any long-time members, to get help in dealing with the trauma aspects of FoF. The effects do linger.
Bruce, your postings make me laugh, they contain what I always have enjoyed about you — a blunt certainty, saying it like it is, that seems completely congruent with who you are, special appreciation for
#344.
To whomever is the PAIN BODY proponent, I think that the idea (explicated in “Power of Now”) is one of the most amazingly useful I have ever encountered, so helpful for disempoweing an entire range of habitual, draining emotional states. I LOVE the idea, pure genius, I believe.
Thank you for reading.
Sandra
May 9, 2007 at 1:49 pm
Whoever wishes to join in for an eventuelly collective Ho’oponopono-Session on Sunday to create a healing field for people in and out the FOF and for Robert Burton.
Here is a link to the method
Ho’oponopono.
– “I´m sorry and I love you”
http://serez.zaadz.com/blog/2006/8/im_sorry_and_i_love_you
May 9, 2007 at 2:57 pm
#381 #382
Sheick, wake up!! (just a little bit…)
May 9, 2007 at 4:01 pm
Dear Whalerider and others
Early morning,
Thinking of you
Ho”oponopono
Sit with what you are
Be proud of what is now.
Please note the compassion reactions
You evoked in this blog.
Please let go of the unkind reactions
Do not feed them. Do not give your just acquired empowerment
Energy away.
Do not repeat in this sense how much power you have given to RB
Count the compassionate reactions.
This morning I realized that the reactions,
“Like do not whine”
And “you could say no”
Are all to cover up their own hurt.
Please forgive them, they do not know what they are saying
One day they will be whaling and desperate
Gnashing their teeth
Desperately crying.
Maybe they are already
This is the way to not “feel”
Please they will have to
Sooner or later face their conscience
Or maybe they are on anti depressants or some kind of tranquilizers
It is very painful to go to the deepest darkest side of your own inner being
Some try to ruin themselves in different ways instead of going there.
There is so much hurt in the fof
The Inner circle?
People who left their children behind,
Where abused by their father
Who are sex addicted
Alcoholism
Who are taking anti depressants
Who lied for years
All to numb their conscience
And still all are
Reflections from the “big master”
I am grateful you shared
You have come to the bottom of your inner self
Seen part of the dark side
Congratulations.
Ho”oponopono
Thanks Sheik
May 9, 2007 at 4:08 pm
Traveler #374: “…the way Robert expresses himself through his ‘angles’ is closer to jack of diamonds than the fabled king of hearts? Very fragmented, black and white, run-on associations, not constructing a deeper understanding but seeing the same old thing in everything he encounters.”
Sounds closer to flat-out mental illness to me!There are some conditions that fall outside the center-of-gravity paradigm.
From what I’ve seen, if you’ve got to pin a center of gravity on him, put Robert squarely in the King of Clubs. AND he’s a Black Magician. In fact, “hasnamuss” might not be too far off either.
Labels. An easy game to play, supporting the illusion of understanding and predictability.
As for the exact timing of thought-prayers for healing…I don’t place too much importance on it. The energy is not time-bound or locality-bound. It’s an aspect of the eternal present. If such thought-transmission healing works (and it very well might), it works independently of space and time. What counts is intention and attention.
May 9, 2007 at 4:31 pm
Dear Howard (363), er, Siddiq (excuse me),
You realize, don’t you, that you are photographing your beloved Teacher for inner considering in post 363:
You wrote: “Your further response shows however that no matter what is done, ignoring or responding, there is not a good way for RB to deal with the blog as he will not be believed, even the best actions will have the worst motivations ascribed to them! That is no doubt why he doesn’t.”
Really? That’s your analysis? Wow, poor RB! Seems like you don’t have a lot of respect for the man to think his actions or inactions are motivated is such a petty way. Very interesting. I thought he was above all of that.
I was more inclined to believe that he just flat-out doesn’t care what you think, or what anyone thinks on this blog — that is, until the day what we think starts affecting cash flow or causing some of his young subjects to say “no.” Then, he will start to care. He has his objectives, and if you continue helping him attain those objectives, he will keep you around until, well, he’s more interested in something or someone else.
Anyway, keep up the good work. This page is packed with some of the best reading in the entire blog.
May 9, 2007 at 4:55 pm
Now, having said what I wrote in the above post, I’m also keeping in mind what Arthur wrote above: “About the Hawaiian therapy. Rodney Collin said that we must be careful with negative thoughts because someone a thousand miles away could be coming out of a deep depression and our thoughts could send him back into a depression. So, good thoughts of healing could also work.”
I’m very open to what Arhur is saying, and very open to the Hawaiian therapy that people are planning for Sunday morning. Fofanatomy (334) wrote: “Let’s everybody who wishes to cure him from his terrible disorders apply Hawaiian therapy Ho’oponopono towards him.”
And maybe it’s worth a try applying the same toward all of us who have been connected to the Fellowship in various ways — sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, cousion, aunts, uncles, friends, wives, husbands, students, former students, prospective students, and near-miss students.
Who’s to say that somewhere along the way in the last couple of years, someone out there didn’t already direct this healing method toward us– toward all of us. And growing from that, we now have this blog.
May 9, 2007 at 5:43 pm
Siddiq (362): “it is possible to be somewhat more aware, somewhat more awake than we are now, a little less in imagination, identified, negative, etc.–this is what I am after”
Good! This is exactly what the FOF is currently offering, very succinctly put. About two years ago I came to more or less the same place as Siddiq. I realised that awakening in the sense that I understood it when I joined the FOF was not available in the FOF. One available choice was to accept that fact, just as Siddiq has done, and enjoy spending time with my friends at Apollo D’Oro with occasional moments of presence. Like Siddiq, I had no relationship to the eccentricities of Robert’s current teachings. Like many current FOFers I rarely attended Robert’s meetings and instead hung out with the FOFers I liked and respected.
If I stayed I would give up my quest for spiritual awakening and accept that Siddiq’s “being somewhat more aware” is all that I could aspire to.
But first I had a look at what is available outside the FOF. I was amazed! I found very pure, uncomplicated teaching that points straight towartds real spiritual awakening. These days it’s freely and widely available as soon as you step outside the stifling confines of the FOF. I left about six months ago and the world has flowered anew.
But, Siddiq, I respect your decision to set your sights low and remain comfortable if you’re sure that’s what you want. At least you’re honest about it (?).
cheers, RB
May 9, 2007 at 5:53 pm
Alice in wonderlust: Just to set the record straight, I don’t use the sequence. It was not helpful to me.
It is too structured, too intellectual (but without promoting any real thought), rather domineering, effortful, very self centered, and a little silly. Kind of like RB.
For me, presence is wordless and loving. A quiet, rather awed sense of my tiny place in the universe – and the place in the universe of another/others. It is evoked sometimes in communion with those I feel bonded to, often when listening to great music, sometimes when rehearsing (rarely when performing), often by practising chi gung or walking or sitting by the river, etc. Not by forcing myself to follow some formal set of steps in my mind, named by a silly set of words that sets me apart from the rest.
But, one point of my post (#8/340) can be reiterated – I wish that we would actually read what we are responding to. How would you get from my post that I find the sequence to be helpful?
May 9, 2007 at 5:59 pm
Again to Alice: however that being said (actually reading what we are responding to), the rest of your post echoes to my observations about what presence is for me…
especially “I also think it is something that cannot be prolonged artificially – that is with conscious effort. It is the ego (identification) that wants that state with greed. The act of letting it go is really important. Its humbling and human.” Thank you.
Humbling, how important it feels to be understood.
May 9, 2007 at 6:04 pm
Siddiq (363): “there is not a good way for RB to deal with the blog as he will not be believed, even the best actions will have the worst motivations ascribed to them!”
This is a nonsensical response to post 332, which I believe was pointing out that if the FOF and Robert in particular could be more open to dialogue and questioning the FOF would be a much more healthy and effective organisation. At Adyashanti’s meetings, for example, anyone can stand up and ask anything. Adyashanti offers clear and effective answers, from a spiritual viewpoint, to pretty much anything that is thrown at him, simultaneously conveying a calm sense of presence and being. I’m not saying that Adyashanti is the teacher to end all teachers, just that he’s a lot better at it than Robert.
Imagine if we could ask Robert questions like: “I’ve been to see some Advaita teachers who suggest that spiritual awakening is connected to realising that we are already ever present awareness. Do you think this approach is useful or is it better to stick with the sequence?”. Then Robert explains clearly why the sequence is more effective.
Why doesn’t he do this? Because his teaching is ineffectual and exaggerated and if questioned would be clearly seen to be hollow. He’s afraid of questions so he doesn’t allow them. If what he is saying were true he would have no need to be afraid.
RB
May 9, 2007 at 6:38 pm
Dear Cake,
You so beautifully describe the higher state. I can very much relate to your description of it.
But then you (IMO) made a very sad and common mistake, which so many of us made too – you connected your unusual experience to a person, RB, and it even made you feel “indebted” to him. I guess, the play did this trick to a lot of us – powerful higher states sometimes coincided with being near RB, so our minds made the connection, and we paid for years to get the state back by following a certain person. The whole FOF is fueled by this mistake. “Follow Him and he will make you feel good – again”. We developed an “addiction” to states -we wanted it back at all costs, ready to pay whatever for it. Again, something most of us have done.
I have to share with you that the longest and most amazing and profound hi-state (for 6 weeks or so, uninterrupted) happened to me with no connection to RB whatsoever, ( I haven’t seen or heard him for a while). It was in my last month of being in the school, and lasted long after I was asked to leave. I lived my regular life while in it, talked, ate, traveled, did business – it was absolutely amazing. I can assure you that there are other friends (whom I know) who had a similar experience, not connected to RB in any way. That broke the belief for me, totally. You actually can have high states without RB, (if high states is what you’re after) – not based on any efforts or practice, not based on anything! Unfortunately, many of us made this costly mistake, connecting the profound state to some person’s influence, and – you saw it yourself – chasing or forcing this state doesn’t help, whatever you are trying to do to get it… You said it: “Never duplicated after excruciating effort or suffering for that matter.” Let me add: “And it probably never will. Because it has nothing to do with RB or effort, or anything. It comes by itself, when you expect it least.”
But it is very hard to persuade yourself that RB didn’t “cause” your state, when you have such a powerful “verification.” Well, there you are, thanks to this verification – chasing the state probably for many years, doing your excruciating effort and suffering, paying lots of money and following a man in false hope that he’ll give you something he can never give because it is not the kind of thing you just “give” or “produce”…
I hope something powerful will occur in your life to show the falseness of this belief, like it did for me. Until then – NO DOUBT for you, as you expressed very strongly. I completely understand, it was no doubt for me too, for long time.
Also, I came to realize that it is not the state that WE are, so there is actually no need to hunt for states. State is just an experience. Oh yes, it’s a great one. But you can’t have it all the time, just like you cannot have orgasm non-stop, or certain pleasant flavor or smell all the time, or laugh and be excited non-stop. Our body just can’t function like that. It has an experience, and then this experience passes. Isn’t it how it works? State is an experience, it must pass. You are – to whom this state happens, and living your life with this understanding is very liberating and satisfying…
It’s a misunderstanding, a false hope – to reach a “permanent”, unchanging high state. It’s like fixing a certain reflection in a mirror. Everything that has an expression in this world is bound to change.
Do you RB is in permanent high state all the time? Not at all. And if he tells you so, well, then he lies. May be just to keep you doing your excruciating costly efforts for more years, and then, may be next lifetime…
I hope you don’t have to wait this long, dear Cake!
Much love to all.
malaec@yahoo.com
May 9, 2007 at 7:06 pm
When people get together and do OM, sequence, meditate on their breath, it all has the same effect. It raises their vibrations to connect to God, source energy, or whatever you wish to call it. And when their vibrations raise all kinds of positive effects can come out of it, for the world, for themselves and possibly for Robert. But only if Robert has the capacity to accept this energy. And I think we have a problem there. I wish all those people well that are trying to help him, but as we all have heard, nothing changes for anyone unless they accept the fact they need to change. Does Robert wish to change? From what I can see he doesn’t think he needs to. All the OMing and meditating can’t change that.
May 9, 2007 at 7:30 pm
She didn’t just play the flute but when she played, she knew her music. There was a time in which I could see her volunteering to work in every potager and event. She’d run around tirelessly as if imbued with divine enegy and I stared with envy. She had something I had long lost and if I could find it again I would try to copy her but I couldn’t find it, not even in her divinity, obvious as it was.
How many years had I not spent working with similar impulse to not know that it was energy for its own sake. Not that her effort wouldn’t be returned but not by the Fellowship. I knew that too well.
“One is not to work with expectations of return” said the echo of fellowship dogma; “effort, more effort,” that they’d stolen from Ouspensky; give all your being in exchange for nothing; “have no expectations”; why would you “when we are all beggers?”
