Believe it or not, we are at it again. This time number 4.
For part 3 click here.
For part 2 click here.
For the very first page and the initial article click here.
And as always, enjoy and have fun.
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March 22, 2007
The Fellowship of Friends Discussion, part 4
Posted by Pavel under Discussion, Fellowship of Friends, Forum[312] Comments
March 22, 2007 at 1:47 am
I would like to start this one off by thanking everyone who has taken part in the discussion so far (and those yet to come).
You have all been amazing, every single one of you. Thanks for the praise, thanks for the hate, have fun and see you around.
March 22, 2007 at 1:48 am
Re: 332, Part 3
“where does it come from ?”
It comes from a pronounced narcissism, entitlement to power and proximity and being deeeeply invested in the status quo of the FOF power structure. And loving to hear one’s self talk, and that’s self with a small “s”.
March 22, 2007 at 1:59 am
Dear John (297) and fellow friends,
Thank you for your question, it would be wonderful if you get many answers besides mine until you can formulate your own.
We all start in a regular state, hence see regular communities but there’s really only one community which is the one you’re in and heroes, are regular people like you. In our time, it is not one little community or the other what enlightens people. People become enlightened in different degrees, through any form of sincere work on themselves and the world around them, not only in religious communities but in scientific, artistic or any other work. We each just happen to land in different places that fit our karmic necessities.
Meher Baba says that even if you come across a questionable teacher, you will achieve levels of development from the love and work that you honestly apply. Any school “works”, in those terms.
The present struggle in the Fellowship is no different to any struggle occurring in any other community around the world and the question is: What is the balance between the individual and the community?
If one only wishes to affirm one’s individual self and become enlightened then one can remember one’s self ad infinitum and acquire a certain development. Something like a toy rocket that goes up in the sky and falls down again. One cannot really go anywhere because one cannot even conceive where to go. If one has that wish, one starts behaving no different to an animal and the community life of the people sharing that wish, will work like most animal communities. It can look pretty human but in its essence, there’s nothing human about it. Some guidelines help us observe the analogies. Animals abandon the sick and the old, sexuality is determined by hierarchy, physical power is the determining factor. In human communities like this, physical power is replaced by monetary power and from it, the endless privileged favors of the leader’s subjectivity go out into the community. Some are helped, others are allowed in as much as they support without demands, others are thrown out. This communities are centrifugal, that is, function around one central figure. Most of the communities or societies of our present time, function with this structure but moving away from it is the struggle that is going on everywhere, in different degrees. These are societies determined by the our instinct, where subjective interests condition the whole. In animals, it works pretty naturally, one could even say, beautifully, but in humans the “dissonances” begin to appear, sooner or later. The excesses of subjectivity start flowing around not only from the central figure but from the circle around it, and the consistent imbalance becomes too obvious to deny. Normal standards are lowered and the uncontrollable momentum of need and desire of the few takes over the public arena of the whole. The whole establishment today, in any of its aspects, lives by these structure.
In The Fellowship, it happens in things such as the unconditional monologue of the central figure, the unconditional power of the central figure and even little things such as not being able to go through a meal without being interrupted, sometimes, six times, to be asked for money. The lotteries, the TV., the auctions….. Everything that was once “unacceptable” about regular “life”, has gradually become the form of the School. At the beginning, it was only one teacher to support, now, it is a big number of people and the insubstantiality overrides the scene. Nothing of this is external consideration, no matter how much “kindness” is involved.
Let’s go back to your question:
Does external consideration depend on one’s degree of enlightenment? I mean, isn’t there a point where one needs to have the level of an enlightened person in order to know how far one can go with investing energy in relations with other people?
I do not think that in our time, one needs to be enlightened to externally consider, understanding by enlightenment, a permanent connection with higher realms. I definitely don’t consider myself “enlightened”. One way to think about external consideration is relating to your immediate surrounding which includes not only all people but also, all things, organic and inorganic and determining your actions by your awareness of their presence and all that that implies, and another way to come to it is, as the objective guarantees that each individual has or should have in any particular society. No matter how limited the individual’s social guarantees are today, they have all represented struggles of the individual before the state. Our individual struggle for unity is the same human struggle for self determination. The world in which we live today can be nothing else but in the stage in which we ourselves struggle. Microcosm, macrocosm. And it is a self correcting mechanism in which the microcosm is consistently “trimmed” by the macrocosm and the macrocosm is consistently presented by “flowers” from each individual. The self correcting mechanism of the whole is objective external consideration. The external consideration of the individual is walking with awareness of the whole so that he doesn’t grow like an uncontrolled creeper and demands too much trimming.
To address your question again, we only “invest energy” in other people because we are identified with them. Indeed, becoming free of our identifications must lead us to your, “enlightenment”, and it is my belief that we do that by incorporating little by little, not just a few who we love and invest energy into but the many, and the many more until all are included.
Thank you for asking.
Elena
March 22, 2007 at 2:27 am
To:A friend (320)
I truly appreciate that.
Thank you,
John
March 22, 2007 at 3:20 am
Howard Carter (#331) wrote: “After all, it was they (C Influence) who willed the school into existence and designed the role of RB.”
Wow. This kind of talk has always produced mixed feelings in me. On the one hand, I envy the comfort provided by this kind of single-minded, unswerving faith. Probably because I was never able to fully buy into it myself.
Then again, I feel something like resentment. Maybe it doesn’t seem fair that when one’s awareness gets further from this kind of fundamentalist certainty, to a perception that is probably closer to reality, it is accompanied with discomfort — a discomfort that occurs when you allow the unknown just to be, without explaining it away with the term Gurdjieff (ironically) used to describe religion — “comforting nonsense.”
That’s not necessarily my opinion of religion, but it seems to fit here.
Does this make sense to anyone?
March 22, 2007 at 3:43 am
From a headline in today’s news. Some may find the following curiously apropos. I won’t spoil it with further comment or pedantic highlighting of key phrases. Let it be open-endedly suggestive for those who find it to be so.
RUSSIA MOURNS DEAD AFTER TRIO OF DISASTERS
The only place survivors could be was near the center of Monday’s explosion….
“The biggest problem is identification,” Berezovsky said. “It’s really difficult to identify most of the bodies because they were badly mutilated in the blast.”
March 22, 2007 at 4:15 am
January 9, 1949 “there is something very interesting in the direct connection with simple people. This LAST LINK in the chain from HIGHER man through his NEAR pupils, his distant admirers, and on down to the ordinary DECENT people with whom they come in contact, has always interested me. Somehow it seems necessary to COMPLETE THE PATTERN OF THINGS; something must flow on from us away to the circumference of life, in order to make room for new understanding and energy to enter us from the center”. Rodney Collin
2012 The EAGLE and CONDOR were seen flying together.
March 22, 2007 at 4:46 am
Can we be workers in the Vineyard and do what is necessary because it has to be done and not expect any reward at the end of the day, not hope for any personal benefit in exchange for our labours? Or will we be like children, asking for something in return, progress, benefit, spiritual advancement for the little time – although it may be a lifetime – we have given to ‘work on ourselves’? When will we cease to be self congratulatory?
It has been said that a conscious teaching will destroy itself to keep itself pure, and whether you call it C influence or quantum entanglement makes no difference, not really…
Alexis
March 22, 2007 at 6:10 am
Dear John and Friends,
My husband just explained to me that centrifugal is going out and centripetal is going towards the center, so I meant that we’re in a centripetal community although it looks like we’re also in a centrifugal moment!
Elena
March 22, 2007 at 6:29 am
In response to Red Army (6)
It was interesting how some key words were used.
March 22, 2007 at 6:49 am
Dear Discussion and everyone
I am a current student, and I find the discussion to be informative, interesting and alive.
This discussion raises few questions that we as students did not discuss in the FOF. I feel that it is necessary to deal with them sooner or later.
The first question is what it means to be “AWAKE”.
One view (from various postings) that we are already awake and we just have to connect to the part that is already awake. In that case maybe we do not need a school, teacher and knowledge. We are awake, and maybe all of humanity is awake.
The other view (mainly FOF students) is that we need a school, teacher, knowledge, environment with self-remembering.
That is why we joined initially.
The third view is a mixture of both ideas. (not to be formatory).
Another question: are all humans equal from evolution point of view and their potential evolution possibilities. Ouspansky seems to think that people have different BEING, knowledge and understandings and that what makes the difference between them.
I will appreciate replies to my questions.
Thank you Esoteric Sheik for making it possible.
Free essence
March 22, 2007 at 8:28 am
Innernaut, Re: #5 – You said “I envy the comfort provided by this kind of single-minded, unswerving faith. Probably because I was never able to fully buy into it myself”
I think the part “never able to fully buy into it myself” is the key. In life there is the saying – “Seeing is believing”. Gurdjieff said “reverse what life thinks and you have it.” That would be “Believing is seeing.”
Often one has to give oneself over to an idea before hand, assume it is true, and only then is it revealed in its fullest sense. When one doesn’t hold back something magical can happen. Things don’t always work out, but taking the plunge puts one under different laws.
Its true faith, as opposed to blind faith, and it plays a very important role in spiritual matters.
March 22, 2007 at 9:57 am
Some people find it ‘off’ that ex-FOF members should be attracted to this blog. That participating is indicative of an identification or attachment that should have been released. Time to move on, get a life. However, the past impacts the present. All the experiences of our life have impacted and conditioned us. From our earliest moments as babies to now, our experiences have shaped our identities. From a perspective of clear consciousness, unhindered by conditioning, we are in the present and reacting spontaneously to this moment. But as I look into my present experience, I see the echoes of the past, I see egoic structures patterned by reactivity, defensiveness, and fabrication of identity, some of it created within the FOF. The substrate is not of this, and looking at this is even more interesting to me; a world where there is a palpable sense of Being, and an adventure into realms of not-knowing, spaciousness, peace, and more.
The real impact of 22 years in FOF is still not clear to me. In a way some of the lessons learned are fissioned off from me today, not integrated, as I have continued to delve into exploring the Authentic and Real. I have taken new approaches, which in a way are ‘starting again’. Although starting again has value, the present is always fresh, and beginning again in this moment is a facet of self remembering – in another way it is not economical of being in a school, and a symptom of fragmentation. Better to add to what one has learned/become. And in a way that is all that can really happen – but such a disjuncture indicates that the past experience has not been truly metabolized. Right now I am experiencing compassion in my heart for my mind and that is truly beautiful. The mind is not fully equipped to grasp the truth of being, yet it is such a fine instrument for its expression, and such a wondrous gift to us as human beings.
Another fascination of this blog is that the subject matter with which FOF is concerned, is the same subject matter which concerns us – whether it be termed awakening, realization, or how to live a real authentic life. The elements of Gurdjieff/Ouspensky, RB, and FOF form an approach to this subject matter. We entered a school to learn something or gain something, even if paradoxically we were really there to unlearn things, and discover that while trying to gain something we are missing what we already have. So I am still interested in what is of value in that approach for me now, and what is not. Also, since I am publishing this to a public forum, I am interested to see what impact this posting might have, and what response it may elicit.
In my previous posting (Page1#146) I tried to indicate by means of my story that the Way continues after leaving the FOF as an encouragement for those on the edge of leaving now. In the past I restrained myself from making this encouragement, not wanting to help defeat the will of those members experiencing an interval – but now I feel quite differently. In my pervious positing I also gave from my perspective an assessment of the FOF a) that it is a cult, b) a lack of valuation of the Truth, and c) an observation of how impersonal the Teaching was/is.
Since that time, several hundred postings have appeared. They have tugged at me, each one eliciting a reactivity which could have resulted in a response. So much said, such interesting, subjects, so dear to me. The postings I have read are all over the map. Some are deep heartfelt carefully crafted essays – others are superficial comments tossed into the arena. All welcome. But difficult to discern and digest. And we are at different places – some still in FOF are examining, questioning, evaluating. Is there a need for action? Is all well? Others who have left are freer in commenting, and focusing their understanding. I am in the latter camp. I want to explore in this posting the nature of the teaching I have absorbed from my present viewpoint, and only delve a little into the personality cult associated with RB.
But I do have to say that I think RB is not a con man – that he is sincere – even if sincerely deluded. How long RB or AH were in a school or proximity to the real G. or O. is immaterial. The source of knowledge, the source of the teaching is Being. To the extent that they are in contact with the real source of true nature and are realized, they are able to teach, and morph whatever forms they have inherited into a living expression of the Work. Ironically, we see that many who become teachers, did not have teachers themselves, and as many have stated, having a teacher or guide, or spiritual friend – is not a necessity. For some souls, simply hearing the Truth once, is enough for them to realize their nature, what they are. For the rest of us, with ‘middling intelligence’, it seems we have to be told, re-told, and reminded to remember. However, the universe has created many wonderful teachers and it can be inspiring instructive and helpful to partake. Indeed a subject amongst my friends these days is to ask: what role in life is there for an awakened being in this age, except to become a teacher? What about awakened geologists, or chefs, or driving instructors? But for those of us going to Teachers for the spiritual hit, we can observe patterns of dependence, which as Pieternel’s posting hinted, can be traced to patterns of relationship with our parents or primary care givers. There is currently a wealth of knowledge about Object Relations and the internalization of those relationships to form mental representations which pattern our lives in the form of ego structures. It happens to everyone – it is a part of the conditioning which forms the sleep that stops us seeing things as they are in the moment. It is also possible to be liberated from this. Self remembering is one tool. There are others. For myself meditation and enquiry currently round out the picture.
Looking at the FOF teaching one key idea was that ‘Men are Machines’ straight from Gurdjieff and passed on to us. At first I found this (and associated typologies of centers, body type, features, and alchemy) to have so much explanatory power and be useful in looking at myself.
But in time they became their opposites and became mental straightjackets. What fitted into the analysis and typology was characterized as mechanical, and everything else was discarded as being imagination. Yes ego is mechanical, and yes the body obeys mechanical laws of the universe as does everything else. So although there is mechanicality, to say we are machines diminishes us. This viewpoint is a useful tool in diminishing the rule of ego, but expressed in absolutist terms, that all we are is a machine, is no longer useful for me – the totality of our Being is so much more. I think G’s idea has devolved and has outlived its usefulness. By emphasizing that idea too much, we negate and minimize so much in our potential, and ignore much of our capacity. There is so much available to us in human experience. Another diminishing destructive label that rejects much that is of value is ‘imagination’. I feel myself to have graduated from the FOF distorted in the sense that I lack valuation for my own personal experience and lacking in the consciousness to know what my present experience is. So when I do have experiences that transcend the mould of egoic limitation, I doubt my own Truth with the questioning: am I imagining this? am I deluding myself? I would now say valuation for Truth is the sword which will cut this self-delusion. I am not trying to ennoble or glamorize ego, it is a hollow shell. But we are not our ego personalities.
I now look at the Teaching a view parts as being incomplete in our received ‘Fragments’. We had the looking and listening exercises – these came through. But we lacked the third part – sensing. It was there a little – but from my perspective not centre stage. So that sensing into oneself or one’s “Common Presence” as G. put it was nothing that was especially taught. Yes, sensing one’s feet on the floor, one’s butt on the chair, was there – but somehow it was an externalization and not an internalization. As I said in my previous posting, I can not tell if this was in the nature of the teaching itself or how it landed on my subjectivity….
Another aspect which I think was missing from the Teaching is a deep understanding (and hence valuation) for Essence. What I garnered in FOF was that it was a purer form of our being uncontaminated by the acquired (conditioned) habits of personality. But the richness of Essence, its various manifest forms, it spirituality, and it being our birthright – was lost to me. Yes we have the Enneagram, and it’s teaching is related to Essence – but I think its strongest implications are unseen. Almaas’s theory of holes is that ego structures arise in fake/false forms as a compensation for essence. Instead of real strength, false strength, instead of essential love, a false form of love, and so on. At the foundation of the ego is a sense lack or deficiency which is covered over by false personality. This sense of deficiency is because we are disconnected from our Essence where the real qualities of our nature lie. So a methodology lies in enquiring into the holes, eventually revealing facets of Essence. I presume other methodologies can work too. But riches, jewels, lie in Essence. Re-discovering essence is truly part of self remembering.
To counterbalance those missing aspects in the teaching, the study of feminine dominance as taught in FOF seems deeper than what was received directly from Gurdjieff and Ouspensky. I know see this understanding of Feminine Dominance to correspond with what is known elsewhere as superego – a clear obstacle to inner work. Something crucial which I now see and did not before, is that it’s inner voice is coercive. Clearly judgmental in terms of conduct – its coercive nature is what I now see conspires with ego to keep us as we are in limited consciousness.
Another strength of FOF for me was its profound knowledge of Body Types encapsulated in an Enneagram Teaching. Also contained in that Enneagram is the Law of Three and the Law of Seven. The former find practical application in seeing the role of 3rd force (Holy Reconciling)
in relation to the Holy Affirming and Holy Denying forces. The latter finding practical application in recognizing and working with intervals. I don’t see much expression of these Teachings outside of the FOF. The people I have encountered vaguely associate Bennett with the laws of 3 and 7 which seems a more attenuated form of the teaching. However in terms of the Enneagram itself, I have literally met hundreds of people immersed in study of the Enneagram derived from its expression through Oscar Ichazo. When I was in FOF I disdained this other Enneagram seeing it as providing party tricks for typing people into glib categories. I now see it quite differently. Embedded in this ‘other’ Enneagram is also a profound teaching which provides a theoretical basis for explaining mankind’s sleep, and a method of retracing back to wakefulness. Yet the two Enneagram models seem incompatible. I heard that one of the FOF enneagram authors attended some high ranking pow-wow of Enneagram experts and they too found the two systems irreconcilable. The maps are just different. So they both seem True. They just don’t fit with one another. Yet the FOF model does not seem to be flourishing in the world outside of its school boundaries. Clearly RB and FOF have no desire to promote this into the world, its focus remains inward looking and ostensibly devoted to the evolution of its members and not society as a whole. Yet I am curious as to why the Fellowship taught Enneagram has not had any larger impact outside of the school. I wonder if any of the ex-FOF Enneagram experts/authors who might be kibitzing on this blog might have an opinion here. I just don’t see how anyone who was exposed to the FOF Enneagram teaching can ever forget it. I just don’t see how you can stop noticing what type the people you meet are. Yes it can fade into the background and not be of any prime concern – but that knowledge seems to be always there
I am now grappling to find the words to say how for me in the Fellowship, self remembering was an external rather than an internal process. Weird but true. Being present meant a superficial knowledge that I was here, the experiencer, but a more acute attunement was to the outer world. A delicate sensitivity to impressions, a lightly gestured little finger from another reminding me I had stumbled on a word exercise, a palpable pleasure from the flower arrangement in the centre of the dining table, and so on. But my inner world was a blank. Indeed much of what I was aware of needed to be stamped out, including false personality, negativity, and imagination. No hidden treasures inside me. So the backward pointing arrow of divided attention was there, but lacking in discernment, even though I was richly supplied with models of the 4 lower centers. In fact I now see application of the ‘deck of cards’ to be reducing and diminishing in the ways I have described above. Not untrue, but now not useful any more.
I agree with the posting that most of what we did was suppress negativity. In fact this suppression is emasculating and cuts oneself off from ones inner strength – a pattern I would diagnose for many of the older students in the school – male and female – myself included. Let’s hear it for fire in the belly. Yeah. (I wrote this before Kestrel’s Page3#170 positing. For me a striking coincidence in wording – and full agreement). Indeed the teaching of non-expression of negative emotions (which could be extended to all automatic emotion) is profound and if applied correctly very powerful. But its expression in absolutist prohibitive terms as a coercive conditioning of behavior and conduct has the detrimental effects I mention above. One form of ‘fellowship think’ that could respond to this, is to say that you know 1 in a million joins the FOF, and within FOF, that 1 in ten thousand (say) will actually awaken – so it is not surprising that many in FOF don’t really get the hang of transforming negative emotions – it is really work of a Man #5. Well I don’t buy this line anymore. I think (know) schools can be more than this, where truly all benefit. This awakening is not a destination, an endpoint, but a process, a journey. If you are not benefiting, then check out and try something else. It is not a ‘fault’ in you – sleep is the nature of life on planet earth. The worst lie of the FOF is its exclusive claim to the Way.
Overall I think the repression of imagination, negativity, and elements of personality was unhealthy in the form I received it while in FOF, and does not lead to awakening. So let’s look closer. A fundamental model is the Static Triad of Personality, Essence, and Real I. In the FOF we rarely mentioned this triad, but the model was implicit throughout. The False part of personality was not interested in awakening, and the artificially cultivated True part did. We formulated this True part by doing things intentionally, acquiring ‘good’ habits of conduct and taste, and through to filling our heads with useful Work I’s. I can only surmise that the new Sequence (which I was not exposed to) is as further refinement of the Work I’s – something like a mantra – but far more creative in its application. Traditional Judaism has hundreds if not thousands of prayers, and the devout Jew would find the right prayer for every moment. I found Judaism to be a lot of baloney for me, as many now seem to find the Sequence – but really it comes to a matter of taste.
So we stamped out the bad (not useful) and accentuated the good (useful). Today I distance myself from both practices. I view consciousness as seeing what I really am, including those rejected parts are me. This rejection started long before joining the Fellowship – which is maybe why I was a sucker for more of the same. But the whole thing of spiritual aspiration is a pitfall in the same way. Striving for the enlightened and awakening from sleep is all part of this same game. The real pleasure lies in seeing what is here. I have a new mental map of veils and obscurations which accounts for me not yet abiding in Presence. But we have been told, even verily there hath been postings in this very blog, that our nature is consciousness, being, and bliss. Sat-chit-ananda. So when one looks, one finds truth in oneself. For some who have posted on this site – this truth has been explosive – and they are pounding and pounding on us to realize no self, no personality, only liberation. For some of us this is an intimation of reality – but it does not shake us to our very foundations. Moreover, I believe that personality will and can re-emerge for those who have been catapulted into awakenings and realizations. I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade – but I think this is what has happened to RB – so one of the things I think we can learn from FOF – is about the perils of the path.
Forgive me, I now want to quote: “Many spiritual teachers describe their experience of realization as if they suddenly became realized and the personality just dies, or fell away. So it is understandable that you might fantasize that one day you will finish your meditation and there will be no personality left. This idea of enlightenment or self-realization is misguided, although it is true that you can experience sudden revelations or insights that can change the rest of your life. My perception of what happens to people who claim to have lost their personality totally and spontaneously is that there often remains s split-off or suppressed part which will manifest as a distortion or lack of integration. This means there has been an essential realization, but the realization has not clarified the personality. It is, rather, a state of transcendence of the ego personality….It is possible to transcend the personality or the ego, or even more physical existence. However, there is a more difficult process which leads to the state of embodiment of reality”. This to me is one expression of what Gurdjieiff’s teaching was about, the making of the Real Man. “In embodiment, the personality itself becomes permeable, and thus is influenced by personal realization….Human life is not complete until the realization can be integrated into every aspect of you, so that all elements of you are in harmony and have an understanding of the situation. If one part of you is alienated, rejected, or split away, the integration is not yet complete. Embodiment becomes possible as the personality is clarified.” (A.H. Almaas, Indestructible Innocence, Page 1).
I have provided this quote for three reasons.1) My assessment of Robert is that he has not successfully completed this second part of the work. He (presumably) had ego transcending states at the beginning of the Teaching……but has demonstrably not successfully integrated them into his whole being, hence his non-loving sexual activities, the hypocrisy associated with this, his impersonalness, and what seems like a lack of genuine compassion. 2.) It is a message for friends and those who have posted, so flush with the teachings of Advaita and Adya etc….just something to ponder maybe, and 3) it is where my work is at now. Not that I am claiming anything more than momentary glimpses of transcendence, but that I am aware of the non-integration of the realizations that I have had. I think an ideal for part of me (semi-lunar, intellectual) was to have been to be a disembodied spirit – fully aware and conscious – but not having to deal with the ycchy, fleshy, painful, realities of life on planet earth. But our humanity is an admixture of its frailties and limitiations together with its strength, joy, pleasure, and love. And our True Nature encompasses the boundless dimensions, the complete stillness of being, and where my nature is your nature and is the nature of all. Could it be anything else?
Well this is my offering to you all right now….. a work in progress…
David
March 22, 2007 at 10:48 am
On “where does it come from”? (332, pt. III)
From knowing the painful truth and not yet being ready to admit it to oneself.
On John’s question (297, pt. III):
If I understand your premise, John, yes, I agree with it, to a degree.
There is a story about a farmer who was out in his field and saw a tsunami approaching in the distance. Realizing he didn’t have time to alert all of the villagers, he ran up a hill and lit the wheat field on fire. The villagers all saw the smoke and ran up the hill to put the fire out. And so were saved.
So, yes, we cannot always understand what lies behind another’s actions, cannot always know what action will help another further his development, and greater being, awareness, and experience may lead us to conclusions that might have previously eluded us. But, as you point out, this principle may easily be abused; the person may simply be lighting the field on fire because he likes lighting fires, or carelessly tossed his cigarette. At some point one has to do one’s own investigation and trust one’s own instincts to discern the truth.
The notion that there is a clear dividing line between one who is “enlightened” and one who is “not,” and that the former Knows and the latter cannot, is an illusion born of figures of speech, which can only approximate the truth. The “Big Bang” theory of permanent, absolute awakening is imagination when applied to anything other than experiencing the present right now. Robert (whose one accurate prediction was that he would some day be known as The Profit), played upon the tendency to believe this illusion by asserting he had “crystalized” as, first, a Man number 5, then as Man number 6, etc., etc., each time inventing stories about how and when “it” happened, to which folks listened in rapt, slack-jawed awe.
How do you know when you’ve reached the point where you have to trust your own instincts? You have to take a leap of faith–in yourself.
Here’s how one person put it:
God is a concept by which
we measure our pain.
I’ll say it again:
God is a concept by which
we measure our pain.
I don’t believe in magic.
I don’t believe in I-Ching.
I don’t believe in Bible.
I don’t believe in Tarot.
I don’t believe in Hitler.
I don’t believe in Jesus.
I don’t believe in Kennedy.
I don’t believe in Buddha.
I don’t believe in Mantra.
I don’t believe in Gita.
I don’t believe in Yoga.
I don’t believe in Kings.
I don’t believe in Elvis.
I don’t believe in Zimmerman.
I don’t believe in Beatles.
I just believe in me…
Yoko and me.
That’s reality.
The dream is over.
What can I say?
The dream is over.
Yesterday.
I was the Dreamweaver,
But now I’m reborn.
I was the Walrus
But now I’m John.
And so dear friends,
You’ll just have to carry on.
The dream is over.
He’s the way someone else put it:
“When three people tell you you’re dead, the least you can do is lie down.” (Thanks for that one, Dara!)
March 22, 2007 at 11:00 am
Thank you Sheik, for wading through so much material from imperfect strangers each day about a cause not directly related to you. It is an example of what Gurdjieff called “Being partkdolg-duty” or conscious labour – doing without self-interest, doing simply because it must be done.
I have noticed a number of times that those who have made direct demands of the Sheik seem to be those still firmly in the fold. The appeal to authority? Coincidence? Or is it just that, since we are not allowed to communicate with ex-students, the Sheik gets the attention?
Thank you Elena for your posts. You have always had more courage than most of us and known that heart does not mean sentimentality nor passion, heedlessness.
Thank you William H for your courage. I hope to be able to drop this absurd mask soon, but it still seems necessary for now.
Lately a line from an ancient Moody Blues song keeps popping into the present:
Someway I know I’ll see you shining
When you’re a free man
When we’re all free men again
Thank you Rita, for your touching recent post describing your departure. For RB, money talks, BS walks. For many here though, it is more that when the heart finally talks, BS walks.
Thank you “a friend” for your honest, non-defensive point of view. To speak from within the insular framework of the FOF and what it offers and still display such relativity and humility is very rare. It is people like you that have helped keep me in the school for so long; who let me know there were pockets of maturity, independent thought and simple sanity at those times when everyone I talked to sounded like CryBaby.
Thank you Robert Burton, for showing me the power of fear, of my fear to look too closely, fear of alienating friends by speaking openly, fear of losing what I had invested a lifetime into, fear of searching too hard for truth elsewhere when I seemed to have it, however jumbled, complex and inexplicable the experience, in the FOF, fear that, being 96 years old, “I” would never “make it” elsewhere. When you abandoned G&O, you opened the doors for students to do the same, to look around and see what was theory and habit, and what was true verification. By cutting out the only part of the school that had transformative power, the part that gave the school life and made it a real vehicle for self exploration, you left us only with you and your revelations. No more “inner school” to experience through the payment of dodging the obvious fairy tales, only more transformation of the teacher, more “cognitive dissonance”. Thank you for creating a new system, initially with poetic appeal, but then gradually becoming more and stretched until it finally descended to the current ludicrous “Prehistoric” school interpretations. I have had the fantasy that some part of you is actually trying to self-destruct, to bring the insanity to such a fevered pitch that all of us who have hung on despite everything are finally forced to turn away.
And as long as I already sound like a less ancient Alanis Morissette song, why not quote from it-
==========
How about me not blaming you for everything
How about me enjoying the moment for once
How about how good it feels to finally forgive you
How about grieving it all one at a time
The moment I let go of it was
The moment I got more than I could handle
The moment I jumped off of it was
The moment I touched down
How about no longer being masochistic
How about remembering your divinity
How about unabashedly bawling your eyes out
How about not equating death with stopping
=============
My recent experiences have been much like Rita’s were. For so many years the quote from someone, probably Robert, that “the work works if you use it” kept me going through interval after interval, one crisis of conscience after another. Each time the work no longer made sense, when the contradictions between the beauty and the ugliness in the school overwhelmed me, I asked myself if I was really doing everything I could to understand the school, to make all the efforts I could. I always could answer – no, there is more I could do and so again resolved to work more consistently – use more tools, use tools I had neglected or avoided etc. After a long period of crisis, in which almost no aspect of my external life seemed to work properly, and finally the internal work, despite every sincere attempt to understand and draw sustenance from the “new” forms, consistently was barren and empty of any kind of result or fulfilment, something simply snapped. I no longer knew anything about divine influences, keys, sequences, etc. I was only aware of an overwhelming load of dreams driving my life and the only wish I had in the world was for these dreams to end – good dreams/bad dreams, noble dreams, ignoble dreams, dreams of professional achievement, dreams of awakening, dreams of ancient civilizations and hidden messages, any and all dreams. I desperately needed all of them to stop and felt that I would die if they did not. And they did.
Since then, I have just felt oddly confused and happy. Nothing externally changed – those problems remained exactly as they had been of course, but somehow I am unable to feel crushed by them. Each day comes and goes, and I do what I can in each moment and regret nothing, fear no future boogyman, just feel and watch the world flow through the unchangeable present. I haven’t a clue what it means. Is it better objectively – am I in a “higher” or “more evolved” place than before? I don’t know. I know I like it a hell of lot better. Will those reading this who wish to remain in the school take this as confirmation that I have given in totally to the lower self? Some will, some won’t. Is it my responsibility to make sure they hear the “truth”? Those that do not want to hear the truth won’t and those that know the truth cannot. One can only speak to those in between.
March 22, 2007 at 11:04 am
Mmm… just checked out the FOF Wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fellowship_of_Friends
Looks very intriguing. I wonder if the FOF membership will swell as a result. As the saying goes: All publicity is good publicity.
RR
Can’t see any cataclysmic prophecies on there yet!
March 22, 2007 at 2:28 pm
Thought for today:
G.I. Gurdjieff: The L. Ron Hubbard of the early Twentieth Century.
Discuss.
March 22, 2007 at 5:36 pm
Hi again.
Joe Average above says ‘something simply snapped’
I had the same experience upon leaving the FOF and after that everything changed for me and my relationship to the FOF activities and all the people within the FOF abruptly changed.
I believe I was in the process of ‘deprogramming’ (for lack of a better word; I don’t really like that word) and at a certain point ‘snapped into a different reality’. After that leaving was not an option for me; it was just a matter of when would I leave.
Anyone can change their beliefs. They are not part of essence or one’s being at birth. I don’t think people in the Fellowship realize how much of what they are saying in these blogs is part of their own egos, personality, whatever you wish to call it. And the more of the ‘work’ personality or FOF personality that’s in place, the harder it is to see something different and be comfortable leaving. And that’s true for all of us. It’s called resistance.
March 22, 2007 at 6:09 pm
In response to Freeessence #11. “The first question is what it means to be “AWAKE”.”
Is’nt it odd that one has to ask such a question in an anonymous manner, on this site rather than at an official FOF event ? This is just an observation.
Yes I believe the meaning of being awake is quite a valid question, especially after 20+ years in the FOF.
What I have come to understand, is that higher states are different from awakening.
The endless accumulation of higher states will not lead to awakening.
This is part of the discontent coming from the solicitation to the numerous events with RB: to attend one more event (which will eventually create a state) which will not lead to something lasting of one’s own.
In the end what remains is what one has done on one’s own personal work, and not what one has passively absorbed.
I can imagine what a pressure there is now at Isis for people like WH and CEG who have publicly voiced their understanding (quite objectively).
What certainly lacks for awakening are acts of courage like those mentionned above that put our consciense in right order.
Courage comes from determination.
Awakening is connected to certain values (unity, will, intention, and so on . see 1st lecture of P. O). These values don’t just develop because there is a moment to moment struggle going on in the individual
If no one has awakened in the FOF to this day, it is may be because awakening is incompatible with what is going on. The FOF’s organization is now preoccupied with it’s perpetuation rather than affirming the only aim which a school should have: producing consciousness in it’s participants.
March 22, 2007 at 6:56 pm
Dear FreeEssence, thanks for your questions. You asked
“The first question is what it means to be “AWAKE”.
Although it is a great question, but may be it is more important to see first TO WHOM it relates. It’s about scale, ot placement of one’s identity. Awake means different things on different scales. Most of us habitually belive that we are “this person with the name and story”, so for “him” awake means all kinds of mysterious things, mostly all imaginary and unattainable. We go around NEVER questioning our actual identity since early childhood. We have an image of ourselves in our head and a long supporting story about us, and live our life THROUGH this artificial lens, not trying to verify the very existance of this “me” guy in the present moment. If we dare to look – we may not find anyone, and it’s really scary for the mind… So we never look, and “me” continues to be believed in. For this “me” there is a lot of spinning questions, uncertainty, insecutiry and there is a feeling of being disconnected with present reality – no wonder, since the whole “me” concept is imaginary, it is not ever in the Now – it’s in the mind. Take a look! Can this “me” be observed in reality, or it’s imagined and believed as you?
So some have realized that we are not this “person” -just read some recent wonderful postings. It was seen that the person exists as a mind image only, and what remains, watches – this part as you called it – IS always present and aware. Something is always watching, always there, while mind spins. What a relief it is to actually see it! No need to “connect” – just see what IS and what is not. It all takes care of itself, once seen clearly.
So it’s about scale, really. For imaginary “me” we are not awake, and in fact will never be – how can imaginary entity, a mind cartoon, become real and awake? And for what IS real – consciousness or higher centers if you wish – it is not a question to be or not to be. It always IS here and now.
Are we equal or not? Again – who – we? ” We’ whom we imagine ourselves, or we – what watches and aware? On the bigger scale of the play, or manifestation – all actors are equal in that respect that they are all ACTORS, yet within the play each role is different, and some roles let’s say appear “prominent” or “main” or “conscious” or whatever – but they are all roles. Some roles appear to have possibilities, others- don’t. One is a teacher, another is a drunk. Consciousness plays both, looking through eyes of the teacher and the drunk. One is not above or below another, although in a play it appears so. In the end all actors bow, take their makeup and costume off and go home.
So, in our conscious essence we are all totally equal, and in appearance or role we (seeminly) are different.
An actor can realize that he is just playing a role, or can get carried away with it to the point that he believes himself to be a character he is playing. The play however goes on, nobody is fired or released from it, act continues with all that is in it – School, Teacher, family, relationships – all important, all necessary, all part of it. Show goes on regardless whether individual actors have realized who they are or not. Lack of knowing who you are does not take away consciousness or diminish it in any way.
And what a masterpiece this show is, as Equinox noted!
March 22, 2007 at 8:02 pm
The Spring Donation is due April 1rst.
What shall I do ?
Fun place to be !
Is it so that Robert started organising teaching events again when he could not longer benefit from direct access and use of the money generated by the Teaching Payments ?
Is the post Part 1, post 294 just inspired by a porno DVD ?
March 22, 2007 at 9:52 pm
I agree with “scale”. For me, awake isn’t a thing, it’s a continuum, and it’s relative. Just as a system isn’t the place, it’s a map from here to there, with “there” only being another spot on the continuum. Or as they say on the Long Island Railroad..”Change at Jamaica”.
March 22, 2007 at 10:29 pm
I found this quite interesting, and I think that it fits the current mood of the discussion very nicely:
Starting in the 1970s I began to perceive a disturbing tendency among many members of spiritual communities. Although many spiritual practitioners were doing good work on themselves, I noticed a widespread tendency to use spiritual practice to bypass or avoid dealing with certain personal or emotional ‘unfinished business’. This desire to find release from the earthly structures that seem to entrap us-the structures of karma, conditioning, body, form, matter, personality-has been a central motive in the spiritual search for thousands of years. So there is often a tendency to use spiritual practice to try to rise above our emotional and personal issues-all those messy, unresolved matters that weigh us down. I call this tendency to avoid or prematurely transcend basic human needs, feelings, and developmental tasks spiritual bypassing.
Spiritual bypassing is particularly tempting for people who are having difficulty navigating life’s developmental challenges, especially in a time and culture like ours, where what were once ordinary landmarks of adulthood-earning a livelihood through dignified work, raising a family, keeping a marriage together, belonging to a meaningful community-have become increasingly elusive for large segments of the population. While still struggling to find themselves, many people are introduced to spiritual teachings and practices that urge them to give themselves up. As a result, they wind up using spiritual practices to create a new ‘spiritual’ identity, which is actually an old dysfunctional identity-based on avoidance of unresolved psychological issues-repackaged in a new guise.
In this way, involvement in spiritual teachings and practices can become a way to rationalize and reinforce old defences. For example, those who need to see themselves as special will often emphasize the specialness of their spiritual insight and practice, or their special relationship to their teacher, to shore up a sense of self-importance. Many of the ‘perils of the path’-such as spiritual materialism (using spiritual ideas for personal gain), narcissism, inflation (delusions of grandiosity), or groupthink (uncritical acceptance of group ideology)-result from trying to use spirituality to shore up developmental deficiencies. — John Welwood
March 22, 2007 at 10:30 pm
October 25, 1951 — The universe is built on hierarchy. Who fights with hierarchy fights with God.
Group work is only possible if a smaller group within it takes more responsibilty, works harder, demands more of themslves than the rest. This smaller group in turn is only possible if one or two take more responsibilty still, push further towards the goal, press harder on the heels of their teacher and so lead the way. Rodney Collin
August 16, 1955 — “….I also believe that Gurdjieff and Ouspensky were two chosen agents of at least one stage of a new revelation. They were partners and complements, chosen because they represented and could transmit opposite aspects of the same truth. Two poles have to be separated for electric current to jump between them and light. This was the reason for the separation of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky–it was by mutual agreement, to create a field of tension in which important preparations could be made”.
March 22, 2007 at 10:35 pm
I just had an interesting thought. I would guess that since this blog is obviously receiving some attention in the FOF, it would not be out of RB’s normal MO for him to pick out little items from the posts to use in meetings to illustrate something like: “Well, these people have good intentions (some of them) but it is easy to see that without a “REAL SCHOOL’ they have obviously fallen by the wayside. They think they continue their evolution. They are asleep and misled, the poor souls, and I don’t mean the souls we are creating here, ours are real souls that will survive the shock of death… But dears, this blog proves that we are a real school, and those on the way can see that clearly”
Anyone think I’m that far off?
At the same time, and also true, is that who can deny that whatever our experience in the FOF was, it inexorably changed our lives and our personal cosmology significantly.
I have my own “stuff”, but all I am today includes EVERYTHING that came before. To be perfectly honest I actually got what I came for, and a whole bunch more, some good, some not too comfortable. But I suspect, very deeply, it all happened the way it was supposed to. But that does not negate anything that has been brought up here. All can true.
March 22, 2007 at 10:38 pm
Sheik, I think that’s freaking spot on. Thank you.
March 22, 2007 at 11:12 pm
To: YOu,me,us, they # 21
Regarding making your April 1 donation. Hmmm, a $1000 question.
Robert B’s personal excesses and greed brought about the urgent necessity to take valuable property assets and mortgage them to survive another crises about 5 years ago. So, yes, it is my understanding that the mortgage lenders have put very tight restraints on Mr Burton’s ability to access cash flow from normal monthly teaching payments, which are now used to service that multi-million $ loan. He now raises money on the pretext that these special teaching events are used to finance and improve the beauty at Isis/Apollo. Apart from a few pathways, statues and palms, there are no impovements to physical assets (such as new buildings or improvement of existing buildings) which would increase the value of the property. Most of the money goes for his personal use(travel, delights, boys, jewellery etc, etc)
This ocmpounded with students having to pay extra for his very CLEAR teaching of interpreting ancient fertility statues with erections as long and short BE, or interpreting dung droppings of prehistoric cave paintings as the sequence of 6 makes you really question what you are paying for. Fourth Way teaching? I haven’t seen any for years. Clever? Yes! It keep students entertained at best, or at worst confused as to what the hell is going on.
Make your April 1 donation? Well, it is a personal choice , isn’t it? Ultimately, we all get what we want.
March 22, 2007 at 11:13 pm
Dear “friend” #320
God is not within nor without but in an entirly different direction.
You are an emotion junkie, happily camped in your addiction. You are a spiritual adolescent.
If you ever have an authentic thought, please share. If not please keep your fingers off the keyboard dispursing bad advice.
March 22, 2007 at 11:20 pm
Amen to John Welwood’s words! (Sheik’s posting no.23). How convenient that this kind of so-called “spiritual” practice not only allows you to bypass unresolved emotional and psychological issues, but entitles you to feel superior to the rest of mankind in the process.
March 22, 2007 at 11:20 pm
Dear Baleful Bedouin (191/p3),
Re your observation, “On the scale of the past century, it is clear to me that in many ways the FOF is a progeny of the 60’s, of the psychological, sexual and spiritual earthquake that took place then.” (and so on)…Here is a thought for you – Robert Burton’s “Sequence” is the FOF’s answer to Timothy Leary, as follows:
Leary: TURN-ON-TUNE-IN-DROP-OUT
Burton: BE-HOLD-PRAY-BACK-TURN-BE
Pretty groovy, huh?
Red Army (my friends can just call me ‘RA’)
March 23, 2007 at 12:03 am
Chortle Mortal #13,
Loved your post. A whole lot in there and most of it right on. I will respond to no specifics except one, the “splitting off” part. Stop the dividing, it is all you. This higher, lower; mechanical, conscious; personality, essence, self crap. When we fight against a part of our being we split it off and it goes into hiding to come back to fight us another day. We will never win. Trust yourself and let each part play it’s part.
Here are a couple of quotes from a very old Goethe journal.
“The rebirth which is transforming me contiues. But all this is more effort and trouble than pleasure. Though i expected to learn, i never thought i should have to remain at the bottom of the School and have to unlearn or completely relearn so much. But now i have realized this and accepted it: i find that the more i relinquish my old habits of thought, the happier i am.”
“Everyone at home is enslaved, body and soul, and the desire to visit this part of the world has vanished. Drawn by an irrestible need, I determuned to undertake this long, solitary journey to the hub of the world.”
March 23, 2007 at 12:24 am
Dear Clara Elena Gutierrez,
did you upset your husband (Girard) with your writings to the blog? Is he going to divorce you now?
“Dear Friends,
In response to some confusion among students regarding how they should respond to the “Fellowship blog,” I am writing to offer a few suggestions.
First, I would try to honestly ask myself which parts of my being are attracted to the blog and what are their motives. The higher parts associated with true personality may have a genuine interest in what is occurring within the School and what is being reported — truly or falsely — on the blog, but one must watch carefully to recognize when that need has been satisfied and a lower part of oneself has ascended. In other words, if you feel you need to read the blog, be careful.
The same applies to responding to the blog, only here the questions I would ask myself are what are my aims and what part of me do they come from; what would I hope to accomplish; who do I wish to communicate with, and to what purpose? If one posts something to the blog, no matter what its contents are, one is essentially communicating with former students, and we have a task to minimize that as much as possible. There are many reasons for this task, so before submitting something to the blog, I would ask myself what those reasons are and why I felt it was necessary to override them. Many years ago I went through the process of asking myself exactly those questions. If anyone is interested, the answers I found are recorded in the chapter on “Former Students” in the book “Creating a Soul.”
However, those are my answers, based on my verifications. Some students may find it useful to read them, but it is still necessary for each student who comes into contact with the blog to establish his own relation to it. And although I do not wish to answer those questions for anyone, I do wish to go on record as saying that frankly I now feel that I have better ways to use my time and energy.
Finally, I wish to take this opportunity to reiterate the offer that was made by Elizabeth Blake, the Isis center directors — Michael Golding, Helaine Feivelson and Carla Luccatini — and myself to listen to any concerns any student might have about any aspect of the life and teaching of the Fellowship. And I know that there are many others who would gladly make the same offer.
In friendship,
Girard”
March 23, 2007 at 12:24 am
With regards to
‘No Person’ Page 4, #20:
Prospero’s Farewell to his Magic:
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with sleep.
William Shakespeare
The Tempest
Act 4, Scene 1
O! let my books be then the eloquence
And dumb presagers of my speaking breast,
O! learn to read what silent love hath writ:
To hear with eyes belongs to love’s fine wit.
Sonnet 23
Wake up people, wake up!
March 23, 2007 at 12:52 am
Hello dear friends,
There is a lot of discussion here, which seems to me, to be about detoxing from Robert.
Although Robert and the FOF will forever be a significant mark on us, maybe you might consider looking at the experience like this:
It is like the “Wizard Of Oz” – he turns out to be a little old man behind a curtain, but did you not get the brain, the heart and the courage?
The FOF was always designed to help us take the first step. If some one actually started to walk, they were expelled in some way. The teachings of Robert only taught how to be a “fancy first step taker.”
The road to enlightenment begins with self empowerment, but can only progress to the next step through “Power Sharing.”
Gurdjieff said that if you could get 10 conscious people to actually work together, they could change the world. But it seems that most people reach a certain level of consciousness through self empowerment and can’t power share because it would mean they would have to give up the power they worked so hard to get in the first place.
Isn’t this the real test of whether one crystallized properly?
When I left the FOF, in my last conversation with Robert, he said, as he would time and time again: “Consciousness is a gift.” It was at that moment, that the higher truth of enlightenment hit me and I replied: “No Robert, Being dissatisfied with relative consciousness was the gift, all the rest is conscious work. If you don’t know how you got it, you don’t deserve to have it.” He was completely silent. It was a few days later, he had me expelled, although I decided to leave myself at that point.
If anyone wishes to contact me, you can write me at CreatingRay@gmail.com
Laurence Elliot Kramer
March 23, 2007 at 1:01 am
#32: “I do wish to go on record as saying that frankly I now feel that I have better ways to use my time and energy.”
Apparently you don’t.
all the best Girard
March 23, 2007 at 1:14 am
Regarding Girard’s letter #32:
All these years later, and he still just oozes feminine dominance. “If yer reading this blog, look out! The devil’s gonna getcha!”
Why is he so afraid of so much inside himself?
March 23, 2007 at 1:18 am
Dear Somebody,
My husband, Girard Haven, is the best man I know, even if we separate. At least he’s someone and not just somebody like you. In the end, we each have the right to choose our lives and he has chosen his. If you had one you would not be posing questions like this.
Elena
March 23, 2007 at 1:40 am
“To One and All:
During my decades in the Fellowship, I have absorbed the Teachings, and have realized much. For this, I am eternally grateful to C-Influence, to Robert, my Teacher, and to all of the students, past and present, from whom I have learned so much. I would like to believe my efforts have benefited others as well as myself; only you, my dear fellow students, former and present, can answer that question.
Although it has taken me an embarassingly long time, I realize now, with the full force of Conscience, that my progress has come at great price, both to my Self, and to the evolution of thousands of others. I can avoid the truth no longer.
For so many years I have observed the play of crime within our beloved school, and have turned away. When young men cried out to me, I had not the courage to speak out, but instead betrayed them. As I saw students lose their financial and emotional stability, their relationships to caring parents, children, and partners, and their faith in all that is good and right, I buffered this. I told myself that none may do the Work for another, and that we seek a Pearl of Great Price. I told myself that the Lower cannot see the Higher, and that Robert’s teaching was beyond our ability to understand. I told myself that I had verified that our school is a conscious one, and that C-Influence is a hard taskmaster.
When I saw the millions that were spent on luxuries, on costly wine, food, clothing, and jewelry, while students, not to mention our brothers and sisters in what I called “life,” suffered greatly, I told myself that our work is to separate from our attachment to material objects and from our opinions, and I thanked the Gods that I had been granted the ability to do so. I told myself that we can awaken by being present to whatever the Gods may throw at us, be it sexual manipulation, cruelty, and greed, whether real or feigned, on the part of others, and thanked the Gods for allowing me the opportunity.
I now see that what I mistook for being and consciousness was, in fact, its very opposite. It was cowardice. I am ashamed. I now see the truth in what Jesus taught, in what Meher Baba taught, and in what the Buddha taught. In my heart of hearts, I know it to be the Truth that we were placed upon this marvelous earth to serve and protect the weak, wherever they may be, and that by doing so we serve our Selves as well as That which created it all.
I ask you, my friends, sincerely for forgiveness. Forgive me for not acting on the truth, for keeping silent, for serving my own physical and false personality comfort at your expense. I know it was at my expense as well. I should have confronted these many wrongs long ago. I cannot change that, but I can move forward and do what I can to make amends.”
When you can say that, Girard, you’ll have earned my respect. And your own.
March 23, 2007 at 2:08 am
On page one #92 I suggested that we start an “internet School” with former FOF’ers. What else can we do with what we know and understand.
This is not superiority but we do have a unique language. A lingo known only to us. One post is all queens another is kingly. It’s not WORK language but some are witty and some provoke whoa’s.
Who really knows why this blog appeared when it did. Maybe the spirit world is working with the Sheik and Sir Knight. Maybe they have growing magnetic centers.
“What you are within has been projected without, on to the world; what you are,what you think and what you feel, what you do in your everyday existence, is projected outwardly, and that constitutes the world”. KRISHNAMURTI
March 23, 2007 at 2:15 am
Sheik’s entry #23 was something of a “coincidence” for me, in that I had just last night been re-reading some journal entries I made about 5 years ago, when I was undergoing some very intense situations that led me out of the woods, so to speak. I post one here that seems particularly relevant, for anyone interested. I think it might be of use to anyone just at the point of working their way back to themselves after a long absence. Sorry for the length, but I hope there’s something of value for someone.
Here it is:
We can’t get to an authentic experience of ourselves by rejecting ourselves, in whole or in part.
The desire to be different, enlightened, spiritually awake, saintly, come invariably from our basest desires, ultimately, of wanting the approval and respect of others, recognition of our special and advanced qualities, the judgment of those not on the path as being in some way inferior, the coziness of one’s certainty – the enormous luck! – of being one of the utlra-rare chosen ones.
Of course, these are the parts that can never be content with oneself as one is in one’s life. They all refer to some idealized version of a human that is an unattainable illusion. It may all begin very sincerely, with a desire to jump into reality with both feet. But for many, the anaesthetizing certainty that comes with the commitment of the true believer becomes the far more comfortable option – even though one’s spiritual practice may require immense discipline and sacrifice – it’s still easier to live with the certainty that allows one to keep one foot out of life, owing to the promise of some future reward that will render this life meaningless in comparison.
One of the big difficulties is our tendency to confuse the massive commitment to following one’s own path to self (how could it be otherwise?) with a commitment to a system or organization that purports to lead one there. This organization may be useful, necessary even, at first. But if this attachment to a specific set of ideas doesn’t of its own shatter at a certain point, one is left in the rather pathetic state of increasing one’s dependency on the approval and doctrine of others, rather than discovering the primacy of the authority of one’s self. Others may point the way, in the beginning, but no one can ever instruct you in the actualizing of your self. It’s a contradiction in terms. How can you live authentically, when every action, thought and feeling is dictated by others, or one feels compelled to filter every impulse through the lens of someone else’s list of acceptable qualities – something that is done out of some kind of fear, guilt, or desire for social approval, in almost every case, despite our remarkable ability to convince ourselves that we are pursuing the noblest of aims.
This experience can even be useful, and perhaps necessary, for a while, but in the majority of people this time is probably relatively short. The amount of time of course can’t be pinpointed, but it is that amount of time that it takes to become fully indoctrinated. After that, the sooner one begins separating one’s own, actual life trajectory from the one we’ve convinced ourselves we should follow, the sooner one may come to something more real in terms of authentic self-experience. It’s very easy, and probably inevitable, that for a long time one will associate the “seeking” self with the part to side with, and set it against our useless, unredeemable, and embarrassing qualities. In time, the tables may turn, and one may begin to understand that, ultimately, we owe no one anything – money, obedience, worship – for our own experience of self. Again, though others may point the way, and receive our efforts and payment in exchange for holding up the road signs, in the end our selves in this moment are not contingent on the approval, disapproval or feeling of obligation toward anyone.
Signs that we are stuck in this stunting relationship are, on the one hand, a self-debasing, excessive compulsion toward gratitude (directed toward another) for one’s experience, and the eviscerating illusion that our difficulties and pain are visited upon us for our spiritual advancement by super-spiritual, probably noncorporeal entities – an attitude that, if one can be sufficiently honest with oneself, breeds a poisonous resentment toward these imagined beings, or puts one in the position of attempting to reconcile oneself to the necessary torture meted out by these wholly illusory beings.
Suffering becomes infinitely more rewarding when one simply witnesses it as what is happening in this moment, apart from any hope of being rewarded with strength or enlightenment at some future time. In fact, these expectations are precisely what keep us from experiencing our selves right now. At the same time, you can no more force yourself to this point of detachment from past and future than you can “make” a kitten grow into a cat. Things happen in their own time.
We want a time in which we’ll be free from the humiliation of mistakes – but this time will never come, and is simply an expression of our pride, and shame at exposing our imperfect, essential self to others. This is the root of virtually every spiritual pursuit – to be free from sin, weakness, spiritual sleep, pathological tendencies. Starting such a pursuit more times than not results in us being less honest with ourselves about the confusing mixture of tendencies within us. Because the sins and weaknesses are stigmatized within the organization, one may increasingly hide them from oneself and others. Getting “caught” in some undesirable feature reveals our lack of advancement to others, instantaneously casting us several notches lower in the pecking order of attainment. Whereas before, we may have had an honest blind spot or an awareness of this less-than-desirable quality, which has been accepted on some level, either grudgingly or with some humor about one’s deficiencies. It becomes even more crucial to hide these qualities from oneself – to dismiss them as an aberration that has briefly interrupted one’s advanced state, and will no doubt be controlled in the future, or worse, to reject and repress them completely, usually justified under the heading of “working on oneself” – a contradiction in terms that states that by artificially reorganizing oneself (and even attempting to excise parts deemed contrary to this task), one can reach one’s truer self.
But most of us wish to cling to the comfortable certainty of ideas, rather than plunge into the abyss of our selves in this moment, which is very much a performance without a net, and one that resembles freefall more than a solid landing.
Anyway, how could a more complete experience of ourselves be contingent on anything? The difficulty in achieving this sought-after state of awareness and self-acceptance in the present moment – for people who enjoy this sort of thing – is our fear of unknowing. This experience strips one of all certainty save the actualities of this physical, emotional and intellectual moment – one trades the allurement of certainty for a piercing insight into mystery – the experience of which can reveal the immensity of one’s ignorance to a degree that can be almost obliviating.
March 23, 2007 at 2:41 am
“On page one #92 I suggested that we start an “internet School” with former FOF’ers. What else can we do with what we know and understand.”
To paraphrase the Bard… Any “school” that would take me as a member, I wouldn’t join.
March 23, 2007 at 2:46 am
#37
Dear? I feel spanked…
“At least he’s someone and not just somebody like you.” Ouch!
“If you had one you would not be posing questions like this.” Ouch!
Obey your dear husband, dear:
“If one posts something to the blog, no matter what its contents are, one is essentially communicating with former students, and we have a task to minimize that as much as possible.”
March 23, 2007 at 2:52 am
what value the “verifications” of someone induced to distrust his own ability to think critically? what value the decisions of someone emasculated by the fear, irrational but formidable, of eternal damnation?
March 23, 2007 at 3:30 am
Elena’s contributions, under her own name, show a courage and lucidity that few of us can claim. Her husband Girard did not address his message to “somebody” or anyone else on this blog.
Respecting their privacy and refraining from cheap barbs are the least we all could do.
March 23, 2007 at 3:48 am
Did you hear the last news? The cult-busting lawyer came to visit Isis to investigate what’s going on. He asked around, went on the tour, came to the prospective student meeting and liked it so much that… joined FOF!
It’s a joke, guys…
March 23, 2007 at 6:03 am
I don’t understand the nastiness directed at Elena by “Somebody”. Hers was one of the most honest, courageous and thoughtful contributions to this discussion so far. Why the mean remarks?
March 23, 2007 at 6:43 am
“I also believe that Gurdjieff and Ouspensky were two chosen agents….They were partners and complements, chosen because they represented and could transmit opposite aspects of the same truth….Two poles have to be separated for electric current to jump between them and light. This was the reason for the separation…”
It is a known for those who have been connected with the Work at the time of O. and G. (that is either in the Foundation or Bennett’s group) that O. left G. because he could no longer stand having his toes stepped on. O. was too intellectual and G. tried to open up his emotional center but O. ran away with his tail between his legs.
Many, if not all, misinformed people think O. was sanctioned by G. to start a group, write about the Work and so on. This is nonsense. O. was so intrigued by G.’s ideas that he began to expound them and thus kept the ideas alive for himself since he did not have the stomach to work directly with G, any longer. O’s “students” were forbidden to mention the name of G.
In the end O. died the death G. always warned of, “like a dog”. O. finally realised too late that there was NO SYSTEM and all his efforts were in vain.
With the death of G. his experiment quickly descended. Of course there were those who continued to worship and make a religion of a “teaching”, as is always the case.
March 23, 2007 at 6:46 am
I pretend that I want you for what is on the inside but when I get inside I’ll just want to get out…I’m you first and last depposit for sickness sending error never promese you a God and you just water me down.
But I can’t beleive you are for real I don`t care as long as you’re mine.
I’m a VCR funeral a dead memorie waste and my smile is a chainless fence that I had put up, I love the enemy my love is the enemy they say they don’t want fame but they get famous when we F**K.
But I can’t believe the devil was real but God couldn’t make someone filthy as you
When I say WE I know I meant ME and when I say sweet I mean dirty! I won’t regret so I memorize the words to the porno moives is the only thing I want to believe, I won’t regret so I memorize the words to the porno movies this is the New religion too ME.
I don`t care if your World is ending today because I wasn’t invited to it anyway, you say I tasted famous so I drew you a heart but now I’m not an Artist I’m a F**king WORK of ART I got a F and a C and I got a K too and the only thing that’s missing is a b**ch like U….you want it Perfect you got your perfect “NOW” I’m to Perfect for someone like you I was a dandy in your getho with a snow white smile but you’ll never BE as perfect what ever you DO!
I won’t do it with you I’ll do it to you I hope this sunkist cut in your mouth, I won’t do it with you I’ll do it too you don’t say no just say NOW…..NOW is you know who I got the you know what I’ll stick it you know where you know why you don’t care. This isn’t me I’m not Mechanical! “When all of your wishes are granted many of your dreams will BE destroyed” How does it feel to BE One of the Beautiful People? ( Me/You and the Devil-3 )
I wanna Live I wanna Love but it’s a long hard road out of Hell! I think I got the Key I guess I’ll just try another…IF that’s the Key.
Imagine the insult a Blessing/Imagine acepting the Truth ( Blessed are the sick )
Where in the Bible says that if WE don’t creat a Soul WE will BE food for the moon?
The Soul has no name…..so why RB has one?
Tought WE can borrow a drink of water from someone else who may have found his or her inner oasis, the day comes when WE see with great clarity that WE must drink from within, or all is in vain.
Don’t try to do with the mind what can only BE done through the spirit……LOVE!
Awareness is Truth out of the box.
tha tha thats all Folks! Get Real!
Loading….
March 23, 2007 at 7:09 am
Somebody; You may have made an initial hasty post that was rude and insensitive, spurred on by the cloak of anonymity. It happens in moments of poor judgment. But it’s OK, we won’t chastise you for it, and you don’t have to keep defending what you did.
March 23, 2007 at 7:35 am
To Girard on post #32
I have better ways to use my time and energy.
then why did you take your precious/conscious Present time to get into the blog and besides write on it? Recomendation: use Work “I” Drop
Don’t waste you time and energy on this so called “virtual river of toughts”
“Let the beauty we love BE what we do” Rumi
P.S. which parts of your being brought you into writting on this blog? not Higher parts because Higher parts won’t even bother about it!
March 23, 2007 at 8:39 am
Hello Elena,
Thank you.
I was thinking more deeply after what you wrote and there was one recurring point that kept appearing in myself and that is that I DO NOT KNOW. So in a way I KNOW that I DO NOT KNOW, but I feel that even that is very limited in me.
What I see now is that NOT KNOWING is included in the process of what is actively done when one is trying to reach awareness of oneself. At least that is my experience after trying to use the act of being aware of myself given in the FOF introductory presentation.
So maybe everyone who is seeking this kind of awareness is going towards the UNKNOWN.
Is that correct?
When trying this action I did get a sense of something familiar, like I met myself, but I could not figure out what it actually was.
If that state of UNKNOWN is part of the game, maybe there is very little to say comparing to the countless number of words spilled in the world (and also in this forum, including mine).
Thanks again,
John
March 23, 2007 at 10:20 am
I will not be as kind as Opus111 in post 44:
I have 2 words for Somebody, Dear:
CHEAP SH*T!
Feel free to substitute ‘i’ or ‘o’ in place of the asterisk. They both apply equally as an appropriate comment on your inappropriate personal attacks.
March 23, 2007 at 10:31 am
Hey Girard, old boy, chill out!
Put on a funny hat and tell us good joke, wont you?
RR
P.S. How do you attract such broadminded wives?
March 23, 2007 at 10:33 am
For some reason i am reminded of a story Joseph Campbell told. It was an updated version of the ancient enlightenment myth of crossing a great body of water to a distant shore.
There is a man in San Francisco who hears great and wonderous tales about the magical city of Berkeley. He decides he wants to be in this city more than any other thing in the world so he gives away all his possessions strips naked and dives into the great bay and begins swimming. Before long he becomes tired, he is freezing but he endures. He soon realizes he can’t make it and he is going to drown but then the thought of the beautiful city gives him new strength and hope and again he endures on and on. He is caught in currents, buried in waves, again and again he almost drowns. After what seems to be forever he feels the shore. He crawls up exhausted then stands. He turns to look all around and sees that neither city ever existed.
March 23, 2007 at 1:31 pm
Just pointing out that Girard did not write to this forum, he wrote to members about this forum.
I for one appreciate the attention being directed to something I had not thought of, the process of watching the lower self ascend during reading. We can observe we may start out with one aim but as this entire blog makes clear, it is easy to deviate emotionally. So this is a useful thought, it is in the moment and practical.
March 23, 2007 at 1:33 pm
Hey Raptus RR, are you just Simon transformed into your more kingly self?
March 23, 2007 at 2:24 pm
Re Girard’s letter to all students. I find that addressing public letters, written in a negative tone, personally to him, telling him what he should or should not do, is also a rather cheap shot. Let’s not lash out at him personally, from a position of anonymity or otherwise. Let’s instead look at what he has written.
“In response to some confusion among students regarding how they should respond to the “Fellowship blog,” I am writing to offer a few suggestions.”
In other words, assuming that he is telling the truth, there were people inside the Fellowship who came to him saying: Girard, there is this blog on the internet that’s making me feel funny and I don’t know how I should respond. Can you make up my mind?
So clearly, his letter is not addressed to those of you who have already decided that reading and writing to the blog is a good idea. It is addressed to those who are feeling confused and seeking an authority to tell them what is right action. You are free to stop reading it now, before it makes you righteously indignant. But for the sake of analysis, I will continue. 🙂
“The higher parts associated with true personality may have a genuine interest in what is occurring within the School and what is being reported — truly or falsely — on the blog, but one must watch carefully to recognize when that need has been satisfied and a lower part of oneself has ascended.”
See, here’s an actual attempt to not paint the blog in an entirely negative light, as did previous Fellowship communiques to students. I guess it has become something we can no longer turn a blind eye to.
“The same applies to responding to the blog, only here the questions I would ask myself are what are my aims and what part of me do they come from; what would I hope to accomplish; who do I wish to communicate with, and to what purpose?”
I find Girard’s suggestion quite a reasonable one. Yes, let’s try to write our contributions from a more neutral, observing part of ourselves, and let’s recognize when we’re writing not in order to share information and understanding, but in order to be hurtful and get back at someone, before we click submit. This will keep the blog at a high level.
In other words: if we resort to personal attacks, the Fellowship will have every right to point a finger and say “see how negative and identified they are”. Now does that motivate you?
“If one posts something to the blog, no matter what its contents are, one is essentially communicating with former students, and we have a task to minimize that as much as possible. There are many reasons for this task, so before submitting something to the blog, I would ask myself what those reasons are and why I felt it was necessary to override them.”
My regret here is that Girard does not inform us what those reasons for the task are, though he does stress that there are many. And I don’t have a copy of “Creating a Soul” handy to refer to it and find out the reasons. Traditionally it has been explained that not communicating with former students would give them a better chance of coming back. This sounds very noble and selfless. We are doing the former students a favor by ignoring them.
So based on this, one can proceed to ask oneself if one’s aim is to cause former students to rejoin. If yes, and assuming one believes RB that the best way to get them to rejoin is to leave them alone, one would be justified in staying away from the blog. And all parties will be happy. Those who only wish to follow don’t need saving.
But Girard, perhaps intentionally, does not touch on another important topic that is more icky to consider. The blog has become a place for current students to meet and talk about issues that they would not feel comfortable expressing publicly inside the school, particularly not to those persons in power listed as the ones who can help. That in itself is a commentary on what’s rotten in the land of Isis. People are afraid to speak their mind.
“However, those are my answers, based on my verifications. Some students may find it useful to read them, but it is still necessary for each student who comes into contact with the blog to establish his own relation to it.”
See, again he is using relativity. He could have stopped there. But he complements it with…
“And although I do not wish to answer those questions for anyone, I do wish to go on record as saying that frankly I now feel that I have better ways to use my time and energy.”
… an answer for those who still feel confused, what they could perhaps model themselves on, and what they could use as a canned response, next time. (“Girard says…”)
In the Fellowship you will get guidance on how to behave. That’s just the way it is, and that’s what you signed up for. So the reactions from authority figures are hardly surprising. If you can’t stand the control, don’t rant and rave about it, just get out of the strait jacket.
March 23, 2007 at 2:24 pm
When one realizes that one is not going to wake up, that it’s rather the consciousness, the awareness within that is awakened naturally, one releases the grip of mental control over the process and one can ‘abandon the system’. In fact, when the system is not needed anymore, it falls away by itself.
I thought about it in the morning, when I realized that I am not making any efforts at all anymore, except for the efforts to maintain my physical existence.
The basic idea of the teaching is self-remembering. I understand now why it’s so difficult to practice it: we just don’t get it or rather we try to remember our selves as who we think are: Rita is remembering Rita, Rita is dividing attention and making efforts to be present. In a way we practice the misconception and we know it actually when we say that it’s not Rita who is going to wake up. Still, we practice what we know and then we get to a ‘high state’ and think: ‘that’s It!’ But it’s not! It’s the same as the mushroom trip, only with more control and less visual effects. Somehow (and I have no idea how, it doesn’t seem to relate to efforts, but maybe it does), the awareness wakes up all by itself without ‘Rita”’ in the picture. Rita virtually disappears, then appears again, but by that time she knows that she is not who she thinks she is.
All other practices leading to the state of self-remembering (which is the Self remembering It’s Self to me): like external consideration, not inner considering, dealing with lying, fear, negativity, imagination, identification etc., falls out because there’s no need to make efforts anymore. Somehow one seems to be able to remember the base reality of one’s self even when one is not ‘high’ on it and NATURALLY looses the need to deal with the above list of ‘to do’s’ and ‘not to do’s’. One simply is and all the actions one takes are coming out of this realization.
The actions then are colored by one’s humanity (that is culture, mentality, ‘mechanics’ etc.), but they are deeply impersonal and NATURALLY (meaning without efforts) designed to express the realization of the Self in any given area of life.
So what you do is actually coming out of love and joy of living, even if one doesn’t necessarily feel love a joy all the time.
It feels like a heavy burden of self-control has been dropped down. I never realized how heavy it was to carry all this baggage of concepts and controls until it dropped down (all by itself). It’s impossible to describe the feeling of freedom and joy one feels when one looses it. I always thought that if I loose the grip on my efforts it would bring anarchy, chaos and destruction, ‘sleep’ as we call it, but actually it brings more focus, discipline, concentration on a practical level, among other benefits.
What you are will pick it’s way. The key to it, for me, is to step down the way and loose control of any kind, or manipulation of what’s naturally alive in us ALL THE TIME, what is always functioning perfectly by It’s Self.
March 23, 2007 at 2:41 pm
Bruce post #41: Welcome to class.
Beelzebub post #47: Have you noticed the different views of FOF on this blog? January 3, 1951> “I think the roles Ouspensky and Gurdjieff played in the very nature of the pattern involve struggle, apparent rivalry, conflicting aspects, or something like that–perhaps like those of Plato and Socrates, Jellaledin Rumi and Shemsedin. These two roles have appear to clash in order for something greater still to be forged. ‘Struggle without destruction’. To me this is sufficient to explain Ouspensky” parting from Gurdjieff,and the separation of their ways. I think this is inherent in the pattern of school-expression upon earth. It makes abundantly clear the necessity of not mixing. Those who try to mix these two poles understand neither the one nor the other” RODNEY COLLIN
And this coming from a person attending Ouspensky death.