Plant but never expect to eat from the crop. There’s only one mouth here. An insatiable void.
In every one’s willingness to give themselves up for the whole, each one is denied from receiving back from the whole. The greatness of the crop is mutilated and the hope, the love, the integrity……dry up.
May 9, 2007 at 7:42 pm
#378 ask yourself
“The “higher state” we all swear we have at dinners and meetings is most likely produced by being with 50-300 people that are making an effort to stay in Kings of centers. When in life are you EVER in a room with 50-300 people trying to stay in the kings? The answer is NEVER. That’s why we love the fellowship. It creates an environment you can’t find anywhere else. But at what price and with what long term result?”
This is SO SAD!! and completely untrue. I’m sorry, but this shows how deluded you are and lazy too. First of all, you are projecting and imagining these ‘other’s are in some state. After that you make imaginary projections onto the world at large. Then you seem to make no effort to verify the nonsense – maybe it would be too hard for you. Another interesting comment:
Sandra: “I also have found myself asking again: what was my part? Soul-searching, asking, who in me attracted Robert Burton? And as of today here is what I come up with: an innocent, trusting, dependent, child-like part of myself, a powerless someone who is afraid of the big world, insecure in herself, someone who wants to believe somebody out there knows the answers, is powerful and can shelter me.”
So, ‘Ask yourself’, do you need to be spoon fed higher state pabulum for year after year after year? Do you want to remain in the most immature relationship to the world? It is such a lazy way to be – you don’t have to make any soul effort, just pay some cash and go to a church meeting and feel good.
May 9, 2007 at 7:58 pm
Dear Sheik, you inspired more sites/Groups and they are surely not as popular/active as yours but they “exist”!
Not exactly your “kids”, just kind of…
Congratulations!
Clearly, simply and intelligently, you let us know about them…
Bravo!
To Unoamnimo:
Splendid!
In connection with your invitation to be entertained by the video “Sanitarium”, Metallica:
One phrase I could remember well enough to share it is this one:
“Can I breath the open air ?”
Once I asked someone busy with art,
scultpure to be precise:
“what do you think the world needs ?”
“Sanity!” He answered…
To all posters turning around the sex-money/power subject:
I would like to share this view:
I can be concerned by the “play” involving the “victims”
(participation, compassion, understanding(s)), yet, because we are discussing a “School” and a “Teacher”, I can’t help being primarily concerned by Robert Burton’s play forcing him to “ASK” !
Robert’s demands bring doubts and deep conscience trouble…
This includes a
“I am responsible” of some sort,
a sort of
“somehow, I asked for it”…
Not to forget that Robert Burton and his School, is a typical “outcome” of his time (“provocation” as a way to shake “sleep” can be viewed as a valid tool -see Gurdjieff, Osho and so on- !) and I do not exclude he is still running his School in this track, intentionnally sending many “out”, right now.
Pearhaps I am just under the influence of something I just heard:
Robert “said” recently:
The School will go from the actual 1200 members down to 400!
Not first hand hearing, I repeat, I heard it via, via. Yet I trust the “source”, if that matters…
It makes a lot sense to me so, I offer this words for you all to consider the perspective of “intentional push”, from Robert,
his long and powerful hand on our “backs”, since always and right now,
for any staying unecessarily “in”
for a possible flight “out the nest”,
for many in the past,
for many right now,
for many in the futur…
fully prepared for what is to come next!
Contraddiction, with no need to solve it!
In case Robert is really “off”:
Many thanks for the bloggers concerned enough to help any one wishing to join the Ho’oponopono appointment “in time”!.
Great opportunity we do not want to miss…
Great invitation to get beyond the
witness-with-opinions level
concerning the FOF (past and present).
Time to be/act responsible!
There are no “THEY”!
Still “in” yet about to “take off”…
With all the Love I can possibly convey.
May 9, 2007 at 8:11 pm
Cake #380
My mystical experience.
While I, in no way, can truly know what you experienced that night with RB, I want to suggest another way of understanding the state you were in at the time.
Early in my involvement with FOF, I would experience what I felt were higher energies and mystical experiences during meetings when RB taught, or even Donald M, Helga or Joel were the leaders. I attributed these energies to those beings to whom I was focusing my (supposed) divided attention. It seemed that they were releasing these energies in me, through some higher presence they had obtained.
Early dinners with RB had the same effect. It seemed very special. I now believe these states were the product of chemical releases in my body, due to great expectations, and a kind of star-struck adrenaline rush. Concentrating one’s emotional and mental attention on someone who is thought to be godlike, can play tricks on the mind and body. I will never forget, once attending a 7th day adventists meeting in the southeast US when I was a teenager. As a disinterested observer, not a participant, it was remarkable to see the states of ecstasy and rapture produced in the faithful, who were rolling around on the floor as the service climaxed. To them, I am sure it was a very real experience.
Those of us who used psychotropic drugs such as LSD in the past, certainly know how chemicals can produce mystical states.
Several years ago I was introduced to the actress Nicole Kidman. Immediately afterwards, I was reminded of the hightened states I used to experience at FOF meetings and early contact with RB. Was Kidman producing this state in me through her higher centers? No, clearly it was a chemical reaction I was having due to being in awe of a beautiful celebrity.
Was it a 3rd state experience? Maybe, but it had nothing to do with her level of being.
In no way am I denegrating the experience you had. From your lovely description I can see it is a dear memory to you.
That indescribable observing presence in you, that witnessed and recorded this mystical experience in your physical self, is what we are all trying to be. Not the experience itself. There are many roads that can lead you there. RB was like the guy at the gas station who sells you a map. He used to sell maps, charted by others, that might get you there. Now, from what I hear, he’s drawing his own crazy maps.
May 9, 2007 at 8:42 pm
Dear all,
To the many bloggers busy with the power-sex-money matters, I would like to suggest that Robert Burton is a “child” of his own time,
time in which “provocation” was/is a powerful valid tool to sake “sleep”
and still is/will be for so many of us right now!
Who/what can send a powerful invitation to the fully prepared
(past and present students, “in/out” beings, why not “tourists enquiring” included!)
to walk the “Open road”?
How many prediction will it take ?
How many recorded abuse will be needed ?
How many “lies” ?
Somehow, I feel Robert dislikes devotees and yet uses them because they are “needed” !…
I can support the ones stating the “victim status” yet I tend to focuss primarily on the possible meaning of a Robert “asking” and pursuing obvious absurd/unsain issues…
Now, a contraddiction which does not necesseraly needs re-solution:
If Robert is simply “sick”,
thanks to the bloggers who provided the right information for the HO’oponopono time experiment.
As a way to give up the
witness/actors-with opinion position
with no responsibilty ?
Great opportunity to explore…!
To Unoanimo:
Brilliant/dark Video!
One sentence, among the lyrics, I can remember precisely enough to share it right now:
“Can I breath the open air ?”
Entertainement ?
May 9, 2007 at 8:50 pm
Sandra,
Thanks for your last post. We knew each other for many years, though I was never as close friends with you as my wife SM. It would be great to see you somewhere, sometime.
I always respected you and felt somehow you had NOT totally bought into your leadership role in FOF. I did see the innocent, child-like part of you behind the center director.
While that trusting innocence allowed many of us to be used and abused, I think it is what ultimately redeems us. When experience finally made us realize what RB is all about, we found a way out.
Time has sent most of my FOF experiences down the river, but one can never forget. Writing down my thoughts and experiences here, are no doubt part a selfish exercise to further cleanse myself. Hopefully others who read them can get something out it.
Also, like my buddy Bruce, I find it a great forum for constructive sarcasm and naughty sharp-pointed humor.
May 9, 2007 at 9:13 pm
Thank you, 2b (#8-346) and no person (#8-354) for updating us on the meetings situation. It sounds truly stifling to me, too, but Siddiq (#8-361) says that it suits him, and I must grant him that. It seems, however, even Siddiq would agree that there is an awful lot of control going on, and I’d like to address that.
So here goes: in a healthy organism, on any scale (individual, corporation, cell, planet), there are two flows of energy that I want to remind readers about, the ones that together are called Reciprocal Maintenance. Here is an analogy (which is another way of presenting information so it can slip past formatory resistance). Think about two corporations that most of us have heard of, Toyota and General Motors. GM has traditionally been organized as a hierarchical, top-down management structure. The vision, and orders, flow from the top down. The president has his ideas about how things should be run, he tells the vice-presidents who tell the division chiefs who tell the factory managers who tell the foremen who tell the workers on the floor what to do. The message, of course, changes to suit each level, and the managers add their interpretations, some valid, some not, so each level gets a version of the vision altered to suit that level. It is traditional American style management, and gets a certain amount of results. Note that the guys at the bottom have their job; it is to obey orders and get on with production.
Contrast that to Toyota. They too have a top-down management system, but they have a parallel system in place, where feedback and suggestions come from below. The president has his vision, but it is able to be modified by input from the front lines, the folks doing the actual work. Think about this. Toyota gets about 35,000 suggestions from the shop floor each year. These people know first-hand what the problems are, as of course do the workers at GM. The difference is that 95% of the suggestions are implemented at Toyota. What does this mean? It means that in the most real and meaningful way, the management has empowered the workers; it trusts them with the life and future of the company. Most people have heard that any worker at Toyota can stop the entire production line if he/she feels that it is going too fast to maintain quality. What a responsibility! The workers are rewarded with a share of the savings from their ideas and innovations, personal satisfaction, the approval of their peers, a real feeling of meaningful participation. They are participants, partners and stakeholders, not wage slaves.
GM has over the years tried to copy Toyota in a half-hearted way. But because the management, especially top management, does not actually believe in this system (loosely called TQM—Total Quality Management), it has mostly failed. Only 5% of suggestions made from the factory floor are implemented, the workers are discouraged, and the company is failing. This analogy of course extends to the FOF, and of course the FOF is GM. Toyota knows about Reciprocal Maintenance. The workers toil in the border between the conditioned world and the unconditioned world; they are on the edge, where there is most to lose and most to gain, where there is risk and hazard. They are organizing things out of chaos, according to the vision of the founder/president. They are not being micromanaged, they are partners with the founder, working together to realize the vision.
At the start of an organization, the founder can do all the work, or try to. But, there comes a point when the founder’s vision has been realized enough in the material world that he/she needs help if the organization is to grow. Now a new layer must be created because the founder can no longer do all the work in the trenches—the first layer of management. As the organization becomes bigger, more layers are needed, and the founder gets further away from the front lines and the raw data that used to inform him directly. This data from the front lines is now interpreted by the layers of management in between. The founder molds the management to suit his style, and the management molds the founder (sometimes he realizes this, but usually not). For those into Gurdjieff and want to look it up, he called the ‘downward’ flow of energy (vision and instructions) Autoegocrat, “I keep everything under my control”. He called the upward flow of energy (information from the front lines) Trogoautoegocrat, “I hold myself together by feeding”. Together, they are called Reciprocal Maintenance. (In nature, these webs are studied as “ecology”).
The amount of energy a founder has is limited. If he does not accept information, energy, and help from below, then he must make more and more decisions (micromanaging), extending to every corner of the “empire”. At some point the energy runs out, and the fabric of the empire starts to crack. If nothing is done, the founder “will not listen”, the organization collapses, goes bankrupt, and everyone concerned is unhappy. On the other hand, if the founder delegates his responsibilities, trains the managers below on how to do his work if he is absent (and lets them practice!), seeks input via the suggestion box on the shop floor so he can get raw data that has not been interpreted by intervening management, then there is the requisite flow of energy from below, and there is balance and harmony, and everyone is happy.
The first kind of organization feels constipated, lifeless, with no movement possible. The second kind feels alive, full of energy, and filled with possibilities. The FOF is definitely the of first kind, as an organization. This may not be true of every individual at a particular moment (some of the managers may be having a fine time, by their lights, for example, or a newbie may be lit up with the enthusiasm and energy they brought with them), but the organization itself is dead in the water.
By the way, extending this anology to another area… It has been said many times that Burton has a higher being lesser folk cannot comprehend. Let us assume that this is true—for a moment. Here is the solution to the quandary of what happens if the founder is remote or inaccessible in any way. All we have to do is to look at his work, the results of his being. In this analogy, when a founder takes in managers and workers, he will mold the management to suit his purposes. That is, they will manifest his management style, they will be in fact lesser or miniature versions of him—any new recruit that does not fit in with his style is shown the door, of course. So, if the founder is inaccessible, study the lower layers of management that are accessible. Study Girard, study Linda, study the center directors, study the older students. They are in Burton’s mold. “By their fruits ye shall know them”. Watch a student in line for promotion/glory, watch how they mold themselves to suit, watch their manifestations. You will get a very accurate picture of those “above” of them.
Hey, I had fun writing this; I hope you had fun reading it!
With love,
Ames
May 9, 2007 at 9:16 pm
Just for fun, I did a google search on Siddiq.
Results: ” ‘The Believer’. A praise-name of Abu Bakr, the first man who believed that Muhammad had had a real revelation from God.” and ” When the holy Prophet learnt of this, he at once said, “Abu Bakr is the `Siddiq’.” `Siddiq’ is a person so sincere of heart that doubts never mar his love.”
And Golb is blog backwards.
Sharon, as far as I know, is just Sharon.
May 9, 2007 at 10:35 pm
#378 ask yourself
“The “higher state” we all swear we have at dinners and meetings is most likely produced by being with 50-300 people that are making an effort to stay in Kings of centers. When in life are you EVER in a room with 50-300 people trying to stay in the kings? The answer is NEVER. That’s why we love the fellowship. It creates an environment you can’t find anywhere else. But at what price and with what long term result?”
The more I think about this the sadder it seems. My experience post-fof has been quite contrary to this. Meetings in the beautiful waste lands of Oregon House are sadly impoverished – you don’t seem to know that. Fof leaches onto ‘higher states’ ‘hydrogens’ (call it what you will) of OTHERS and with a few pretentious aphorisms tries to pump itself up like this. You should know that with a bit of effort the rewards of being out in ‘life’ are far greater that you realize. You might even be able to contribute something to humanity. If you keep up the mantra of ‘it’s only possible in the fof’ long enough you will get yourself to BELIEVE it. It is such a loss to you and the greater community of humans. Reciting pre-digested ‘angles’ is a very low state actually. Life is so much richer than that!
May 9, 2007 at 11:42 pm
#378 Ask yourself
I am writing this based on what you related.
“because it slows down his higher centers which operate at an extremely high speed.”
If “something” is operating at a “very high speed” within one then the world slows down to a lucid, calm, tableau.
Take your experience with those 50 to 300 people and think for yourself.
He is lying and deceiving you to keep you searching for some pie in the sky. Stop it!
May 10, 2007 at 12:18 am
6/171:
Heresay wrote: If 4th way is Budweiser, Advaita is LSD.
Au contraire, mon ami(e):
Advaita is harmless piffle; or, as old Piotr would say, “comforting nonsense” — to which you are fully entitled if that’s what spins your wheels. Long may you enjoy it.
By the grace of Allah, the 4th way is stronger than LSD. So yes indeed: buyer beware.
May 10, 2007 at 1:22 am
Dear Cake #380,
I liked reading about your mystical experience. I think many of us experienced those magical moments during our time in the FOF. I remember one time washing dishes and hearing a “work I” formulate itself in my head, looking up, and seeing Robert standing there. I had the distinct impression that he had transmitted that thought to me. It created a moment of presence and memory.
I think he has the ability to do that. A magician. Power in the K Clubs. Something.
After leaving the FOF I had mystical experiences very similar to what you described when I took MDMA –that feeling of total all-rightness, wholeness and bliss. Having tasted that, one naturally wants to know how to have it at will.
If that is possible, I think it arises out of a deep sense of gratitude, a surrender to what is, not resisting or trying to change anything. I believe (there’s that word again) this is the state in which Grace finds and touches us most deeply.
May 10, 2007 at 2:01 am
All,
There has recently been an increase here in insulting messages fron ex FOFers, for example ExLax’s “moron”, Bruce’s “shitpile” etc. While these are mildly amusing in a Borat kind of way I would personally hope we could communicate with each other more or less as if we were talking in person, in other words reasonably politely. Maybe I’m being over sensitive, but I don’t think swearing at and insulting a fellow blogger is going to produce any useful result.
just my opinion, RB
May 10, 2007 at 2:23 am
Siddiq,
You wrote regarding the new meeting format #361;
“Then also because of this new format we do not need to listen to someone’s subjective interpretation of what is being said.
Siidiq, here is a fairly typical comment from a meeting;
“Horus took a harpoon thirty feet long with a blade six feet wide at its point of greatest width … and cast it deep into the head of the red hippopotamus.”
Robert’s Comment:
….”Horus took a harpoon thirty feet long” – the steward drew from the thirty great work ‘I’s – “with a blade six feet wide at its point of greatest width” – work ‘I’ number six – “and cast it deep into the head of the red hippopotamus” – and completed the sequence, removing the hippopotamus – the lower self. * A stained-glass window from the cathedral of Bourges depicts Christ – the steward – harpooning a dragon with a “thirty-foot” spear. He is freeing the three Be’s from the hold of the lower self, implying a complete sequence.
Do you honestly believe this is an objective interpretation of what’s being said?
Love,
Ryan.
May 10, 2007 at 2:58 am
Siddiq Says: #362
“To Sheik (#273) “have you studied the notion of being present (and the exercises taught) from the perspective of zen buddhism and sufism?”
YES, sheik, we do study these presently in the FOF, and this is good stuff! I do not believe the starting point matters much, what matters is where we are ending up.”
Siddiq, the question was, Have you studied the notion…… from the Perspective of….
The correct answer is, NO we do not study from the perspective of, in fact we do not study at all. We are fed only RB’s whacky perspective and left to make of it what we will.
If we studied Zen Buddhism and Sufism in their own context, we would quite quickly come to a few startling assertions. Here are two examples;
One, That the notion of an individual and separate self and thus by extension, a “conscious being” is nonsensical.
and ,
Two, that states and the pursuit of states is ultimately pointless and “ends up” nowhere.
If you’re content with the RB digest of spirituality then good luck. I suggest that the starting point matters enormously.
Love,
Ryan
May 10, 2007 at 4:13 am
Ex Lax–What’s your trip? Many of your posts are just nasty. Not instructively, cleverly, wittily, or insightfully nasty, just mean.
Is it your point that, because a person “didn’t have a gun to his head,” he has no business being angry or upset with the Boster? But why would a person with a gun to his head feel any shame or humiliation? How many people wouldn’t allow someone to get their rocks off with our body if they had a gun to their head? Of course these people know they played a role in their dramas–that’s part of why they’re so angry and resentful. We know that, dude. Uncle Bob managed to manipulate people so that he not only didn’t need a gun, he could leave the person feeling complicit, doubting their own “masculinity.” You’ve mentioned that you’re gay, and you resent people’s angry, cathartic posts about their sexual experiences with Robert because you don’t like that these are hetero men resentful about having taken part in homosexual sex. You can’t stand it that people may confuse Robert’s sexual orientation with his predatory behavior, and you’re defensive about it because it brings out your own inability to fully accept yourself. So why not work on that for a while, and stop kicking people who are suffering. You’re not helping anyone, least of all yourself.
SandraC–Your horror, including the self-hatred, may be therapeutic and I don’t mean to negate it, but in being around you almost every day for a couple of years I knew you well enough to know you were a kind, sincere and generous person. Naivete may be a weakness, but it doesn’t make you a criminal. You tried to help many people, and you did help many people. Having been deceived and having had your trust abused, no need to let ol’ Earl get the last laugh by leaving you imagining you stuck the knife into your own back. Not your fault, old friend.
I finally realize after reading many of these posts, particularly some of those describing the current form and some of the more smug, creepy, and, yes, ignorant-sounding posts from apparently current members, that the organization I remember really no longer exists. We were naive, we were foolish in any number of ways, we were strutting little peacocks, but I have to say, I doubt many of us would have stuck around for the delusional nonsense apparently being passed off by the Arkansas Prophet. Many of the people I remember, for all their faults, were very intelligent. Not as sophisticated as we liked to imagine, it’s true. But there was plenty going on that made being in the Fellowship a meaningful experience. But, even setting aside the institutional acceptance of RB’s sexual pathology, the stuff described in #354 alone shows things are very different, and have fundamentally degenerated. I can’t see many of the people I once knew putting up with that for long–and in fact, they didn’t, but walked before it became so bizarre. We may kick ourselves now for what we didn’t know, and what we didn’t pay attention to, and even what we knew and chose to ignore, and rightly so, but what I see now has an element of real stupidity.
May 10, 2007 at 7:51 am
Further (academic)thoughts on blindness to RB behavior, the impact of betrayal on the mind and memory:
Freyd, J.J. (2005). What is a Betrayal Trauma? What is Betrayal Trauma Theory? Retrieved 5/9/07 from http://dynamic.uoregon.edu/~jjf/defineBT.html.
May 10, 2007 at 8:31 am
There are few ideas that really can change the world. Gurdjieff was the first for me with authentic knowledge ringing deeply true. But I am still the only one I know, even after ‘graduating’ the FOF after 12 years in the mid 90’s, who ever read ‘Belzebubs tales’ to the end. Now reading this blog until my eyes hurt, late at night after hundreds of messages, the same deep feeling of truth arises.
There are much better explanations then Roberts and Gurdjief’s for awakening( see previous posts E. Tolle, Rodney Collin , Nishragdata ) , but in my lifetime I was ecstatic to find a practical application of these ideas in the FOF. After all I had tried coops, green parties, communal living and student protest and each had substantial faults as well without providing an understanding why we are here and where we are going.
And there is a pearl in these discussion here, that is easily missed in the disillusionment of the individuals and the beautiful description of ever more conscious life journeys.
There is no better way of founding a new society, a new way of living then a common idea / believe / concept. The beauty of Renaissance /Apollo/Isis is the ease of doing this when united under a common ‘religion’ ( ok I kind of forgot these long days in the vinyard).
After leaving the FOF in the mid 90’s I was working hard to replace this aspect of the fellowship with cohousing, civic engagement and spiritual communities. While I have met many teachers along the way,and truly feel I graduated to a new level of consiousness, when leaving the FOF, the community aspect still bothers me …. why can’t we do this without Robert? Some of you Apollonians may know me for bringing little kids , collector cars and food deliveries to this monastery. Big hug to all ,
Michael
May 10, 2007 at 8:41 am
Cake, look around you. It has always been with you. It is with you now. It is you, never to be duplicated.
May 10, 2007 at 8:50 am
Dear friends,
I want to start this letter saying how happy and proud I am to find you all here, in this blog, alive and kicking, inside and out side the FOF.
I joined the FOF in 1999 and left in 2003.
The reason I join was that I felt interested in:
1- becoming a conscious being
2- the possibility of working on myself
3- the verification of the work
4- the transformation of energy ( ei: negative emotion into positive)
5- the non religious structure of the school ( verification not believe)
6- The fact that the 4th way is not like the way of the monk: YOU HAVE TO DO IN THE LIFE (not inside a secluded community…)
In these 4 year I worked in my center, and visited Apollo twice (I was a bit scared by the all situation there that I found a bit extreme).
What I tried to do was to get what I needed without falling down.
They were a lot disturbing fact and situation that for many months I tried to brush aside in the name of the WORK. And because of this I never forsake my outside life, my outside family and friends, I was actually talking to them about the school. And this made it easy to leave when I realize that what was asked from me, more and more, was to BELIVE instead to VERIFY.
What it enrages me the most was that in the name of the WORK everything was allowed. Even the most unethical, cruel, absurd, violent acts.
My brother was sick and I was told that I needed to forget him because he was just someone from life, going to the moon. Thing like that were so heartless that scared me. So I thoughts: I prefer the moon forever with the people I love and respect than eternity with such cruel creature that are faking goodness. And so I left knowing that they were other ways to find the light outside of this school.
I believe that real conscious beings are about compassion and real giving.
After I left I stayed in touch with some former and current members. Real love goes beyond everything. Thank God!
Anyway thank you for reading.
Love
Cristina
May 10, 2007 at 11:32 am
Sorry for the duplicate posts, I am currently so busy that even moderating becomes a very hasty enterprise. I will have more time tomorrow (hopefully). I will also start a new discussion board as soon as I get the time, too many posts here.
Cathie (406): I don’t think that RB has that particular power, probably no-one does. You would be surprised just how powerful your own mind is. And amen to MDMA. Those states are accessible without the drug, I don’t have the time or the space to write about it now but maybe later.
May 10, 2007 at 1:46 pm
Yes, NoPreson #354, it’s getting harder & harder to pay donations, it feels like throwing good money after bad. The meeting & dinners are grotesque spectacle and an insult. One has to be obtuse to pay, go there and sit thru them without feeling like throwing up.
Siddiq; Are you & ‘AskYourself’ truely inspired by the new one dimensional meeting format? And you call this parody of qoute- hunting-fitting of oneliners to the fantastical ‘keying’ a ‘research’? It wouldn’t be acceptable in a high school classroom; disjoited qoutations, taken out of context, misread, forced interpretations & misunderstood. Some of the researchers used to be (or still are) scholars, writers & teachers. How they must compromise their intelectual & proffessional integrity to go along with those distortions!
Sharon #340,
You seem to be offended by the responses to FenceRider’s left/right brain post. I’ve mocked it a bit in my post; I was just in the mood, and if I would have the tools at this point I would deconstruct everything.