March 23, 2007 at 3:57 pm
Re:Post # 24
“October 25, 1951 — The universe is built on hierarchy. Who fights with hierarchy fights with God.”
Am I suppose to believe this becase it has a date associated with it or because Rodney Collin (I’m assuming) said it? Could it be that our minds search for hierarchical patterns to satisfy some deep, unsatisfied need within us. Everyone wants Daddy’s approval. Everyone wants to know their place in the pecking order.
The John Welwood quote, on the other hand, expresses quite clearly and concisely one of the main reasons I left. As someone else here said, the past impinges on the present no matter how hard you try to ignore it.
I’ve recently found myself thinking that J. Krishnamurti knew a lot more about the spiritual trap than I had originally given him credit for; him just being a “man #2 who had his sleep disturbed” and all.
March 23, 2007 at 4:15 pm
“I believe that though the two ways cannot mix, understanding between them must be possible. I see with great vividness the train of misunderstandings, bitterness and calumny of the Work that must stretch into the future if an effort at understanding between them is not made. It even seems to me that in some distant time men might torture each other and even fight wars over it”.. RODNEY COLLIN
March 23, 2007 at 4:33 pm
Hey Girard ,
Do you think we need your guidance and advice about how we should think about the Blog ?
If some of the students can not think on their own if to read the Blog or not, why don’t you address them through the FOF standard-posting or your many teaching lunches?
Why the blog ?
Are the lost sheep in the blog in need of your guidance ??? OR DO YOU NEED to give us a list of questions we should ask ourself before approaching the DANGEROUS BLOG ?
To Whom do you think you are talking to? Some brain damaged children incapable to know why they read the blog?
Dear Gerard, take my advice and keep reading the blog, you might find out that some people can THINK for themselves.
March 23, 2007 at 5:35 pm
Dear John (51) and friends,
I would deeply agree with your idea of the unknown and would add that no matter how much one does not know, one knows one is there. As long as you keep trusting yourself and acting on what you really wish to be…. and correcting the direction when ever it deviates from that wish, then the unknown is the greatest road you’ll have ever tred on.
Indeed, there’s much knowledge and innumerable excercises that can help us, including all of those from Robert Burton. I simply do not know how after being so much, so high, he has not yet been able to develop objective external consideration in his school or life, still limiting his generosity to personal interest.
This “noisy, common market”, continues to be better than any imposed silence. Maybe this is not how we dreamt of developing second line but it is second line nevertheless or simple human interaction which is so desperately needed.
Thank you for all the posts and the macrocosmic trimmings!
Elena
March 23, 2007 at 5:40 pm
God is my coal pilot I need him every day. I Pray for all people in Iran. I send Angles to easy and everyone there. Pray the war get over. And they all come home to there family, GOD BLESS THEM ALL, RUBYDIAMOND
March 23, 2007 at 6:17 pm
Dear distributor of the address for this blog.
I am a current member and wish to express my sincere thanks to you for sending news of this blog to so many of us. Your email greatly helps undermine the contrived ignorance on the individual and collective level that we as a group perpetuate.
For 35 years the fellowship has kept it’s members in the dark, and has developed a volume of rationalizing rhetoric to suppress talk about such topics as the teacher’s personal life, his use of fellowship money, etc, etc.
The fact that contributors sometimes quote, criticize, correct, guide, opine, react, pontificate, judge, not-judge, discuss, have brain-farts, on this blog, is not only in the nature of blogs, but more significantly, it is in direct response to the nature of the fellowship. That is, if the fellowship had been open, honest, transparent, inclusive, and were it capable of disclosures (on it’s official web site) of it’s financials, had it’s own forum for open discussion (free from fear of reprisals), and had RB not increasingly discouraged real dialog, then the nature of this blog may be different. But it is not so, and this blog has filled the breach.
I can highly recommend a new film called “The Life of Others” which describes ever so clearly through it’s storyline, the same principle that now exists in and around the fellowship, and from which this blog has ignited.
Contributors try variously to classify the content of the blog now inside work language, trying to photograph negativity, now citing failure of others to ‘move on’, now attempting to stamp out the sometimes messy and ugly stories, now firing feeble spiteful responses with no appreciation for context. It is what it is and is not under fellowship laws, and hardly under any laws of politeness or order. Ask yourself, what brought this blog into being? Why has it gained such momentum? Of course within it’s pages is that is reactive, critical, and negative… but look deeper at the forces involved.
Each of us will be what we will be. It is all contained in the everything.
March 23, 2007 at 6:36 pm
To all those wavering over the Spring donation.
For a fraction of the price you could have yourself a one way ticket to the moon. Apparently there are some excellent places to eat up there, providing wholesome moon food – self service, naturally.
Oh, doesn’t it make you want to sing?
Fly me to the moon
And let me play among the stars
Let me see what spring is like
On Jupiter and Mars
In other words hold my hand
In other words darling kiss me
Fill my life with song And let me sing forevermore You are all I hope for All I worship and adore In other words please be true In other words I love you
mmm… nice.
RR
March 23, 2007 at 6:43 pm
Dear John,
I very much resonate with your posting about the Unknown. It reminded of my own prospective student meeting years ago. I felt very similar then – like something suddenly opened within, both strangely familiar and unknown at the same time. When I walked out of the meeting I felt immersed in the super bright colorful ocean of the unknown – forms, shapes, movements, sounds… I felt so free, and totally not knowing. It was truly amazing. Of course my mind made a quick connection, and I joined the school the same day. And then for 12 fun years I was trying to know, to learn, to dissect and label the unknown using work language. It felt very good -as if I was getting somewhere, there was a sense of purpose in life. I have to be honest – I never had an experience of unknown like after first meeting, although I had quite few high states. But I thought it was because my efforts were insufficient. Somehow I forgot that the first meeting with unknown was actually EFFORTLESS.
Pretty much everything around us can be explained and labeled in 4th way system – it is really a great tool for knowing and labeling, it is very logical and precise. My scientifically inclined mind felt very happy and satisfied using it. So, honestly, there was not much unknown left in my life, in fact I felt like “a-ha, now I know”, I saw what was going on – features, types, centers of gravity, and that made me feel somewhat surerior to those asleep “life people” who have no clue what’s going on… What couldn’t be logically explained with the system ideas was simply attributed to c-influence, so pretty much everything was explained, had its place, labeled and known. I had a GREAT time during my years in FOF.
I am so very grateful to RB for substituting the 4th way system with his own somewhat irrational codes and interpretations. If he hadn’t done that – I would still be in the camp of “know it all” folks, feeling good about myself, labeling everything I see, including my own behavior. When he “cancelled” the O. and G. he somehow pulled the rug from under my mind’s feet.
Since the transition to “new knowledge” didn’t go smooth, all of a sudden I was forced to realize AGAIN that I simply don’t know… I though I did know it all for so long, but now I just din’t know again…. All ideas were floating in the air with no meaning. I couldn’t verify anything anymore – I knew that I just didn’t know. I felt derailed, disoriented, heartbroken and lost. Nothing made sense anymore. And then after a period of strong emotional pain suddenly one day I met myself again, in that ocean of not knowing. This time it was like seeing what am I, and with that came some release or sense of inner freedom, like when you finally exhale after holding your breath for long time. Surprisingly there was no immediate rush to leave this place of not knowing, it felt like home. So since then it was pretty much relaxed resting in the inknown, reminiscent of childhood experience. Not serious, not heavy, not intellectual, without nagging questions and a need to “get somewhere”, just simply enjoing whatever is with no resistance, living it and not really knowing why.
All I can sincerely wish for you – do not rush away from this place of not knowing. Our mind can’t wait to grab ideas, to know and label everything because it makes it feel comfortable, makes it seem real and serious. But it is not about knowing. It is in a way about free fall in the big unknown, being OK with not knowing, accepting and enjoying what is unfolding. It feels like when we were very small kids – we didn’t know what it was all about, and we felt home.
March 23, 2007 at 7:19 pm
I am surprised that I made at least 5 people so angry with my comments. I apologize for that.
I just wanted to say that I found this coincidence particularly interesting: Girard’s e-mail was sent right at the same time as his wife became actively involved with this blog. Some of you maybe did not make this connection.
I did not intent any personal attacks, but I felt one against myself. After which long speculations about external consideration and “honest and thoughtful contributions” taste like artificial sugar to me. That’s all.
I also observe that for some of you signing with your own name is a virtue – even though we have discussed this question so many times already! If you are an ex-student or a Girards’ wife – it does not matter unless you don’t want your boss to find out…
I hope I did not attack anyone this time… Peace my friends!
March 23, 2007 at 7:30 pm
Most of us joined the FOF with an earnestness, naiveté, idealism, loving trust and gratitude for the school and for Robert as the teacher. It was painful then to observe the greed, lack of compassion and sexual abnormality that characterized his behavior and it took most of us many years to admit that what we were observing was the truth. It is painful to be deceived by someone you love and trust and even more so when there is no acknowledgement of wrong doing or apology.
However, we know that Robert could never admit to himself or others that he was mistaken and he could certainly never apologize. He has never taken responsibility for any damage, financial or psychological, done to anyone. He claims it is the “will of C Influence” or that the injured student’s “being attracted their life”, etc.
Besides wanting to see the truth about RB and the FOF, I am interested in understanding why and how it could happen – what in RB and in us made it possible.
There are some chilling descriptions of personality disorders to guard against on the spiritual path in “Gnosis” by Boris Mouravieff (volume II, chapter 16) that may be of interest. I have quoted major parts of one of them below. I think it is of special interest to note that this type feels no doubt, has a well developed emotional centre that is smothered and that his goals are money, sex and power.
Fifth Case:
(The Sorcerer)
“…The case we are to study is that of a man #1 whose highly developed motor centre entirely dominates his emotional centre. In this type of man the latter is awake and even quite developed, but it is under the sway of the motor centre and as a result it is richly nourished by usurped sexual energy. As in the fourth case, the intellectual centre is not entirely asleep: the negative part of this centre is paralyzed but the positive part is completely under the domination of the motor centre. That is why this type of man feels no doubt. This fact provides him with extraordinary strength and endows his psyche with a suggestive, hypnotic dynamism.
………A magician’s power – that of a Cagliostro, Rasputin and their like – is based, as we said, on excessive development of the motor centre, which dominates the other two. The working of the intellectual centre is reduced to what is strictly necessary to ensure vital needs and to elaborate projects; its negative part is smothered, and this is what leads to the absence of doubt. The emotional centre is not only smothered but is rather well developed. However, this development is unbalanced, as it is not the result of correct discernment of “B” from “A” influences, but of the accumulation of those of the latter whose action, although different in quality, lies parallel to the “B” influences. ……………While the magnetic centre formed of “B” influences is a subsidiary organ enabling esoteric development, the black magnetic centre formed by “A” influences can clearly not be oriented towards esoteric goals. …………..the orientation of this black magnetic centre is automatically directed towards objectives limited to within the perimeter of exterior life. These objectives are well known; money, women (substitute young men), and power in all their forms.
………Evidently the black magnetic centre………emphasizes and crystallizes the “I” of the Personality and inspires it with the strength it needs to impose itself on other Personalities who are in an unstable inner state……While awaiting an encounter with a guide, their (seekers) Personality is wide open to the influences emanating from this type of man, and they may easily fall under his sway.
Besides giving birth to magicians, this type of man gives rise to false prophets, false Christs, and even the Antichrist.
….For there is a type of human being who declines all moral responsibility for himself or for those to whom he is in duty bound.”
March 23, 2007 at 7:54 pm
Ahhh, so many words, so much confusion, so much suffering. All of it is not necessary! Just accept what you got in the FOF and move on. Graduate, Mature, Grow up. Life is here to be lived, not suffered (unless you like to suffer- in which case- have at it.) Nothing in the mind is spiritual. It will keep you in the wheel of confusion- there is nothing to figure out!
A quote from Krishnamurti may help:
” We would rather cling to the known than face the unknown –
the known being our house, our furniture, our family, our character, our friends, our work, our knowledge, our fame, our loneliness, our suffering, our gods –
that little thing that moves around incessantly within itself,
with its own limited embittered existence.”
March 23, 2007 at 9:09 pm
Here’s number 6 “Somebody” (post 68).
But you made me laugh! So you’re exonerated.
Be careful though, you don’t want to end up like “Cry Baby” and become the “whipping boy” of the blog – unless that’s what you’re into. As Elena wisely remarked (post 37): As long as you are someone, we each have the right to choose our lives and you have chosen yours…
Raptus Regaliter (this is not my real name, if you were wondering.)
March 23, 2007 at 9:23 pm
I am reminded of the three little monkeys…
See no evil
Hear no evil
Speak no evil
Therefore evil does not exist!?
March 23, 2007 at 9:32 pm
I am planning to start my membership in the FOF tomorrow night.
As I said, I have a close friend who is in the FOF for many years whom I respect very much. He suggested that I refrain from reading or writing in this forum for three months so I can start my way in an unprejudiced manner. I tend to agree with that.
I thank those who posted the good advices for me and whish you all the best with your choices. Right now I have made mine.
Regards,
John
March 23, 2007 at 9:42 pm
I was thinking of Girard’s comments, and so might address this to him.
Though you live in the foothills and I in the valley, we share the same world, the same air. The “work” might label as “false personality” that which seeks to differentiate and separate us. All that we share trumps our insignificant distinctions.
Perhaps there is a point in one’s work where it is useful to separate from “life”. But to institutionalize this division is probably not healthy, for the individual nor for the greater community. Evidence of this appears plentiful.
We are in reality one community, and I do not find it strange that there is so much interest and engagement in this blog. (Who am I to judge how another uses their energy? And who are you to do the same?)
I do not necessarily consider time spent here “unhealthy”. (Unless, I am aware of a better way to contribute and this merely distracts from that possibility.)
With age, I indeed feel a greater sense of responsibility to humanity, without regard to personal prejudices and without reservation.
I believe this growing sense is consistent with the personal work each of us has undertaken. This search for awakening, it appears, is not really about you and me as individuals.
And so, I personally welcome the richness of contributions here. It is indeed about the health of “our” Community.
March 23, 2007 at 10:37 pm
Dear all,
To Victor, Post 62:
Girard never posted any mail directly to this blog (for what is known so far).
His message did arrive via the official FOF channel to the official FOF people exclusively.
Its appearence in this blog is a “transfer” specific to the blog.
Liberated from some questions ?
Halleluhiah!: Girard’s message did get into the blog, one way or another, so we know now for sure that official instences of the FOF are aknowledging “something”.
The natural flow of realities can’t be stopped !
A pont of view: Girard’s mail is touching in many ways providing we do not react directly to the “pyramidal” tone (from top to the bottom, from one to many and so on)
Please remember he is addressing the FOF members, as an authority figure.
He seems to see himself as a “father”, available for the kids experiencing trouble, almost confessing the lack of proper comunication in “the house” (parents just too busy)and trying to provide a proper answer.
He might even be able to “hear” some voices… But still will have to defend what he has been fighting for for many years himself.
Common sense right ? Let’s say, for now.
“In” is “in” !
“out” is “out” !
I am taking about the FOF as a form.
For the contents, frontieres do not exist for truth, this is how current students, former students, as well as “tourists” can post so meaningful letters and stupid too!
More is coming, Love in the air!
March 23, 2007 at 11:36 pm
In relation to (60 & 24) and others around, on the subject of Hierarchy: “The universe is built on hierarchy. Who fights with hierarchy, fights with God”, another aspect that seems worth observing is that the hierarchy that at least I have observed in every single institution, state, family, school, church, sport, etc, is determined by personal likes and dislikes, in other words, subjective…. Instinctive. The structure beneath the main authority, be it the boss or assistants, assumes attitudes and privileges in relation to the people below him which become more and more formatory as they descend. My question is: How would a society develop if it were determined by less subjective conditionings? i.e. The King of Hearts?, or emotional parts of the human being instead of the instinctive one, for those who do not handle the work’s terminology.
Another aspect is the question of, what do we acknowledge as “Hierarchy” today? In as much as we’re trying to move from external authority to individual determination in every sense of the word, how do social responsabilities change? The children, the young, the adults and the old? The world around? It is precisely these issues that became more and more neglected in the Fellowship as time went by but they are the issue everywhere.
In the sentence, “The universe is built on hierarchy. Who fights with hierarchy, fights with God”, are we talking about the social structures around us or about an inner structure of the universe that is not acknowledge or perceived today? And, could the hierarchichal social structures of the subjective individual today, be, the upside down and backwards reflexion of what a more developed human being could accomplish? How would that manifest in the actual practice of living together?
We could observe many aspects of these subject in The Fellowship, but we can observe it in almost any relationship between individuals in small or big groups. Focusing on an specific one simply shows our level of identification with it and isn’t freedom from all of them what is worth pursuing? Won’t that free us from chastasing? And yet, anyone who still needs to untie his/her entanglement with the Fellowship will continue to be heard. The more and the sooner we listen, the sooner and easier it’ll be for us all to drop the account.
On another subject, I would like to apologize to Somebody for not having been awake enough to say, “posting the letter is fine but the rest is gossip so let’s not go into it” Thank you for the “Negative” if not the “photograph”! If others had not interfered, it would have taken longer for us to overcome the difficulty. This is objective external consideration, macrocosmic trimming and I thank you for it.
Elena
March 23, 2007 at 11:58 pm
2 Breakfast with Robert $200
1 Lunch with Robert $150
1 Tea with Robert at your house $4400
2 Dinner With Robert $500
4 Meeting with Robert $600
2 Photo with Robert $200
1 Trip to Egypt and Cruise with Robert $6500
Remember to Breath when you see your credit card bill… Priceless.
March 24, 2007 at 12:38 am
“the process of watching the lower self ascend during reading”
JESUS CHRIST!
It is all the lower self, it will always be the lower self. The K of hearts and K of diamonds is the lower self, they will always be the lower self. There will never be a higher self watching and judging the ascention or falling of anything, ever, never, never, never.
Get this through your thickmaterialisticskull.
March 24, 2007 at 1:29 am
I find it extremely hilarious to read stories about G. and O. and R.C. or anyone in the past and to realize that in their time and through time those telling the stories are idiots just like we who are doing the same right now.
March 24, 2007 at 2:11 am
“And this coming from a person attending Ouspensky death”
Rodney Collin, another hopeless idiot, was attendent to O. in his last days. Had Collin took note he would have seen that O. by this time was a broken man, prone to drinking in excess, depressed and in self-pity. Collin could not accept that his “master” was not able to transcend his play and died the death G. always warned about.
After O’s death, Collin locked himself up, obviously distraught over the end of O. whom he adored and worshipped.
Collin, with the help of his wife’s fortune, spent the next few years going from seance to seance trying desperately to make contact with O. in the after-life.
Please do more research of your facts before trying to post a “noble” quote from another lost soul.
March 24, 2007 at 3:18 am
Beelzebub,
What you have written about Ouspensky and Rodney Collin is interpretive, not factual. Another interpretation is that Gurdjieff’s inability to externally consider drove away Ouspensky, and most of Gurdjieff’s other students.
March 24, 2007 at 3:53 am
what great ones do, the little ones prattle about…
no one on this blog is even close to having the level of being of a George Gurdjieff, Peter Ouspensky, Rodney Collin, Alexander Horn, Robert Burton or Girard Haven.
March 24, 2007 at 4:26 am
Beelzebub what an appropriate name for lack of harmony, arrogrance, spitefulness, negativity and
anger.
March 24, 2007 at 4:46 am
To add to Breathing Again’s fine post (#65):
I note the judgments elicited by our own and others’ postings. When someone arguably expresses negativity or some other behavior presumed to be naughty, what is the purpose or value of pointing that out? Is it to confirm to ourselves our superiority to the poster, or announce to others our higher level? Obviously, in doing so we simultaneously prove the opposite of what we intended, which was a fool’s errand to begin with. The only useful purpose is to help the other see something of which he or she may be unaware, to create that awareness, not so he or she will stop, or feel bad, or to sooth ourselves into a sense of olderstudentship.
Cultivating the human tendency to always be on the lookout for “good” and “bad” behavior, to view our own negativity, or any other behavior deemed inconsistent with the “higher,” with shame, and that manifested by others with disdain and one-up-manship, is a core effort of virtually all religions, including Burtonism. Compassion lies in seeing we all do the best we can and no one is perfect in the sense of always manifesting loveliness; we are perfect as we are. Having such compassion for ourselves takes some practice.
This is not to be confused with giving ourselves license to do whatever.
March 24, 2007 at 6:10 am
to Vena #69:
the relevant quote:
“I will not talk about myself, it is not a healthy topic.” RB
to Beelzebub #80:
yes, it looks like Rodney Collin suffers from ‘wrong picture – imagination’ about Ouspensky. We can see how it is dangerous to believe in persona. Please forgive him.
to Yesri Baba #78:
You say: “It is all the lower self, it will always be the lower self.”
Yes, it’s true for man#1-2-3. And at the same time YOU don’t have to be (get identified with) lower self. Your lower self (not YOU)reacts, YOU observes. It’s so simple and so natural state for a man#5. And the only thing one can DO is BE APART from one’s lower self. And it’s a REAL fun!
It’s an subjective consciousness.
March 24, 2007 at 6:21 am
Hey John (73),
Did your friend tell you that once you join the FOF, that if you ever leave it you will (according to the FOF) lose your chance at awakening, your soul, FOREVER? That you will never have another chance in this life or any other life? That you will be forever, to use Robert’s word, “extinguished”?
So this is no little decision you are making, is it? Then don’t you think you owe it to yourself to investigate the group a little more before joining? The idea that to do so would would be exposing yourself to “prejudice” doesn’t make sense. You have already been exposed to your friend’s prejudiced viewpoint, as well as the prejudiced viewpoints of those at your prospective student meetings. You have heard one side, now why not hear some other sides? There are people posting here who were students for 10, 20, 25 years or more, people who know Robert well. Don’t you think you ought to find out what they have to say?
If I were you I would print out this entire blog and read it with a highlighter. Ask questions of the writers and ask questions of the FOFers who are inviting you to join. Then make your decision.
Here is a prejudiced opinion of mine. Any group that says “our way is the only way, and if you join us and leave you will be extinguished forever” is a cult, and potentially psychologically damaging to those who join it.
Mark
FOF member 1973-78
mkhovila@yahoo.com
March 24, 2007 at 7:31 am
John (73),
One more thing. Better yet, TALK on the phone (or in person, if possible) with some of the ex-FOF folks who are posting here. Emails and blog comments by mostly anonymous people aren’t the same thing as direct contact. The FOF has had direct contact with you, haven’t they? This is a big decision. You owe it to yourself to speak directly with others who have been through it and have a different point of view. Many people have given email addresses. I’m sure that many more would be willing to speak with you if you left an email address so that they could contact you directly.
Good luck.
Mark
FOF member 1973-78
mkhovila@yahoo.com
March 24, 2007 at 8:50 am
Beezelbub, you’re sounding more and more like the “fool of the farce”. Or as the Bard said…”Bite me.”
March 24, 2007 at 10:07 am
This blog, and it’s results, has come into existence through the will of influence C!
I offer this thought so some can transform there unhappiness with what is occurring here.
March 24, 2007 at 10:36 am
“And this is coming from a person who was with Rodney Collin and is still alive!”
Shortly before my arrival, there entered the circles close to Rodney a rather beautiful Mexican woman named Mema Dickens. She was a devout Roman Catholic. She was also a natural medium. Mema began to receive visitations from a man who appeared to be clairvoyantly commanding her to “go to the philosopher Rodney Collin”
When Mema was first shown into Rodney’s study she saw the large painting of O. that adorned the wall and exclaimed: “That’s the man who sent me!” She recognised the face, while knowing nothing, it seems of the man it represented. Mema then proceeded to give a variety of ‘messages’ to Rodney, purporting to come from O., then from Gurdjieff and later from other, usually, historical, personalities.
Rodney accepted her with his childlike grace. She became a daily visitor. She poured out messages of varying depth and value to everyone around.
The household had been thrown into disarray. Some people disliked Mema on sight and distrusted every word that came out of her mouth. Some were unable to differentiate between the words and opinions of Mema Dickins herself and the words that flowed through her from – who knows what source, or what levels of different sources.
A hard core of followers found they had been given a direct hotline to the Almighty and worshipped the oracle with increasing reverence. Her most trite or everyday comment was thought to be a command from the master and acted upon with alacrity. The remark, “You shouldn’t eat so much cream” was translated as “Mr Ouspensky says we shouldn’t eat cream.” Her comment at an art exhibition that she found Turner pallid and incomprehensible became, “Mr Ouspensky did not approve of Turner’s style”.
So many and varied were the experiences of all kinds that I was receiving at that period, the Mema Dickens phenomenon seemed to fit in, at first, as one of a variety of interesting and new developments and I did not give the matter very serious thought. Mema was, however, to prove in the end to be Rodney’s undoing.
Extract from “Call No Man Master” by Joyce Collin-Smith
(Rodney Collin’s sister in law – still sharp and on the button at 90.)
RR
March 24, 2007 at 11:23 am
Ears have Walls (70) – What a refreshing posting – it immediately lifted my spirits! The recent comments are becoming a bit heavy and hung up on concepts; it reminds me of being in an olden days FOF meeting, where your brain is becoming contorted trying to make sense of ‘the ideas’. For some of those still in the FOF, it is understandable that they may be experiencing some mental turmoil because of conflicting thoughts, and be seeking resolution to this discomfort.
Krishnamurti did have some brilliant insights, this one may also help…”Truth must come to you, the mind cannot go to meet it. You think that if you practice overcoming your passions it is going to lead you to reality, and so for you the method is very important; but such a mind, which is always hoping, inviting, expecting, can never under any circumstances reach that which is beyond the mind. There is no path, no yoga, no discipline which will lead you to it.
All that the mind can do is to know itself. It must know its own limitations – the motives, the feelings, the passions, the cruelties, the lack of love, and be aware of all its many activities. One must see all that and remain silent, not asking, not begging, not putting out a hand to receive something. If you stretch out your hand, you will remain empty-handed forever. But to know yourself, the unconscious as well as the conscious, is the beginning of wisdom; and knowing yourself in that sense brings freedom – which is not freedom for you to experience reality.
The man who is free is not free for something, or from something; he is just free; and then if that state of reality wishes to come, it will come. But for you to go seeking it is like a blind man seeking light; you will never find it. The man who understands himself seeks nothing; his mind is limitless, undesirous, and for such a mind the immeasurable can come into being.”
March 24, 2007 at 12:15 pm
Is the money so important?,
then why are these
‘Payment Guidelines and Donation…’
mandatory?:
Rather than at the discretion
of the gift giver?
[I know,
it is the ‘will of Influence C’
(that Influence A
be at Influence C’s disposal.)]
Do you, whoever you are, deserve it?
‘The gift is to the giver,
and comes back most to him’
‘I give you my love
more precious than money.’
Has, so soon, the meaning of
these words been forgotten?:
Whoever you are! motion and reflection are especially for you, The divine ship sails the divine sea for you. Whoever you are! you are he or she for whom the earth is solid and liquid, You are he or she for whom the sun and moon hang in the sky, For none more than you are the present and the past, For none more than you is immortality. Each man to himself and each woman to herself, is the word of the past and present, and the true word of immortality;
No one can acquire for another –
not one,
Not one can grow for another –
not one.
The song is to the singer,
and comes back most to him,
The teaching is to the teacher,
and comes back most to him,
The murder is to the murderer,
and comes back most to him,
The theft is to the thief,
and comes back most to him,
The love is to the lover,
and comes back most to him,
The gift is to the giver,
and comes back most to him –
it cannot fail,
The oration is to the orator,
the acting is to the actor and actress
not to the audience,
And no man understands any greatness
or goodness but his own,
or the indication of his own.
Walt Whitman
Here, take this gift,
I was reserving it for some hero,
speaker, or general,
One who should serve the good old cause,
the great idea,
the progress and freedom
of the race,
Some brave confronter of despots,
some daring rebel;
But I see that what I was reserving
belongs to you just as much as to any.
Walt Whitman
Allons! through struggles and wars!
The goal that was named cannot be countermanded.
Have the past struggles succeeded?
What has succeeded?
yourself?
your nation?
Nature?
Now understand me well –
it is provided in the essence of things
that from any fruition of success,
no matter what,
shall come forth something
to make a greater struggle necessary.
My call is the call of battle,
I nourish active rebellion,
He going with me must go well arm’d,
He going with me goes
often with spare diet,
poverty,
angry enemies,
desertions.
Allons! the road is before us!
It is safe – I have tried it –
my own feet have tried it well –
be not detain’d!
Let the paper remain on the desk unwritten,
and the book on the shelf unopen’d!
Let the tools remain in the workshop!
let the money remain unearn’d!
Let the school stand!
mind not the cry of the teacher!
Let the preacher preach in his pulpit!
let the lawyer plead in the court,
and the judge expound the law.
Camerado, I give you my hand!
I give you my love more precious than money,
I give you myself before preaching or law;
Will you give me yourself?
will you come travel with me?
Shall we stick by each other
as long as we live?
O! dear Walt, maybe we forgot
what the real values are.
Thou O God my life hast lighted,
With ray of light,
steady, ineffable,
vouchsafed of Thee,
Light rare untellable,
lighting the very light,
Beyond all signs,
descriptions,
languages;
For that O God,
be it my latest word,
here on my knees,
Old, poor, and paralyzed,
I thank Thee.
Now for a word from our sponsor:
Dear Friends,
Here is this week’s schedule
for Robert’s Dining Events.
To reserve your place you may call the Dining Events telephone number: xxx-8234
All reservations will be confirmed.
Thank you,
Dining with Robert
Friday, March 23, 8:30 am Voucher Breakfast in the Galleria Salon
Seating: One full-day Voucher + $10.00 or Regular – $100 Special & Senior – $75
Standing: One half-day Voucher + $10.00 or Regular – $75 Special & Senior – $50
Note: Standing places are available. You may request to be placed on the Waiting List
for a seat for this and upcoming Voucher Breakfasts. Students will be contacted as spaces
become available.
Topic: The Steward: Intoning the Sequence in Imagination and Intoning the Sequence with Presence
In sleep:
Sumerian Texts, Debate between Bird and Fish: Your speech contains grave errors; you have not given it due consideration.
With Presence:
Hermes Trismegistus: Grasp the meaning of my words; for if you grasp it, that which seems to be hidden will be revealed to you.
Friday, March 23, 3:00 pm Auction Cherry Blossom Tea at the Orchard
For information and to make your reservation, please call xxx-8216
Topic: The Flower
Saturday, March 24, 8:30 am Auction Breakfast at a Student’s Home
Topic: Short Be and Long BE
Saturday, March 24, 7:00 pm Dinner in the Galleria Salon
Seating: Regular – $150 Special & Senior – $100
Standing: Regular – $100 Special & Senior – $50
Topic: Sacrifice
Egyptian Pyramid Texts, Utterance 664: Offer a sacrifice with thy hand
– For Breakfasts: Please sign up by 6:00 pm the day prior to the breakfast
– For dinners: Please sign up by 4:00 pm the day of the dinner
– A 20% discount may be used within one month of a Birthday or School anniversary.
– Couples may also use each others Birthday and School Anniversary discount.
This is for seats only.
– Special Price: students on payroll. Senior Price: students 65 years and older.
– Standing: If reserving standing, please let us know if you will need a stool.
http://www.rvw.com/contact/tourtasting.html
http://www.appeal-democrat.com/articles/2004/12/22/news/local_news/news1.txt
March 24, 2007 at 12:26 pm
Another way to look at hierarchy is healthy or unhealthy. In very general terms an unhealthy hierarchy is one of power where the higher oppresses and exploits the lower to it’s own advantage. A healthy hierarchy or “nesting” hierarchy is one in which the higher transcends and includes the lower in a harmony for the benefit of the whole.
March 24, 2007 at 1:39 pm
It’s such a treat to read every day such insightful, thoughtful writings. Thank you, Innernaut, Sheik, Elena, No person, Tim Campion, Vena, and many other friends. After all, ‘the cult for intellectuals’ attarcted some very original thinkers, even if they were ‘brainwashed’ at some point of their lives!
I was thinking about L.E. Kramer’s words: ‘The road to enlightenment begins with self empowerment, but can only progress to the next step through “Power Sharing”, as a ‘test of whether one crystallized properly’ and ‘if you don’t know how you got it, you don’t deserve it’.
Please don’t take it personally (I enjoyed the first part of your post), but it looks to me that it might be just another set of ideas about what consciousness or enlightenment might mean.
For example, this idea of ‘crystallization’. Somebody told us that there are higher centers which need to crystallize for a person to become ‘immortal conscious being’. It was a very real idea for me and I had to make efforts in order to become a conscious individual with her very own consciousness which would (I wasn’t sure how, but I assumed it had to be good) somehow live happily forever after.
How I see it now, is that there is nothing ‘personal’ about consciousness. There is a body and a mind of an individual through which consciousness is flowing freely, or rather which are made of consciousness, as anything else, sustaining the very life of the individual. I have no description for that phenomena (meaning consciousness) whatsoever.
What does it ‘practically’ mean that God is by definition unidentifiable, incomprehensible, without beginning or end? To me, it means that you can not describe God (or consciousness) in any way. But the mind is constantly trying to figure it out and tries to describe what God or consciousness might mean.
The mind simply doesn’t want to die and so it creates various concepts to help itself with the death issue and immortalize itself in some kind of future event. All those concepts of consciousness, immortality, soul, God, crystallization, lifetimes, resurrection, eternal recurrence, heaven, hell etc. are the result of this struggle of the mind with the concept of death (which is by the way also just a concept from one point of view).
Then this concept of enlightenment as ‘self-empowerment’. Can it be that it’s actually opposite to ‘empowerment’? Maybe it’s being stripped off of all ideas of who you thought you were and being left powerless?
Next, ‘deserving enlightenment’. Who deserves it? Nobody deserves it! Realization of consciousness is not something one acquires, it is always available, and only the mind is standing on the way to see it. Also, why do you think that you have to know how you got ‘enlightened’? Can it be a miracle? As far as I remember, Ramana never tried to explain why enlightenment occurred to him, it was something that ‘simply’ happened and looked pretty much as an accident, although there might be endless reasons for it.
This writing was only to show how many concepts we take for granted, as true, where in fact they are only ideas – products of the mind and mostly not even our own mind! That’s why we, humans, could be described as ‘second hand beings’. To be a ‘first hand being’ we must drop all ideas and see for ourselves.
March 24, 2007 at 2:05 pm
Money Talks (92): It seems to me that while the FoF is not a very productive or efficient spiritual community, judging by the fact that it hasn’t produced a single graduation, it does however provide grounds for some very efficient salesmen. Having read about some of the ways through which the FoF collects money, I have to say that they are masters at, a) creating financial opportunities, b) getting people into a position where they feel they must pay.
As has been pointed out earlier, the FoF has no trouble with kicking people out if they can’t afford the fees, while the prices keep on rising.
With the number of people leaving the FoF, do you think that the prices will get lower or higher?
March 24, 2007 at 2:05 pm
#82:
“no one on this blog is even close to having the level of being of a George Gurdjieff, Peter Ouspensky, Rodney Collin, Alexander Horn, Robert Burton or Girard Haven.”
Little lamb, have you grown big scary yellow teeth overnight and turning into something quite opposite to your little lambness?
March 24, 2007 at 2:55 pm
Sheik #95–
judging from the number of former members who consider themselves having “graduated” it seems that we need to discuss what or how to define a productive or efficient spiritual community.
as long as I know it, the FOF is considered a school, not trying to be a community, but a place where one might learn something, if you attend for the right reason and apply what you are learning. there is no one telling you what class to attend, in fact no one even telling you that the coffee break is over and that the bell has rung…
there is no objective measure to judge someone else spiritual progress. probably even trying to do that–as we are doing on this blog in some way–shows we are not yet where we could be.
March 24, 2007 at 3:02 pm
Hello to all both in and out of the School,
Why not consider it Influence C that the blog, non-dualism, the keys and the sequence have all exploded at the same time? Is there a good end in all of this? What can it be? Thus, what each of us makes of it can and will be be different. That a number of students have left and will leave the School is clear. Their leaving of course, will affect the rest of us emotionally (and financially). However, I personally am oh so very glad that this is happening, since students all over the School are being confronted with the behind the scenes dirt. As this is happening on a different scale than the individual, it makes the transformation of it on a different scale possible, too.
If a newer student leaves now because of the current scandal, it is a bit like finally seeing the Wizard of Oz as the man behind the curtain, and concluding that nothing is there.
If an older student leaves it is like finally tiring of the old man behind the curtain and his schenanigans and also concluding that there is nothing there (for them) anymore. They will be quite lucky to find anything to replace the FOF spiritually but emotionally, I don’t think it exists.
If a newer student becomes an older student by staying, it can be like getting past the Wizard to find one’s own ruby slippers, while choosing to use the environment of the FOF to click them.
If an older student continues to stay, there are various options, here are a few: some simply love the Wizard, some think he is Conscious anyway, some continue to value a School environment and hope for cleaner times. Perhaps there are other possibilities?
Nevertheless, it is good to remember your beginnings and ask yourself, what do you really want?
Self Remembering? (world 12) Robert Burton teaches that, offering us all a certain kind of fundamental dualism.
Self Realization? (world 6) Non-dualism, Nisargadatta, (who is deceased) seems to be teaching that.
Is there a contradiction between the two? I don’t think so, just a breach of being-understanding.
Questioner: Why should self remembrance bring one to self realization?
Nisargadatta: Because they are but two aspects of the same state. Self remembrance is in the mind, self realization is beyond the mind. The image in the mirror is of the face beyond the mirror.
Good luck to each and every one of us and to our beloved School.
Cheers,
Ellen
March 24, 2007 at 3:59 pm
>Did your friend tell you that once you join the FOF, that if you ever leave it you will (according to the FOF) lose your chance at awakening, your soul, FOREVER? That you will never have another chance in this life or any other life? That you will be forever, to use Robert’s word, “extinguished”?
——-
You can rejoin FOF a few times, but each time you need to pay a hefty fine as a penalty and you also pay any money you owed from before. Also, you continue at the rate on the payscale where you left off. So for the right price you can get your soul back.
March 24, 2007 at 5:04 pm
Little Lamb (97): You don’t really have to try to build a spiritual community, it kind of happens. From the weeks long discussion, I get the feeling that pretty much everyone (whether consciously or not) views the FoF as a community rather than a school.
Nevermind that, it doesn’t change what I wrote earlier (ie. exchange school for spiritual community and the meaning is still the same).
The issue of graduation is far more interesting. We can both agree that no one achieves it inside the FoF (maybe they will in future lives, hmmm), while people who have left believe they have progressed farther than they could have in the FoF. So people who stay feel like they are achieving, but have nothing to prove it with, or compare it against. People who leave feel like they are achieving because they can compare it to their FoF experience, that is their proof. Either they are deluding themselves, or they are correct. Even if you refuse to see that argument, it is still a fact that no one in the 30 years has graduated (I am repeating something that has been said and discussed earlier).
Sure, the FoF may have been a necessary ingredient for the spiritual journey of many ex-members, but that’s not why they joined, is it? Imagine the FoF advertising itself as a Fourth Way school that teaches people the foundations of spiritual knowledge, from which then the student has to free himself. That’s how it seems to work.
That is also precisely why the FoF is a community rather than a school – a school provides teaching, and the results are highly visible, tangible and testable. A community operates on other rules.
there is no objective measure to judge someone else spiritual progress. probably even trying to do that–as we are doing on this blog in some way–shows we are not yet where we could be.
Excuse me for pointing this out, but the spiritual journey/search that all of us on the blog, in the FoF, in other ‘schools’, etc. are carrying out is in a way based on the measurement of other peoples’ spiritual progress – we read the texts written by those who we believe have superior knowledge to us (we give them that authority), ie. Ouspensky, Gurdjieff, Burton,… Not to mention that the FoF doctrine is based on the belief that the Teacher (RB) has awakened, how in hell do you not call that ‘a judgement of someone else’s spiritual progress’? You have just managed to invalidate your entire time in the FoF.
we are not yet where we could be.
On the contrary, we are all where we are, if we could be somewhere else we would be there rather than here. To believe that we could all be better off if we changed something in the past is a dangerous illusion and a waste of time.
I feel a little bit worried every time I read someone’s opinion that discussion, questioning, or debate is harmful (or a waste of time). It feels a bit too opressive and narrow-minded. I thought that we have moved on from the middle ages (and the role that Christianity played).
March 24, 2007 at 5:52 pm
Hi Ellen (from Brussels?),
Nice posting!(98) I have a couple of comments on “They will be quite lucky to find anything to replace the FOF spiritually but emotionally, I don’t think it exists.”
On the spiritual side, leaving has coincided with many new realisations. I can only speak subjectively, of course, but it now seems to me that about 90% of the 4th Way and about 95% of RB’s teaching actually point directly away from awakening! We all learned some useful things in the FOF, but fundamentally it’s best viewed as a kind of basic preparatory school for the next stage.
On the emotional side, you could be right in saying that nothing like the FOF exists, though from what I’ve heard there are many similar spiritual communities. But this is unimportant because the emotional life outside is actually much richer! It’s not based on having to share the same very limited belief system. I find life out here to be consistently more emotionally diverse and rewarding – friendships become deeper and more real once the FOF baggage drops away.
But, as you say, each to their own….
regards, Charles
March 24, 2007 at 6:43 pm
I am only stating facts. It is the lazy one’s here that quoite O., G, and RC because they still AFTER ALL THESE YEARS cannot think for themselves.
You have a computer, use it to do more research rather than trying to beittle someone who KNOWS more than you. I am not saying anything new. There are people who WERE THERE that have written about it, including Joyce Collin for one.
This tactic to accuse says that you are still among the brainwashed, poor dears.
March 24, 2007 at 6:57 pm
I stand and beg and the pigeons get the bread.
That is macrocosmic trimming.
March 24, 2007 at 7:14 pm
The following definitions were copied from the internet. To some extent, some of these concepts apply not only to the Fellowship, but also to this online discussion group. However, there’s at least one major difference between the Fellowship and this blog:
Participants in this blog are welcome to discuss these ideas.
Just curious: Does anyone disagree that discussing these ideas is beneficial for our inner work?
Beneficial for each other? Beneficial for the school?
Does anyone disagree that it will help us to see ourselves and avoid self-deception? Any takers?
————
GROUPTHINK
Groupthink is a type of thought exhibited by group members who try to minimize conflict and reach consensus without critically testing, analyzing, and evaluating ideas. Groupthink may cause groups to make hasty, irrational decisions, where individual doubts are set aside, for fear of upsetting the group’s balance.
————
ANOTHER DEFINITION
Groupthink, a term coined by social psychologist Irving Janis (1972), occurs when a group makes faulty decisions because group pressures lead to a deterioration of “mental efficiency, reality testing, and moral judgment.” Groups affected by groupthink ignore alternatives and tend to take irrational actions that dehumanize other groups. A group is especially vulnerable to groupthink when its members are similar in background, when the group is insulated from outside opinions, and when there are no clear rules for decision making.
————
COMMUNAL REINFORCEMENT
Communal reinforcement is a social phenomenon in which a concept or idea is repeatedly asserted in a community, regardless of whether sufficient empirical evidence has been presented to support it. Over time, the concept or idea is reinforced to become a strong belief in many people’s minds, and may be regarded by the members of the community as fact. Often, the concept or idea may be further reinforced by publications in the mass media, books, or other means of communication. The phrase “millions of people can’t all be wrong” is indicative of the common tendency to accept a communally reinforced idea without question, which often aids in the widespread acceptance of urban legends, myths, and rumors.
Communal reinforcement works both for true and false concepts or ideas. Therefore, the fact that many people in a given community believe a certain thing is not indicative of its truth or falsehood. A concept or idea cannot be accepted as fact or dismissed as falsehood simply because it is communally reinforced.
Communal reinforcement can be seen as a positive force in society if it reinforces a concept or idea which is true or beneficial to society, such as the discouragement of drunk driving. Conversely, it can be seen as a negative force if it reinforces a concept or idea which is untrue or harmful to society, such as the avoidance of bathing in Medieval Europe.
———-
GROUP POLARIZATION
Group polarization effects have been demonstrated to exaggerate the inclinations of group members after a discussion. A military term for group polarization is “incestuous amplification”.
———-
PEER PRESSURE
Peer pressure is a term describing a person’s changes, or temptations to change, in attitude, behavior and morals as directly influenced by their peer group.
A social hierarchy requires members, in a more or less blatant way, to conform to, for example, the group’s actions, fashion sense, taste in music and television, and outlook on life. Social groups affected include membership groups, when the individual is “formally” a member (for example, a political party or trade union), and social cliques. A person affected by peer pressure may, or may want to, belong to these groups. They may also recognize dissociative groups with which they would not wish to associate, and thus they behave adversely concerning that group’s behaviors.
———-
SPIRAL OF SILENCE
The spiral of silence is a political science and mass communication theory propounded by Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann. The theory asserts that a person is less likely to voice an opinion on a topic if one feels that one is in the minority for fear of reprisal or isolation from the majority.
———-
SYSTEM JUSTIFICATION
System justification refers to a social psychological tendency to defend and bolster the status quo, that is, to see it as good, fair, legitimate, and desirable. A consequence of this tendency is that existing social, economic, and political arrangements tend to be preferred, and alternatives to the status quo are disparaged. System justification refers, therefore, to an inherently conservative tendency to defend and justify the status quo simply because it exists, and sometimes even at the expense of individual and collective self-interest.
To understand how and why people accept and maintain the social systems that affect them, social psychologists have developed system justification theory. According to system justification theory, people not only want to hold favorable attitudes about themselves (ego-justification) and their own groups (group-justification), but they also want to hold favorable attitudes about the overarching social order (system-justification).
According to system justification theory, this motive is not unique to members of dominant groups, who benefit the most from the current regime; it also affects the thoughts and behaviors of members of groups who are harmed by it (e.g., poor people, racial/ethnic minorities, homosexuals, etc.). System justification theory therefore accounts for counter-intuitive evidence that members of disadvantaged groups often support the societal status quo (at least to some degree), often at considerable cost to themselves and to fellow group members.
————-
THE EMPEROR’S NEW CLOTHES
Plot synopsis
Many years ago there lived an emperor who was quite an average fairy tale ruler, with one exception: he cared much about his clothes. One day he heard from two swindlers named Guido and Luigi Farabutto that they could make the finest suit of clothes from the most beautiful cloth. This cloth, they said, also had the special capability that it was invisible to anyone who was either stupid or not fit for his position.
Being a bit nervous about whether he himself would be able to see the cloth, the emperor first sent two of his trusted men to see it. Of course, neither would admit that they could not see the cloth and so praised it. All the townspeople had also heard of the cloth and were interested to learn how stupid their neighbors were.
The emperor then allowed himself to be dressed in the clothes for a procession through town, never admitting that he was too unfit and stupid to see what he was wearing. He was afraid that the other people would think that he was stupid.
Of course, all the townspeople wildly praised the magnificent clothes of the emperor, afraid to admit that they could not see them, until a small child said:
“But he has nothing on!”
This was whispered from person to person until everyone in the crowd was shouting that the emperor had nothing on. The emperor heard it and felt that they were correct, but held his head high and finished the procession.
March 24, 2007 at 7:55 pm
Hey Charles,
Couldn’t agree more.
March 24, 2007 at 7:56 pm
For those of you who regard ‘Robert B’ as a real teacher, spiritual or otherwise, you might want to Google ‘ spiritual teachers’ and see what you get. There are hundreds in the USA alone- a lot of them look alikes (yes even physically) to RB. There are schools, groups and communities (left overs from the 70’s) buried in the foothills of Santa Cruz, Colorado, Los Angeles and Oregon House and other places. Many of these ‘spiritual teachers’ lead a grande life, much like Robert, who have never had a real job in their lives, but live off the community.
Once you realize, that there is no ‘external’ guide but your own pure awareness, your own SELF then it becomes real simple. Sit at Starbucks in a given city and watch life teeming around you. Kids, dogs, manual laborers, business men, schoolteachers, homeless etc etc. You, we , us, them- we are all part of it. Walt Whitman wrote about it. Why was it that we did not hear, and continue NOT to hear. Are we really so afraid to live???
That we must spend a life secluded and separate from who we are? All the while THINKING, THINKING, THINKING ourselves special? And spending the precious time of our lives defending someone who’s spirtual ego needs constant feeding.
Or, is it equally true that RB’s students SPIRITUAL EGO’s need constant feeding???
Here is a lovely statement from Rabindranath Tagore :
” All of our selfish impulses, all of our personal desires, obscure our true vision of the soul, as they only point out our shabby ego. When we are aware of our soul, we perceive the inner life that surpssses our ego and that has profound affinities with the WHOLE”.
March 24, 2007 at 9:32 pm
Spot on Charles! Life after the FOF is indeed emotionally rich. It actually requires more energy to cultivate and grow friendships but that is also what makes each and every friendship worth something.
Friendships in the FOF are easy come, easy go. Don’t believe your “I’s” Ellen. That whole way of thinking is such a trap. I too, once thought that the school was unbeatable socially/emotionally. I was wrong.
March 24, 2007 at 9:46 pm
Post #81:
Where does it say that the teacher must externally condsider? Since G. made up things as he went along he was free to do what he wished.
Post #81:
One wonders where Christ, Buddha fit in with all the “great ones” you mention?
Post #85:
Personality cult is a dangerous thing. It’s worshipping the finger that is pointing to the moon
March 24, 2007 at 11:03 pm
It is true that The Fellowship of Friends is a School in as much as we’re put in a gay’s trunk, very pretty inside but with the wings cut off. The most trimmed are in the inner circle and a few totally mutilated. They keep trying to trim others so that their own mutilations don’t show. The best ones preach that you go from the feet to higher centres and cut the knees and the genitals, the belly and the chest, the neck and the head. If someone says, ‘but the head”, they say: “off with his head”, “but the genitals”, they say: “he’s the only one with genitals around here”.
It is not very different in this noisy, common market. After having been mutilated for so long, most of us barely crawl, but this crude and dusty earth tastes better than the clouds in any imaginary heaven.
It is true that it is a school or should we be more accurate and say a club? That is, a place where people go around to model in their imaginary pictures? Even the entrance looks like one and if you look inside you verify it. Machines move around like beautifully dressed puppets hoping the master will justify their presence with a chocolate heart. I was the most addicted one but never had the luck! You could very well say “that”, is the name of this urge. You could even “look” and “speak” and say: It was all designed! But walking around waiting for the master’s blessing wouldn’t really be a problem if it weren’t for the fact that the people around you forget themselves. All stand like rays towards the setting sun and push each other aside, just like trees. So naturally!. Whole nations have done it. The world is just recovering from the war that ensued. We’re tiny in comparison, but the WORK is about going against the descending ray of creation.
The question is: If the school is not a community, it was never a fourth way school, for no matter what, the fourth way is the way of life, life, LIFE. The fact that life became a school and some still beg to close up the doors and keep the mutilation inside, starts looking like the way of the fakir, and we keep descending because it no longer fits any of those sacred paths; it doesn’t even fit the cheap, religious dogmatism of the current Christian church. It is below that.
There may be great fear in picking up one’s mutilated pieces; In loosing the house one invested in or some of it; In allowing for the palm trees and the sculptures, the flowers and all the collections at the galleria and specially all the people that one once dreamt could be one’s friends, one’s teacher; in letting it all spill out of one’s hands like sporadic rain. But if one can amass enough of one’s self to honor each one of those things for what they are and not for what they are pretending to be, then one has no choice but to move. To move one’s self and the whole structure with it if one can.
Some ask: “What is the aim of the blog?” The aim is to destroy the possibility of any more mutilations occurring while one watches unconcerned. If that can be accomplished by our “acts” then nothing but forms will be lost, we’ll shift the balance and heal our wounds, sew our torn clothes and if nothing else, take care of the few terrified beings that sold their soul and at the same time are being displaced by the new generation of programmed robots. We might not have any miracles occurring under our palms but at least we won’t have more tragedies as those same people who were all neglected, (for not one has been truly acknowledged) become older. If that cannot be accomplished, sooner or later we will all “leave”, but some with the horror of having never attempted to state their cause and some with the horror of having stated it and still not done anything about it.
I hope no one ever asks for the mutilations I’ve seen, for they are more horrible than any physical one but this blog and all the inner circle inside who told me that this was not a school for healing, know exactly what I am talking about. Nothing in this world will move unless we allow ourselves to heal from the illness of giving our self away.
March 24, 2007 at 11:12 pm
I don’t know how because I haven’t the technical know how, but probably there are many contributors to this blog who do. In the interests of transparency and public service, I would like to know that legal and regulatory agencies, elected officials in Yuba County and the State of California, the immigration authorities, the Appeal Democrat and Sacramento Bee, and other possibly interested parties have access to the URL(s) of this blog. I don’t know that anyone would have the interest or endurance to slog through it all, but some might be interested.
March 24, 2007 at 11:52 pm
Dear Shiek,Just an aside related to your original post that started this whole blog rolling.The person leading the meeting you attended,the one with the ‘old fashioned suit’and deeply resonant voice, is a professional actor.He goes around europe presenting the FOF introductory meetings.So, your take on the whole situation was spot on.
The two ‘naive’brothers who were also attending the meetings are the likely kind of material for joining FOF as naivety is a strong characteristic in almost everybody I’ve met in the FOF.
Also the article you reprinted from John Welwood (post #23)hits the nail directly on the head.It describes FOF members exactly.
F.Y.I your postings and commonsense and often good humoured defusing of the many attacks aimed at you is both irritating and humiliating to a certain section of people here in the fellowship.After all,you are a mere ignorant ‘Life person’ ..congratulations !
March 25, 2007 at 12:04 am
I just want to confirm what Charles said in his post (#101). Friendsips, indeed, are richer, more open, uncomplicated and honest outside the Fellowship. It is a great relief to drop the Fellowship acts that are subtly imposed on all who join. Members are often very guarded and afraid to say what they are really thinking or are cautiously feeling each other out to see if it is safe to speak freely.
March 25, 2007 at 12:13 am
Dear Charles,
could you explain this: “about 90% of the 4th Way and about 95% of RB’s teaching actually point directly away from awakening!”
Do you mean devided attention? Self-remembering? Intellectual parts of centers? What?
innin@walla.com
March 25, 2007 at 12:16 am
Beelzebub (102), let me say again that you are not stating facts, but offering opinions. There are some facts in your postings, but it is not a fact that “O. left G. because he could no longer stand having his toes stepped on. O. was too intellectual and G. tried to open up his emotional center but O. ran away with his tail between his legs.” This is an interpretation. Other interpretations might be: O. left because G. was going off the rails; G. didn’t give O. enough space to develop; O. was forced into a position where he had to stand on his own two feet, etc., etc. It seems to be a fact that O. left G., not that G. expelled him, but even that might be disputed as .
In any case, it seems to me that the NY Gurdjieff Foundation owes considerably more to Ouspensky than they would acknowledge, and the emotional atmosphere of the Foundation is much more similar to Ouspensky’s groups than to Gurdjieff’s.
Incidentally, Call No Man Master is full of factual inaccuracies, and if you read the section on Rodney Collin in Mexico, you’ll notice that Joyce Collin-Smith was going through a nervous breakdown at that time, Collin took her away to a hotel to help her to calm down.
March 25, 2007 at 12:25 am
WE who are not as others.
BE your-SELF but not alone.
March 25, 2007 at 12:53 am
mole (111): A professional actor? I would have never imagined. He did possess the most amazing voice I have ever heard.
Thank you for your comment. I will probably continue being a good humoured, ignorant life person. I find it hard to fight it. I am amazed that my ignorance would offend anyone, epecially the FoF officers.
Abigail (110): If you really wish to go through with it, all you need to do is send them the link (you will have to find a means to contact them first). I wonder what would come out of it though (or if anyone would be interested). I didn’t particularly enjoy being threatened by the FoF, neither would I enjoy to be on the other side of the fence, threatening the FoF. If it is your cause/aim to damage the FoF, and you feel strongly enough about it, then go through with it.
One last thought. When the discussion first started I naively thought that it would only last a certain amount of time. I thought I saw the traffic peak 2 weeks ago (around 1,600 hits a day), and I was expecting a quick decrease in visitors. It hasn’t happened though, there are actually more visitors and comments now than ever.
A couple of people, including the Knight, have pointed out to me that there are better places to have this discussion, places where it would be easier to navigate what’s being said. The blog format is wonderful, but it must be quite frustrating for a lot of you. I was thinking of moving the discussion to http://www.proboards.com , a site that’s better designed to host a discussion such as this one. I haven’t really started planning the move yet, I am simply thinking it through. If you would like to add anything, help, discuss, please feel free.
We have all the time in the world.
March 25, 2007 at 12:56 am
Dear innin,
In reply to your post (113), I can perhaps try to describe the way I currently see things – obviously no claim to be objective. It’s something like this:
The problem with the 4th Way is that the principle effort is me, or perhaps ‘my steward’, trying to be present. But this me can’t be present for more than a brief time.
Certainly it’s possible to divide attention, self remember, try to be in higher parts of centers, etc., etc., but it doesn’t really get us anywhere. In fact these practices tend to strengthen the illusory me.
This me is a habitual creation of the mind, but when looked at repeatedly and closely, it’s seen that it doesn’t really exist. The 4th Way is almost right when it says “we are many ‘I’s”. But it’s truer to say that the many ‘I’s simply arise in our awareness, and ‘we’ don’t exist at all.
The FOF adds some truly silly and pernicious ideas, such as you can only evolve spiritually in the FOF, if you’re lucky you will awaken in a future lifetime, and so on.
It seems to me to be more effective to drop all these concepts, and just relax into impersonal awareness. In other words, don’t make efforts to add something to Now, see that ‘you’ don’t exist, let everything drop away until there is only awareness.
Regards, Charles
March 25, 2007 at 1:01 am
No one CAN KNOW FOR CERTAIN what what going on between O and G, and for me, personally, it’s irrelevant. The people who propound “facts” , and those who latch on and help propound these “facts” are simply and clearly telling lies, to others and themselves. And that’s not just for O & G stuff.
March 25, 2007 at 1:18 am
Love Poem
Soft as your footsteps
from my door on that last day
before beginning,
gentle as your smile
my thoughts wander back.
Be quiet my mind!
your visions carry me far too far
from that silent emotion
which silences all emotion;
this clear pane from
pure pain bourn,
witness to a birth
of the common child
We the children of
fruitless form
weightlessly wait to grow.
These loves and losses
we mix with tears are trapped
in time’s still flow
into motions of experience
which feed the infant soul,
all else falls slowly from our days
like the petals from a rose.
The wind through the trees blows my leaves.
March 25, 2007 at 1:43 am
fofanatomy #85
You are not getting it. It is all the lower self, Man # 123456789.
The 3rd state is an illusion of the lower self. I AM consciousness. You can call it higher self if you wish but it is lower self calling it that, it is lower self feeling apart, not identifying, feeling, sensing it is conscious. If you want to keep going with that game go ahead but you are in for a world of hurt.
March 25, 2007 at 2:13 am
I agree with Charles, Vena and Having Been there.
Emotional life outside FOF gets richer and more interesting. I didn’t realize how much judgment toward “life people” we as members subtly accumulated. Interestingly, although RB often speaks of non-judgment toward life, he himself is judging it a lot. If you don’t think so – just go through your collection of daily cards. A lot of it is about “us” and “them”, how fortunate and awake we are and how unfortunate and mechanical they are, sleeping machines wasting their lives. We have to admit that there is a LOT of judgment and a sense of superiority in most students towards non-members. I knew I had a lot of it (wouldn’t admit it though). So, monthly fee seems to make one fortunate ascending soul, and once you didn’t pay -you’re a machine wasting your life. So funny, as if it matters at all…
So when you realize that there is no “us and them”, when judgment finally drops – communication between people becomes fun and natural, and there is a lot to learn and to enjoy and to share. Life is not a desert, it’s a garden full of delight.
Friendships based on monthly payment to FOF seem unnatural and superficial. I don’t miss “friends” who reported to the council behind my back and who now wouldn’t even say “hello” after years of what looked like close friendship on the surface. I may understand their behavior and don’t hold it agains them, but I don’t miss them.
March 25, 2007 at 2:33 am
Elena #98
I really liked what you had to say.
I apologize to all for being such a pedantic shit.
I don’t feel i have “graduated” necissarily. I was kicked out long ago and don’t feel the need for any shennanigens any more, or drama.
It is abundantly appearant that many who have passed through the fellowship are on the way to increasing understanding of the universe.
The onus is on the fellowship as it is the entity of exclusivity and division.
March 25, 2007 at 3:01 am
Dear Ellen (98)
I loved your post, very balanced.
Any path, what you need, where your play leads you..
Thank you for the name also..
Nasargatta:
Unless you make tremendous efforts, you will not be convinced that
effort will take you nowhere. The self is so self-confident that
unless it is totally discouraged it will not give up. Mere verbal
conviction is not enough. Hard facts alone can show the absolute
nothingness of the self-image.
March 25, 2007 at 3:08 am
(98) “However, I personally am oh so very glad that this is happening, since students all over the School are being confronted with the behind the scenes dirt. As this is happening on a different scale than the individual, it makes the transformation of it on a different scale possible, too.”
Would you like to elaborate?
March 25, 2007 at 3:13 am
So many words, so few faces. When one considers how much is conveyed within a single facial expression, one is tempted to speculate how long this blog would be could we see each other.
But then again…
Pen, tablet, heaven and hell I looked to see
Above the skies, from all eternity;
At last the master sage instructed me,
“Pen, tablet, heaven and hell are all in thee.”
March 25, 2007 at 3:38 am
Dear Rita,
A belated thank you for your truthful account of your painful experiences in leaving the Fellowship (part 3 no. 307). It brought to mind exactly how rare such honesty was, and apparently still is, in the Fellowship. For who can allow themselves to be vulnerable enough to express their true feelings and thoughts and questions and doubts — to simply be themselves — when the culture of the organization insists that your behavior conform to some sheer fantasy vision of what “conscious behavior” should look like?
After all these years, it is striking to see how much energy is still being tied up in controlling behavior, in looking like a “good student,” notwithstanding the Fellowship’s own saying that consciousness has nothing to do with functions.
Isn’t it bad enough that we’re trained from birth to pretend to be a person with a specific identity, without adding onto it the wholly useless suffering of this second layer of pretense?
March 25, 2007 at 3:45 am
Charles,
Excellent description (post 117) of what’s wrong with the whole concept of “me” working on “myself” so that “I” can awaken.
March 25, 2007 at 7:28 am
“The people who propound “facts” , and those who latch on and help propound these “facts” are simply and clearly telling lies, to others and themselves.”
My dear friend:
I am not interested in your lame “opinion” as I am speaking the truth.
I would not waste my time to write if there were not the possibility to at least STIR such idiots as yourself from their SLEEP.
But as G. found out from his great experiment, there are too many IDIOTS who are MASTURBATORS rather than THINKERS and sincerely WISH to be deceived.
The whole purpose of trying to explain the influence of G. and O. on the FOF is to simply point out that the 4th Way was used as “bait and switch”.
This was admitted in a heated emotional moment by RB, but you had obviously left by then and obviously STILL cannot tear yourself away from it. ARE YOU IDENTIFIED OR WHAT???
Radiccio: Who is the teacher here and who is the student?
The Foundation owes MME OUSPENSKY but NEVER Ouspensky. His VANITY prevented his POSSIBLE development. Please, do not confuse intellect with consciousness.
When Shah arrived on the scene to offer the OPPORTINITY to Bennett and his students he was not trusted. What happened is history, and a great PHOTOGRAPH to the IDIOTS who worshipped the TEACHER. But you wouldn’t know about that, would you?
March 25, 2007 at 7:43 am
“90% of the 4th Way… point directly away from awakening!”
Hi Charles (hello to A. I have not time to write):
May I ask, what other experience of the “4th Way” do you have experience of besides FOF?
I am afraid FOF is NOT the 4th Way Tradition from which Gurdjiev has come.
Surprised? Have A. write me if this means anything to you.
A hug.
March 25, 2007 at 10:13 am
Sheikh (116),
You’re right, there are more efficient places to have a discussion of this size. I suspect that the traffic here is going to continue to grow. I think that Yahoogroups.com is probably a better choice than Proboards because Yahoogroups gives you the choice of 1) reading messages on the website; 2) having them sent as individual emails; or 3) having each day’s posts sent to you as one big daily email. They also make it easy for people to find your group by simply going to Yahoogroups and typing keywords (i.e. Gurdjieff, Fellowship of Friends, etc.) into the Search box. I didn’t see anything like that on the Proboards site. In addition, each group gets a Yahoogroups website where all of the messages are archived and where, in a separate section from the messages, members can post files, photos and links.
It only takes a few minutes to set up such a group. If I were going to do it (and I have thought about it) I would call it “FOF” and for the group description I would type something like:
“Discussion forum for current, former, and prospective students of the Fellowship of Friends. News, views, questions and personal stories pertaining to the Fellowship, Robert Burton, George Gurdjieff, Peter Ouspensky, the Fourth Way, self-remembering and the spiritual search in general are welcomed and encouraged.
“It is the aim of the moderator to treat everyone on this forum with respect. Please keep the discussion civil and refrain from personal attacks.
“This e-group is in no way affiliated with or authorized by the Fellowship of Friends.”
Mark H
FOF member 1973-78
mkhovila@yahoo.com
March 25, 2007 at 11:42 am
Be Careful
Since December, 2006, a variety of cyber tactics by a group of anonymous persons have been used to harass and defame the Fellowship of Friends, it’s individual members, and it’s Founder, Robert Burton. As with everything, actions have consequences, so those who are innocent of the harassment and defamation should be careful.
At some point, this blog became a platform for recent actions, which began sometime in 2006. Matters accelerated in December, 2006, with an email addressed to certain Fellowship members, from a fictitious “Issac Assimov”. This email was harassing, false and scandalous, and contained overt anti-Semitism directed against certain Fellowship members, who would later be abused or misused in further emails and in this blog: Asaf Braverman, Linda (Kaplan) Tulisso, Kevin Brown and others.
Following this December, 2006 email, a series of emails, falsely appropriating the names and identities of Mr. Braverman and Ms. Tulisso, and other Fellowship members, were sent to the Fellowship’s membership, by an unauthorized use of the Fellowship’s private, copyrighted membership list. Those contrived emails, creating the false impression of being sent by friends and respected fellow members, directed the membership to this blog.
The misuse of this blog in these matters greatly escalated on March 1, 2007, with Volume 1, # 294, anonymous “Inner Circle Facts”, describing Mr. Burton as regularly engaging in sex with as many as 6 people simultaneously, and other related remarks. This anonymous, defamatory and harassing post was challenged as false in the blog on several occasions. Post # 294 was never substantiated, the author never identified themselves, and the post was not removed.
Post #294 is false. The incidents in #294, and other extreme, anonymous, unsubstantiated posts, before and after # 294, never occurred. This has been denied by Mr. Burton and others with direct personal knowledge. In addition, Mr. Burton, at age 67, for some years now has not had the health, stamina and physical vigor to walk very far up a moderate incline without assistance. The gymnastics described in post #294, even if possible at all for a young athlete in prime condition, are impossible for Mr. Burton at his age and state of health.
By March 3, 2007, within 2 days of Post Vol. 1, #294, anonymous emailers, using stolen names of current and former Fellowship members, extracted Post #294 and republished it word for word directly to the private, copyrighted membership list, without consent by the members or the Fellowship.
The same anonymous emailers have sent at least two rounds of virus infected emails to members on the membership list.
The blog has at least twice published posts by persons using the false, misappropriated names of Asaf Braverman and Linda Tulisso.
The blog, as recently as March 24, 2007, has repeatedly published copyrighted Fellowship materials, links to copyrighted Fellowship material, and other proprietary Fellowship information.
As of this date, several of the sources of the cyber materials discussed above have been traced. It is also known who stole the identities of several members and former members. There are several likely candidates for the author of the scandalous Post #294.
A second Be Careful post will be sent tomorrow with further details and denials of other anonymous, unsubstantiated and defamatory remarks on the blog.
This is an official reply by Mr. Burton and the Fellowship of Friends.
If you have comments or information you would like to privately share, please use the following email address set up for this specific purpose. All communications will kept confidential: arjunavishnu@gmail.com
March 25, 2007 at 2:54 pm
It goes both ways. Someone says that, the FoF says this, others disagree with both. I believe that it is up to the reader to make sense of what he finds in the world. A lot of the things said by the FoF are outright lies, just as a lot of things you will read on the blog will be outright lies. Do you need the FoF to tell you what’s true and what’s not? Before you answer that question, try to see the situation through the eyes of the FoF leadership and imagine what your actions would be if you were facing the same challenge as they are.
Be Careful (131): The same anonymous emailers have sent at least two rounds of virus infected emails to members on the membership list.
That’s just a scare tactic. You can not receive a virus through opening an e-mail. You would have to either click a link, or open an attachment. Opening an e-mail and reading the text is completely harmless.
As of this date, several of the sources of the cyber materials discussed above have been traced. It is also known who stole the identities of several members and former members. There are several likely candidates for the author of the scandalous Post #294.
I doubt it.
Why are they so aggressive? Spam, anonymity, and freedom of speech are the reality of a modern life. Most people would just ignore it, or get used to it. Why make such a fuss?
March 25, 2007 at 3:05 pm
to charles, what is the 5% that you believe has some value?
March 25, 2007 at 3:10 pm
To Raptus RR: “long discussion but little to say”–that is why I was asking if you are the same person as Simon? I guess we are many I’s?
To Charles, what is the 5% you did find useful? And is that 5% not worth 100% of its weight in gold?
March 25, 2007 at 3:42 pm
To # 131
I’m afraid you are showing your real face now with this post….
“As with everything, actions have consequences, so those who are innocent of the harassment and defamation should be careful.”
Are you really meaning this ?? (innocents should be careful?).
Strange way to intimidate people.
March 25, 2007 at 3:42 pm
Inner Confusion: “Spam, anonymity, and freedom of speech are the reality of a modern life.”
Yes, this blog practically put evidence to following facts:
In any field anything of value has to be payed for.