Actually I like this possible explanation to
some of our experiences, it can bring insights regarding the ‘multitude’ we are, some tolerance to others’ belief systems & more self understanding.
It is far more apealing and credible to me than most of the superstitious mumbo jumbo of non-duality, Rb’s latest messages from past & from the 44, the remote Hawaiian well-wishing etc.
In fact, I wouldn’t mind if it may suggests atheism &/or materialism: all of our human experience being a mere product of the brain creating the world through our perception; shut this off and the world disappears (or continues to exist as a meaningless ‘plenitude’).
But the questions of creating a personal meaning & of ultimate meaning remain.
May 10, 2007 at 5:47 pm
A response to Rabbi Burns (8/389) who responds to my post (Siddiq (362)): “it is possible to be somewhat more aware, somewhat more awake than we are now, a little less in imagination, identified, negative, etc.–this is what I am after”) with the following:
“Good! This is exactly what the FOF is currently offering, very succinctly put. About two years ago I came to more or less the same place as Siddiq. I realised that awakening in the sense that I understood it when I joined the FOF was not available in the FOF. One available choice was to accept that fact, just as Siddiq has done, and enjoy spending time with my friends at Apollo D’Oro with occasional moments of presence.”
Rabbi, I mean the “being somewhat more aware” as an intention to be applied “in the moment” and every moment, literally seconds at the time,(comparing this moment with or without presence), but with the aim to awaken–awakening as I see it, is a moment-to-moment endeavor…
therefore this attention has to be gained and regained continually throughout the day, not to be confused with being happy if it just happens a few moments per day. It is the idea of creating a method if you will, that the practice of the sequence can produce added results.
Since anything we do, is better done with presence, and since presence is a sliding scale, my statement was meant to convey that we can be on a way up, at a minimum, every moment, a moment at the time.
Awakening is in my view possible in the Fellowship. Example, let’s imagine we are fully awake. We would still have to continue to be present each moment–these moments of presence will be then no different from the moments of presence we gather now on the way to this awakening.
Thanks for responding, good luck to all.
Siddiq
May 10, 2007 at 5:48 pm
Dear all,
The Greater Fellowship in northern California is happy to announce a great event! We are getting together in North San Juan, outside Nevada City, to celebrate and strengthen our old friendships, make new ones, and deepen our presence together. So, IT’S PARTY TIME, and we invite you all to come make it the best ever!
The party starts Saturday May 26th at 2 p.m. at the North Columbia Cultural Center (see http://www.sierrastorytellingfestival.org/maps.html for directions).
The steering committee is providing the venue and the minimum organization to keep things flowing with ease. With this in mind, please RSVP to Ames’ e-mail (below) to help us plan things as best we can.
You bring:
• Your sweet presence
• Food for a potluck beginning about 7 p.m.
• Beverages to your taste
• $15 per adult (to help pay for renting the space, clean-up and insurance)
• Musical instruments if you have them
• Stories to tell, memories to share
• Flexibility and willingness to go with the flow.
There will be something organized for Sunday morning, to be announced during Saturday evening.
There are no camping or other accommodations, but see below.
The party is open to all in the Greater Fellowship (you know who you are!) and their families and children. If you bring children, you are responsible for them (you may want to organize activities for them, as was done successfully in 1995). The weather is likely to be great (80 degree days), but come prepared for cold or wet (we have an indoor venue if needed).
Finally—the event is a guru-free zone!
With love to all,
Ames Gilbert (on behalf of the steering committee)
P.S. Questions? E-mail me at: nancyames (at) accessbee (dot) com, or call (530) 272-4775. Party business only, please.
For questions about accommodation (if you cannot find them on the web), e-mail Cathie at: cathieleavitt (at) sbcglobal (dot) net. There are lots of hotels, motels, B & Bs, and camping available in the area—but book soon, it’s Memorial Day weekend!
P.P.S. don’t worry about any emanations from a small dissident splinter group of the Greater Fellowship based in Oregon House…
May 10, 2007 at 5:52 pm
Hey Alice- regarding your comment(#396)on my entry; #378
You said: “This is SO SAD!! and completely untrue. I’m sorry, but this shows how deluded you are and lazy too. First of all, you are projecting and imagining these ‘other’s are in some state. After that you make imaginary projections onto the world at large. Then you seem to make no effort to verify the nonsense – maybe it would be too hard for you.”
The point I was trying to make was that I thought any elevated state that I was experiencing was probably due to the environment and not the teacher. I don’t know anything about anyone else’s state, except for the positive comments that many make at dinners after the meetings.
Calling me lazy and deluded is your choice, but it sounds like what I wrote must have irritated you- not my intention.
Just so you know, I left the school this month after being involved for 12 years. It was time to move on.
I do apreciate everyone’s efforts on this blog. I feel that people here are trying to share useful information and insights.
May 10, 2007 at 5:57 pm
#406 Cathie…”I think it arises out of a deep sense of gratitude, a surrender to what is, not resisting or trying to change anything.”
A very strong,potent and correct observation IMO. Gratitude and acceptance followed by more gratitude. It is an incredible life. For me, the magic didn’t start until I left the FOF. What a shocker. You and I have spoken about non-linear time and acceptance, so I know that you know that while it’s true…”not resisting or trying to change anything” it is also true at the same time that we do take responsibility and facilitate change when the opportunity and choice is placed in front of us.
#407… Rabbi, I love your posts and your heart and soul. But this is how I would communicate if you were right here with me. That’s how it is. I make no apologies.
May 10, 2007 at 6:02 pm
A short response to Ryan, (#408 and #409)–some points well taken with respect to the meeting angles probably still having a lot of subjectivity, especially in interpretation.
I still value the “new format” in that I usually walk away with far more useful angles than before–especially as they relate to a useful topic, such as imagination, etc.
The useful part for me are especially the sufi wisdom and poetry which very much speaks to the heart, and the philokalia (which i am currently studying). The research being done seems to me to be the study of these traditions (from the perspective of being present throughout), and there just are so many internal similarities that make connections for me, that I feel the meetings do greatly assist in penetrating that wisdom in a new way.
Siddiq
May 10, 2007 at 7:11 pm
It is in the intimacy of a marriage that a man and a woman can know where they are in relation to their own self, for a marriage is the reflection of two inner worlds, just as a community is the reflection of the couples’ relation to each other. An individual’s integrity reflects on the integrity of his/her marriage and the integrity of his/her marriage, reflects on the integrity of his/her community.
In The way of life, the aim for the community as much as for the individual is to balance the inner life with the external life, and marriage, work and play express the state of that balance.
The consciousness of an individual is expressed in his capacity to extend his hand out to the last child, animal or tree in his community and the consciousness of the community is expressed in the community’s capacity to embrace everything living within its boundaries, as much as each object that belongs to it.
Where ever there is neglect, the state of consciousness will reveal itself. On objects or people. There is no consciousness in neglect.
The aim of each human life is to expand this all embracing consciousness and balance the various realms of its existence. Sleep or unconsciousness, expresses itself where each and all individuals are called to work. Work, all kinds of work, are the attempt of each human life to expand consciousness.
Play or Art, is the expression of an individual’s and a community’s state of conscious health. Love intertwines itself in both play and work, within the marriage and the community.
Life, “living,” is the game and the work of tuning the inner and the outer world. The individual’s balance between himself and his community, through his marriage. The inner relationship with himself balanced with his personal relationship in his marriage balanced with his objective relationship with his community. Where ever there is neglect there is inbalance. The harmony between them is what creates music. Noise shows the disharmony. This is the same idea of the three lines of work but used in “experiential language”.
Social orders express the state of mankind’s being and the most retrograde and pervasive idea ever presented by the Fellowship of Friends is that humanity is not in an ongoing upward and spiritual development. With that, it justifies all the horrors within and without itself.
A monarchy is an expression of mankind’s being and a democracy, a very different expression of that same being. The “kingdom” expresses the state in which the majority of individuals are not mature enough to assume responsibility for their surrounding and require the guidance of the priest king, who gives up his will to the people. The monarchy, is a further expression of that same struggle but where the priest has disappeared the individual human being, has appeared. In a democracy, even the king has disappeared and the individual has matured enough to assume responsibility for its mistakes and continue struggling for self determination without external impositions by any other authority different to his own self.
The Fellowship of Friends is an experiment in this struggle and its failures and achievements can be seen when looked through this prism.
At the beginning Robert was one with the rest and did not impose exercises. As soon as he started imposing exercises, he became the priest-teacher and continued descending to become the priest- dictator of every possible action within the fellowship, suffocating the student’s free will.
The difference between a king and a dictator is that the King is the expression of the community’s will, while the dictator is the expression of the community’s submission. In human societies, the dictator imposes his will in the body of the individuals. In cults, the priest-dictator imposes his will both on the body and the soul of the individual, thwarting the possibility of their inner development as much as the development of a conscious community. This is spiritual crime.
There is no place for self determination of the soul or the body of a human being in a cult and it can survive only for as long as idolatry can hold it in place. Both the soul and the body of the participants are submitted to the will of the dictator through idolatry, which is the phenomenon in which an individual gives up his own sense of worth to anothers, submitting willingly to his dictates.
While in the original kingdom structures, the king-priest submitted his self to the people, and hence the “nobility” of the form, in the dictatorship the people submit themselves to the dictator and give up their will or possibility of self determination both in the inner and external world, hence the “humiliation” of the form. As long as people are willing to humiliate themselves before another man, idolatry and cults will continue to exist.
People confuse “humbling” themselves to another for “humiliating” themselves before another. While there is a noble gesture in humbleness, humiliation is the degradation that comes with idolatry.
In the Fellowship of Friends students are consistently humiliated by Robert by each and every form that the cult has adopted.
By his neglect to address students individually, to “communicate,” to use the “verb”, the “word”, with which individuals acknowledge each other’s being, and allow themselves to grow in love, Robert submits students to humiliation and conditions them to idolatry en mass as the only form of interaction between them.
Nothing can show more neglect of another person’s being than the unwillingness to communicate verbally. It is the negative expression of “indifference” and what it is saying is “you are not good enough to even consider you, to address you, you are lower than I am, you are not worth my time, my being. You are not worth sharing with as an individual and you must submit to being addressed as a lower person with the rest, “en mass”.”
People can only bear with this humiliation when they justify it with idolatry but it is spiritual crime in as much as it is not willing to acknowledge another person’s being, which is the most elementary form of respect.
Other forms of humiliation or spiritual crime are extensively practiced in the Fellowship of Friends.
While differences in hierarchy are not established through “titles” amongst the generality of students, the difference in status is established amongst other ways, by the use of clothing. Psychologically, Robert maintains students “lower” status, with the ‘court’ that he surrounds himself with, that is served with special attention where ever it appears reminding the rest of students that they have less rights than he himself and the court around him has and the “court” are a poor bunch of young men who are sexually abused and as submitted as the rest of the students with the exception of an Asaf or a Girard to make it look legitimate but who, in the long run are willing to adopt the same acts that Robert adopts.
The dress code, in which only he and his court can afford to dress like kings, reinforces the humiliation
of the mass of students and establishes that it is not your spiritual being that is significant in the Fellowship but your monetary income that can prove your worth. The students with high income of the Fellowship show that if you have enough money you can be addressed by the teacher, not your heart but your pocked that is welcome for a more intimate work relationship. The young people are used to make it look legitimate and because in Robert’s weird deviation, he cannot bear older, uglier people, his “alchemy” is a form of his slavery to his personal conditioning.
The humiliating forms within the Fellowship continues to act in the determination by the cult dictator of the way people must run their lives. The imposition on the kind of work that people can do within the Fellowship, the kind of activities that are allowed for them to practice and the way in which they are to interact with each other are each and all, forms of coercion to the will of its participants.
While this is justified with the idea that it is a School with the guidance of a teacher, the inconsistencies in the multiple inner and external aspects of the lives of the teacher as much as the students, and the denigrating relationship between them, reveals the Cult and the lack of School. The humiliating neglect of individuals; the denigrating incapacity of the School to assume responsibility for its children and old people or for that matter, anyone but Robert; the practice of sexual abuse; of consistent failures of marriages, friendships, the inexistence of spontaneous joy or play; the suicides amongst students and student’s children as much as the multiple forms of illnesses, show the lack of consciousness of anything that could come even close to calling itself a “School of consciousness.”
A Cult or a spiritual Dictatorship is the expression of Spiritual Crime.
CS”.
May 10, 2007 at 7:14 pm
Thanks to No Person (393) for dealing with the ‘states’ issue so clearly. Interesting that Robert is so focused on the creation of temporary states that they are all that is on offer spiritually in the FOF these days. There’s obviously a connection with his sexual activities – the futile and unending urge of the sex addict to achieve higher states through sexual activity, just like the seeker’s craving for spiritual states. It’s sad that Robert hasn’t realised this yet. Maybe one day…
Re Cake’s after dinner higher state – very familiar, I remember wandering round Apollo D’Oro many times in that blissed out condition. But as has been said above there’s no need to attribute it to Robert. I have similar states most days walking through the countryside with my dog. Maybe the dog’s conscious?
(Actually “I” don’t “have” that state, rather the state occurs in awareness, just like everything else.)
cheers, RB
May 10, 2007 at 7:24 pm
FenceRider #319
“Presence is the foundation for all that Robert has taught since day one. It is the only reason that many stay in the FOF. For some it is reason to overlook all the rest and to ignore Robert’s excesses. It is what fuels this blog and it is what causes former members to have difficulty letting go of the FOF.”
FenceRider, can you see that you 1) don’t actually know what Burton has “taught” from day one, 2) have little idea of what “fuels this blog” and 3) have absolutely no concept of what it means to “let go” of the fof?
The idea that people think you have to be infof to experience “presence” is either hilarious or quite sad–you pick.
My interest here is healing myself and helping, if what I post has value, for others.
Letting go of the fof was never the issue–it is healing from the personal mistakes, unconscious complicity with a “spiritual cannibal”, time lost, wrong thinking, and devastating loss that are the issues for me (and for many other bloggers, it looks like).
Try to realize also that the only people on this blog who have a chance at evaluating the fof are the people who have left. Those still in have no chance–they can only see one side, and haven’t realized yet just how much their judgment has been compromised by the gradual “self-image manipulation” required of anybody with a soul and a conscience to remain a member.
Hope this helps, and thanks for reading
JoelF
May 10, 2007 at 7:57 pm
Questions to the FOF
Why is the Fellowship of Friends using the name Gurdjieff-Ouspensky-Centers as a marketing label?
Why are you bookmarking books of Gurdjieff that you never read?
Why are you placing ads in the name of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky in the internet, even though you claim to have surpassed the Fourth Way and created a new one?
Why are you riding someone else’s train and trying to hitchhike on the credibility and strength of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky?
Isn’t that – Tramp?
__________________________________________________
Did you not know that one can not just use somebody’s name to market oneself? Is there one person in the FOF that has ever met Gurdjieff? Or met a direct student of Gurdjieff or Ouspensky? Have you ever studied the writings, meditations, movements or music of Gurdjieff? So why so you think you are qualified to use his name?
…………………………………………………………………………………………
Just imagine somebody who has never been in the FOF and has never met any student of the FOF would start a club named Robert-Burton-Centers? They would bookmark all the books of RB and GH and place ads all in RB’s name over the place. Then they would invite people to come to there meeting and be so bold to tell them their new version of RB ideas. They would say, there is a fault on every single page of RB book and most would not even have read the book. Then this organisation would set up new rules:
- Nobody can claim to be of a higher level than others.
- Keep good contact to your family and friends.
- Try to have at least two friends that you respect as equals.
- There is no such thing as obligatory monthly payments. Payment is voluntary and the use of money is fully transparent for everybody.
…………………………………………………………………………………………
Then imagine this organisation RBC would make experiments with the idea, that you are not in the presence.
- They try to takes a breath outside of the presence, but couldn’t do it.
- They try sense their body not in the moment, but found it is always here.
- Then they tried to be in imagination, outside of now. But even imagination always happens now.
- They tried and tried but could just not escape the presence.
So they would dismiss the idea that one can be outside of now.
…………………………………………………………………………………………
Further imagine in these Robert-Burton-Centers they would even come up with new radical ideas.
- Every person is connected to the divine.
- There is no such think as angels that help exclusively only people that give a teacher their monthly payment.
- A false prophet is somebody who makes false prophesies.
- Unconditional love, is unconditional.
- As a man, you do not transform into a woman, while having sex.
- If you do not have wings, you are not an angel.
- If you start to think there are angels in your head talking to you and telling you are the chosen one to safe the world, remember you are not Neo.
- As a man, if you have males as the preferred gender for sex, you are a homosexual and that is fine too.
- one and one is really two. Yes it is.
I am sure if these Robert-Burtons-Centers would appear, you would have your lawyers on the run very quickly to.
__________________________________________
So please – respect the work of others and refrain from using Gurdjieff or Ouspensky as a name for your business. Call the FOF Robert-Burton-Centers.
May 10, 2007 at 8:08 pm
Hey Cake
Good for you!
The intelligence of that state really can’t be questioned – not by anyone.
The state, in memory, becomes a beacon – it is not in the past, it is outside of time – still accessible, still touching.
Go deeper.
heresay
May 10, 2007 at 9:00 pm
To Kiran, REQUEST FOR CLARIFICATION.
I noticed that when you posted the story of you being in coma in the hospital in Cairo, on page 6, #217, in this blog, you wrote that Abraham Goldman came to your bed with a contract that would write over your company to the Fellowship in case you were to die.
You seem to say this was at the suggestion of Robert Burton or the Fellowship.
You also said you realized all of this at the time but that you could not hold a pen, but this shock penetrated deeply.
I HAVE CHECKED WITH ABRAHAM DIRECTLY AND HAVE BEEN INFORMED THAT YOU ARE INCORRECT AND THAT WHAT YOU STATE IS ABSOLUTELY FALSE. MOREOVER, THAT THERE WERE MANY WITNESSES IN THE HOSPITAL ROOM AT ALL TIMES ABRAHAM WAS THERE INCLUDING YOUR FATHER, MOTHER AND SISTER.
YOU NEVER RESPONDED MANY SUBSEQUENT POSTS THAT WERE QUESTIONING YOU FOR MORE DETAIL…
Rabbi Burns (6-233) asked you point blank “Kiran is this really true?” Rabbi states he was shocked and horrified.
Cathie (6-234) called it a “chilling deathbed bequest story, showing how coldly Robert uses people..”
Then Antoher Name (6-262) asked again, “Are you sure Abraham Goldman tried to get a signature from you? If you are in a coma everybody knows you can not write.” and later, “Is it true? How can you absolutely know that it is true? (When you are in coma?)”
(6-269) You-me-us-they also asks for clarification, seeking to find out what was meant by some of the statements made by you describing the incident. “Hoping you don’t mind coming back to that for clarity.”
There is no doubt that the story shocked a number of readers of this active blog.
For example Lust for Life (6-327) described it as a “betrayal” that “left a very nasty taste in my mouth” and “was one of the factors that helped me to see that RB has no conscience.”
You were even advised (by Anonymous 6-359) to consider to report this conduct to the California State Bar, as it was understood as [Abraham Goldman] “lying to you” and that he “tried to exert undue influence on you” Anonymous states that “Sounds unethical to me.”
KIRAN, YOU HAVE NEVER SEEN FIT TO RESPOND TO ANY OF THESE QUESTIONS THAT WERE VERY UNDERSTANDABLY FOLLOWING UP ON THE STORY YOU DESCRIBED AND REQUESTING MORE DETAILS.
THE STORY YOU DESCRIBED CLEARLY ACCUSES ABRAHAM GOLDMAN AND ROBERT OR THE FELLOWSHIP OF IMPROPER IF NOT UNETHICAL OR FRAUDULENT CONDUCT.
IT PUZZLES ME WHY YOU, ONE OF THE MORE FREQUENT POSTERS ON THIS BLOG, HAVE SIMPLY NOT RESPONDED.
I AM TRYING AGAIN.
PLEASE EXPLAIN WHAT HAPPENED AT THE HOSPITAL, HOW YOU KNEW WHAT THE DOCUMENT SAID, WHO WAS THE “THEY” THAT TRIED TO MAKE YOU SIGN OVER YOUR COMPANY AND HOW YOU KNOW THAT THIS WAS AT THE REQUEST OF ROBERT OR THE FELLOWSHIP.
IN THE INTEREST OF FAIRNESS TO ALL INVOLVED, A TRUTHFUL RESPONSE WOULD BE APPRECIATED. IF YOU DO NOT RESPOND, WE WILL JUST HAVE TO ASSUME THAT THERE IS NO TRUTH TO YOUR STORY AS TOLD AND THAT YOU SIMPLY INTENDED TO DEFAME AND GAIN ADDITIONAL SYMPATHY FROM THE TRAGIC AFTERMATH OF THE ACCIDENT YOU, YOUR WIFE AND DANIELLA WERE INVOLVED IN.
THANK YOU!
RSVP
May 10, 2007 at 10:03 pm
re 386, 394:
Ho’oponopono isn’t about healing someone else. It’s about healing ourselves, but more, about transforming energies, which we may associate with “ourselves.” It doesn’t “work” if you do it to change someone else. (As far as I can see, nothing does.) In Hawai’i, traditional ho’oponopono is almost always a group conflict resolution process, in which all members of the relevant group are present, all the resentments are laid out, all wrongdoings are acknowledged, and forgiveness is sought by all. Restitution may be part of the deal. It can days or weeks. The approach described in this blog, and on most websites, associated with Dr. Len, distills some psychological aspects of this process. We take responsibility and forgive, others and ourselves, for all wrongs, in the recognition that the distinction between the two is an illusion; what heals us heals others, and vice versa. We blame no one, we try to fix no one. We seek healing for all. The idea that Dr. Lem’s practice somehow resulted in changes in the people he was thinking about, whether true or not, can easily warp the entire concept and purpose of ho’oponopono.
May 10, 2007 at 10:16 pm
Whale Rider
Thank you for your post. This blog is like an opera and your contribution has driven the dramatic tension to it’s highest level yet. I agree that page 8 has some of the most revealing and potentially healing posts on it because of your contribution. I’m the person who bought the LeBrun painting at auction (around 1977/8), so hearing that it represents such painful memories is very sad. LeBrun was Marie Antoinette’s favorite portrait painter so god knows what other hedonistic indulgences that painting has seen.
I’m sure we met when you visited New York but I can’t place who you are. I often used to carry a NY Times with me during the day while I was acting as driver/tour guide. I usually read it at lunch because I was routinely ignored by the mostly male entourage traveling with RB. I assure you that the actress in me found being ignored all day by group of really, really hot young men was REALLY, really boring. Laura Bishop was there but, lovely and loving as she was, she was practically a male herself, so nobody wanted to chit chat with me! (Well, Martha M. was fun sometimes, hi Martha if you’re reading this!) The newspaper was also a way to transform the heavy energy due to the sometimes-deafening silence at the lunch table because the shell-shocked young men like you had just been raped and then spent the next morning with me and RB touring museums and antique shops. I remember one young man who had never been through a revolving door. I loved watching him play with the door at Lincoln Center (was that you?). He kept spinning round and round. He was beautiful, so genuinely innocent… kind of like a living anthropological find. The artist in me related to the whole situation as if it was performance art. At that time I could see RB was a flamer and I asked a couple of older students about it. They told me he once had a girlfriend but was currently celibate. (More performance art.) I let it rest at that. What would I have done had I known what was happening to you guys? I don’t know. I had been subjected to similar abuses from a number of unscrupulous acting teachers and older actors. I thought the FOF was save haven from all that. My experience in and out of the FOF has been peppered by such an abundance of improbable and remarkable synchronicities that I think I simply would have short-circuited. Like many artists, I was appalled at the direction our society was going. The FOF seemed like a viable, miraculous alternative. A rebel in a bourgeois setting. I could be anti-establishment and still wear Gucci. The Jewish Princess in me was DELIGHTED! I had no family to speak of and burned all my bridges in life so there was nowhere to go back to at the time. I was eventually kicked out, which I’m very proud of, thank you Girard. The synchronicities were the main spiritual reason I stayed in so long. It took me 10 years to leave once I DID find out about the sexual abuse. I guess what I’m saying is. it took me 10 years to process the…abuse/synchronicity (C influence), and like it or not, consistent, intelligent, moment-to-moment teaching from RB.
Notwithstanding that I was a trained actress and performer I was never once asked by RB or any center directors to even read a poem. I’m actually very, very grateful for that fact now, as it would have seemed like another kind of violation of my sensibilities, although at the time I simply felt rejected. Once, while living in Venice around 1986, RB send two beautiful young men with a rare bottle wine as a gift for me; all the way from California. They said that RB wanted me to move to Renaissance and run a theater for the students. I said I would do it if he also supplied the young men and a life-time prescription of tranquilizers. Little did I know the joke I had made!