Esoteric School Work is designed to be developed by a circles of initiated guided by a Teacher with the Being to hold to his role.
As a School, contacts with contemporary life should be keeped to functional matters. Public appearances, including internet, of the teaching, should happen on a different form than the Core Work of the actual School.
Initiated should be as invisible as their inner work while being able to deal with ordinary life on a daily basis.
Contact with former students of the School should be avoided in any form, not to waste energy both ways.
Lesson Observed! Thank you!
March 25, 2007 at 4:06 pm
To, Be Careful.
“This is an official reply by Mr Burton and the Felloship of Friends”,Post 4/131
+
“official” extra publicity on hot-post 1/294
=
?
I doubt it is “an official reply” at all.
But the effects… Oh! strong shut!
On which diretion I would not be able to say though !
Ok, I might have to think about it a bit longer.
One formulation of a valid question could be:
Who benefits from sending such a letter ?
“so those who are innocent…should be careful.”
I think I like this part most!
March 25, 2007 at 4:15 pm
RE: Post #131 – Be Careful
Thank God for this post! Nothing could more clearly reveal the “essence” of the FOF than this iron fist.
Glad it can be seen.
March 25, 2007 at 4:16 pm
We are defensive when we feel threatened, and try to protect ourselves. This is natural, yet we need to examine what it is that feels threatened, and let go of our precious ‘sense of self’, not feel afraid of finding that most of what we see is a sham; the different ‘me’s’ trying to maintain their sense of reality. The more we are able to see this, the more fun experiencing it all is, and the more we see others doing exactly the same….idiots one and all!
More quotes (I do love ’em!):
Have you learned the lessons only of those who admired you, and were tender with you, and stood aside for you? Have you not learned great lessons from those who braced themselves against you, and disputed passage with you?
Walt Whitman
Don’t be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you. Be not ashamed of mistakes and thus make them crimes.
Confucius
All faults may be forgiven of him who has perfect candor.
Walt Whitman
Be not the slave of your own past. Plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep and swim far, so you shall come back with self-respect, with new power, with an advanced experience that shall explain and overlook the old.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
March 25, 2007 at 4:58 pm
FACT*******
I’M STAYING A EX-MEMBER FOR EVER NOW!
MY DECISION WAS NOT MADE DUE TO WHAT ANY EX-STUDENT STATED OR UPSET CURRENT MEMBER HAS WRITTEN IN THIS BLOG.
I MADE IT DUE TO GIRARD’S OWN WORDS. I REREAD HIS BOOK “CREATING A SOUL”. UPOND READING CHAPTER 8 “SEX AND AIDS” I READ IT WHILE BEING IN THE PRESENT.
MARY BATTISTA
MARYS_ANGELS@PEOPLEPC.COM
March 25, 2007 at 5:07 pm
I remember, in the days when hand set printing presses were in fashion, that Robert said there would always be five or more independent printing presses operating at Renaissance. He said it was important that there would always be freedom of the press in the new civilization we were forming.
To me, this blog seems more like ‘Letters to the Editor’ than journalism. There are established traditions of anonymous letters being published, especially so when the writer is fearful that disclosure of identity may draw retaliation from authority figures or at the least unwanted personal attention. Nevertheless, I am concerned about persons masquerading as others – it is a form of deception – and although some if its intention can be a simple playfulness – at the other end of the spectrum it is intended to hurt and wound. A move to a yahoo group or suchlike, might preserve the right to be anonymous hiding behind an avatar, yet prevent someone from duplicitously pretending to be someone else.
Freedom of the press is not an absolute. Libel laws are there to protect persons from malicious lies. Public persons will always expose themselves to negative personal attacks on their conduct of viewpoints – that is the way of the world. And just by posting here one becomes public too – and subject to that form of attack. However downright lying about someone with malicious intent to deceive is I believe libel, and there are laws of most countries to prevent this. I support those laws. But it is a sorry world where those laws have to be invoked. Deliberate lying about another person poisons the well. Our discussions will flourish and bring us closer to understanding, and genuine communication when we do our best to speak our Truth. When G & O admonished us about lying, it was the unintentional lying of speaking about what one did not know. We all have a tendency do this to a greater or lesser degree – but this is related to self-awareness and personal growth. If there are some amongst us who are maliciously spreading falsehoods about RB or anyone – let the consequences fall on their heads. But those of us who are speaking the truths of our hearts and minds in this open forum have nothing to fear. And we should support the freedom of the press.
March 25, 2007 at 5:24 pm
Post #131 sounds like it’s coming from a desperate business protecting it’s income rather than an esoteric school.
Why would a genuine school of awakening give a hoot about what anybody is saying? One quote I remember from my time in the FOF was ” false pesonality (ego) defends itself.”
It seems that each time the FOF coments on this blog, there is a lack of understanding that this is the way things must go.
Acceptance, will of God, influence C. Call it what you like.
Everything is OK and just as it should be.
All of this noise should be of no consequence to a school whose primary objective is the awakening of it’s members. If we go to battle we’ve already lost.
Perhaps the FOF should relax, keep the aim on the awakening of it’s members, and stop defending itself.
PS. Six little poops?
March 25, 2007 at 5:41 pm
#131
Now this certainly brings back some bad memories. ‘Be Careful. Watch out.’ Why would a school that preaches love to its members behave in this fashion? My solar plexus had a reaction like a mini-eruption.
March 25, 2007 at 6:04 pm
To all those concerned about the sex rompings described in #294, I believe the concern should not be in the particular sexual activities described but the emotional and physical damage done to its naive and idealistic participants. I’ve never heard that addressed by the inner circle of the FOF. What about a letter addressing that point?
March 25, 2007 at 6:25 pm
What Observe (136): Hahahahahaha.
Esoteric School Work is designed to be developed by a circles of initiated guided by a Teacher with the Being to hold to his role.
This rule has been followed for centuries, we know where it led. Now it seems to me that the gates are slowly opening and more and more is escaping into our little confused world. The speed with which change is taking place nowadays is astounding. Equally so, people seem to be awakening on a massive scale, the FoF is just a small ripple in a very large pond. It seems to me that the less rigid and secluded the world becomes, the more potential there is for growth. There will be chaos, there will be confusion, but the potential for greatness is there.
Always yours, eternally confused.
March 25, 2007 at 6:31 pm
Be careful…I would be careful if I was you.
You want more facts? We have plenty.
What a pile of Bull…R. doesn’t have the stamina!!
I have experience his stamina for years and I know a lot about it. I don’t want to describe it in details because I think it’s beside the point. But, my friend, if you are serious…be VERY careful yourself.
Just write more stuff like this and we can really have some fun.
Not very scared. Andrea
March 25, 2007 at 6:43 pm
Post 4/139, Mary Battista:
What happend to you ? For those who do not not have the book you refer to
(Girard Heaven, “Creating a soul”)
please, go further with your sharing.
It occured to me that the Monty Python’s film “The life of brian” was born, as a “comedy”, out of the idea that EVEYTHING can happen when everyone is looking for a Messahia…
So well done, so unfortunaltely accurate and funny!
What happends now if you are looking for “the end of time”, an Apocalyps its Anti-Christ and so on ?
The “Domsday code” will do ?
The Maya calendar (2012) will do ?
Robert Burton will do ?
One major requirement to all is: disorder. Disorder should prevail so that “a new world order” can emerge…
Brrrrrrrrrr!
Be careful! Some books might be burning already!
One more remark on post 4/131.
So little, actually nothing at all, about consciousness…
Brrrrrrrrrrrrr!
Lucky it is not “official” or is it ?
March 25, 2007 at 6:52 pm
okay I’m on a roll: (I will use ‘work language’)
(Example of former FOF student meeting an FOF student somewhere in life, you pick your place).
Former Student, asleep and still using work ideas:
1. Maybe I’ll just walk the other way so I don’t have to inner consider.
2. I really don’t want to deal with this today. What if they ignore me or I go into fear?
3. What the heck is the matter with those people? Haven’t they woken up yet to how stupid this is?
Present student asleep using work ideas:
1. Remember what Robert says if we ignore them they might come back.
2. They are just life people now who cares?
3. Maybe if I remember myself they will walk the other way.
Former or present member of FOF using presence, compassion and understanding.
Hi. How are you? I haven’t seen you in a while. Nice to see you again.
Duh!
March 25, 2007 at 6:53 pm
“…eternally confused.”
Exactly what is being observed!
March 25, 2007 at 6:56 pm
I agree with post #141 (Chortle Mortal) that this forum’s downside is that ananymous posters exaggerate and lie about others. on previous pages it has been mentioned that the report of “inner circle facts” seemed highly exaggerated and false and no one came forward to verify it, it was all second-hand gossip. it is surprising that a number of bloggers seem to simply accept it as truth.
the only other one who wrote, Simon, refused to really discuss his “story” (end of Blog 2, beginnin of Blog 3) and just took off, and reincarnated into a Raptor. cute.
for all the rest, this forum is what it is, i am learning things from it, although this is not the most useful part of my study, it helps to see myself and my reactions.
March 25, 2007 at 7:01 pm
To Mary Battista:
You were not long enough in the FOF, or even in any so called “psychological” work, otherwise you would be looking at wordds like “forever”, “never”, “always” or any absolute of a similar kind as being suspicious.
No complains… It makes you post “fresh”. Thank you for that!
I resume:
Yesterday, a sincere FOF but reduced to knock at a door, which, because of the money, stayed closed.
Today a sincere ex FOF because of some words in a book appearing in chapter going around “sex and AIDS”.
Tomorrow ?
With the same “sincerity” please…
I feel you, through your words because I recognise so much… This mirror story I heard about, somewhere, must hold some truth!
Are you paying “my” bills ?
Together.
March 25, 2007 at 7:07 pm
What a distorted vision! (Post 131) Out of 1000 plus great thoughtful sincere posts on this blog they focused on 3 or 4 most graphic ones… What about the rest? Based on a couple abrasive posts they condemn the whole blog as something awful. It’s like in the story when a guy saw tiny little birds but haven’t noticed the elephant. Obviously, free expression, questioning and thinking means nothing to FOF, has no value and not even worth acknowledging.
I don’t recall reading here anything offensive and “defaming” aboult Linda and Asaf, may be it was missed…Which posts are these?
As for orgies – well, pretty much everyone knows that this stuff takes place, participants themselves talk about it, share details with friends… What, it doesn’t happen? Please. We all know. Strange that such offense was taken to “gymnastics”. Being 67 and attributed such great physical condition – why not take it as a compliment?
I think that most people read this blog not because of these few sexual postings. After all, most of it is not new. The discussion explores other, more interesting directions and has voiced some neglected emotional issues within FOF.
I agree with Let it be (142) – it all sure sounds more like a corporate business protecting itself, rather than a letter from a “conscious school”. Where is acceptance of what is, why so much defence? Why care about such petty stuff if the school is about developing consciousness in it’s participants? Or – is it about keeping members in check and keeping the money coming in?
This letter just makes FOF look even worse, kind of shows it’s real face, without a smiling mask. Not to say that this letter gave much extra fuel to the blog, and more people will now feel compelled to speak up.
Yes, innocents, beware!
March 25, 2007 at 7:15 pm
You-me-us-they (147): I am not so sure about the disorder, I didn’t exactly mean that kind of chaos and confusion. It seems to me that there are more and more people who have become enlightened (whatever that means), who have awakened (whatever that represents), people who influence the world around them. It seems to me that the time in which we live brings with it a lot more changes than the previous times. Things are going fast, and it is pretty exciting. There won’t be any anti-christs, armageddons, or an end of time, unless we create them.
As to the 2012 prediction, it is quite controversial, but it doesn’t necessarily signify destruction. The take that Terrence McKenna and Grant Morrison took on the 2012 issue is that there is a possibility that humanity will finally realise its true potential, release the shackles that bodies and minds have over consciousness, and rise as free and pure consciousness, this being the next step in evolution. While this belief is as ridiculous as anything that RB may have ever predicted, it is a much more positive and fun vision than simple destruction and death. It’s easy to predict destruction and death, it requires little effort or imagination. At the end of the day, remember what happened to Nostradamus’s predictions, ie. they didn’t happen. Was he the only one? Hardly.
What Observe (149): Hop onto the bait and hold with all your strength.
March 25, 2007 at 7:42 pm
To What Observe: you said ” Contact with former students of the School should be avoided in any form, not to waste energy both ways.”
Well, what the heck are you doing here on this blog then? :)Wasting energy? For “initiated and invisible” observer you are quite visible and have a lot to say, usually pretty rigid, condescendent and judgmental. Do you agree? Does this contradiction of your words and actions bother you at all?
May be it will be more honest to use a name What Judges instead of What Observes…
Listen, I am just messing with you, please don’t get mad – without your posts it will be not so fun here, so please, keep posting! What observes in you and me and everyone is not affected by what is being observed.
March 25, 2007 at 8:18 pm
Chortle Mortal in Post 141:
“Freedom of the press is not an absolute. Libel laws are there to protect persons from malicious lies… Deliberate lying about another person poisons the well. Our discussions will flourish and bring us closer to understanding, and genuine communication when we do our best to speak our Truth.”
——
Chortle’s comments are beautifully articulated, and I agree with them. Unless the level of denial is much worse than I realized (which is always possible), it’s hard for most of us to know whether or not Post #294 on Page 1 by “Inner Circle Facts” is true or not (although I can see that some of the posters say they believe it or have heard of it from current members). If it’s NOT true, than what concerns me about such posts is that they may effectively obscure — for some people anyway –- the other numerous concerns that many of us have about RB and the Fellowship. Intentionally or unintentionally, the post simply acts as a “straw man.”
Note: “A straw man argument is a logical fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent’s position. To ‘set up a straw man’ or ‘set up a straw-man argument’ is to create a position that is easy to refute, then attribute that position to the opponent. A straw-man argument can be a successful rhetorical technique (that is, it may succeed in persuading people) but it is in fact a misleading fallacy, because the opponent’s actual argument has not been refuted.”
Post #294 may not be “easy to refute,” but if it’s a lie or an exaggeration, then the post simply obscures our discussion. Imagining for a moment that “Inner Circle Facts” never posted those comments, there would still be plenty for us to reflect upon in this blog.
By the way, about the comments in Post #131: Who knows whether or not that is truly an official statement. If it is, it simply calls attention to a mindset within the Fellowship that many of us have described in this blog. Whatever our definition of a “conscious school,” many of us don’t believe that the spreading of fear, the use of intimidation, and the suppression of the free flow of information are qualities you would find in one. (We can find that elsewhere.)
One more thought about the “straw man” definition: The word “opponent” is used three times in that definition. But in the final analysis, I would like to believe there is really no “us” and “them” going on here. Ultimately, many of us are trying to describe our perceptions and views about the Fellowship, and each of us may have our own reason or reasons for doing this. But I have to ask the question again (since no one answered Post #104 above):
Does anyone within the Fellowship disagree that this discussion –- which hopefully encourages a form of reflection and critical thinking –- is beneficial for our inner work? Beneficial for each other? Beneficial for the school?
Can I assume that since no one from the Fellowship has yet answered this question, that everyone agrees that open discussion is what we need?
March 25, 2007 at 8:20 pm
Dear Little Lamb #150
If you read the text of my posting #141 a little more carefully, you will see that I did not make the statements you are agreeing with.
a) I am in favor of anonymous postings for reasons given above
b) I said that if people are maliciously lying they should reap the consequences. But I have no way of knowing if anyone is doing this or not and did not accuse anyone of doing so. I would more agree with #152. Look at the Elephant!
To clarify, some of my intentions for posting #141 are:
– To show those trying to stifle this discussion the limits of their power and influence
– To remind everyone that RB was once a supporter of Freedom of the Press.
– To encourage Seekers After Truth. Feel free to post. Your are amongst friends.
Mr. or Ms. Lamb, the downside you are perceiving comes from your own subjectivity. You mention “helps to see myself and my reactions”. I think you if you compare my posting with your interpretation then you will see reactivity. Well nothing wrong in that – I am reacting too in the same way that I reacted to an earlier posting. I have some knowledge of the roots of that reactivity for me, and no doubt there are deeper layers which I am still to be acquainted with. It could be interesting for you to look into why you reacted that way. I honestly believe that. Were you spontaneously reacting to something in the present, or did the present remind you of something or some things in the past, and was your response evoked more by those patterns in your soul than the present moment? I ask myself those questions – and offer that questioning to you…..
David
March 25, 2007 at 8:31 pm
“Well, what the heck are you doing here on this blog then?”
Well,…. observing? And the statements formulated from observation are meant to create more observation, more relativity, and a state of separation from what is observed. (For them that are given to be able to do it and Hold to the effort.)
“What observes in you and me and everyone is not affected by what is being observed.”
Exactly!!! Let’s! Stay! Here!
March 25, 2007 at 8:38 pm
Post #131.Be careful……AHAHAHAAA!This is brilliant ! I can hardly wait for tommorrows posting to see the FOf shoot itself in the other foot IN FULL PUBLIC VIEW
March 25, 2007 at 8:45 pm
Just some thoughts about the “no contact” with former students exercise that is so much spoken about these days.
There certainly is some psychological foundation to this idea. The way it is first related in “search of the miraculous” was however a different context than the way the FOF applies it.
One reason this idea was introduced by RB was because he knew he had to perpetuate the organisation over time and to avoid that people leaving would influence the others remaining.
How many would have stayed so many years in the school if connections among members and ex members would have been allowed ?
This shows the mixing up that occurred between psychological quest and the emotional aspect of a community.
March 25, 2007 at 8:57 pm
To Mark H #87,
You are right, in your advice to John.
Mr. Ouspensky did warn all that think about “working”, not to start unless they are really convinced, less they “will loose all that they gained and more” (Note to the work, Psychology of mans possible evolution).
You are (and most blogers in this site) a proof for Ouspensky’s advice. See what has become of you: A bitter man that dwells in the company of imaginary evil.
Continue, because you must. This is the Curse of the hell that you are in.
March 25, 2007 at 9:39 pm
Hello “Little Lamb”, as you are determinded to play my Nemesis, I shall confess that I am neither Raptus nor Simon, just as I don’t believe you to be a “little lamb” – a wolf possibly. However, as you correctly say – I am certainly many I’s. But you know I’m kinda cool with that! Besides, my best friends have always had many I’s. It’s the silent persons that make me nervous…
That said, what I have stated during my posts to the best of my knowledge is genuine. I have refrained from going into certain details as I regard them as somewhat unsavory and probably unnessary, though I have seriously considered writing a chapter especially for you entitled: “Sharing a Spring Roll on a Ming Mattress” (with illustrations). If you give me an e-mail address I’ll send it on.
Apart from that I’ll stick by my name Raptus Regaliter and all that it stands for and as I have stated previously I do not consider myself free from rebuke.
Raptus Repudiated
March 25, 2007 at 10:44 pm
No Person: 154
“What observes in you and me and everyone is not affected by what is being observed.”
Thank you for pointing that out. This is at the core of Zen and non-dualistic teachings. What is aware is not, and has never been, touched or diminished by what it is aware of. Awareness has never suffered, and if our true nature is awareness, then we have never and will never suffer.
March 25, 2007 at 10:46 pm
Thank you, Rita, for acknowledging me in your post #94. I have enjoyed your posts as well — very much so. This kind of appreciation of each other is something I’ve wondered about from the beginning. That is, it can be hard to know just who is getting what out of any given message. We send our thoughts into the ether of the internet, and they can often feel lost amongst the different threads that develop throughout the day. I know that I read every post with interest, even the longest ones or ones I don’t particularly agree with. There are some truly remarkable voices on this blog — wise, intelligent and funny. There are so many posts that I find fascinating, that cast a different light on a familiar issue — I would have written a hundred posts saying “Me too!” or “That’s great!” but I don’t want to clog up the blog with these. So anyway, here’s one big THANKS to all the great bloggers on this site. It’s a really awesome thing the Sheik has managed to pull together, while contributing mightily himself.
March 25, 2007 at 11:17 pm
On the subject of emotional life after leaving the Fellowship that people started talking about yesterday, today’s message from the teacher is that “eternal friendships are part of the greatness of schools”.
Some of us have spent practically our entire adult lives in the FOF, and really have nothing to compare our FOF friendships against. Fellowship provides safety: anywhere we go there will always be someone who will be willing to be our friend, even if we’ve just met, and even if we don’t see each other again for years. If we’ve been good students and minimizing contact with “life”, leaving means we would suddenly be alone in the world. Whereas if we stay in the school we are assured “eternal friendships”. Hmmm…
Once you look at the situation honestly and realize that leaving really is not a choice but an inevitability, you are naked, a naive little baby, alienated from any connections you may have had before the Fellowship, just landed on this planet, not even sure how to make friends in life without the guarantee that when we meet, you will be my friend because we believe the same things, go to the same events and echo familiar phrases to each other for mutual reassurance of a connection.
That is not to say that deeper friendships do not exist in the Fellowship, but the words “friend” and “friendship” are much abused, and the majority of “friends” are more superficial. So you have to discover all over again (or maybe for the first time) what making friends means.
This is more than a little scary, especially if you’ve lived at the heart of the school and your neighbors will now pretend to not know you. You even think you can’t go reaching out for new friends and acquaintances now because you would just be seeking another flock to belong to. You are wary of the whole concept of having friends, because it evokes associations of the “fellowship of friends”, and you don’t trust yourself not to fall into that trap again. You don’t want to contact ex-students who you used to think of as friends, because the thought that you would just be looking for more consolation or desperately trying to resurrect a past that is no more, makes you sick, as much as the thought that you ignored them when they left. You have to deal with your own judgment and ideas that were instilled in you, you don’t even know when: Why would I want to invest my energy in life people, what do I hope to gain. They’re acting mechanical. I should be brief, polite and official with life people. There’s no guarantee that they will even want to be my friends. I might be disappointed.
What a pretty mess. I’d like to hear if anyone has experienced or observed this, and what has followed out of it.
March 25, 2007 at 11:45 pm
To Esoteric Sheik,
You have started a snow ball of reactions from bitter disillusioned people who cling to it to their own doom. It seems, that all started just because: You thought that the men in the red sports car was a member of FOF. all you remember from your encounter is the doorman nicely dressed (oh yes, cult members should be sitting on the floor, drugged with inscent burning in a filthy room). You missed practically most what they try to convey to you. Now, you have the support of a bunch of bitter man.
To all other complainer. Some facts for narrow minds:
You are not allowed to smoke on any airplane.
Neither in any movie theater.
No drinking and driving (sue the police)
Every excercise of the FOF is time limited and had a purpose. Nobody was thrown out for breaking an excercise.
Gurdieff did expell people from his group.
Nobody is forcing anyone to participate in any event. All events are put on video and can be viewed for a small fee.
Movie theaters are flooded with movies about celebs and their lush living, as people like to dream about this type of life. The go also to visit palaces and manisons. We in the FOF don’t dream: we enjoy it.
A closing remark: somewhere in the Bible it stands “when Gods wants to punish a person, He takes away his understanding”. For you guys, in your hand it will be used as a two edged sword. Better put your energy aginst the IRS. Maybe you will be able to pay less taxes.
March 25, 2007 at 11:53 pm
Reaction on post 4/146, Foolofit.
At first, your ciber name appeared to me as
FULL-OF-IT… It was fun to come back to what you choosed as your name for your post !
As a signature, Andrea is simply perfect.
Are you Russian ?
Since you have some facts to offer, do it!
Not that we would become free “voyeuristes” of otherwise expensive fantasies recorded on DVD for sale in specialised shops, but because it connects to a possible hypothesis:
Robert Burton is sick!
Meaning, could a sick man be a guide?
Not talking about the past
(when he, perhaps,”got it”).
Not talking about feeling “graduated”
(I do not need the FOF any longer).
Focussing on now… right now!
On post 4/131, I am looking forward for the second part…
March 26, 2007 at 12:16 am
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I feel neither bitter nor disillusioned, neither about my life now or the years in the FOF. But David, as a representative of “the work” you’re coming off like a real schmuck. Keep talking.
March 26, 2007 at 12:18 am
Dear all,
Do you want to verify we are having questions other had ?
I have a proposal:
A trip through Europe for only 2 “images” painted by Bruegel:
-1558 (?) Bruxelles, Belgium, “The fall of Icarus”
The man wanted to fly, he falls in a pond while a man is working his land. Indifference… an “accident”…
-1568, Prado, Spain, “The fall of the blinds”, a collection of cripples following a cripple, all faling of course!
If you can’t take any time off to stand in from of the “real thing”, no problem, Google will rescue you.
Remember: “Bruegel”
Wonderful time we live in!
March 26, 2007 at 12:23 am
David Dalton (165): Cool. If you read my article carefully (that is, if you finished reading it) you may have had a different opinion of it. I don’t think that you got what I was trying to convey, neither do I think that you understood what a lot of people in here are trying to say (there aren’t so many bitter souls in here). You think I missed out in my prospective meeting, I think you are missing out right now, right here. But here I am, trying to learn from you and others like you, while you accuse others of clinging to their own doom.
Weekends are always fun, they bring out the best in people.
March 26, 2007 at 12:27 am
#165
Dalton bro’,
Let’s not believe ‘I’s about the sheick’s ‘I’s because that will be missing the Mark.
From common Observation point he is missing everything. And he is right! All his ‘I’s: right!! 😉
Just acting on life level.
WO
March 26, 2007 at 12:41 am
Dear David “160”
“Continue, because you must.” is a quote from Goethe, another “hell” dweller.
Ouspensky’s warning is valid (though often over stated) considering the infinite naivete’ involved stepping onto any spiritual path.
Of course, i know you are regurgitating stuff you have read and know nothing about.
But if you think there is some particular kind of “hell” former students experience name a time and place in the greater Bay Area and i will be happy to meet and introduce you to a piece of it.
March 26, 2007 at 12:43 am
Traveler (#164): This beautifully, and painfully, expresses what I suspect many of us have felt. I certainly know these “I’s” well.
We each are veterans of the same great struggle, part of which is to face who we are. That we share a goal, a language and some common experiences unites those here even more.
From my experience, without exception, former FOF members have been welcoming, caring and refreshingly vital. And this does cause me to marvel at the nature of our bond.
Fear is natural, and it passes. Be thankful for all you’ve been given thus far, be humble, and be open to all the kindness around you, from whatever source it may come.
March 26, 2007 at 12:44 am
To David Dalton (no. 165, “a snow ball of reactions from bitter disillusioned people who cling to it to their own doom”):
I’m curious: Is your venom and superciliousness part of the official course of study in the Fellowship of Friends, or is it just something personal with you?
March 26, 2007 at 1:02 am
In response to Traveller (164):
The fear of being friendless is common amongst FOF people who are thinking about leaving. I left about six months ago and have found these fears to be groundless.
I’m still close friends with several FOF members. The deep friendships remain and in fact grow. The many shallow friendships fall away – no great loss!
I’m also friendly with a number of former students – there’s quite a community in Oregon House. Those who have recently left are in some cases thinking of moving away, and in other cases planning to stay because they like it here.
And people who were never students are also friends. The illusory notion that non-students are in some way inferior has completely disappeared, thank the Lord.
In short, there’s nothing to worry about!
March 26, 2007 at 1:09 am
Dear Traveler (post no. 164):
Thank you for your sincere questions about friendships after the FOF. An excellent subject! There is so much to say about this, but two thoughts, briefly.
First is that life only gets better and broader after you leave; as the programming of the FOF begins to wash out of you, you open to life, and you see that the little cult in the red dirt of the Foothills has no monopoly on awareness, or on friendship for that matter.
Second is regarding contacting former students who were once good friends. If you’re embarrassed in their eyes at having stayed in the FOF for so long, you should be. (No! just kidding!) Actually, there’s no need to be embarrassed. Anyone who was your friend in the FOF and departed was him- or herself a dues-paying member, possibly for many years. So we’re all fools here, we just have different timing.
And if you’re embarrassed at having cut your friends off as per FOF policy, well, your friends probably did that to others in their day. My guess is that your old friends would be delighted to hear from you again.
March 26, 2007 at 1:57 am
“When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all of your thoughts break their bonds. Your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new and a great and a wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties, and talents come alive, and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be.”
– Patanjali
March 26, 2007 at 2:05 am
Traveler said: Post #164:
“That is not to say that deeper friendships do not exist in the Fellowship, but the words “friend” and “friendship” are much abused, and the majority of “friends” are more superficial. So you have to discover all over again (or maybe for the first time) what making friends means.”
——
As some people have mentioned, it’s rather odd that friends would suddenly disappear from your life after leaving the Fellowship. It does make you wonder what kind of “friend” would adopt that attitude, even when it is presented as a rule or a “task” from the group’s leader. But it begins to make more sense when you realize that many of the friendships in the Fellowship (although not all friendships) are based on a sense of superiority over 7 billion people — and not on a more genuine connection that comes through common experience, understanding, and love.
Many of us have been on both ends of this strange dynamic.
A few people have tried to explain the logic behind the rule — that it makes sense given the fact that many former members express negative attitudes toward the school, and that it would distract the current members. But I do see another reason that friendships disintegrate after someone leaves the school — and it has nothing to do with the idea that students are diligently following a rule, or with the idea that avoiding contact will help someone to return. And here it is:
Leaving the Fellowship is a fairly blunt “photograph” to all current members.
You’re suggesting to people you left behind that their worldview may be delusional. If you really believed the concepts presented to you — that your soul will lose all possibilities by leaving — then naturally you wouldn’t leave. Simply by leaving, you’re quickly calling into question the attitudes of everyone who has remained behind. In some cases, you’re even calling into question their sanity.
That sort of “photograph” is usually not a good thing for a friendship.
On the other hand, offering a blunt photograph was not actually the intention of former members. Many people who leave the fof hold an enormous amount of compassion for friends they leave behind. They’ve been there. They understand the groupthink and other forces that make leaving so difficult. And they wish everyone well.
——
Meanwhile, as Traveler described, it can be more than a small challenge to make friendships outside the Fellowship and the process can be painful, because in many cases you have built your entire life around the Fellowship. But it is not impossible to build a new life, and many of the contributors to this blog offer a nice hint of that.
When I first saw the Patanjali quotation in my previous post, I thought of the initial excitement of joining the Fellowship and the tremendous sense of purpose that I shared with so many other members. Part of me believes the quotation could still apply to the Fellowship. I only hope that is not yet another layer of denial — another part of me that simply does not wish to believe what I’m seeing.
But today I posted the quote mainly as an offering to all who have left the Fellowship or who are thinking of leaving. Could Patanjali’s beautiful vision also apply to us?
March 26, 2007 at 2:28 am
FOF is mathematical (to use old term). Terrible contradictions in RB lead to inevitable conflict within strong students that means eventually have to leave FOF. (less strong students, also). Say all this as one who has “loved” the Fellowship, and used to be so proud of her….
Listen carefully, RB makes distinction between Teacher and Robert. Maybe to be like Christ and Jesus?
But, Robert behavior overwhelm Teacher – much larger scale (number of male students, most not homosexual) than people here may suspect. With those who seem stable, and with those who seem not so. Often, after in FOF only short time. RB may not true homosexual, indicates to many that real gender is female. (But also does not like female).
Infra-sex big part. Produce more suffering than many realize. Shame, broken hearts, crush magnetic center, depression, shame, leave school, shame – and from distance (so, not fully certain) – appears to have contributed to number of emotional and psychotic breakdowns – and possibly a few more serious.
Those at top know this true, but buffer implications – maybe try not to know. Or like Girard One-Angle, under guise of Will, play intellectual game with a priori conclusion ever-unchecked-by-reality (RB says sky is red, then sky IS red). Little joke: Will as cultured ignorance, disagree with your point, but defend to the death your right to feign stupidity everlasting.
Current perspective here (radically changed since old days) seems like RB was Man 4 once, with exceptional mechanical gifts of charisma, natural teaching, saturnine bearing, sanguine emotional presence. But, irony, crystallization did likely occur. Not cause for celebration. Fuse terrible Robert behavior and gifts, with Teacher’s inability to transcend the lower. Robert behavior can not stop since. What does 4th Way say about wrong crystallization? Little joke: quick, better stop teaching 4th Way.
So, FOF is school with ceiling. Helps many students to a point, hurts many also. Most strong older students leave / left. Humbly, many older students who have stayed were / are damaged, and can no longer easily leave – could not fare well in life. What was opportunity, now warehousing (smaller joke). But better to not blame victim (glass house), so still say – not too late, come, come out, come out to the light……
Little joke: Teacher blame student when they leave, often with ugly little epigram. (Fear not the epigram; they are as payment for God’s delivery of Israel, “Ye mountains, that ye skipped like rams; and ye little hills, like lambs?”)
FOF on descending octave for long time now. RB stop active teaching, strong students keep leaving, payment method change due to changing nature of students, form over substance, money preoccupation, RB withdrawal, interpretations, failed prophesies, minimal centralized gathering, buying expensive forgeries, diminished accountability, continued sexual weakness – abuse of power, failed vineyard and winery, compulsive shopping, property mortgaged, weak older students, encourage tattle-tale and betrayal, move away from 4th Way.
Descending octave is all there for those who have eyes to see. Not mysterious; very plain.
When buffer drops and strong student feel conscience – leaving is matter of time. Almost always true. Time between conscience and leaving is difficult. But for strong and less strong, after FOF can be and mostly is rich time – philosophy and gains still work on The Way. Shocks still shock; understandings still understand; Cave shadows can still point way to sunlight. Leave correctly, may not need another Teacher.
There was mother who had number of children. They were active and sometimes wayward children but good at heart. But mother was preoccupied with herself. She got older, children annoyed her. She grew bitter and cynical about life in old age – and later died. And she never knew or really understood biggest thing about her own life. The gift unvalued: that universe had worked though her to give life unto itself.
Allons.
March 26, 2007 at 3:09 am
Oh what fun! Mr. Dalton(165) says “nobody was thrown out for breaking an exercise”. How long have you been in the FOF? 24 hours?
By the way, you wouldn’t be one of those students who lights up as soon as he gets home from a Fellowship event, would you? Yes, that funny picture you painted of “a cult member sitting on the floor drugged with incense burning” is also a part of your dear school!
Why so angry, David? And you too little lamb/crybaby? Have any of us big bad ex-students ever tried to hurt you personally? Seems like the bitterness you are projecting onto others is really coming from you!
March 26, 2007 at 5:00 am
Concerning post 4/165 by David Dalton:
The quotation you perhaps are thinking of, attributed to the Bible (“when Gods wants to punish a person, He takes away his understanding”), is more likely from ancient Greece:
‘When gods in anger seek a mortal’s harm,
first they deprive him of his sanity,
and fashion of his mind a baser instrument,
that he may have no knowledge wherein he errs.’
Lycurgus c.396-c.325 B.C.
There is a long story about how this passage arrived in documentation for a prosecution, by an overzealous political figure, Lycurgus. It is reported to be the only existing document from Lycurgus, who was said to be, ‘one of the ‘ten’ Attic orators.’ It is too long and somewhat besides the point here. You can research it on the net. But here is one possible view of it found:
‘There’s an old Greek adage that dates back to Lycurgus of Sparta [location likely erroneous]: ‘When falls on man the anger of the gods, first from his mind they banish understanding.’ Or as Longfellow put it, ‘Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad.’ The theory is that, once driven to the point of insanity, the protagonist commits some foolish act[(s)] that brings about his own destruction. Classical tragedy is built on the same principle: The tragic hero, despite his heroic virtues, is brought down by a tragic flaw – usually hubris.’
This psychological view of our condition applies to anyone who wants to ‘know them selves.’ That is, that critical thinking about one’s own thoughts is a good idea to do regularly and to check-in with your gods, as you may know them, regularly, too, as well as your trusted friends. ‘The unexamined life is not worth living.’
But, the above paragraph, found on the net, speaks volumes about exactly what is going on in FOF and particularly w/RB; The Tragic Hero that he might Be.
Most posters to the blog certainly open themselves to critical examination of their thoughts, presuming that what they write is a reflection of their thinking and not just mechanical spewing forth of words. Words can very well be a multifaceted sword. Those that live by the sword must be prepared to die by the sword.
Verify Verity
March 26, 2007 at 6:25 am
David Dalton, it’s lovely to hear you voice here.
Your posting has a certain flavor (somewhat bitter), like as if you feel strongly about something and want to point it to others, apparently lost ones. Well, welcome to a “Bitter Club”!
May I ask you – which part of you feels so strong about things?
(I am just using the system language here) Is this your Higher self? How come it is… not accepting what IS in the moment? Why so much judgment and resentment of what IS from a Higher Self? So, may be it’s your lower self? (Oh, no!)
Listen, I don’t believe in various “Selves” anymore. Who is making the decision anyway which “self” is here now? Which “self” is the “decider”? See how funny, how artificial and intellectual the whole division of selves is. There is no various selves in the Present Moment. It’s a mind game. It is what it is, just as it is. What needs to be expressed by consciousness – is simply expressed. If it is expressed and allowed to exist – IT IS THE WILL OF HIGHER FORCES, or Consciousness, or Influence C (whatever we call it) , otherwise it would not be. Things are simply expressed by whatever “self” was available in the moment, and it’s OK. Whatever is handy – is used for expression of the Divine, like a tool from a workbench. Judgment is expressed, love is expressed, war is expressed, peace is expressed, beauty and ugliness is expressed, this blog is expressed, and it’s all ONE Divine expression. Our imaginary personality takes it all personally and claims authorship, or – copyright, but it’s not “ours”!
But who are you? Without getting into all this mental “self”-labeling game – who are you? Are you this “guy” who feels so right about LIES (sorry) that are posted in your message? Or are you something else, something NAMELESS and AGELESS that is alive right now , aware and watching while the fingers of “david” are typing those “facts”? That something that has no problem with it all? That can freely express whatever comes through mind? What are you, David? Did you ever ask yourself this? Did you ever looked, while disarmed?
Please put all learned ideas aside, put your imaginary picture aside and quietly look – what are you?
What do you know about yourself, if ideas are taken away from you? Do you still exist? Sure you do. You are undeniably here, alive. So, what is IT, that is undeniably you? Unchanging, watching it all, free from what is being observed, of what is being expressed through your body, unattached. Right here, right now. Do you see WHAT you are? You are what I am, what he is, what we all are. Same.
Look, look.
March 26, 2007 at 7:45 am
Hello:
1. Since leaving the church a couple of years back,after I think it was 25+ years, I have verified the following:
a) It is absolutely necessary to come understand what are classified as the Four Laws of the Universe and to put them into operation within oneself. They are a key to the “spiralling out” process.
b) Mr Burton can be allowed to go to Paradise if he so wishes. I nor anyone else has a right to deny him this path. Weird though his actions may seem, under the Law of Allowance, it is his chosen experience and it is necessary that he get as much out of it as he possibly can.There is no good nor bad only experience.
(c)To the best of my present processed understanding: we have 2 bodies one physical and one non-physical and it is of uttmost importance to learn how to access and utilize the non-physical body while still in control of the physical body. You either lie to yourself or you allay your fear and get on with it i.e the “practice” sessions before you really are called to task for the content of your data files by your Higher Self.
d) Being a true “observer” is an on-going process. It is extremely lonely almost all the time.You don’t have the luxury of extended “time-outs” either.
e) You have to repeat “doing” things until you, and you alone, can break the experiencial loop that ties your “addiction” to your behavior. You either do it here in this realm of reality or you have to do it while in the non-physical body in other realms. Either way you have to be able to come to break the loop for yourself. Victimhood is not an option. YOU HAVE HELP but not in the way I previously thought I understood.
f) I try to use this idea as a mantra :
“The greatest illusion is that we have limitations.” and I pray as often as I can remember using this invocation “I am in a human becoming , help me to become”. Changing the pronouns in the latter, as the situation requires, also helps achieve “balance”
g) I’ve come to enjoy being me to the nth degree and everyday I take another bit of wax out of my “ears and eyes”, and with luck, I’ll make it to the Library on the first try when I leave this sheath behind.
Perhaps this helps somebody.
Until again,
Bryan Dozzi.
March 26, 2007 at 8:51 am
Dear current members,
The reason why you all still in the “school” is because of your illusion that behind all that nonsense stands some thing higher,some thing sacred.
But NOTHING is there!
There are no Gods and no C-influence behind all that madness you are up to.The only one who is behind this is Burton’s King of Club who has no limits or control over his greed.His agenda is simple :
“MORE FOOD,MORE MONEY AND MORE SEX”
that’s all your “Teacher” is about.The real trouble will begin when you will not be able to lie to your self any more and you will see things for what they are instead of what you want them to look like.
Another reason why you stay is that you are deadly scared to find out that you have just burn your life for nothing.You have been paying and suffering years for NOTHING!
Of course you will prefer to tolerate any thing withing the FOF and you will protect your illusions as well as your “Teacher” because the shocking truth of your lose may be overwhelming and can even lead you to suicide (what was already happened number of times)
REMEMBER:WHAT YOU SEE IN FELLOWSHIP IS WHAT THERE IS.
March 26, 2007 at 9:22 am
Remember yourself always and everywhere.
Gudjuvani.
This is the issue.
One of the principal entertainments of the machine is to speak of somebody else. rather than to work over themselves.
March 26, 2007 at 9:36 am
Why? Mr. Inner Confusion, expend a lot of time in this way.
Have you nothing for to do more productive or important with your life.
Why? you are with your mind so identified with your subjetive and nothing important point of view.
The Schools are for people who wants to work, and if you does not want to work maybe you can try to make something with your life. come on, or you can not make any different than that your lower self saids.
“The lower centers are naive to the fact that they are being used by the King of Clubs”
March 26, 2007 at 9:44 am
Beelzebub wrote:
The Foundation owes MME OUSPENSKY but NEVER Ouspensky. His VANITY prevented his POSSIBLE development. Please, do not confuse intellect with consciousness.
It looks to me like the Foundation owes a lot to Ouspensky but doesn’t acknowledge it. There has always been lots of politics in the Foundation.
Beelzebub also spake: When Shah arrived on the scene to offer the OPPORTINITY to Bennett and his students he was not trusted. What happened is history, and a great PHOTOGRAPH to the IDIOTS who worshipped the TEACHER. But you wouldn’t know about that, would you?
I can’t work out what you are trying to say here. I know a pupil of Bennett who was very upset when Bennett gave Coombe Springs to Shah, and another lady who knew Shah in the 70s and said that there were lots of shenanigans going on. What are you trying to say?
March 26, 2007 at 10:09 am
It’s very possible that post #294 has put together details from a few of RB’s sex sessions, and that he has never had sex with 6 men in exactly the way described. I find the more extreme practices too unlikely to be made up. But can you imagine the FOF suing someone over post #294, and RB being cross examined? What would come out? Can you imagine him denying the specific events in #294 but admitting, yes, I do such-and-such with my students five times a day, and I have an orgy at least once a week, and I have celebrated certain anniversaries by doing such-and-such with one student for each year of the anniversary, in the same session, and sometimes I watch my students having sex with each other but just help myself out, but I have never done exactly what is described in #294 with precisely six men?
Be Careful: Be careful! Your blog post has undone much of the good work that Girard did in his fairly open-minded and sensible advice to students regarding the blog.
March 26, 2007 at 11:37 am
Dear All,
Some of the students closest to Robert have a professional understanding of psychological disorders and would be better able to discern if that is what we’re looking at with Robert. They have determined, as they remain entrenched as ‘good students’ (the ‘best!’), that it does not apply. I see through many of these postings a desire to classify the behavior between Robert and his students, but I think ‘cult’ is as close as anyone will come, even though it’s not a satisfying dissection.
Years ago in my travels before the Fellowship, I was on a bus in the countryside outside Madrid with a friend who dabbled in magic. He took out his flute and began playing. The environment seemed suspended between worlds as everyone on the bus become very quiet and still. Had they all been collectively hypnotised or rather awakened to experience a moment of eternal beauty existing between the familiar moments of their day-to-day lives? At the time I felt they were enchanted and had lost themselves under a spell.
Often I observed the same thing occurring at large dinners with Robert, but one difference was the hungry devotion so transparent in the faces of many around the table.
These are my own observations, but are they correct? I don’t know. What does it look like when one individual or a group of individuals suspends their logical and practical mind to experience a state that can’t be defined from that mind? The experience of Robert’s influence includes profound moments when every part of ONE’S OWN BEING understands that one has accessed the miraculous. That surety is still in my being and has transformative power that (often) keeps me connected to the miraculous that is in all the world. By these posts we see that former students have found joy in returning to the world, and current students on the fence yearn to return to the world they share with more than the (exclusive) 2000+- students of Robert’s school.
Is Robert a teacher? I think so, as anyone might be my teacher at any moment. Was what I gained from Robert worth 20 years in his school -NO !!!
That is part of the experience that CAN be classified and defined, and isn’t that the caution to those still in pursuit of Robert’s promises? Please take your OWN measure, ask YOURSELF if formatory and habitual judgments about ‘life’ have caused you to become deluded, and are you in agreement that YOUR LIFETIME has value only if given over to another man’s creation?
To those who currently struggle with personal contradictions and to those who have released the hold of these contradictions in order to reclaim their lives, I THANK you – prodigal sons and daughters returning home to become ‘just human’!
Back home myself,
ACROSS THE RIVER
PS to TRAVELER re post 4/164. It’s true the FOF worldwide network is pretty awesome but since you seem to know you’re leaving, you might just consider it a temptation! I know the ease of social connections had me stay longer than I should have. You might be surprised at how little judgment there is by former students you may have shunned in the past. The thing about leaving is that you are opening yourself and moving on – those that have done it will understand you. If you’re in the O.H. community you’ll discover many former students are staying, gently reshaping the community. Lose your judgments about ‘life’ and about yourself. There are many good people sharing experiences within these 1000 posts and a common theme is that they have reconnected with who they are. Thanks for your post, I’m sure many will respond.
PPS to DAVID DALTON re post 4/165, do you believe you have understanding or that God is punishing you. Your post seemed very tormented. Good Luck.
March 26, 2007 at 1:03 pm
What Observe (170): As far as I can tell, there can only be two reasons for your words (and those would once again be identical to those of Cry Baby or the new voice of Mr. Dalton).
Either, you believe me a dangerous lunatic, and try to warn others of my insanity.
Or, you feel threatened, and are trying to cling on with all the strength you can muster.
Either way, your attacks are bringing out more people to speak, increasing the amount of people who choose to comment and adding fuel to the discussion. Thank you and keep up the good work.
Knowledge (185): Believe it or not, but I take quite a lot of pride in this blog. Not because I feel that my work in here has been in any way special, but because the people that have been attracted here are. I can assure you that I moderate this discussion, and comment on it, by choice. And no, at the times I choose to do so, I could not be doing anything better with my time.
So, thank you for your advice, but I think I am doing just fine.
March 26, 2007 at 4:17 pm
What is this all about?
How can you talk about awareness and level of being and still continue in a way of the system talk?
Man is simply full of …
All qalities are not important compare to being sexual psycopate.Having students pissing in his mouth is not about giving them third state which they can never forget,sure they can’t.Nor
they can not stop interpreting it in terms of awaikening,because otherwise they have to admit they’ve being …
March 26, 2007 at 4:21 pm
Regarding the topic of friendship, here’s an excerpt from Jeanette in post #185, Page 2:
“As to the friendships…I did lose most of my friends when I left but to be fair we just sort of disappeared. Those students we have seen are generally awkward because they know they shouldn’t be talking with us. I think we are awkward as well because WE know they know they shouldn’t be talking with us. I know there are many people I miss and would like to talk to again, I know the fault lies on both sides.”
March 26, 2007 at 4:25 pm
Dear friends,
there are many valuable statements already given here on the question if the FOF is a true school or just a cult. Thanks for all.
In my understanding now (I left three years ago) the FOF is like a cage, closed and logical in itself. All what comes from outside and does not fit into the group believe will be attacked. I did it too. What a shame! But when one steps just a little bit outside of that cage one cannot get failed that there is something wrong in “Paradise”. The last year as a member I struggled (like others did and maybe do) with the understanding of what is going on. I came to the conclusion that although many things in the FOF sounding right there are some clear signs that the teaching get failed and that the FOF is based on an “ego-trip”. I will not go deeper into this topic because many of you did it already.
After leaving FOF I made a clear cut. It seems that (for whatever reason) not all former members are able to do it – but this is healthy. With clear cut I mean: making an account for oneself being a member, chuck away all the concepts except of what one truely understood – with ones deepest heart. This understanding is a corner stone, the ground, on which one can rebuild the temple. For me, the time in the FOF was just a (maybe a necessary) stage in my life. It’s over now and I try to look forward. There should be no blame anymore just the realisation that one has made a correction (better to say: that the correction was made through us).
As one of the many help I found on this topic after leaving, here a quotation of Reshad Feild who works in the tradition of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky and is also a sufi sheik:
“Why are people so scared of authority? Actually it is a very healthy fear, because real authority must come from the overflowing of the Divine Essence, and nothing less. The real teacher needs good pupils; but at the same time if the teacher figure is in any way attached to the function of being a teacher then he or she may not be able to free the pupils into their own reality. As Hazrat Inayat Khan said, ‘This is what happens in a cult when the cult leader enjoys the position of being a spiritual leader and thus severely limits the development of his disciples. A true teacher is free from any attachment and, the moment he feels that a disciple has become too dependent, cuts the pattern of attachment, often throwing the disciple out of the group for his own good.’
…in most cases I consider that it takes anything up to twelve and a half years for a student to really know the meaning of being a pupil. ‘We will try them until We know’ (holy Koran). A real teacher does indeed manifest authority, which is from the higher worlds that can never be understood by the demanding self, our lower or animal nature. Of course there are exceptions to every rule…. However, I would add that just because we may have heard of these great and wonderful Masters of Wisdom, we can not just inherit their knowledge through books or group agreement. It is possible, but it is greatly misunderstood.
I pray that we will all be guided safely into the light of pure knowledge, motivated only by Love.”
(Reshad Feild, from an article in Advaita Magazine)
Trustful
Karl-Heinz
March 26, 2007 at 5:03 pm
Re: coot #178:
“But, Robert behavior overwhelm Teacher – much larger scale (number of male students, most not homosexual) than people here may suspect. With those who seem stable, and with those who seem not so. Often, after in FOF only short time. RB may not true homosexual, indicates to many that real gender is female. (But also does not like female).”
From “Gnosis” by Boris Mouravieff,(Vol.III, Chpt XXI, page 205):
“Besides the positive types of allegedly polar couples we have just studied, there are other types of partial, negative polarity of a pathological nature. ………..”
“As long as the two partners are alive, their activity is limited to the horrors of the crimes which fill the forensic news. But, in certain cases, the discarnate woman survives after death and takes on the demonic form of a succubus. The man, who is still alive, then combines the presence and strength of the two Personalities in his being… The total assurance he has of himself then doubles his strength, which becomes demonic.”
“This type represents the pathological phenomemon of the negative androgyne. Through a large usurpation of dual sexual energy, a black androgyne of this kind becomes extremely strong and wicked.”
I don’t take all of this strange and interesting theory as accurately describing RB but he is definately controlled by his passions and is absolutely indifferent to the suffering he causes others in his relentless efforts to satisfy those passions.
March 26, 2007 at 5:23 pm
A story:
The last teaching dinner I attended with Robert was in August 1999. He had just started (I think)having dinners where there were 44 students in attendance. Dinners I attended before this usually accomodated around sixteen or so students. It was also the first time I had to pay to have dinner with him in the fifteen years I had been in the school.
When I made my annual pilgrimage to Ren/Apol/Is
that summer, I was already ninety percent sure I was going to leave. Many of the fof teachings had started to ring false in my ears. I wanted to root out my own superstitious beliefs and stop what had become, for me, a strain of fellowship fundamentalism in my thinking.
At the same time, I thought I’d give it one more go round just to see if I was missing something. Being the partially brain-washed student, I was naturally wondering if I hadn’t made enough of the right kinds of efforts. After all, I had put the school into my life and not put my life into the school. I was a member of an outlying center, married to a life person, with no intention or desire to move to the foothills. To top it all off, I still expressed negativity on a regular basis.
Still, perhaps with this trip, I would find an omen or some sort of sign to give my decision credence. What a niave mess I was!
So, I show up to the dinner feeling an incredible mixture of anxiety and expectation. Part of me is hoping to hear a single idea or experience a higher state to prove that staying is worth my time. What happened at that dinner still strikes me as strange and still makes me laugh.
Robert spent almost the entire dinner going on and on about John Kennedy Jr.’s plane crash, the Kennedys as America’s royal family, etc.; seemingly straight out of People magazine. Once he started in on the topic, it seemed to influence the questions students had for him. When he wasn’t talking about the Kennedys he spoke of another fourth way teaching topic: golf. The subject matter and the fact that he was becoming very hard of hearing at this point, needing every question and comment from the participants restated by the student seated next to him, left me with the impression that I was having dinner with a doddering, old Uncle at his Ultra-posh country club. It was time for me to leave.
I’m sure there are as many interpretations of this story as there are readers of it. Perhaps the reader will project there own inner conflicts and understandings onto the story and create their own moral. Be my guest.
March 26, 2007 at 5:45 pm
Before the event of realization of ourselves as life, consciousness, one-ness, we try to define ourselves as ‘seekers’, ‘students’, ‘devotees’, striving to be more aware, conscious or good. One way we do it is by rejecting and judging other if they are not ‘on our side’ of the common boat.
I have a good illustration for this movement of the restricted mind: yesterday I spoke to a Jewish man who happened to have racist views against black people. It was puzzling to me, how someone whose people were prosecuted throughout the history, considered vermin, sub-humans, murdered by millions, would be able to have same fascistic views about anybody else. I passionately argued with him until I realized that he is not going to open up to my words because he defines himself as a white man who is been threatened by black people and holds on with all his might to that definition of himself. I backed off an let him be.
When reading posts from David Dalton, Little lamb, What Observes, cry baby, FOF council, I can see where they are coming from: there is a need for a mind to describe a person as ‘somebody’, as a separate individual who has to be right. How else one would know one’s identity?
It so happened to me that I saw the futility of holding any one view about who I am, this ‘Rita’ phenomena. Contemplating on one’s own experience as well as human wealth of insights and realizations, one can come to understanding that there’s much more to one’s self than any given description. If God lives in all of us, we are by definition capable of experiencing and being ALL there is. And it is a WHOLE LOT! If God is everything and One, I am that too!
Awhile ago I started to see my own body as a ‘diving base’: I dive into the unknown to be one-ness, nothing-ness, chaos, order, madness, divine, etc. and come back to my senses to rest, contemplate and integrate all those experiences into my life as a human being. What’s called love and compassion naturally comes after an experience has been made one’s own.
I am sitting in a café in Hampstead. This generous sunny spring day makes me happy. I am now thirty-eight years old ‘in perfect health begin, Hoping to cease not till death’. I look around and see the life in a process of ever going creation. How can I not celebrate myself, this miracle of existence, not to sing a song of myself and all that is around me?
‘Sleep’ if there’s such a thing, is only in a mind that can not include all that is into itself. To be able to do that, the mind has to drop the ideas of any kind and let the expansion to take over, until all is included. We are all born with this capacity. What else do we need? When are we going to be ‘more alive’?
Ich habe genung…
PS:
One of the most read poets in the FOF is Walt Whitman. How is it possible that we missed the whole point he was making?:
It is time to explain myself–let us stand up.
What is known I strip away,
I launch all men and women forward with me into the Unknown. …
…The clock indicates the moment–but what does eternity indicate?
We have thus far exhausted trillions of winters and summers,
There are trillions ahead, and trillions ahead of them.
Births have brought us richness and variety,
And other births will bring us richness and variety.
I do not call one greater and one smaller,
That which fills its period and place is equal to any.
…I have said that the soul is not more than the body,
And I have said that the body is not more than the soul,
And nothing, not God, is greater to one than one’s self is,
…I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least,
Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself.
…Why should I wish to see God better than this day?
I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then,
In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass…
March 26, 2007 at 6:01 pm
To Traveler:
I have a friend in the school to whom I wrote after leaving and she never responded to me. It hurt me because we know each other since we were 16 and used to be very close. I understand where she might be at this point of her life and I am waiting for her to be ready to be my friend again, I know one day it will happen.
I never stopped my friendships with people who left and now I enjoy their support and love. I wrote in my farewell note to the friends in the London centre that I will always be here for them if they ever need me. After all, the experiences we went through are deeply bounding.
I also have several friends who were never ‘spiritual seekers’ and I find that wisdom comes as a result of active contemplation, even if it’s not related to ‘spirituality’ (in fact it’s often healthier that way).
When I was walking to the Internet café, I saw a writing engraved in the square, it’s from Agatha Christie:
‘If one sticks too rigidly to one’s principles, one would hardly see anybody’…
March 26, 2007 at 6:16 pm
#144 has a good question. Why has the FOF never addressed the issue of emotional and psychological damage caused to the victims of RB’s voracious and deviant sexual appetite?
#146 Thanks for not being afraid to speak out. I wish more of the men who were coerced into sexual relations with Robert could find the courage to speak up. They probably feel ashamed and would prefer to just forget about it but I don’t think anyone is judging them, on the contrary, I think they will find support and sympathy for what happened to them and a lot of respect if they choose to speak up.
March 26, 2007 at 6:36 pm
I’m amazed and amused by the fact that such a large number of current students who disagree, defend, threat, intimidate, judge and argue about the various contents and sources of information on this blog .. are the most frequent posters yet !!!!!
I’m talking about the various David Dalton (hey, does bitterness taste any better when you dress it up with the FoF’s uniform?),
What Observe (and WHAT the hell have you being observing ,exactly ? )
and Nasty Little Lamb ( what happened sweetheart, one too many bad wolves showing you their “long Be” behind the FoF bushes ?ouch!)
If you despise it, condemn it and scorn it that much, why are you so DAILY attached to it still ?
That can’t possibly be a good sign.
Don’t you find kind of sad that some of you cannot follow the very simple directions given by the Regime, in spite of the fact that you agree and wish to support its rules ?
And that you didn’t , OBVIOUSLY, taken the “suggestion” from LT, KB, and all of the other “inner circuses” to heart and NOT waste your time with the obscenities and the defamations ?
Didn’t Girard explain to you that writing on the blog is a way to break the exercise about not having contact with former students ?
(although he has completely disregarded the fact the current students are using it as a channel to talk with each other as well.. )
….. hmmmm……..
I don’t think you are realizing it , but YOU are sabotaging your precious structure even more effectively then the rest of us,
How?
by demonstrating such a colossal gap in your level of commitment , when it’s not backed up by the simplest action ,
by displaying such a level of incompetence , stupidity and superficiality in the attempt of covering up FACTS that many of us know to be true from DIRECT EXPERIENCE , not as former students, but as CURRENT ones,
by coming up with so many empty arguments about petty aspect of the whole, intentionally forgetting to address the important ones related to the criminal teaching , the frauds in the political structure, the emotional neglect (and by the way, ignoring the suffering of the people around you, with the psychological excuse that is “their play”…not such a great achievement in developing your external consideration skills ! )
by putting even more focus on already aged posts, such as the legendary #294, and not being able to initiate any intelligent conversation with people like Elena , for example, whose arguments touch the core of the spiritual corruption and the dogmatic rape , without a single moment of indulgence in the sexual one,
by cynically pointing your finger to our disenchanted broken hearts , so that you can keep on successfully ignoring your own conditioned frozen one ,
by making us wonder , when you get so shallow, vicious and spiteful :
If you are supposed to be the GOOD ones, the better advanced and more solid in their Work here , how comes that all your replays have to offer is Queens generated , lacking of any compassion and insightfulness ?
SO…Thank you for the jump-start, is often through your own words that we are able to make our point even more effectively.
March 26, 2007 at 6:41 pm
I’m still wondering about Girard’s thoughts on “Sex and AIDS” — what does the chapter say? It must be pretty powerful to turn Mary around so quickly and intensely. Does anybody have this book who would be willing to clue us in? Thanks
March 26, 2007 at 6:41 pm
….Have a wonderful day ! ….
March 26, 2007 at 6:47 pm
Re: #178:
“So, FOF is school with ceiling.”
That’s about it.
And with the emergence of the Keys, 30 Work I’s and the Sequence (not to mention the Adversary), the ceiling began to collapse for many of us. Robert’s ‘eccentricities’ seem relatively unimportant compared to seeing a teaching we’ve invested so much in falling apart.
But what was a difficult period of re-evalution has turned into something very positive. Hasn’t it?
Many of us have moved on to better things and many more will. Our ceiling becomes our floor (apologies to Paul Simon); our current understanding is replaced with new understanding.
Nothing wrong with a school with a ceiling until you actually see the ceiling…and then you move on.
March 26, 2007 at 7:18 pm
Hello,
If you want to deepen your understanding on Non-dual Advaita (through the eyes of western teachers), these are some websites that provide living knowledge on the subject. Most of these teachers are alive and some of them you can even interact online while they do their talks asking questions (in the case of W. Liquorman).
http://www.ods.nl/am1gos/
Amigo Magazine, an online publication with interviews and articles on Advaita. Downloadable for free, even past editions.
http://www.francislucille.com
Website dedicated to Francis Lucille, a pupil of Jean Klein. He lives in Temecula, Southern California.
http://www.advaita.org
Website of Wayne Liquorman, he gives talks every week that you can access via the web, and ask questions live. Videos and talk excerpts on his website.
http://www.theopensecret.com
Website dedicated Tony Parsons, british iconoclast. Videos and talk excerpts on his website.
http://members.iinet.net.au/~adamson7
Website dedicated to Sailor Bob Adamson, disciple of Nisargadatta Maharaj. Videos and talk excerpts on his website.
http://www.thenaturalstate.org
Website dedicated to John Wheeler, disciple of Sailor Bob.
There are, of course, hundreds of websites out there dedicated to Advaita (as teached here in the West), and some important teachers like Jean Kein, Nisargadatta Maharaj or Ramana Maharshi, being dead, don’t have a web prescence except through their disciples.
All these teachers were (and are) very simple people, with a strong commitment to awakening, and generally open to answer any questions posed (that was and remains the principal teaching method of all eastern traditions, including buddhism).
If any of you have some questions related to Non-Dual thinking or Advaita, feel free to ask or email me, through this blog, or via my email address (we will do it in the most strict anonymity, both sides):
advaitanondual@gmail.com
I’m not interested in money, scandals, or other people’s lives, only Understanding of what is ultimately Real…
Thanks,
Nondual
March 26, 2007 at 8:00 pm
Rita’s Hampstead experience reminded me that it’s very clear now that the 4th Way/FOF concept that “man is a sleeping machine” is WRONG! I was sitting in a bar in Chicago watching the people. They were all so alive, vibrant, aware. The autos passing outside were machines, the coffee maker was a machine, but these were beautiful, alive, breathing, feeling beings, embodiments of God! Walt Whitman is right. Gurdjieff is wrong!! Or maybe it’s fairer to say that G is right on a lower level and W on a higher level?
March 26, 2007 at 8:00 pm
Innernaut (199) I looked on Amazon and some of Girard’s books are available there. I don’t know why the AIDS essay upset Mary. The essay was written 15 years ago. Girard had published an essay in the Forum by another student, and the essay had taken a pretty extreme point of view on AIDS perhaps being a punishment for promiscuity. In Girard’s response he states that he had hoped that the other essay would open up discussion, but that had not been the effect. He goes on to mention there there are students who have AIDS, finds that there is a lot of feminine dominance in the school such that no one had openly admitted that they have AIDS, and actually defuses any notion that having AIDS is in any way a punishment or in any way worse than any other terminal illness. It’s one of those essays in which Girard actually questions his own thinking. I can’t imagine why Mary would be so offended by that essay.
March 26, 2007 at 8:59 pm
The post # 185 from ‘Knowlwedge’
This refrain’Have you not got something better to do’ etc. is a common one(which already makes it suspect..)put forth by those defending their position in the FOF.
The obvious fact that ‘Knowledge’is here on this blog too, apparantly engaging in exactly the same type of behaviour as those he admonishes,( you have placed several posts over the past few weeks ) leads me to assume that he must consider that somehow it’s different for him because he is ‘working’ in a school.
Perhaps.
However, we can only take his word for that.Although his words do not convey much evidence of original experience,rather, just more of the rather simplistic dogma that has been oft repeated during this discussion. Which further leads me to assume that this ‘work’ must be invisible.Something that happens in a different realm to the merely human one.Otherwise there would be some evidence of it surely? Because looking at the words of the people who are also claiming to be doing this ‘work’ D.Dalton,little Lamb Crybaby ,What observe ,the ‘Official’voice of FOF,and suchlike,I also can find no tangible evidence.But, I’m not in a school, so perhaps the answer is that only those other people in the same School can see the ‘work’ in each other.No one else can see it.That would explain a lot.It would explain for instance how the people who write seemingly coherent,thoughful,intelligent posts here are merely wasting their time.It also would clearly explain how,when I see FOF members speeding along dangerously on the small country roads leading to their ‘School’ property,many of them in old,decrepit cars for which ,as i know from experience,their drivers often lack any insurance and sometimes even lack a license, that such details have no connection or bearing on this ‘Work’.It even explains how the elegantly dressed men and women attending the many expensive garden parties,dinners,breakfasts,lunches can have six figure credit card debt due to the pressure to ‘be -seen -by -others- doing -this- work’which can never be repaid and usually leads to the many,many bankrupcies that take place in this ‘School’.I see now that schools are indeed completelty invisible to those of us in’Life’
March 26, 2007 at 9:31 pm
In response to Innernaut (199)
Because of how “Creating a Soul” was published for legal reasons I can not relay what it said.
SORRY…………..
I have seven Atty. in my family and I’m aware of the laws.
marys_angels@peoplepc.com
March 26, 2007 at 9:50 pm
Thank you AG, for your (Be Careful) letter of March 25. I was beginning to wonder if the FOF was somehow trying to accept the blog as an unavoidable reality. Your quasi-legal terrorism is a return to the paranoics of the leadership there that we all know and love.
Cyberspace is still a relatively open place where freedom of speech is possible. Bush and his brownshirts have done and continue to do everything they can to make American cyberspace make that of mainland China look like a bastion of liberty, but they have not succeeded as yet. And as (I assume) this blog is hosted on a UK server, US civil law shenanigans have no bearing, despite the fact that UK laws protect their citizens’ right to free speech, in certain contexts, less stringently than does US law and legal precedent.
The attempt to paint a series of wholly independent posts to the blog as a concerted, conspiratorial effort to harm the FOF and its leadership is a transparent farce. Your best bet is to get Homeland Security to target the blog as a covert al-Qaeda cell. With all these Sheiks and Bedouins running around, what else could it be?
The only “misappropriation” going on is your “misappropriation” of the legal foundations pertaining to libel and slander in attempting to apply them to an internet blog. Outside of Egypt, there still exists the possibility of exposing faults in power structures in an electronic medium without possibility of civil or criminal court action, unless there is an express, premeditated and prolonged attempt to defame through demonstrably false statements. A good overview of this issue is given at
http://www.wisbar.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Wisconsin_Lawyer&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&CONTENTID=56211
It outlines the evolving legal attitudes around internet communications and gives examples of attempts to stifle bloggers and the failure of those attempts (again, outside of Egypt). Given the enormous amount of sickening and overtly violent hate mail flowing through so many anti-black, anti-Semitic, anti-anything-you-can-think-of blogs, chat rooms and emails every day in the USA, which is still protected by the first amendment (no, AG, that is not “thou shalt have no other gods before me”, read it again), the idea that a few people stating they do not like Mr. Burton’s approach to spirituality and find his sex life coercive and abusive being legally actionable is laughable.
I was tempted to concede your point concerning Mr. Burton’s physical capabilities in light of the “gymnastics” he is credited with by one blog contributor. It did sound a lot like a fantasy out of a gay porno film. On the other hand, if it is pure fantasy, anyone with a decent command of English and access to a computer could have written it. That would be about a billion people. The fact that you claim “There are several likely candidates for the author” implies someone within Mr. Burton’s “inner circle” is the author as, who else could have known those details? Thank you for confirming the truth of that scandalous post, difficult to believe though it was.
I am inclined to believe that your assertions about anti-Semitic posts from an “Issac Assimov” and virus containing posts are wholly fabricated to create fear and loathing amongst those current FOF members who are reading and contributing to the discussion on the blog, but I cannot be certain. I never received any posts from an email ID like this, nor a reposting of the porno film fantasy, nor any virus containing emails recently. I guess I just don’t get invited to the right parties. A psychologist studying your claims might typify it as the classic confabulation of a paranoid-schizophrenic.
The fact that several of the FOF members most central to its power structure happen to have Jewish backgrounds is obviously of no concern to anyone but you. The attempt to fabricate anti-Semitism out of denunciations of the FOF is typical of those that only wish to incite fear and smother thought. Grasping at straw-men like a Harlow baby monkey because it is more comfortable than the wiry teat of openness?
Of course, I have to allow for the possibility that “Be Careful” is not AG. It does seem odd that the “official reply by Mr. Burton and the Fellowship of Friends” should be issued to the blog from yet another anonymous poster and that the offered contact email should be an equally anonymous email account, rather than one from a domain that at least indicates physical proximity to the FOF headquarters at OH. Or perhaps, this pos(t)er simply wants to have his potager lunch and eat it too by attempting to scare blog visitors and posters with what purports to be a formal legal statement from the FOF, while covering him/herself against any real legal repercussions that might result from actually making a formal, ascertainable, attributable and verifiable public statement.
March 26, 2007 at 9:51 pm
Mary (206), you can describe what upset you about the essay, you can paraphrase the essay, and you can even quote chunks of it. Go ‘n’ ask your family members and they’ll confirm this.
March 26, 2007 at 11:05 pm
Be careful; post 131. Unbelievable! The classic denial lawyer approach! Be careful…it is your soul, your karma, Mr. lawyer! Roberts sex life is not a lie, and it is a known fact. You think the boys don’t tell? They tell allright! And many of them are willing and ready to tell the truth in public. Thank you, Andrea! This is politics at its worst. RB’ s Being has attracted his life. The beauty and the beast. Face it, Mr. lawyer! It is the way of the coward to cover up a Truth most of us are brave enough to try and digest.
March 26, 2007 at 11:55 pm
Thank you Radiccio (#204) for your response. I’m glad to learn that his essay “actually defuses any notion that having AIDS is in any way a punishment.” That’s good news to me.