From 1981 to 1991 my name was SYNONYMOUS with cheeky, irreverent, ‘disrespectful’, questionings… posing too many questions to too many traveling teachers and to too many of my high ranking friends who were also chums of RB. I wanted to know what they knew, how long they knew it and what they were doing about IT. (kinda like this blog!) Because of my notoriety … and I trust Sandra C. will vouch for me on this one (hi Sandra). I was barred from attending one of the first recovery groups for former FOF members in Marin county, California. This was a recovery group with a lot of former center directors intoxicated by their own lust for authority! One of them, who’s name is the same as Ireland’s most famous ballad about a tarty fishmonger, demanded that everyone in the group agree to ban me or else she would leave. The tarty fishmonger prevailed and I was banned. RB was not in on this one. The only FOF member who called to give me condolences was the beautiful Margrit. Sandra C. called a few months later to apologize and compare notes on being newly widowed single mothers. So, I ask myself, what could be so threatening from a scatterbrained, insecure goof ball type actress like myself? Nothing more or less than what’s been exposed on this blog. Feeling and speaking about the pain. Relating on a level playing field. Being Human. So thank you Sheik. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
In 1981 I found out about RB’s indiscretions (from no less an authority than Linda R. or whatever her name is now). What did I do? Please read my post on page 6 for starters. I initially I stayed in bed for days, unable to move or communicate. RB came and stayed at our house in London by coincidence at that time. I would not exit my room until he left the house and if he entered a room I was in I walked out (dramatically!). I then started asking questions to anyone with access to and authority from RB. I was confused. As I said it took 10 years to leave.
I brought children ( a 13 years old) to the dinner table with RB in Venice (someone else’s child, I did not have any of my own at the time) rather than leave her home alone. RB didn’t like it but he gave the girl a Heremes scarf the next day, he said she was a third generation student. When I presented the scarf to her she started crying because she said it was a mockery in light of the marginalization she’d experienced during the formative years of her childhood growing up at Renaissance.
What else did I do… Small rebellious conversations with the right-wingers at dinners here and there. I gave myself permission to follow my own passion and married a gorgeous Italian man whose beauty and charm I delighted in.
So, Why did RB let a rabble rouser like me hang around so long? It’s kind of a no brainer but for those of you who haven’t figured it out, let me explain. Rumor had it that I had a rich dad. Unfortunately my dad was not so rich but I sure must have looked pretty classy because RB kept me around for over a decade while I was asking a lot of gnarly questions. I think he had hopes of shaking me upside down once my old man kicked the bucket. In 1992 when I told him my dad was very healthy and that, not only didn’t I come from such a wealthy family but furthermore, I was low on funds, had a small child and stormy marriage; well blog readers it only took about a week and then both me and my husband got the boot.
For those of you leaving the FOF now the books that were most helpful to me were Talking with Angels, (a Holocaust diary from Gitta Mallasz), The Road Less Travelled, The Power of Silence by Castenades and Jean Shinoda Bolen’s The Tao of Psychology. I made a performance piece out of Talking with Angels. (also produced by the California Institute of Integral Studies , Inst. of Noetic Science and the Carl Jung Inst. of SF and Chicago) People who see it often ask me where I get the energy to perform it. After reading 3000+ posts on this blog I need not explain further. I don’t know when I’ll be performing next but you can check at http://www.talkingwithangels.com if you’re interested.
Again Sheik- thank you for this opportunity to communicate and heal.
Shelley
May 10, 2007 at 10:44 pm
Siddiq (#8-362) said, “I do not believe that the starting point matters much, what matters is where we are ending up”. Wow!
Siddiq, we only have a limited amount of time, as ‘sincere seekers’, to mature and resolve our goals and finally “end up where we started”, otherwise we end up as ‘professional seekers’, or worse, ‘professional angle-givers’. The FOF is very slow and inefficient, it seems to me—and this is based on practical experience, I worked very hard and sincerely at it for many years. Officially, the highest “product” of the FOF is Girard, and we have only his word and Burton’s that he has achieved his goals at all. The rest is time-wasting on a grand scale, theoretically over many lifetimes according to Burton. What is your goal, and how has it changed since you joined—truly? Country-club dining, a closed circle of friends, accreditation of consciousness, pre-digested angles, resistance to new ideas, suspicion of the outside world, is this what you really sought when you joined? Did you not expect a personal relationship with a teacher who is going to be bothered to know more of you than your income or whether you are a juicy sexual conquest—or are you happy with group exercises that just happen to be suitable for everyone regardless of their state, history, time and place? Are you content with“everyone who joins/pays is automatically a man number four and bound to be saved” stuff? Do you really have time and room to store all the unverifiable angles that ‘penetrate’? And you are prepared to wait lifetimes, just on the unsupported word of Burton? A fourth way school is supposed to be a place where folks in a hurry can go to ‘wake up’ (whatever that means). You came in that hurry, how come you have settled for dawdling, how come you accept dawdling as a way of life just because someone else said so? How come you have settled, period?
So I say, it matters very much where you start from, if you are sincerely wanting to grow.
Having said all that, I have to admit that you, Siddiq, are in my mind the sincerest and most thoughtful of the ‘official angle givers’ and I’d probably enjoy meeting with you sometime when… and we can have a good laugh.
Warm regards,
Ames
May 10, 2007 at 11:57 pm
To Whale Rider and Ames and Cristina,
I’d like to thank all the posts that have appeared in the past few days and particularly that of Ames Gilbert on Hierarchichal structures.
This is very much the kind of exploration I think we are in need of to understand how the Fellowship is more a cult than a school and why, those inside that still think it is a school, need to consider things more deeply.
Thank you Cristina for your story and everyone else for their light on different aspects of the Fellowship.
Whale Rider, in your last post to Exlax and Subway, I am observing that something that is happening with you is similar to what happened to me in participating on the blog. The initial aim, impulse or hope is quickly devoured by the interaction with others bringing one down and one goes into a deep struggle with those who are trying to measure one’s oil without compassion.
Try to be aware of this so that you stop defending yourself and can keep to your aim before you start becoming angry like I did and you’re already doing with Exlax, who was also my first descending step with others who continued to come.
What you have given us is Great, Greatness. Do not feel you have to defend it from the lower, which was my mistake and once you make that mistake, you will continue to get a lot less compassion than subways’. Thank you for your being.
I used my full name as it appears in my green card in my last post because besides wishing to live up to it when I say there is spiritual crime in the Fellowship, I want to be able to accept full responsibility for it, so that others can at least consider it, even if they finally come to a different understanding.
May 11, 2007 at 1:08 am
Ryan O’poo
My mother says my sense of humor has a large scatological element to it. I refused to believe this observation but you have opened my eyes and revealed that this is true. Every time I see your name it makes me laugh and happy. My shadow poo self has been revealed!
May 11, 2007 at 1:51 am
I have had some telepathic experiences with RB,
I do believe he has certain gifts, a very well developed 6th sense, or psychic abilities. Alister Crowley had it, Samuel Liddell “MacGregor” Mathers who was the founder of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn had it, etc.
It explains RB’s powerful energy, either for good or bad.
It explains his attraction and the ADDICTION to his energy.
I have experienced the good, and I am grateful.
But now I know about the bad, I feel very sorry for all who suffered and for all who are still stuck in a -hear no evil, see no evil- mind set
The School has changed, got lost in a strange web of
dominance, rigid rules and a teaching that makes no sense.
I am sorry, I love you
May 11, 2007 at 2:15 am
“RSVP” (427),
Uh, quick writing tip: the number of capital letters in your post is not directly proportional to how much we’re impressed, or whether we believe you, or whether we care.
May 11, 2007 at 2:20 am
Siddiq (417): “Awakening is in my view possible in the Fellowship.”
Then why has it not happened to anyone? Hundreds, if not thousands, of FOFers have been sincerely doing their best for decades. They’ve learned to wear suits and ties and appreciate the arts, but so what? That’s nothing to do with spiritual awakening.
If we open our eyes and look at the FOF without preconceptions we see a group of people who have learned to be present for a few minutes a day at most. There’s no evidence at all to suggest that this leads to any kind of awakening. Your comment is pure speculation (or imagination if you prefer).
RB
May 11, 2007 at 2:30 am
Hello friends ~
In Reply to allot of untied shoe laces.
Reply to Post #414
Hello Christina: this article also counts for many other replies that have been conjured by my reading of other postings ~
For me, eventually one is set down by one’s own efforts and simply asked by conscience to ‘grow up’, not necessarily to take a look in the mirror…this can actually be a distraction.
Regardless of what books you covet, what school or ‘teacher’, whose teaching that he’s not a teacher, or experiments with wine, dance, sex, drugs or intense movie going experiences: they all boil down to ‘being yourself’, what kind of being are you creating which will be your eternal ‘property’?
This is not to say that you’ll ever have a ‘finished product’, far from it, in actuality, so far as I have experienced it, the more you cleanse yourself of external affirmations, i.e., looking up or down at impressions to create a mental ‘mold’ to cast oneself in by comparison’s toolbox, the bigger you get, so far as space, presence go and the more you expand from a point of view of ‘no content’ the greater the joy in becoming more consciously unfinished.
Seeing that ‘I’ is not attached to descriptions, You begin to not ‘think about yourself’ or ‘question yourself’, rather, you simply ‘move’ this way or that way and watch the results, the emotional, conscience-tactility of what your doing or more than oft, what’s doing you…
So much of Life on this planet is a process of being dragged along by what attracts our lazy eagerness the most, what is simplest to quickly summarize, label, pigeonhole, file and call ourselves having been ‘done with’, ‘expert of’, ‘mine’, ‘their’s, that’s not their’s, because I did it before they did’ and so on.
The same goes for such schools as the FoF, wherein it is stressed that it is a ‘traditional’ fourth way school, ‘a real school’, yet in ‘essence’, it is the way of the monk, for the nucleus itself is, always has been a ‘monk’ of himself, for himself, for his students, for his interpretations, for his version of his version that was not necessarily the ‘he’ he is now, that was a less higher being ‘then’…
You might ask yourself ~ How is it that popular (and not so popular) spiritual teachers never collaborate with other spiritual teachers of the same rank? The ability to consciously collaborate with another ‘conscious collaborator’ is one of the ‘markers’ I use when in the midst of such beings as these.
If they demonstrate a rigid, armor like stance, a kind of “I am hearing you, though, simultaneously trying to locate this new planet way out there”, I know (not by mental comparisons) that this being is trapped in a self-serving identification and pain body life stlye, whose students simply self-serve themselves by being links in the food chain, the affirmation of me=drama=family=mind=me=pain=me.
This chain is incredibly complex ~ Picture a chain with other lateral chains coming off its one main ’string’, then upon those lateral chains, more and so on …
This is the Wheel of Life that the Buddhists spoke of, it happens in ‘Life’ and in ’spiritual groups’, which are simply the essence of life unclothed, though certainly not Gauls.
Schools are not always the end impression of what they looked like when they began, they ascend, yet, in looking at the FoF, the only ascent I see in the form of the FoF is in amount of sympathetic intellectual material and circular emotional meaningfulness that it takes to buffer the school’s core, which is ironically what magnetic center is not attracted to, yet, has certainly created allot of hope around its changing. Hope is the cancer of spiritual evolution and the artificial comma at the end of each pang of conscience you experience when being present to its form:
one positive aspect of the FoF’s form is that with such a form as the FoF it is by no way too difficult to consciously see that form is created to transcend, for who would ever ‘really’ believe that such a phenomenon was meant not to change, not to be born away from?
To uncover a person’s essence and to keep it that way while developing conscious conscience is an ongoing art: one that very few teachers have the self-restraint to have patience for…
Is it not easier for the four lower centers to give a crying child a piece of candy than to delve into their pain with the spirit-being that sees that pain is not a monument, rather it is a gateway, a journey, not a destination and garden?
RB has capitalized on his contradictions to such a degree that to say that they are something for the students to transform only justifies their furtherance; thus since he cannot bring about a shift in attention to himself by his students, from being the affirmation of struggle and hope, the school is stuck, as he is, round and round you go? What the teacher cannot ‘do’, thus becomes what the students cannot ‘do’…
It is no coincidence that the only people that have so called ‘awakened’ by the affirmation of RB’s saying it was so, occurred to those who either defied RB or left the school afterwards. Is it not so that RB told Girard that if he had not awakened ‘by now (ten years)’, it was not going to happen: his reply being, “Well, we’ll see about that!” Go beyond the voice of affirmation and you find the truth of the matter, what you believe is an excuse for not making the efforts to be more than words, something stopped in its tracks by hearing the words ‘Freight train!’ while standing in the middle of your bath tub.
In reference to the above question to giving candy to the crying child ~
Of course it is, it calms the ’self’, it calms the beast within, who daily utilizes one’s sex energy in an array of automatic leaks… This ‘intense energy’, which usually maintains the molecular structure of Pain bodies, is the very same energy which builds the Astral Body: which by the way, is the one and most ‘important’ aim of practicing the Fourth Way, it is what Ouspensky was looking for, Gurdjieff as well… Presence is the conscious placement of this energy ’somewhere else’…
In this respect, oftentimes being an unreasonable person leads to greater essential freedom than being reasonable; slowly the spiritual communities will come to realize that reasons are not connected to conscience, nor does any kind of mental conversation, internal or out, equate with being yourself, not that this should imply a comparison, it is simply to say that there are certain segments in the one and only moment wherein something inside us calls ‘A Moment’, as if a once 365 acres of grapes cannot be called ‘grapes’ without going into the particular history of each and every vine that makes up that totality; yet there are those who struggle to write the history of 1000 ‘individual’ plants whom happen to belong to the same species.