Mary (#206) — thanks for responding. I wasn’t asking that the entire essay be reprinted. I’m no attorney, but I don’t see how it would be illegal to describe what offended you. Even short quotes of copyrighted material are okay as far as I know. But do what you feel comfortable with.
March 27, 2007 at 12:01 am
Post #131/4, titled “Be careful”, claims to emanate from some official body of the FOF and answer, in the name of RB, various the contents of previous posts, most specifically that of the famous #294/1.
Nothing in the post rings true, from its corny title “Be careful” to its content (way too specific), its style (the imitator could not get it FOF-right), its claim to standing as an official reply by Mr. Burton and the Felloship or its ending with an invitation to communicate information to an email that is not in the “official” FOF domain.
I would venture to guess that “Be careful”, “Issac Assimov” and possibly “Inner circle Facts” are one and the same, enjoying pushing buttons, and I am sure, seeing the responses. The FOF has not posted anything on this blog (others have cut and pasted here the few communications that have made to the community), and I doubt very much that they would consider doing that, or that RB would ever, ever give an “official reply”. In the end, it does not matter, and I may be wrong since I also think that Mary Battista enigmatic post (#140/4) was a hoax (what’s up with all caps?). Who knows who we really are? – the “ballo in maschera” continues…
An observation I made repeatedly relates to comments here regretting the fact that “virtually all of the FOF posts” are identifiable by their acerbic (in the cry-baby way), arrogant (“all of life outside is asleep”) and brain-washed contents. On the other hand, non-students, ex-students alike are all truth-loving, gentle (but don’t mess with me or else), and overall soon-to-be-enlightened, very cool individuals. It is pretty obvious to me that, unless we are reading different blogs, the acridity in comments, prejudice and yes, arrogance, go both ways. How could it be otherwise? Those who did not know the Fellowship now feel they know too much and give opinion to that effect, those who left feel they waited too long, and those who tried to defend the fellowship have retreated to the hills to help circle the wagons, and are in danger of losing this cybernautic battle badly. So be it.
But all is not bad, only 2000 are still affected by the strange disease and, according to the regular updates provided here, droves of them are evacuating the compound to avoid being crushed by the caving ceiling. The other good news is that recent escapees (Charles, Vena, Rita, No Person, …etc) were able to make a full recovery, embracing life anew and to the fullest, a free mind and newly discovered time and money at their disposal.
I wish them the best, having known some well and enjoying the company of them all. I spent the week-end at Isis, where spring has arrived: oaks have their new leaves, lilacs, camellias, red buds and fruit trees are in glorious bloom. The highlight of my time in the cave was highlighted by the performances of a marvelous music maker, a young Georgian pianist named Alexander Korsantia (Haydn, Chopin, Beethoven and would you believe it, Stravinsky). If you happen to catch one of his concerts, I highly recommend that you check him out (his residence is in Boston but he performs often in Europe).
Patiently awaiting moderation…
March 27, 2007 at 12:22 am
Dear All,
The wonderfully expressed personal experiences of those who have reclaimed themselves after the FOF affirm the true nature of friendship. After breaking one’s personal ties to the Fellowship, there develops an optimistic, flowing “ownership” of one’s life rooted in what one has gained plus freedom. Compassion is reseeded in the heart and no longer aloof in the mind, and one wants to be useful.
These posts are the gold of real friendship, offered to give courage during a difficult time. I LOVE YOU GUYS!!! Special acknowledgment to COOT (#4/178), KARL (#4/192) and RITA P (#4/195).
Gratitude from
ACROSS THE RIVER
March 27, 2007 at 2:17 am
Opus 111 (211)
Not a hoax.
**************************************
March 27, 2007 at 2:25 am
Opus111 Post #211.
You think post 131 is a Hoax? Why not pick up the phone and call Kevin B,Linda. T. or Abe G. and ask them.
I understand it may be embarrassing for you to have to accept such a truth.
March 27, 2007 at 3:02 am
I know everyone on this blog is already awake and everything but I really do think it would behoove you to try to ‘Be Careful’ before reacting. Some of you don’t seem to realize how it comes across when you so easily and fully fall for every spoof that gets posted here.
March 27, 2007 at 3:36 am
Thanks, Peter (151), “Nothing wrong with a school with a ceiling until you actually see the ceiling…and then you move on.”
I had a very similar feeling, although it was hard to express to other students back then – that there is a “ceiling” in our school, and development seem to go only till certain level, and then stop and kind of continue in circles. First 2-3 years in the School were like some other amazing life – discoveries almost every day, euphoria, sense of meaning, some noticeable progress (or at least it felt like it). And then – as if something majorly slows down, and there is no more noticeable progress, although one continues with “efforts’, but there are just – circles, circles on the same level. Some older students (who apparently felt the same) told me that now it’s time to do the work. I believed, and “did” as much as I could sincerely “do”. But the sense of the ceiling didn’t go away. As if one reaches it, and further understanding is impossible using the same methods, and some breakthrough of a different kind is needed to move on. This was my experience.
Luckily the breakthrough happend all by itself, suddenly and when least expected, and the ceiling became a new floor for quite a few of us… Friends, don’t be afraid of something new if the old doesn’t seem to work anymore. And if the old system works for you – great, then you didn’t hit the ceiling, so nothing to worry about, keep doing your thing. There is a time for everything, and there is absolutely nothing wrong (or right) in being in the School, leaving the School or never joining the School. At some point it all merges in one perfectly harmonious beautiful picture. There is so much external seeming difference and contradicition between us, but internally in our true essence we are all one and the same – consciousness reflected in various forms. Yes, Little Scary Lamb, Baby, Observe and Scale – essentially we are all the same… Students, ex-students… We are playing all these various fools here because it must be played, but what we really are – is simply watching and not worried at all about being right or wrong.
March 27, 2007 at 3:46 am
To Opus 111 (#4/211):
Your observations are reasonable, intelligent, and eloquently expressed. You refrain from judgement, name-calling, and most refreshingly, the parrotting of FOF dogma and “work language.” Another point in your favor is the absence of quoted poetry or “perennial wisdom.” You seem like someone whose company I’d enjoy. Your description of springtime at Isis and the memorable piano concert brought back fond memories for me.
Herein lies the powerful allure of the Fellowship: the exposure to fine culture, beauty, dear friends, refinement of personal tastes and manifestations, the experience of higher states, and as one poster above noted, those moments of absolute certainty that you have encountered “the miraculous.”
But this cannot and does not deliver us from the shadow side that must be acknowledged in the presence of so much light. How each person deals with the shadow, once they become conscious of it, is part of their awakening process, their “graduation exercise,” if you will.
A.H. Almaas says somewhere in his writings that people may leave a school or teacher and, subsequently, experience profound awakenings or acceleration of spiritual growth. They tend to discredit their time spent in the school, believing it was ineffective or that the teacher was not a real teacher. They fail to realize that it was an essential part of their spiritual germination and flowering (to employ a vernal metaphor!)
May all beings know the joy of their true nature, by whatever path (or no path at all).
March 27, 2007 at 6:35 am
In the quest for Love and the reunification of our selves with the source that we are, many strange games have been played and continue to be played. Internally there is an indescribable love that is available to all and it streams through us effulgent once allowed. It is the indescribable source that we are and has been spoken of for millennia. Once recognized it grows, once trusted it takes root, slowly but surely within.
Reading the blog there is much fear. I understand fear and the depths to which it runs, its paralyzing influence. I admit to it. It is powerful. But internal love/well being is greater.
I met a student today at the post office whose first response to me after saying hello was “there aren’t any hostilities between us are there?” She kissed my hand as though I were to be placated as if I could be some kind of threat to the life she holds dear. ME! Some kind of joke – a threat! There is no malice in the hearts of all the recent ex-students I know that have left since Thanksgiving and from what I have gathered so far, from most years before that.
It is Spring – new beginnings. I wish you all the joy of new beginnings.
Stephen
March 27, 2007 at 6:46 am
Dear Medusa and Friends,
Thank you for your support and the …..hmmmm…. That sounds like founded suspicion. It is not offensive. With so many snakes around we need to question everything…… And still trust our selves. Perhaps you’re wrong only in the idea that I’m addressing students in the Fellowship and not you, but you’ve made me expand the search for solutions, for solutions are the only thing that count.
Do you really want serious play?
Here are the rules:
Anyone in the world can play. Since we still can’t say “I am”, we’ll just say: “I’m in”!
The conditions for people who have never had the good luck to be under one thousand more laws than they’ve ever been is that they pay twenty dollars for the first month to join the Fellowship AFTER the bloggers win, and that’s the bonus for having joined through the blog but they have to enroll immediately in this blog and simply say “I’m in” followed by their real name! The I might not hold in the long run but the intention counts! No cheating! No made up names. Each name must come from a different e-mail, the referee or Sheik might be able to help us with that so that even cheating requires effort if someone is tempted to do it.
At the top of the page, this players must write:
Totally free but yearning to become an inmate and willing to pay for it!. I’m in + Name
The bloggers must write at the top of the page:
Tired to be under such few laws and desperately looking for lawfulness and say
“I’m in” and their blog names.
The conditions for the inmates are that if they agree with the game, they play by the traditional rules. They sign their names and hold their pockets for three months if necessary, and if they don’t like the game at the end, they pay to continue as everything is. They wait. They “speak”, “hear”, “think”. At the top of the page they write:
Totally convicted and needing one thousand more laws.
“I’m in” but he doesn’t have to sign any names.
Then we’ll know who, where and how we are, it is already a good bet if one hasn’t even joined the School!
So here’s the game:
No one betrays Robert but instead of being the “only” teacher he becomes another student…. If he wants of course. If I could have talked to him in this seventeen years I would have asked him myself if he wanted to play, but let’s not deviate. We become a community of only students, that is, people who think that they are mature enough to use their common sense but know that they need enough friction to keep developing; people who are willing to assume responsability for each other; people who are willing to question everything about everything, so that they commit to finding out how to work with not only the king of clubs and the king of hearts but the sex centre and every other cell in the body to the last hair and every other student, to the square. Anyone can do anything! As long as they can afford it or get enough bandits to pay for it.
But there are a thousand more rules that can be tossed out and bet on at the meetings and we can agree or disagree after seriously listening to each other. Of the thousand rules that came before us we keep each one of them in as much as they apply to the situation. We keep everything Robert has given us, for every single exercise works. The problem are not the exercises, the problem is that remembering one’s self is only half of the system, the anchor, first line, and externally considering is the other half, the keel, second line. How could Robert develop it for us? How could it not have been born in life, with human values and not in a made up setting? Are we not perhaps responsible for many of the excesses by our own consistent and silent idolization? Have we not been a great hindrance to Robert’s evolution by allowing his king of clubs to take so much more space than he could handle? Have those who have, “knowing the abuses,” supported them because they fitted their own inner weaknesses? Does Robert’s disguised “misogyny,” not fall like a glove in the macho mentality? Have the women supported it because it wasn’t any better anywhere and it was worth trying to work with the men somehow, at least in a school?
Have we all gone too far in allowing him to abuse us because we have been unable to grasp the power of external consideration and second line of work to counteract his actions, dominated by the idea that anything we do against him is feminine dominance, which he uses against us to achieve anything he wants? Have we fallen in the trap of having to pay to live our lives? Have friends? Eat decently? And sincerely try to develop our work at the cost of working so that he lives, has friends and eats decently? It is difficult to want to play after that but if there’s anyone who can still feel compassion for him/herself and Robert, we might just “try”. We’ve already invested half of our lives, we might as well not waste the other half in dwelling on it.
As for the rest of the issues involved so that your suspicions are quieted for just some time, because I will not play with you if you don’t keep putting me under more laws and after we “shift the balance” and start dressing like people and not barbies, support each other’s work but not the work that anyone else chooses for us and beg all the Seikis and Judis that have left to come back and open the door to all ex-students at no cost and the rest of us pay decent sums, not outrageous ones, and correct the many things that each one of us knows that needs correcting, and the individuals in the inner circle survive the shock and “breathe”, then
perhaps my husband and I can recover the marriage before we legally divorce, he can ask for a holiday after thirty years and break the shell while he’s at it, with or without me. Either way…. what we’re really addicted to is talking, so if you promise to let us talk at least once a week or month and interrupt us as soon as we’re becoming the uncontrollable creeper, then I might be the first to sign this blog with my present state:
Tired with such few laws and desperately looking for lawfulness!
Blogger: Clara Elena Gutierrez, it does not matter who, who, I’m in!
Take your time friends before you commit to play because time is the only thing we can give each other while we’re here. It is what people in the higher instinctive hierarchy don’t have for the people below them. They look at the watch and move to the next appointment, have someone else take care of their business, look at themselves as the privileged ones but disguise it with “keys” like the “lucky” or “chosen” ones. If you’re an incorregible convict you might just sign with your own name and continue living your fate.
March 27, 2007 at 8:51 am
A good way to pretend relativity, non-identification, and “moderation” is to speak these four simple words to oneself: “I do not care.”
It’s fast, it’s easy, and it’s painless. And we can get on with our lives and dismiss all of the noise coming from this blog, which might present quite the annoyance for us if we truly stopped to think about it. There’s no reason to judge it; it just is what it is.
But let’s call it what it is… It’s not relativity, it’s not “work against mechanical goodness,” it’s not “work against feminine dominance,” and it’s not “ascending into the jack of hearts.” It just means we really don’t care — that’s all. Nothing more, nothing less. Nothing to judge someone for. It’s a buffer. We have our own concerns and we would go mad if we cared about everyone and everything. Still, let’s not pretend that it’s something else.
“It” is apathy.
To the anonymous poster of the following note, I truly wish you and your friends all the best, as many of us do inside and outside the Fellowship. Thanks for posting your comments (copied below) in early February:
————–
Anonymous, Post #40, Page 1:
“I don’t even know how to begin this. I lived in the Fellowship from age five or six to thirteen. The sweetest and most wonderful childhood memories are there, running around in the woods or going to the ballets or the operas. Culturally, it was amazing. I had the finest of educations and am well-versed in the classical arts.
Emotionally, I’m still devastated. To find out that the home of your childhood, the one place that set a standard for your environment is simply a facade for greed, power, and money is not easy thing to cope with. Having grown up there and spent almost all that time with the children, my main concern is the children.
These children, including myself, are never going to be fully adjusted to the real world. The ones that I know who left are all self-destructive and are trying to find some way of ever relating to the world again.
I’m not sure what my point is, but I thought I might as well comment. The Fellowship has granted me so much, but there’s no way they could ever make up for the emotional manipulation that the children and young adults end up having to put up with.”
March 27, 2007 at 1:00 pm
Limited time and the press of events outside the realm of this blog have delayed this additional reply, and allow for only a few additional refutations, at this time.
Early on in this blog, at Volume 1, # 223, it was suggested that a blog is in the nature of a “mudfight”, and it would not be surprising if the Fellowship and Mr. Burton chose not to respond. It was also suggested that refutations be submitted, which would be posted by the moderator.
Mr. Burton and the Fellowship began this response with the first Be Careful post, 4/131, which the moderator duly posted, with the comment, that “It goes both ways”.
Following post 4/131, several people doubted that #131 was an authorized response by Mr. Burton or the Fellowship, implied that Mr. Burton would not reply, and suggested that the author(s) of 4/131 were the same person(s) as “Issac Assimov” and “Inner Circle Facts”.
This post, 4/131, and any which may follow, are authorized responses and refutations by Mr. Burton and the Fellowship, and have no connection with “Issac Assimov”, or “Inner Circle Facts”. A method by which this can be confirmed by any who wish, is being investigated. Hopefully, this may also make available proof of the anti-Semitic email and republishing of post 1/294, and proof of other factual matters refuted here and in 4/131. Because of the nature of the matters described in 4/131, care is being taken so that the posted reference will not become a target for abuse.
In post 4/152, the author questioned the references to stolen identities of Asaf Braverman and Linda Tulisso. Post 2/139 by the moderator confirmed the false post under Mr. Braverman’s name. That false post portrayed Mr. Braverman as stating a string of profanities starting with “f”. After being notified that Mr. Braverman’s identity had been falsely used, the moderator duly removed the post.
Regarding Ms. Tulisso, the false post is 2/146. Following posts, such as 2/152 and 2/164 criticized Ms. Tulisso for words she never wrote, showing that the deception had worked. The theft of Ms. Tulisso’s identity apparently remains on the blog, at 2/146.
These events, and others mentioned in Be Careful 4/131, prompted the Fellowship to send its members the precautionary letter posted on the blog at 2/204.
The moderator’s reply at 4/132, mentioned that a virus is not transmitted in the text of an email. This is correct. The virus was in an attachment to the emails referred to. If anyone wishes proof of this, feel free to request it at the email address below.
Time only permits two more refutations in this post. Time and circumstances permitting, additional corrections may be sent in the future.
Post 3/140 saw fit to personally criticize a beloved Fellowship member, Jessica Lee, justifying the use of her name because she has been dead for 20 years. Mr. Burton, the Fellowship, and perhaps many readers of this blog are highly offended by this post and the criticism of someone who cannot defend themselves. The truth is that Ms. Lee was a kind and loving person, who staged a heroic fight against terminal cancer and provided both great inspiration for many and the ultimate proof of what she had gained from Mr. Burton and the Fellowship.
Posts 1/56, 1/61, 4/183 and others anonymously and with no foundation accuse the Fellowship of being responsible for several suicides of current or former members. No facts known to the Fellowship support these false accusations. Similar false accusations were made in the past on the web, and because the false accusations admittedly had no basis, Court orders were obtained to have them removed. Regarding the tragic death of the member mentioned in 1/56, this was fully investigated both by the police and a private investigation, with no facts to support the accusations in 1/56 or any other accusation of Fellowship responsibility.
As stated in Girard Haven’s letter to the Fellowship’s members, and the prior letters from Linda Tulisso and Kevin Brown, people are free to talk with any of the Fellowship members named in those letters about anything they wish, including any matters mentioned in this blog, or in these two refutations. Also, as stated before in 4/131, anyone is welcome to email arjunavishnu@gmail.com
March 27, 2007 at 2:27 pm
Dear Sheik,
I was glad to read your view of the possibilities for the evolution of the humanity, as I just yesterday discussed the subject with a friend.
There might be countless speculations about the future and where the human race is heading. The bottom line is that we don’t know.
Yet, judging by the patterns of the individual life – strive for unity, consciousness, love and joy, we can see the reflection of the same movement in a group, society, humanity as a whole. Clara’s writings described beautifully the process of struggle for a healthy community.
There is always a danger for an individual to destroy himself, to perish, get corrupted, never realizing his full potential. Yet, consciousness is seeking to be unified and to express itself in a way which is beneficial for all. In that pattern of an individual consciousness lies our hope for the humanity’s consciousness – as above so below and reversely.
Gurjieff described the level of development of the society of his days as that of an ameba’s in comparison to the level of development of an individual. Somebody noted that with creation of electronics, especially Internet, the ‘ameba’ has developed its nervous system.
Another analogy is one of the time humanity spent on Earth which is compared to Earth’s blink of an eye. We need more time to develop. JG Bennett wrote that it might take many more millions of years, but he also saw the possibility for humans to become one consciousness.
As you said, ‘there won’t be… an end of time unless we create it’. Destruction as a descending octave never required much time at all, while creation is a hazardous and long process and needs our support.
If the wish to create and unite prevails, the tendency to separate and destroy will diminish.
March 27, 2007 at 4:22 pm
Hello Girard
(message also send to his personal e-mail if he really does not have the time to read the blog as he states)
It seems you try to be considerate with the confused sheep around you. I would have been grateful if someone had come up to me offering to talk about my confusion when I came back from Egypt two weeks in coma and the death of my dear Cassandra and Daniela. But nobody had the being to ask how it is to face death and RB even gave me a medical leave of absence shortly after this as my presence was to threatening for his feeble presence or that of those around him.
What you say sounds all very reasonable, it sounds similar to what my father told me when I was 18 preparing to leave the house for good. I then had plans that did not go well with his visions so he told me “There are better ways to spend your time and energy” or “I have told you for good reason not to associate with these people”.
But I am sure you will think this analogy is not very appropriate because my fathers advice came from mechanicality and sleep. So of course you are giving these advice from consciousness and with the aim to awake …. So lets look what you might consider more worthy of our time and energy if we have the aim to wake up:
1.To save time, maybe to have some time to write another book on how to wake up
2.To save time to go to another potage brunch and talk about how to wake up with people who listen since years to the same teacher
3.To save time to repeat the sequence without interruption
4.To save time to make some money to go to the next teaching event
5.Tell me if I overlooked one….
I was believing in these proper uses of time in my work towards awakening, as you, for the twenty years prior to this great intervention of the gods in my life. Mainly also because the school or the teacher did not give one definition on what it actually means to be awake but plenty of exercises to get there which now most have become obsolete.
None of the things that you implied in your message is for me or most a desirable aspect of being awake, but as usual you are not defining the aim what it means to be awake and only with this information one could judge if anything you say makes sense.
The events in the last two years have for the first time established a permanent understanding of what it means to be awake, which I can also describe in detail and live on a moment to moment basis. The gods have given me the following expression for this “To be lighthearted in a dynamic labile equilibrium state”.
If anyone or you want to know what “Dynamic labile equilibrium” DLE implies you are welcome to ask anyone at my office to give my CD on the DLE (free of charge!). But in short it is an extension of the concept of “being in the present” which does not allow people who want to follow this principle to get more and more established with house, money, family and opinions and still think and prove that all this goes well together with “being present”.
Ideas, as well as Robert and the school have pointed us in the right direction, have some also moved in this direction and have given others a new set of ideas to sleep on and to feel secure and superior. However for some this was all only a preparation, a protected nest in which one could study certain ideas without having them challenged by the more general forces of life.
After reading your post Loreta commented that it is written in the general tone of the negative half of the King of Heart “Yes its alright, but there is something better” which has become so much the general voice of the FOF based on imitation.
A general remark from me would be that your specific concern about “saving time”, for which you want even to go on record, indicates that you are still on you way to a permanent state “outside of time”.
Some of the people who are posting and reading the blog, are still “In search of the miraculous” and they do not feel that they have found it, just by joining the FOF. And I know those who do not take a definite position of “for or against” of “good or bad” and “right or wrong” are living the DLE and have a chance that eventually the gods take them by their hands and make them experience the DLE in a light-hearted and permanent mode as they have done with me.
And then you can say with Walt Whitman “There will never be anymore heaven or hell than there is now, but if I have to sit for one more hour or ten thousand I sit content.”
I would like to convey how shallow your advice sounds, after you had some solid experience of death but this is not possible, but I would suggest to start asking the important questions before it is too late, rather than advising others on how to read a blog.
Written in an airplane waiting for Take-off”: in South Africa from the land of Apartheid on-route to Brazil, paradise on earth
Kiran
PS: if you want to see some pictures on our recent travels go here:
http://www.energy-medicine.info/kiran.html
March 27, 2007 at 4:50 pm
The only way to stop this nonsense in the Fellowship is for people to stand up for what they believe and not be afraid to speak their minds on what they know to be true. Otherwise all is folly.
March 27, 2007 at 5:10 pm
Hear that students…
“As stated in Girard Haven’s letter to the Fellowship’s members, and the prior letters from Linda Tulisso and Kevin Brown, people are free to talk with any of the Fellowship members named in those letters about anything they wish…”
Whether you get a satisfactiory answer is another question.
Far better you read this blog and use your God given ability to decide for your self what your conscience perceives to be truthful and sincere. In the end no one can do that for us, though they’ll do there damndest to try!
Go on, trust your self.
In good faith,
RR
March 27, 2007 at 5:53 pm
A few words for the “wise”.
Don’t use your real names, do not trust anybody…………..PLEASE
I fear for the ones still there trying to speak the truth,it has only been heard by close ears.
Not lovely hearts!
March 27, 2007 at 6:48 pm
To Be Careful: I honestly think you are making too big of a deal of something that is really not. This blog is not just about stolen identities! Open your eyes and acknowledge the Elephant. These very few posts that you are so outraged about are NOT a complete representation of what this blog is about. You are focusing on less than 1 percent of what is here and making a huge legal deal about it, while totally ignoring the rest.
Look at the rest of 1000 plus posts! Do they count? People are talking about emotional problems in FOF, about contradictions of the teaching, about their own spiritual experiences and discoveries, about their life in and after FOF. Lots of questions have been asked. Why don’t you, officials, take some time to comment on this and answer some sincere questions instead of ignoring it or blaming and warning?
You know, I have a feeling that people here are really not interested much in discussing those few members that feel victimized. It happened once or twice, wasn’t followed much, long forgotten and everyone (except you it seems) have moved on with more interesting topics for discussion. You are the one who keeps ressurrecting this issue. Why?
I haven’t honestly even gotten a chance to read some of the posts you are so angry about – I guess they were already removed. The oly post I remember about Linda said as I recall: “just following orders”. What’s so awfully offensive about it?
I think even if you remove some abrasive postings (obtaining court orders or whatever) – it wouldn’t change the nature of this blog, and stop the light it is shedding on what’s going on in FOF.
So why bother? You only make FOF look worse by your actions.
I personally think it is not nice and even very rude to use people’s first AND last names and throw dirt at them while hiding. But it does tend to happen in modern blogs. By the way, why don’t you defend Suzan, Philip, Rita, Mary, Charles, and quite few others with the same passion that you defend Asaf and Linda? Those guys got some mud thrown at them too, remember? Some was pretty offensive as I recall. To be fare and even-handed, you should get court orders to protect all offended victims…
What happened with the whole School concept that “I’s are not real”? All of a sudden not only some I’s expressed here on a blog are real, they are also illegal and need to be fought with. Are you a student yourself? Why believe these anonymous I’s then, make them real and blow it out of proportion (as official representative of the School) ? What contradiction.
Let go, Be Careful. I’s are not real, personality is not real. Enjoy yourself and be free.
March 27, 2007 at 6:56 pm
Sheik and Sir Knight, I think you are right. “A cult for Intellectuals”. Maybe they all ought to take about fourty-four hugh gulps of magic mushrooms like some of the authors from time beginnings.
March 27, 2007 at 7:10 pm
The author of 221 (Be Careful) mentions my post where I talked about Jessica Lee, stating that I:
“saw fit to personally criticize a beloved Fellowship member, Jessica Lee, justifying the use of her name because she has been dead for 20 years.”
Also, that “Mr. Burton, the Fellowship, and perhaps many readers of this blog are highly offended by this post and the criticism of someone who cannot defend themselves.”
If Mr. Burton or anyone else is offended by this, they are either fools, are very much asleep, can’t read, or perhaps all of the above. Because if you had taken the time to actually read the post, you would see that I was telling a story of how she gave me my first insight into false personality, something for which I was grateful. I considered Jessica my friend, and was also saddened by her death. I attended her funeral at Renaissance, in fact. I remember very clearly walking to the gravesite with the other students, while Robert was whisked up just in time for the service, then whisked away immediately afterwards in a golf cart.
I also knew students who took on the difficult task of attending Jessica in her illness. They told me that while Robert called her daily to check on her condition, that he never once to my knowledge deigned to visit her in person.
If the poster of #221 really is in the Fellowship, you are continuing what is becoming something of a tradition here on the blog of representing yourself and the school very poorly. I have only heard of others’ experiences with Robert’s and his higher-ups’ bizarre and paranoid behavior when threatened, but I have never been on the receiving end like this. It makes me very glad I left.
Elena — I was moved by your post, but this is what you’re up against. I’m afraid the wall is too thick and too high.
March 27, 2007 at 7:32 pm
To #221 and others who members of the FOF and are visably distressed.
I left the fellowship after more than 20 years. It is sad, and pathetic to watch the FOF authorities grasping at straws by refuting minor, insignificant issues about who said what to whom (be they true or untrue). With no other recourse left to them but to point out inconsistencies in specifics they really miss the BIG ISSUE- as to why students , who have been around for 20,25, 30 years are leaving. Why not just ‘let it go’ my FOF authoritative friends, and let those who have grown up, matured and realized it is time to move on, go. Why the ‘hulla ballo’. Yes, it will create greater pressure on Roberts ‘financial needs’, but since he considers himself ‘a conscious being’, I am sure he can cut back to 2 trips a year to Europe, and a few less bobbles, nick nacks and boys, and the fine life (which students are denied except when they pay for an extra ticket to be part of the show for 1 hour).
As for us ‘ on the other side’ that made it out of the FOF, after waking up to realities around us, well life is VERY good. Friends become real friends (because there is no expectation of them being other that what they are), food tastes better (because you stop concentrating on your 3rd bite, and really taste the whole meal, while engaging in lovely conversation), hand movements occur naturally, (since controlling them has nothing to do with being awake in the present )and life in the moment cannot be more exquisite than what it offers. Nowhere to go, no strained efforting that takes you right out of the moment, no recitations in the mind, no watching your and other peoples every move so you can ‘photograph’ them. You just ‘are’ in the moment, no matter what happens.
For those who are ‘ really curious’ about what it really means to ‘live ones life in the moment’ , I urge you to send your questions to the person #202 nondual.
Either way, stop stressing- it is not necessary- as you will see once the suffering is ended and you leave. Life is just as it is. You don’t have to pay anyone to live it, or to tell you how to do it.
All the best, to whatever you do, wherever you go. You are not alone.
March 27, 2007 at 8:03 pm
Cathie (post 4/217, thanks for the kind words) is right about the powerful allure of the FOF, and this blog is certainly an example: not earth shattering, but worth noticing nonetheless. I also agree that the majority of students are indebted to the school (no pun intended) for their spiritual progress. I do feel that way.
Comrade, in post 4/220, alludes to the apparent apathetic and uncaring attitude of current students, masquerading as moderation, relativity or non-identification. Believe me, I and many of my friends take such words to heart.
My view on this is that I cannot change RB attitudes/behavior, anymore than anyone ex-student can. Such a goal and a student-teacher relationship are mutually exclusive. I can remain, or cease to be a student. As much as I liked Elena’s first post and her analysis, I am completely lost in the reading of her latest one (4/219). On the one hand, this is RB’s school, and I do not see it changing anytime soon. On the other hand, students’ departure and the availability of this blog has led many to confront the issues presented, at least for themselves, if not yet “publicly”. Such exchanges in conversations, dinners, second line of work if you will, can and do change the school environment, cleaning things up (it is spring) and alleviating some of the distrust and suspicions that are raised between members.
Call me naïve, but I remain somewhat puzzled by the plea of students who are allegedly (my perception not theirs, obviously) entangled in RB’s sex web. Some of them volunteer details of his aberrant behavior, adding they have experienced it for years. Why? Why not leave, at least leave his entourage? Is it because such students would have to return to a country that is not as friendly or beautiful as the confines of Isis and find a job? What is wrong with that? I would help raise funds for anyone who wishes to leave and return to “his” (sorry ladies) country, but lacked the money to do it, if indeed it is the real issue. I do not discount the damage that such quasi incestuous relationship can do to a young man’s psychology, but it seems to me that the first step towards recovery is to leave the relationship.
I also sympathize with the writings of Anonymous 1/40, who relates his/her experience of growing up as child in the Fellowship. Are the children who grew up in the Fellowship more troubled and less prepared to face their adult life than are other children? I am not sure, but I would have thought the opposite. None of them attend teaching events and very few join the Fellowship. Are trust of, and communication with parents less important in the Fellowship than elsewhere? No, I would even say they probably are more critical here.
March 27, 2007 at 8:16 pm
Reading this Blog, I wonder what a satisfactory answer may consist of? What part wants/needs to be satisfied, and can it ever be? It is “damned if you do” (ignore this blog) and “damned if you don’t (do not address it).
Why then the cynical attitudes? People both in and out are really trying and doing the best we all can. Let the FOF address these things to the best of the ability of those who try.
The only thing that can give satisfaction (being content with the present as it is and us in it) would probably be to have the never ending imagination flow come to a standstill…
This may be unlikely to occur with any “answer” that in turn leads to another question, but living that question and coming to whatever the resolution is for each person is perhaps the answer, or at least a good starting place…
good luck to all–may this find us in the best internal place possible.
March 27, 2007 at 9:44 pm
Be Careful (4/221) says:
“Posts 1/56, 1/61, 4/183 and others anonymously and with no foundation accuse the Fellowship of being responsible for several suicides of current or former members. No facts known to the Fellowship support these false accusations.”
What accusations? A suicide is a suicide. The only person responsible for a suicide is the person who commits it (except in the case of assisted suicide).
No facts known? But of course…”the facts lie.” Denial is a river in Egypt.
In my reading of the posts referenced in Be Careful’s so-called official denial, no one is “accusing” the Fellowship of being responsible for the suicides. It is merely being suggested that something about their experiences in the Fellowship contributed to the despondent frame of mind of these tragic individuals, that led to their self-inflicted demise.
In some cases, there is presumably a “foundation” upon which such a conclusion might be based; namely, personal conversations with the individual prior to their suicide.
Methinks the Queen doth protest too much.
March 27, 2007 at 9:46 pm
Cathie #217
Very good! A vernal metaphor and perennial wisdom.
March 27, 2007 at 10:45 pm
Elena and Kiran, you guys are blowing me away!
Hey, how is this definition: Unendarkenlightenment?
Be careful #221. Were you about to say something? If i want to listen to that kind of crap I’ll turn on C-span.
March 27, 2007 at 11:36 pm
Dear “Be Careful:”
This email is posted to the blog and to your email address at the end of your posts.
I would like to verify that you are officially speaking on behalf of the Fellowship–how can you prove that? If you are official, why aren’t you signing your actual name to your posts? Granted, you (hopefully) don’t know know who I am, however, unless the FOF rescinds its task for students to not be in contact with ex-students, it is understandable that students and ex-students who have connected through this blog may resort to attempting to hide their identities for everyone’s protection. What’s your excuse?
Regarding your patently false assertion that post 3/140 was a criticism of Jessica Lee: If you read that post closely, you would see that the writer was retelling a story about Jessica Lee in which she explained false personality in an unforgettable and effective way. There would be no need for Jessica to defend herself against this post as there was no offense in it.
Why isn’t the FOF or Mr. Burton willing to address the real concerns and criticisms aired on this blog about the misappropriation of FOF funds to support Mr. Burton’s questionable behavior? How about addressing the assertions that an organization claiming to be the “only conscious school” on the planet, and whose members are threatened with the loss of their souls and/or their connection to higher influences if they leave, is a cult?
Thanks for taking the time to reply to me and/or to the blog.
March 27, 2007 at 11:53 pm
To “Be Careful”
I am not interested in your identity nor in your peculiar role in this setting.
If nothing else, because I am almost sure there is a “team” positng through “Be Careful”.
I am interested in understanding YOU,
somehow “in charge of Be Careful”.
I can’t do that alone so, with trust and politely, I ask.
What do You want ?
What do You want for Yourself ?
March 27, 2007 at 11:55 pm
Be Careful (4/221) further protests:
“Post 3/140 saw fit to personally criticize a beloved Fellowship member, Jessica Lee, justifying the use of her name because she has been dead for 20 years. Mr. Burton, the Fellowship, and perhaps many readers of this blog are highly offended by this post and the criticism of someone who cannot defend themselves.”