It is extremely difficult to give personal- conscious exercises to ‘individuals’, yet, since truly growing up means to go from ‘i’ to a conscious ‘we’, to take conscious responsibility for transforming contradictions and the ‘mind’s eyes’, if there is ever to be a true ‘conscious school’, then this cannot be overlooked or gone around.
Actually, the ‘issues’ within the FoF has seemingly been working from the point of view of the teacher’s irreconcilableness’s, rather than the student’s, this alone is an indication that the teacher himself, unable to reconcile and sacrifice his personal form, in order to explore a student’s ‘work’, one by one, is actually a creation from the being of the school, that is, he shows where the school ‘is’ as an impression in the realm of being a school up to a certain point, then it ‘fizzles’, points to moving on from itself.
It may be a bit tough to take, yet, in many respects the teacher is a reflection of his students; yet, this does not necessarily mean in all the ‘details’, only in the aspect of form, not actions.
Much can seem confusing, yet, growing up is ’seeming’, very little is experienced without the mind, without the pain body creation of a lifestyle:
much like what is taking place with trees infested with mistletoe, the mistletoe is feeding and killing itself simultaneously, for when its through with the tree’s life force, it can only feed upon its own, which is not actually ‘its own’, thus it dies for it has killed: strange, yet the theory of Catch 22 can lead to allot of housecleaning.
It is no small trap that spiritual teachers bathe in, that great, chrome plated bear-trap called ~
“We are growing through the interpretation of suffering and the propagation of conscious affirmations in order to create a permanent tendency to evolve, to do tomorrow what our self-calming automations don’t wish to do today, now.”
I would suggest you do away with this ‘idea’…A permanent tendency to evolve is too close to the ‘idea’ of heaven or one’s ‘idea’ of one self as ever struggling to be more than Now calls to have effort towards.
All ideas lead to more mind activity: being a present-self, this is enough to then say that the idea of an eternal tendency to evolve is already there:
there is no need to debate whether an egg will or will not have a shell when it comes to exist; the shell, the yolk and such, is intrinsically there: what is often spiritually self evident when going deeper into conscious impressions, the ego of spiritual teachers often call their own ideas, yet these ideas are simply universal qualities flowing in and out of the experience itself: qualities of love belong to Love, not the Lovers,
we rent Love, it owns us.
For so many teachers, their schools become a kind of ‘knitting’. When there’s nothing else to do with promoting themselves, their students, who, by not being the teacher, will always be students, they knit.
Suddenly you see them in Wal Mart and think ‘Wow, he’s, they’re out and about, opening up, “breathing the fresh air”, your astonished, follow him around, then see that he’s simply there to buy more needles, yarn and patterns.
Yet, there’s nothing wrong with this, unbeknown to the students, their teacher is a student too, their student.
Christina, I sense its not very productive for you to have thoughts about what conscious beings are about: rather, be yourself, in and about consciousness, this will be your greatest reference, far greater than any impression one could see ‘as consciousness’.
Again, affirmations of a disease’s cure only triple’s its spread.
‘Spiritual giving’, it is here that the FoF teacher has much work to do: for how I see it, whenever there are ulterior motives at the background of any giving, there is an immediate risk of hurting deeply another’s feelings, since, after all, ulterior motives radiate no feelings at all, they are simply an expression of a need, a ritual of desire and satisfaction: Gurdjieff called it ’self-calming’…
Yet, he, G., in my readings, never pointed to what ’self’ was seeking calming, through the triad of need, desire, possibility of hurting i.e., the dance around the dinner table, the musical chairs of the pain body and bodies.
Pain body is incredibly self-conscious, in that it has an uncanny ability to justify its failures, i.e., not bringing about or creating in another, a Pain Body response or lifestyle similar to its own.
These kinds of Pain Bodies often term their advances as ‘tests’ so to create a formula of Pass or Fail in the wide-open-psyche of developing essence; yet this is simply ‘a buffer’, a cloak for their disappointment and inability to transform ‘the pressure of the work’ into higher hydrogens.
This results in a reappointment of the Pain Body’s self justifications, i.e., “I am hungry for either the Failures of those who think they love me or the ‘pleasure’ and ‘calm’ I feel when I get what I desire, bringing about an energetic release from this pressure, possibly compromising their
feelings, relationships, children, spouses, sex center ‘graying’ and jobs…
Normally, this is easy for these sorts of Pain Bodies to do, for they have none of the things that they take no conscience in risking the hurt or loss thereof
or so many affirmations of these things in abundance that the ‘personal’ cannot be looked at,
hence the extreme then is compromised, an extreme that feeds the imagination that one is supporting the higher by the normally perceived tools of the lower:
see, your teacher cannot explain his actions for this would destroy the self-comforting affirmation that his pain body has built: this affirmation would reveal the very reflection that he has yet to pull the entirety of his school from, his attachment from, …affirmations like, that the struggle to awake is awakening, that a lower lifetime than the 9th gives unconscious license to self-calming, that when your present your a Man#5 and then your not either 1,2,3, or 4, your a Man #0 when your asleep,… all mental structures, form promoting an opinion of what, what is this ‘what’ doing really?
Look around yourselves, affirmations abound and intolerance to reconciling that which is buffered by the affirmed hopes, imitations and praise of the higher state possible within the realm of confusion or shall we say an unsharable sense of conscience with that of the aim of the school’s core form? This is suppressed, for ‘what you think you are is more important than what is present, right now or right then.’
It is an odd ‘tool’ for a ‘fourth way’ school to use, for affirmations and faith are ’symbols’ of struggle for the sake of struggling to get there or having been there once and that was enough; a school that is not permitted to touch the breaker switch is no school of the fourth way.
True teacher’s are ‘doors’, not statues, not crucifixions to stand in awe and wonder how they hung up there so long; a real spiritual crucifixion would never be permitted to become an affirmation by the crucified; yet, it is bound to happen in a ’school’, yet, it is up to the teacher to tear himself down, put some gloves and shoes on and be about his business on an eye to eye level.
Would depictions of the crucifixion have the same effect if they were stationed eye to eye with the viewer? You betcha they would not… You might even hear from viewers, “Hey, what’s the big deal here, that could be me too or has been someone I knew… for certainly the physical act itself is a far cry comparable to what humans are capable of on this Earth today and Yesterday’s Inquisition.
Who do you think ‘is’ on top of all those statues at ISIS? Its your teacher, he is also the palm trees, he’s everything and he’s you. Now, can you be born from this dream of affirmative reflections?
In relation to the vacancy of the teacher’s paying of attention to family, sex center connections with essence and feelings, job, wives, friends, etc.
Now one might say, “So what, we on the spiritual path need to loose these things (affirmations) sometimes in order to grow.”
Again, this is simply a justification for a lifestyle of struggle and self calming. Loosing for the Pain Body is Gaining; yet, being consciously responsible for the contradictions is part of the Work.
For me, I am glad to see the FoF growing up, the multitudinous acquisition of new families, the many births of children by children, have been a very little talked about ‘third force’ for growing up in the FoF’s ‘affirmation of family’.
If your working on yourself, there is no way to skirt around the huge contradictions that arise when you are raising a child from your conscious conscience and that of the teacher’s ‘way’ of raising ‘his children’.
It is and will be an ongoing, oftentimes unconscious, comparison between the student’s way of loving innocence and the teacher’s… I sincerely give out my blessing for this very strange dance your school is performing, to a music that is only composed for those who secretly hum along, drowned out by the other ‘on key’ church goers, your conscious conscience.
Love to you all.
May 11, 2007 at 3:21 am
To Ames and All,
First, thank you for the invitation to the Party. I will attend and introduce myself to you personally.
Next, your question, which deserves a full response. And by the way, again, I am not Howard Carter, as some people keep assuming, nor am I writing as an “official” in any capacity. These postings are entirely my own, and they are not an official statement from the Fellowship.
I (Siddiq (#8-362) said, “I do not believe that the starting point matters much, what matters is where we are ending up”.
This was in response to a question from the Sheik from what perspective I studied presence and what I meant to convey is that although all these various traditions (Zen, Sufi, etc.) have so many aspects which may attract one initially, the importance to me is that their “ultimate truth” seems to all point in the same direction–Presence (or as the Sufi’s call it “Divine Presence”–in the philokalia it is called the “Ceaseless Prayer”).
In the school as we know the idea of presence is the essence of the teaching. We can approach this from so many different points, even from our lower self initially, our king of clubs, seeking more power, control, awareness in functions, etc., but if this leads to something higher, more noble, presence itself, then is that not what matters?
So, to answer your post, yes I agree that we only have a limited amount of time and we do not wish to end up as ‘professional seekers’, or ‘professional angle-givers’.
While we may disagree on its speed (you state
The FOF is very slow and inefficient)–my progress is only slowed by my own inertia, resistance, reluctance, features, weaknesses, etc.
Ames, I am sure you have worked very hard and sincerely in the work for many years and far be it from me to state whether you or anyone (including Robert, Girard, etc.) have achieved anything lasting–it is not up to me to judge, nor can I afford to spend my time that way–life is just too short!
My goal to be present has not changed from the moment I found a bookmark, to my first meetings, meeting Robert for the first time, and trough the current time.
The school is far from a country club–that would appeal to some parts of me, but it is changing too much all the time, as are the people in it.
I never expected a personal relationship with a teacher when I joined, but since many years now I do enjoy a deep, and I trust, lasting frienship which I will never trade or betray for anything.
The day before I met Robert for the first time, a student, now deceased, said to me, about Robert, “****, You’ll never have a better friend…”
When we will meet, I will share more details of this story, as it was I believe a mutual friend of ours that told me this.
So in closing, we are perhaps more connected than we ever imagine. Rabia, the great lady sufi poet, said: “I was born when all I once feared–I could love.
Thank you, and Best to All,
Siddiq
May 11, 2007 at 3:26 am
first thank you Sheik I find it almost impossible to imagine reading all the diverse veiws presented on this site. I try and I am a good reader but I can only in a general way keep up with the volume of material.I repeat an earlier comment that the reality of a school is in the consciousness of its students. From that perspective this blog is a very real part of the consciousness produced by the FOF. The challange, one that REB and his FOF has failed is to make the ideas of the 4th way both practical usefull and and inclusive.
Scott duncan
May 11, 2007 at 4:08 am
Here is a true story from my dear friend whom I know for many years. When this happened just few years ago I was very shocked and almost couldn’t believe it. And then the story became even more strange and shocking… But see for yourself.
Here’s how she got married… She dated a young man who happened to be RB’s boy. A month after she started dating him Ana Fantoni approached her and asked her to “serve the school” by marrying this guy because his visa expired and he would have to leave the country, so if she marry him – he would receive a green card through her and everyone including the Teacher will benefit from it.
My friend wasn’t planning to marry this guy, but being a Good
Student and passive type, and honestly willing to “serve the Teacher and the school” she went as far as marrying a guy she met just a month ago!
A few months later after a Margarita Dinner with the Teacher he goes to her 9 years old daughter’s bedroom at night and
molests her. When little girl screams for help and
tells to her mom what happened, my friend reacts as any normal mother would and immediately calls the police. Police arrived, her husband is arrested and now facing 8 years in prison! My friend is in complete shock, feeling as a victim herself, a mother of a victim and a wife of a victim – all at once.
Now is the most screwed up part: RB’s comment on this was that she made a tremendous mistake to call the police. Different students would talk to her everywhere expressing their mostly judgmental opinions. Among many there were: “he is an angel, he was with Robert” “he is in essence” “it was a Play written by the Gods, “you should never have called the police”, “It’s school’s business, we should keep it inside”, “you were under feminine dominance”, “he is not guilty” “he might be killed in prison because of your foolish selfish behavior”! Basically, pretty much everyone – including the Teacher – judged her and blamed her, and in the same time condoned and justified an outrageous crime – child molestation! How screwed up is that! What’s wrong with you people?
My poor friend was torned between the feelings of guilt and rejection from fellow students and natural desire to defend her daughter.
She finally leaves the country under pressure and the case is dropped for the benefit of all.
But the story did not finish here. A few months later her hubby who was free by then needed to go to an interview for the green card. He begs her to return – he needs her for the interview. She moves back from another country where she had began a nice life and a career – to help him again – my dear, kind-hearted friend!
But the “family” could not function anymore – 3 could
not co-exist in the same house. Besides a few months
after her sacrificial return he started an affair with
another woman… My friend being rather frustrated after getting such a reward for all her heroic selfless efforts – finally has enough of it all and wants to file for divorce.
But being an RB’s boy he complains to daddy -RB – about it. What happens next? You guessed right! A phone call from Linda T. – “The will of your Teacher is to not divorce him. Work with your queen of hearts. Are you going to disobey the will of your teacher?”
How could she? “The will of the Teacher!” That’s serious heavy duty stuff! It’s really scary to disobey the “will of theTeacher”… So she swallowed her pride and did not divorce this jerk.
She came out of all this with a deep trauma and a
confusion about what right action of defense is. Now
even if the murderer will get in her house she
probably won’t call the police, especially if he is an RB boy…
Now talking about safety of the children in the FOF, talking about crimes, talking about f…ed up judgment!
Did her Teacher cared for her at all in this horrible play? Or all he cared was his prostitute who got in trouble and needed cover up for his crime and a green card so he can stay around? She was used like some kind of disposable tool in the most cold and unloving way – by a “conscious being” who preaches love and external consideration to all of you, blind! Open your eyes already, will you?
And shame on all of you people who were so brainwashed, scared and screwed up to blame my friend when she called police! Would you cover up a rapist of your own children too? Would you call police if your innocent daughter was molested or raped? Or you’d rather protect a criminal, buffer and lie, so “your Beloved Teacher” – who is just as criminal – can keep his dear whore for his perversive disgusting pleasures?
Shame on you people, you owe my friend a big, big apology. I feel sorry for you for your complete loss of common sense!
I am not saying names here but it is a totally true story, and many of you already heard it, probably with lots of distortions. I heard it first hand from my dear friend whom I love and trust. I wish her healing, and may be exposing this on this blog somehow will help it! We need to know stories like this, be aware of what’s going on, of what we support. And the ongoing crime should be exposed and stopped, and healing should begin.
Make your own conclusions. Don’t buffer, please.
May 11, 2007 at 4:12 am
May 14, 1952
“I feel that much of that which people call evil is not evil at all, but really destruction. I mean it refers to that one of the six cosmic processes* whic can be given this name. On the other hand I begin to have a more and more healthy respect for real evil—that is to say corruption, which belongs to that different degenerative cosmic process to which Ouspensky gave the name of CRIME. Particularly, this corruptive process becomes significant when it begins to touch the result of esoteric work. If people begin to change or acquire something, and this new ’something’ is touched with POISON–this to me is a big EVIL, a kind of evil which I never guessed before. It seems to begin when one strong FEATURE or HABIT or side of life is left out from the general work of consciousness. If the DIVORCE is complete, then this abandoned feature may even acquire a kind of INDEPENDENT LIFE of its own and become a TOOL
of corruptive forces. Probably this was what Stevenson meant with Jekyll and Hyde.
I feel that one of the devil’s best tricks is to persuade us to attach the word ‘evil’ to trival things, thus leaving us with no convenient name by which to recognise his major works”
RODNEY COLLIN 4th Way Student.
For those who have not read the 4th WAY.
May 11, 2007 at 4:44 am
As a child my mother frequently tried to teach me this lesson. It took me over 50 years to understand, so I thought I would pass it on to anyone who might be able to use it and gain benefit. I always knew she was psychic, but never knew just how much.
“Most humans do not follow their hearts. They allow themselves to be guided by outer circumstances. In fact, many of you were taught, as little children, not to follow your hearts. Instead, you were told others’ opinions mattered more than your own.
And you carried that perspective with you from the innocence of childhood into the forgetfulness of adulthood. As you grew in years and physical maturity, you forgot all the wisdom of your child self. And your “authority” became whatever other people’s opinions were. Those opinions were often embodied, and even formalized, in many different ways — in your religions, governments, educational systems, and so on.
We are not saying religion, government, and schools are evil. We are saying, however, they generally do not encourage you to rely on and trust your only real authority — you, your higher self.
You will never, ever find any higher or better or wiser guidance than your own inner voice.
The opinions of others do not matter. We are not saying you should never listen respectfully to others. But we are saying you should always take what they tell you with, as you say, “a grain of salt.” Run their opinions through the “filter” of your own inner guidance.
Trust your feelings — they are your clearest form of communication between you and your higher self, between you and God. And then you will have released yourselves from the prison of other people’s opinions.”
Excerpted from newsletter by Chief Joseph and John Cali, Greatwestern Publishing.
Thanks Mom and Mum !!
Thanks Sheik!
I am sorry and I love you.
May 11, 2007 at 6:15 am
Ames, I love your posts! Thanks so much.
I wish I live closer – I would like to attend the Reunion of the Greater Fellowship. May be – next time, if you give us East Coasters enough notice. Please do us a favor and post some pictures from Reunion, just like we did after our little gathering here. Flickr.com is good for posting pictures.
And, Siddiq (#417), you said “this attention has to be gained and regained continually throughout the day…”
I think you mistake awareness or consciousness for attention. I came to understand that attention is a function which can be on or off, but it doesn’t affect the awareness which seem to be always on. It’s not about attention… Let me ask: are you conscious? Probably yes. But your attention can be focused or dispersed now. So what? You are not unconscious now, even if you don’t pay attention. Also, if you observe life around you – you’ll see that various creatures attention can be focused on some objects or not (let’s say in cats) yet they still exist and alive and very much present. So attention is just a function, that can be focused on something or not, and has nothing to do with who you are, or with presence or awareness. Attention is way overrated in FOF.
Then you say: “Since anything we do, is better done with presence, and since presence is a sliding scale, my statement was meant to convey that we can be on a way up, at a minimum, every moment, a moment at the time.
I can say only that anything we “do” is with or in presence, there nothing done in “absence”. It’s such a mental trap that we believe in. “Things done in presence”. Presence of whom, first of all? And are there any things done in absence? Then who did them? And don’t give me this “higher-lower-self-9-of-hearts-steward” imaginary crap! None of this exists in reality except as your mental concepts. What you truly are is way simpler than that.
Also, the” time” is a mental concept, and as much as we all like to talk about “moments ” – can you actually distinguish between separate moments? I mean, do you perceive your existence as some kind of multitude of separate units/moments, chopped and separated like pictures in a film from a camera? I personally don’t. I don’t feel any moments, in fact, I don’t feel any time. It just is, now. Kind of flows non-stop. Or better – stays beautifully still and alive… But no separate moments, ever. So when you say “every moment, a moment at a time” – what do you actually mean? How do you measure them? Curious, because you base your whole practice on this “separate moments” idea. “Moment to moment struggle”… May be it’s a false idea? Is time real or is it a mental concept we use for sheer convenience?
Another thing you say with confidence: “since presence is a sliding scale”. How do you know this? I actually find this statement not true. Presence is not a sliding scale in my experience. What slides – is your attention, mind activity, mood, states. This stuff slides. Presence is – what it all happens in. Silent watching. It doesn’t ever slide. And it doesn’t need “your” struggles, exercises and methods to simply shine and take it all in, as it is.
“Awakening is in my view possible in the Fellowship.” – view based on what? Belief, imagination, proof of some kind? I personally think that awakening is not possible anywhere, neither in Fellowship or anywhere else. Simply because what you truly are was never ever asleep and is always awake and shining, and what you are not – never even lived, was just imagined and believed in. So the whole “awakening” thing is just a lure for imaginary picture of yourself. Become a superman! Immortal and great, superior awake being, envied and admires by many!
(You have a great role model for that, too.)
It’s a question of realizing, seeing things as they are, not some “awakening”. You can call it so, if you wish, but it’s totally inaccurate. When you happen to see things as they are – there is no need to “continue to be present each moment” – you just are present anyway, and live your life in the now, just where it happens anyway, naturally and beautifully, and effortlessly. It’s about an understanding of what IS, and not “becoming” or following some path to some imaginary destination in imaginary future.
But – hey! Great postings. Thank you. Really enjoy reading them.
Sincerely,
No person
May 11, 2007 at 6:38 am
“for example ExLax’s “moron”, ”
This was shoutout to dick moron. I didn’t feel like typing his whole name out.
“and you’re defensive about it because it brings out your own inability to fully accept yourself.”
Spare me the Philadelphia Psychiatry.
“So why not work on that for a while, and stop kicking people who are suffering.”
Why not. BTW I did/do not believe the whalerider was real to begin with. I still have my doubts….
May 11, 2007 at 6:41 am
A Memo/question concerning posts #431 & #422
Sheik, did both of these posts come from the same place, that is, the same computer email address? This is very confusing, in a strange uncreative way. Perhaps someone else is using this poster’s name, for these posts are diametrically opposed to one another and just a few posts away from meeting face to face…
If a mirror wanted to ‘fix its face’ would it need another or simply itself?
Love to you all.
May 11, 2007 at 6:52 am
Words, Words, Words,
A Lot of Unnecesary Talk.
Thousands of I`s.
Be Present and Resist to the manifestations of your own mechanicallity.
May 11, 2007 at 7:13 am
Whalerider(262):
Though it was my wish to respond immediately to your unspeakably forthright and beautiful post…it was so clear to me that no words would ever do justice to that which I wish to share with you. To say that there was an implosion of my central nervous system would be a gross understatement. Only two other times in this lifetime have I cried this hard…the first when my Mom was diagnosed with incurable breast cancer (11 lymph nodes involved) and the second was almost 10 yrs. ago ( exactly) when my Dad ( who was also my soulmate) died of lung cancer. As a family we were given 3 weeks notice and Daddy passed on. Here it is Mothers’ day and it will be shared with my Mom who has now lived 20 years beyond her death sentence.
Though my crying lessens each day and my healing has begun I have also experienced the energy rushes you’ve described. Without a doubt, for me a huge amount of stifled (though, beautiful) and pent up emotion has been released…The dam has broken and a few steps have been taken toward a life wherein I will be “true to myself” and with a centre of gravity in raw uncensored TRUTH….that was the deepest of so many gifts your post gave to us…RAW UNSENSORED TRUTH. And…YOUR COURAGE, in sharing with us the real story. Please, Please… You need not defend your story in any manner whatsoever. There is serious “Being” out here. So many of us have been searching for the piece of the fof puzzle that has been missing for so long….eloquence and breathtaking beauty at Isis…work i’s which we all ached to hear and, yet; students dying every few months (relatively young students). There were way too many unanswered questions??? Conflict in conscience will eat the auto-immune system alive.
This is American soil we inhabit and we must never give our inalienable and hard won civil liberties to ANYONE…let me repeat,…ANYONE,
ever under any circumstances.
The sexual revolution was alive and well and underway (late 60’s and early 70’s)…I’m one of the true solars who knew unquestionably that Robert, my beloved teacher was celibate.
And, as far as you needing that experience??? If we are not completely paranoid “ALL” the time then we can wind up in situations where we are blindsided. It really is that simple!!
I am so deeply sorry, Whalerider that at possibly one of the sweetest periods in your life you were invited to a dungeon by a man whom none of us any longer understand. His name, he tells us is Robert Earl Burton. He also tells us that he is a Man #7/8.
Back on track with this Work I Love so deeply…sadly very little was verifiable at Isis.
Though never having met you I hold you in my heart as a hero who has truly transformed suffering!!! You enjoy that beautiful life you have created for you and your family.
YOU,”Angel WHALERIDER” are a true hero and ispiration in every sense!!!
With the Love that ONLY GOD Can give,
“Angel Aware”
May 11, 2007 at 8:23 am
To Joseph G (8/360):
Thank you for you post; it’s good to hear you voice and it takes courage to write of one’s experience. But I’m left wondering about one thing you said:
“If I had known what Ames or Charles or Miles knew, I may have left earlier. But I did not know everything they knew.”
It’s hard to imagine what it was that Ames or Charles or Miles might have known back in their time that you, or indeed anyone living at Renaissance, didn’t know, or could not have easily learned by asking a few questions. Certainly by the time of the Troy B. affair in 1994, much was made public, and there were even attempts made to discuss matters of concern openly at meetings. Of course Robert and the FoF hierarchy worked overtime to quiet things down, and dissenting voices have always been silenced by expulsion and shunning; but the information was available to those with ears to hear.
Anyone who has lived and traveled with Robert, as you have, and as I did in the early 80s, had quite a head start over other members in learning exactly what Robert is about.
I don’t mean to criticize you; I want to point out that even people who know how rotten things are at the core can find a way to stay in the FoF for reasons of security and comfort. I know because I did it. (I used to laugh when I’d hear people say how much “suffering” it was to live at Renaissance; it seemed like an extended summer camp to me.)
And everyone has his time for leaving. I would venture a guess that almost everyone who has left the FoF feels that he stayed longer than he should have.
May 11, 2007 at 8:34 am
To “RSVP to Kiran” (427):
Well well well, unless I am much mistaken, I’d say that Abe “Be Careful” Goldman his very self has returned to grace these pages. But WHAT’S WITH ALL THE SHOUTING? We can hear you just fine.