A careful reading of post 3/140 reveals that Jessica Lee is not being criticized in the slightest. The author of the post relates an example of how Jessica, at that time a center director, explained the difference between essence and false personality. She enacted the voices of two students observing flowers in the vineyard, one speaking in essence and one speaking in false personality. If “Be Careful” interprets this as a criticism of Jessica Lee, “Be Careful’s” thinking is a bit muddled.
May I suggest that “Be Careful” is him/herself an imposter, posing as the official mouthpiece of Robert Burton and/or the Fellowship, thus committing the same crime she/he accuses others of committing: “identity theft.”
“Life is a mighty joke.” -Meher Baba
March 28, 2007 at 12:28 am
I’m going to give up reading the blog for a while because I currently find myself being irritated by all but the most reasonable comments, whether they are from students or non-students.
(221) Be Careful: How are we supposed to believe that an anonymous post giving an anonymous email address officially represents RB and the FOF?
Your posts contain lies, but of course it is very hard to provide LEGAL evidence of that. Now, maybe this is how our dollar-based bully-favoring legal system works, but on a personal level your responses are just contributing to my current difficulties in the FOF. (Incidentally, I agree that the suicides were not due to the FOF–both as far as I know were the result of mental illness, one suicide provoked by a change of medication (by a non-FOF doctor) and the other by a refusal to take medication.)
You obviously have not read post 3/140 properly. Most of Innernaut’s posts are negative and sarcastic. But in this one he referred to a fond memory of a teaching situation with Jessica, one which remains with him positively. You owe him an apology, and the bullying inaccuracy of your response to this post suggests that your other refutations similarly mangle the facts in order to frighten people away from this blog. Incidentally, the “sexual gymnastics” would only requite the recipient to lie down on a bed or in a bath.
(223) Kiran: For God’s sake, Girard experienced a major stroke, so don’t come the “I-have-suffered-more than-you” routine.
March 28, 2007 at 1:00 am
Deceptive statements by Be Careful:
1. Be Careful says (4/131) Following this December, 2006 email, a series of emails, falsely appropriating the names and identities of Mr. Braverman and Ms. Tulisso, and other Fellowship members, were sent to the Fellowship’s membership, by an unauthorized use of the Fellowship’s private, copyrighted membership list.
Did anyone out there who is still a member actually receive these alleged emails through the [Students] list directing you to the blog in December 2006 that were signed Linda Tulisso and Asaf Braverman and other Fellowship members? Unless I was handpicked to be excluded from the distribution, I received no such thing. Did you?
2. Be Careful says (4/131): By March 3, 2007, within 2 days of Post Vol. 1, #294, anonymous emailers, using stolen names of current and former Fellowship members, extracted Post #294 and republished it word for word directly to the private, copyrighted membership list, without consent by the members or the Fellowship.
Two things: if the emailers were anonymous, how could you claim in the same sentence that they were using stolen names of current and former Fellowship members? I mean really. Either they were anonymous or they were using names. And how can you say with such certainty that the names of current and former members they were allegedly using were not their real names but were stolen? Did you go and ask those former members who you blame for the alleged action?
The other thing, again, unless I was handpicked to be excluded from the distribution list of students, I did not receive any such email from the list. Did you? Did anyone? Be Careful, are you pulling this out of thin air?
3. Be Careful says: (4/211) Regarding Ms. Tulisso, the false post is 2/146. Following posts, such as 2/152 and 2/164 criticized Ms. Tulisso for words she never wrote, showing that the deception had worked. The theft of Ms. Tulisso’s identity apparently remains on the blog, at 2/146.
Give me a break. Post 2/146 was signed Linda T. (not even her full name) and was a prank, which is obvious to anyone who knows the real Linda T. That’s why only one person responded to her directly and even they seemed to have doubts as to her identity (post 2/164 that you mention). The other post you offer as proof that “the deception worked” is from the moderator (Esoteric Sheik, 2/152), who never knew Linda T. in the first place and thus had no way of being deceived. He does not even address her directly but merely identifies the post he is responding to, by saying: “Linda T. (147): That’s insane. I especially like the finishing quote: When one sees how difficult it is to practice the sequence, one realizes how right it is. Robert. I love the twisted logic.” Thus he is referring to the Fellowship-produced content that “Linda T.” posted, as “insane”, rather than criticizing the actual words that “Linda T.” wrote.
I guess this proves that Be Careful really is Robert Burton’s lawyer. Ordinary people are not trained in such twisting of facts and deliberate lack of common sense.
March 28, 2007 at 1:40 am
“I guess this proves that Be Careful really is Robert Burton’s lawyer. Ordinary people are not trained in such twisting of facts and deliberate lack of common sense.”
I think Be Careful’s “smarminess” also proves that’s who he is.
March 28, 2007 at 2:13 am
Dare to Dream, Cathie and Radiccio — thank you for taking the time to help clarify my post about Jessica Lee. It means a lot to me.
March 28, 2007 at 3:35 am
Opus 111: I appreciate your thoughtful comments regarding my earlier post and other topics.
By the way, one of the interesting outgrowths of this entire blog experience is going back to look at my writing a few hours later. And what do I find staring me straight in the face? My ego.
Interesting that someone once described the word “ego” as an acronym for “edging God out”.
And then there’s the following saying — which although cute and ready-made, does have some unassailable logic that’s difficult for me to live by:
“Angels fly because they take themselves lightly.”
March 28, 2007 at 3:44 am
Re Be Careful
FoF has several students who are high powered lawyers. They would never post on this blog, neither would RB. RB does not use computers, nor would he spend his time reading something like this blog.
March 28, 2007 at 3:48 am
My guess is that “Be Careful” is the comic relief provided to bridge some sort of interval here.
Cathie: you did well to work with lawyers and not become one. Thanks for the laugh.
Radiccio: Thank you too for the laugh. You obviously are much more imaginative than “Be Careful”.
March 28, 2007 at 3:59 am
Radiccio (#239) “Most of Innernaut’s posts are negative and sarcastic.”
From one perspective. Innernaut’s are often posts I find particularly insightful, and have even found myself looking forward to them.
Maybe I can try to read them from a different perspective?
March 28, 2007 at 4:21 am
So I may be completely wrong about this (whoa, shocking news)…
But now I REALLY sense that “Be Careful” is pulling our legs.
On the other hand, whoever they are, they’re making themselves fair game by saying whatever it is they’re trying to say — or at least their screen name is fair game.
(Where did that expression come from, anyway? “You’re pulling my leg.”)
By the way, the story that Innernaut shared. That is such a beautiful snapshot of Jessica. I can almost hear her voice, and see her smile.
March 28, 2007 at 5:17 am
These mist covered mountains
Are a home now for me
But my home is the lowlands
And always will be
Some day you’ll return to
Your valleys and your farms
And you’ll no longer burn
To be brothers in arms
Through these fields of destruction
Baptism of fire
I’ve watched all your suffering
As the battles raged higher
And though they did hurt me so bad
In the fear and alarm
You did not desert me
My brothers in arms
There’s so many different worlds
So many different suns
And we have just one world
But we live in different ones
Now the sun’s gone to hell
And the moon’s riding high
Let me bid you farewell
Every man has to die
But it’s written in the starlight
And every line on your palm
We’re fools to make war
On our brothers in arms.
March 28, 2007 at 8:41 am
Be Very Careful Indeed!
Hey folks, please stop wasting your time on the “Be Careful” postings (nos. 131 and 221). These postings cannot possibly be an “official response” from the Fellowship of Friends and are NOTHING BUT HOAXES. Here’s why.
1. The first clue comes in the very first sentence of no. 131, where the possessive “its” is improperly spelled with an apostrophe, which instead signifies the contraction of “it” and “is.” It’s a small thing, of course, but such an error would never be allowed to pass through the undoubtedly rigorous screening that a real response would receive, a response that would undoubtedly be crafted by committee.
2. The biggest give-away that no. 131 is the work of a prankster is the nearly comical repetition of “post #294,” the now-famous post that briefly details Robert Burton’s sexual acrobatics behind closed doors. Within a few paragraphs, no. 131 refers to “post #294” a total of NINE TIMES! It’s clear that the intention of post 131 is either sheer satire, or to make sure that anyone new to the blog who has not seen #294 (and there probably are many) immediately goes to check out #294 RIGHT AWAY! It is obvious that the writer of no. 131 wants to shine a bright light on #294, a post that is now rarely referenced on the blog (except by the writer of no. 131!)
3. Post 131 impugns Robert Burton’s “health, stamina and physical vigor,” suggesting that he can barely walk up a “moderate incline.” This attempt to hold Robert up to ridicule is an underhanded and perhaps libelous attempt to diminish a teacher in the eyes of his students.
4. If a real official response to the blog from the Fellowship were forthcoming, it is unlikely that it would single out a few minor instances of abrasive postings while failing to responding to the numerous substantive concerns and criticisms of Robert Burton and the Fellowship of Friends that have been voiced with honesty and intelligence on this blog. By failing to address anything of substance, and instead giving silly “refutations” and “corrections” to minor points of little consequence, the writers by their silence on any matters of significance would be giving credence to the serious criticisms voiced in the blog.
5. The legal threats that are implied in nos. 131 and 221 are obviously the work of an amateur, would-be lawyer; anyone who is at all familiar with the law would know that these are merely empty threats.
6. The lack of any attribution of nos.131 and 221, and the use of a fabricated “gmail” e-mail address, are the final give-away that the “Be Careful” posts cannot be from a real Fellowship of Friends official source. Anyone truly writing on behalf of Robert Burton and the Fellowship of Friends would have no need to hide behind pseudonyms in such a cowardly fashion.
So please, let’s spend our time on more important matters than being careful.
March 28, 2007 at 8:48 am
Dear “Be careful”
Be a little bit more professional in your argumentation.
The FOF did not get us used to amateurim.
more efforts, no aim.
March 28, 2007 at 9:37 am
Trouble Taints a Cerebral Sanctuary
Robert Burton created Fellowship of Friends to celebrate the intellect and offer a haven from nuclear holocaust. But claims of a sex scandal have prompted many members to leave.
L.A. Times/November 4, 1996
By Jenifer Warren
Oregon House, Calif.–Deep in the Sierra foothills, at the end of a twisting road, lies Apollo–an oasis of high culture in the outback. A mock French chateau houses a museum and library stuffed with rare art and books. A vineyard on terraced hillsides produces award-winning wines.
Apollo is the worldwide headquarters of the Fellowship of Friends, whose 2,000 cerebral members believe that keen self-awareness, a positive outlook and immersion in life’s finest things–from Baccarat crystal to Johann Sebastian Bach–offer a path to higher consciousness.
They have been led on this journey for 25 years by Robert Earl Burton, a former schoolteacher who has guided everything from when his followers bear children to what sort of shoes they wear. Burton tells members he speaks with 44 angels who watch over his flock–among them Abraham Lincoln, Plato and Jesus Christ–believers say. Burton also has predicted that Apollo will be the lone surviving outpost after a global nuclear holocaust in 2006.
Disillusioned former members say the fellowship is more than just another California curiosity. A growing number of them–as well as some academics–call it a cult that entraps its mostly well-educated members with a false promise of spiritual evolution. A recently ended lawsuit and accounts from ex-members echo that claim and add another: Burton, they say, has for years seduced young males in the group.
The suit and similar allegations by other members have spurred dozens to leave the group. It was brought by a Marin County man who claims Burton first demanded sex from him at age 17. Troy Buzbee, who had asked for $5 million in damages, charged that Burton brainwashes members into a state of “absolute submission,” allowing him to feed a “voracious appetite for sexual perversion.”
Fellowship officials and their attorney, Abraham Goldman, did not respond to repeated requests for interviews about the group and Burton. The Buzbee suit was settled late last month. Buzbee’s attorney, Ford Greene, would not comment except to say the case “is over.”
Several former members, including some who held high-level positions, said the details in the suit served to confirm for them what a number of followers had come to suspect about the 57-year-old Burton. “For years I ignored or justified a lot of things, but this I could not ignore,” said Pamella Cavanna, 54, who left the fellowship last year after devoting two decades and more than $250,000 to Burton and his teachings. “A teacher should have moral standards that we aspire to. Instead, Robert has standards we are forced to overlook.”
Former members, as well as court records, fellowship documents and Burton’s prolific writings to the faithful, reveal much about the group and a leader who rose from humble beginnings to command a little-known $26-million empire.
To outsiders, the fellowship can have an entrancing face. Its headquarters sprawl across 1,300 acres in Yuba County about 70 miles north of Sacramento. Its Renaissance winery produces cabernets and Rieslings that have been poured for American presidents and are respected by wine experts. The Apollo Opera company recently mounted an acclaimed production of Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” in nearby Grass Valley.
The fellowship also has a reputation in the art and antique world as a serious collector. The group recently liquidated its museum full of antique Chinese furniture, a collection considered among the world’s preeminent holdings. The collection fetched $11.2 million at Christie’s auction house in New York, where Disney chief Michael Ovitz was among the buyers, snagging a pair of elaborately carved cabinets for $607,500.
The winery, opera and antiques–along with the art, gardens, fountains, rare Persian carpets, inlaid Steinway pianos and other valuables sprinkled around the property–reflect the fellowship’s guiding philosophy. A refined social and cultural milieu, writes Burton, helps a believer “awaken his higher centers” and develop an immortal soul.
“Robert always used to say, ‘Beauty creates its likeness in those who pursue it,’ ” recalls one former member from Los Angeles who asked not to be named.
Attracting Followers
Burton commands an annual salary estimated by the group’s former chief financial officer at $250,000 or more. Members serve as his bodyguards and chauffeurs, and one is often assigned to record his observations for the faithful. Rarely seen around Yuba County, Burton travels frequently in Europe, where he meets with followers and shops for collectibles for his stately Louis XVI-style home on the Apollo grounds.
Partial to silk socks, Burton at one time insisted his underwear be pressed, say ex-members. He also enjoys golf, manicures, fresh flowers, fine wine–and food. Standing more than 6 feet tall, he is slender now but at one point weighed close to 300 pounds.
A butcher’s son born in Mineral, Ark., Burton graduated from San Jose State in 1963 and taught elementary school in Contra Costa County. In 1970, while living in a Volkswagen bus in Berkeley, he formed the fellowship, apparently after convincing a circle of followers that he possessed the powers of a superior being.
“He was quite wonderful then, a charming person of great knowledge,” recalled Stella Wirk, who was one of Burton’s first 10 students. Wirk said she and her husband were expelled from the group in the early 1980s after refusing to pay a $3,000 fine imposed by Burton for violating his rule against smoking.
Today, about 500 followers live and work at or near Apollo. Others live, work or study at more than 65 fellowship “teaching centers” worldwide. They hold regular jobs but, according to ex-members, socialize mainly among themselves and fill their off hours with meetings, dinners, concerts and other fellowship events.
Members are encouraged to limit contact with family and other outsiders whom Burton refers to as “dead” and “food for the moon.” “Men do not understand what an affliction it is to be average and to participate with the stagnate masses,” he once wrote.
The fellowship attracts followers who are highly educated and well-heeled. Believers tithe 10% of their income and make other “donations” throughout the year, according to the group’s literature. An average American member gives more than $6,000 annually, the wealthy much more, said Charles Randall, the fellowship’s former chief financial officer. He quit the group in 1994 after sending a letter to a fellowship official expressing disillusionment and advising him that men felt coerced to join Burton’s “harem.” Randall said the fellowship’s annual income exceeded $5 million when he left.
Many members joined after finding fellowship bookmarks planted in volumes at metaphysical bookstores. The bookmarks guide the curious to upcoming “prospective student” meetings, held at lavish homes rented by the fellowship. After attending three such meetings, a recruit is invited to join, according to a lengthy 1993 explanation of the group written by members and published in the Marysville Appeal-Democrat, a Yuba County newspaper.
The group’s roots are in the arcane teachings of two early 20th century Russian philosophers, George Gurdjieff and Peter Ouspensky, whose ideas are referred to as The Fourth Way. One central premise is that humans are spiritually “asleep” and must strive for constant self-awareness to achieve true consciousness. Disciples must also refrain from expressing negativity, such as complaining, gossiping or using defensive body language. Such behavior is said to drain energy needed for the pursuit of enlightenment.
“It’s all very stimulating stuff in the beginning–the ideas, the caliber of the people you meet, the music, the fancy dinners, Walt Whitman, all the culture,” said Ron Lancaster, a member for nine years who joined while working at Hughes Aircraft Co. in El Segundo and left over Burton’s alleged sexual conduct. “But there’s no doubt it’s a cult. Our lives were totally controlled.”
Over the years, the members’ personal hygiene, pets, hobbies, reading material and diet all have been influenced by Burton, often through written pronouncements.
In a June 1980 issue of the Renaissance Vine, a bulletin for members, they were told “the exercise of not expressing wit . . . has been resumed.” At one point, Burton told members to trade their eyeglasses for contact lenses because “it makes the face a more beautiful impression.” Any “discomfort from wearing the lenses,” Burton said, “is good for voluntary suffering.”
Another time he told married couples to wait five years before bearing children. Premarital sex and adultery were explicitly prohibited, as were homosexual relationships until the early 1990s, ex-members said. For a long period, women were required to wear skirts.
Members were notified in 1979 that “a new exercise begins this month: We are to avoid placing our elbows on flat surfaces such as tables or desks; armchairs are fine. . . . Additionally, we are asked to avoid using the word ‘thing,’ beginning August 1.” To help shock members into spiritual wakefulness, Burton has periodically banned the use of such everyday terms as “I,” “really,” “oh” and “hi.”
“It was strange,” said Lancaster. “Instead of saying, ‘I’ll have a cup of coffee,’ you’d say, ‘It wants a cup of coffee’ or just, ‘Cup of coffee.’ ”
As part of his emphasis on refined living, Burton once sought to turn his flock into a replica of an 18th century English aristocracy. Members took Anglicized names and were told to use their utensils in the European fashion, with the fork in the left hand, tines pointed down. During this period, the common “cookie” became a “biscuit.”
Inside the Fellowship
Burton is also regarded by followers as a prophet. When he forecast a worldwide recession in 1984, believers urgently stockpiled provisions and weapons. He has predicted that a 1998 earthquake will consume the West Coast but spare Apollo. As for the 2006 apocalypse, Burton says Apollo is an “eternal city” that will preserve culture for the ages. Some ex-believers say now that Burton’s rules and pronouncements were a distraction, Wirk said, “to keep us from reflecting on what was really going on.” At the time, however, the members said they followed Burton faithfully, believing that obedience would accelerate their spiritual growth.
“When people join these groups, they don’t go in planning to surrender their critical thinking and personal autonomy to the will of the big kahuna. But that’s exactly what happens,” said Joel Friedlander, a fellowship member for 22 years who was editor of Burton’s 1991 book, “Self-Remembering.”
“The indoctrination is so complete, and the peer pressure so great, that gradually the old you is replaced by a new you who believes all the propaganda, including the line that eternal damnation is the price of getting out.”
Margaret Singer, a professor emeritus of psychology at UC Berkeley and a cult expert, said the fellowship uses techniques common to many cults. Veneration of a single living leader, authoritarian structure and intensive control of members’ lives fit the classic profile, she said.
“They look for people who are a bit lonely or needy and they shower them with love, making them feel special,” said Singer, who has tracked the fellowship and talked with many alumni. “From there, the control and manipulation happen one step at a time.”
With the fellowship, Singer said, “it’s all centered around giving money to Burton . . . his personality sets the tone and controls every little thing the group does.”
Once in the fellowship, members become addicted to the feeling of belonging to a blessed elite, ex-believers say. Leaving that behind–especially after large investments of time and money over a period of many years–takes tremendous will, they say.
“It was terrifying to leave, because you’re trained to view outsiders as this mass of sleeping humanity with no possibility,” said a Bay Area woman who spent 20 years as a traveling teacher in the group. “And when you finally do get out, the fellowship community–95% of all the people you’ve known for the last 20 years–just drops you. You feel like you’ve wasted your life and have no place in the world.”
Many ex-members said they were not spurred to leave until allegations emerged about Burton’s sexual behavior. For years, they said, the teacher’s alleged conduct was unknown because of strict rules against gossiping or speaking ill of him. Moreover, they said, Burton claimed to be celibate, saving his sexual energy for the good of his flock. Word of the leader’s alleged habits first slipped out in 1984, when Samuel Sanders–a former member of the fellowship board of directors–sued the group, claiming fraud and alleging that Burton used his “god-figure role” to prey sexually upon impressionable young men. The Sanders suit–which was settled in 1988–led an estimated 100 members to quit.
A similar number left in 1995 after ex-member Richard Buzbee wrote an open letter to the fellowship’s followers, claiming that Burton had demanded sex from him and had a sexual relationship with Buzbee’s son, Troy, for many years.
Troy Buzbee, now 27, sued last April, claiming that Burton first seduced him when Buzbee was 17. Declaring himself “an angel in a man’s body,” Burton allegedly told Buzbee that the gods wished for the two to be close.
“Burton would kiss [Troy Buzbee] on the forehead, which he said represented the seat of the soul and then instruct [Buzbee] to ‘separate’ from his body and just ‘let go,’ ” said the suit, which alleged the sexual encounters continued for more than five years and that Burton had sex with other young men. Although Buzbee said he was repulsed and suffered “self-loathing,” his “brain was programmed to believe that there was no place to go,” the lawsuit said.
Troy Buzbee is now married with a young daughter. He declined to be interviewed after the suit was settled, said his lawyer.
Numerous other ex-members have told similar stories in open letters to the membership and to each other, in newspaper accounts and in interviews with The Times.
[John Doe], Burton’s secretary and chauffeur in the mid-1970s, has alleged that Burton forced him to have oral sex on many occasions, assuring [Doe] that surrendering to him would “please the gods and help my soul evolve.
“To understand how this can happen, you have to realize that this man is considered the height of the human species, the second Christ, the light,” [Doe], a member for 18 years and now an artist in South Lake Tahoe, told The Times. “Your instinct, of course, is to run away and refuse him. But how do you reject the teacher, the person in whom you’ve placed all your faith?”
[Doe] has copies of letters from other ex-members describing sexual relationships with Burton. [Doe] wrote to Goldman seeking an apology from Burton, and in a June 9, 1990, response the fellowship attorney wrote that Burton was willing to apologize if [Doe] agreed not to sue in the future. [Doe’s] charges were reported in 1993 in the Marysville Appeal-Democrat.
Bruce Levy, an ex-member who restores rare books in Grass Valley, also has discussed having a sexual relationship with Burton. “No one held a gun to my head,” said Levy in an interview with The Times, “but in a spiritual sense, he did. Under his teachings, one has to do what one doesn’t want to do in order to evolve spiritually. . . . It’s the least you can do for your teacher.”
Goldman, Burton’s attorney, acknowledged in a 1995 article in the San Diego Union that the leader had sex with the senior Buzbee and at least one other male follower. Goldman said it was Burton’s policy not to make public comments, and added that “we don’t think a [sexual] relationship between a leader and a member of the congregation is abusive in and of itself.”
Good Neighbors
Despite the controversy around Burton, the fellowship enjoys a relatively comfortable coexistence with its neighbors in Oregon House, a wisp of a town populated by retirees and urban refugees. In the early years, locals were wary of the newcomers, who poured in with chain saws to clear manzanita and terraced the hills to plant grapevines. The group also raised suspicions by closing a county road that crossed its property and buying up surrounding land when it became available.
Yuba County Assessor David Brown said the fellowship has rankled some people by seeking special tax exemptions to avoid paying property taxes, which totaled $273,000 last year. When one exemption–for the Apollo museum–was denied, the fellowship took the matter to court but ultimately lost. The fellowship is exempt from state and federal income taxes as a religious organization.
“At first . . . there was a lot of anxiety about them,” said former county Supervisor John Mistler. “But they’ve worked hard on their image.”
Some civic leaders now view the fellowship and its Renaissance winery–the county’s third-largest taxpayer–as a source of pride. The group keeps a stretch of road litter-free through the state’s Adopt-a-Highway program and gives generously to the local Lions Club. “This year, they’ve offered $10,000 toward our new community center, and around here, that’s a big deal,” said Ken Eaton, a retired contractor in Oregon House. “We don’t understand them, but we live with them.”
Meanwhile, ex-members say they live with lingering effects of their time at Apollo. One woman, who has been out of the group for two years, cannot listen to Bach without feeling a chill. Another catches herself standing in a daze in the supermarket, unable to make decisions such as which brand of soap to buy.
Janja Lalich, who runs a support group for ex-cult members in Alameda and who has counseled fellowship alumni, said such “mental traumas can be devastating.”
“The real tragedy of groups like the fellowship,” she said, “is they rip off the best and brightest people in society and use them like slaves for years. When these people get out–if they get out–there’s an awful lot of pain to overcome.”
Scott Wilson of The Times library contributed to this story.
written by:
Jenifer Warren
Los Angeles Times, Capitol Bureau
Sacramento, California
jenifer.warren@latimes.com
(916) 445-8860
March 28, 2007 at 1:45 pm
‘Be careful’: How does it feel to be ‘devil’s advocate’? You perfectly fit the image of a lawyer who has lost his conscience. Misleading, empty words, avoidance of important points… Never too late to take care of your own soul, wish you to wake up to your life.
March 28, 2007 at 2:02 pm
Dear Elena,
In your last posting I could read the wish to save or redeem the world which you belong to, to change it into a better place where you could breathe and live freely.
Although I didn’t understand completely the nature of the game you proposed to play, but do you honestly believe that it’s possible for Robert to acknowledge his faults or change his behavior? And would that matter to us anyway? Even if Robert retires or dies, do you think that it’s possible to have a healthy community based on his legacy? And who is going to be his heir? On which base he/she is going to unite the community? Which teachings would be used? And would we want to follow anybody at all anyway?
Maybe you will have to loose all in the end. Maybe your heart will be shattered. But it is alive! And will find its way to love and live freely in this world.
March 28, 2007 at 4:56 pm
I’ve been looking at the blog weekly for a couple of weeks now and thought I would try participating. I’m not a blogger so the form and sometimes the adversarial tone that it takes seem foreign, but I’ve been told that can happen in cyberspace. Thank you, Sheik, for making this communication possible.
I left the FOF about two months ago after almost 30 years. I tried the new form and found it intrusive to the presence that was already there. For years RB would tell us his tennis teacher told him “Don’t change a winning game out of novelty or boredom.” In my opinion, he changed a winning game by changing the form of the school so drastically.
I love RB but cannot deny that there seems to be sexual misconduct that is not congruent with being a spiritual teacher. I had to come to terms with this and my best thinking on this matter was that staying in the FOF not only condoned the sexual misconduct but enabled it.
RB taught me so much over the 30 years and he was always so very kind and so there with whatever was happening. Early in the 80’s there were occasional dinners at Anna G’s house for RB, Anna, and six other students. I was at one of the dinners and at the end of the dinner it was raining very hard. As we were leaving and he was kissing us good bye, he realized that no one else had a car, so he offered us all a ride home. We all got into his car, and he drove us to our homes in the Court of the Caravans. It was touching, and the love I have for him continues.
March 28, 2007 at 5:36 pm
Dear Sheik,
Are the IP addresses of the computers that are used to post to this blog stored and/or traceable?
March 28, 2007 at 6:01 pm
Be Very Careful Indeed (255): They are stored, but they are only available to me, the Knight, and the blog provider (wordpress).
They are practically useless though as your IP address changes with each connection. The only one who could find out who was given a particular IP address at a particular time would be your internet provider.
Overall, anyone wishing to uncover someone’s identity would have to have the legal means to persuade both wordpress and the internet provider to reveal confidential information.
As far as I know, this happens incredibly rarely (terrorism rather than bad-mouthing).
Read the news article from Joe Average’s (207) post, it explains why exactly it happens so rarely.
In other words, everyone here is safe. I would have thought that clear after about 2 or 3 months with nothing but an occassional threat.
March 28, 2007 at 6:22 pm
Friends, it’s official: Be Careful is the real thing. He responded to my personal email: he’s a lawyer at the FOF (I’ll let him reveal himself if he so chooses). Interestingly, that would seem to indicate that RB is being advised (or on his own has decided) to respond to this little ole blog. Call it egotistical but I’m kinda proud: We’re making an impact. Perhaps even, a good one, ultimately.
I had a friend (nonstudent) who killed herself after reading Meetings with Remarkable Men. Yes, it was her choice (I wanted to have her committed for her own protection) but interestingly, she had told me, a month or so prior, that ever since reading that we were all asleep and basically food for the moon, she felt: what was there to live for? Let’s not forget that these are powerful ideas –and potentially dangerous ones. And the good of the FOF is as real as the painfully “not good.” Rumi invites us to that beautiful field out “beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,” but the fact is, we’re living most of the time right here in this field where actions have consequences.
March 28, 2007 at 6:56 pm
After an experience remembered later as a “being all space and time and being” and after reentering a ‘benjaminness’ convinced that life was forever after altered and after a couple year search into the esoterics of the time and after being led by the nose to the FOF and after becoming a ‘center director’ and after having left 10 years later feeling I had “graduated”, and after starting ‘groups’ in several cities and becoming the ‘guru/teacher’, and after having asked the first female who joined to bed, and after she said “how could I not say yes when asked to bed ‘God'” and after enjoying for numerous years the exoteric fruits of preying on confused vulnerabilities, and after coming to realize that the student/teacher relationship holds both back in the ‘relationship bind’ and after having been away for fifteen years rejoined the FOF again, and after being kicked out for smoking and after more and more; one can say here that all has always unfolded perfectly and could do no other – except I will not because after-all, one can but know naught and naught is a good thing to know.
March 28, 2007 at 7:20 pm
Dear Sheik: I believe that IP addresses will remain static with always-on broadband connections. But thanks for the clarification.
March 28, 2007 at 8:19 pm
Be Very Careful (259): Yes, broadband connection would have a stable IP address. Switching your computer off, putting it to sleep, or manually disconnecting the connection would mean that once you re-connect to the internet, you will be given a new and different IP address (ie. you will have a different IP address at least every day).
Anyway, even if you were to have the same IP address forever, it would still be confidential because your internet provider is bound by law not to reveal who the IP address belongs to.
March 28, 2007 at 9:10 pm
Perhaps one of the more significant ‘facts’ to have emerged during the evolution of this blog is that so many of you who have posted lucid and perceptive commentary reveal a certain blindness when it comes to seeing what a certain aspect of the FOF really is.
I’m referring to the unwillingness to believe that ‘Be Careful’is actually coming from the official mouth of FOF.As I mentioned in a previous post #214,it’s just too embarrassing to accept that we could have been so stupid and naive for all these years not to have aknowledged what has been plainly in front of our noses.Mabey we are not so bright and intelligent as we all like to think and have simply been suckered ( please, no puns ).Face up to it.The FOF is a Cult. Most people,like the Shiek for instance,smell it right away.We didn’t. As stated in the excerpt from Miles Barth letter that was posted here some time back,what is of real interest to me is what was it in myself that allowed/needed this to happen.Perhaps you should be asking yourselves the same question.
March 28, 2007 at 9:11 pm
Ruddery, fun to see you pop up here. We spent some time together in Chicago Centre, winter of ’79. Riding the train from Ravinia one day, you explained to me how binary language controls computers…a foundation bit of knowledge of naughts and ones that has informed my practical understanding ever since. Regards and “namaste” to you in the ongoing perfect unfolding.
March 28, 2007 at 9:55 pm
Well said mole.
March 28, 2007 at 9:58 pm
words, words, words, Many “I´s”.
can you see the ten thousand idiots Like Hafiz called, can you see the I´s not related to promote presence.
CAN YOU SEE? your lower self.
work over yourself, this is the work.
observe and resist.
Be clever Remember yourself
March 28, 2007 at 10:13 pm
I hord that there are Fotograf of Robert and boys having sex., If it is true I do not know Maybe they use Cellpone with Kamera. My friend say he saw Video vbut I think this is a joke but he is one of Roberts boys. Have other peeple seen a Foto?
March 28, 2007 at 10:15 pm
Hello Cathie; always glad to help out with the naught(ies) and the un-naught(ies) and namaste back at you.
March 28, 2007 at 10:18 pm
Dear Fellowship Administration (author of Be Careful),
As an FOF student I am embarrassed. Your approach is distasteful and offends my sense of fairness. I suggest you review your approach to criticism.
No the blog is not perfect, and may have a few times hit below the belt, but there is no question in my mind that good intentions are spread within the posts and that there is something to be learned here, and that those that are in power within the FOF are the ones that stand to gain the most by reading and digesting what inspires the blog. Or do you feel it is not possible to learn from outside the gatehouse.
This blog is partly about having the courage to look and to see. It is about stepping out of cult behavior. I have experience the following examples in the FOF:
1) Uses of fear to discourage criticism,
2) Promises of rewards in the after-life or next life time to encourage acceptance in this life,
3) Shunning of those that are not part of the illusion,
4) Feeding the concept that we are the chosen ones and will be rewarded somehow,
5) Teaching that critical thinking, especially with regard to the teacher, is a barrier to awakening,
6) Interference with longstanding friendships, marriages and particularly with those friendships out of the FOF,
7) The use of fear:“spend more time at the Galleria before you get cancer” to control behavior.
8) The claim to direct and exclusive connections to angels, Gods, and ancient (even prehistoric) knowledge.
Cult behavior exists everywhere, in the Military, Corporations, churches, schools and communities. You cannot avoid cult behavior by leaving the Fellowship or any other organization. It is like trying to reduce identification by changing your job. It is however, useful to understand the typical cult approaches so as not to be tricked by them. They can lead to a sheep-like mentality that is not healthy for personal growth and evolution.
Over the years, these cult behaviors have become accepted and we often don’t see them for what they are. Yes, they may be delivered with good intentions, but they are, in my opinion unnecessary to the FOF’s aims. I just can’t see how they relate very closely to presence or work. They may bring some naïve people on board but they also scare many sincere people away.
When the kitchen is dirty we can blame others for pointing out what needs to be done or we can work together to clean the kitchen. Can the kitchen be cleaned? Only if we allow each other to see it as it is and allow the painful thought, that our kitchen is dirty – that our kitchen is not the sparkling kitchen that could exist. And it also takes courage and strength to take a step, to begin a process that offends the instincts of those that do not want to touch it.
If you are supported by the FOF instinctively or emotionally, this is difficult. The more the instinctive center is supported by the FOF, the more risk involved, and the more resistance to change. After all, there is no guarantee that change will make anything better and it could destroy what we have. Yes, there is substantial risk. And the instinctive risk is not as strong as the emotional risk.
The blog points to a need. A need that is in a dimension that the FOF tends to ignore. A need that is on a different scale from the sequence or presence. But still a need. You cannot stop people from talking and thinking together. You cannot stop the process of elimination by forbidding people from going to the bathroom. It will come out somewhere and maybe not where you want it. Cults try to stop people from talking and thinking.
What if the FOF, rather than striking out, could say to the Blog: “Yes, I see there is truth in some of what you say, and I am thankful for that. We will be working to make some corrections. Thanks for your attention.”
And even if we cannot abide by change, lets at least understand what it means to be a cult and minimize the appearance of being so.
March 28, 2007 at 10:32 pm
The fast growth of high-tech in China has spawned a type of sarcastic, anti-government commentary on the web called “egao” — which literally translates to (ahem) “evil work” according to the article below.
No doubt, the Chinese government initially used the term “egao” in an attempt to discredit the commentary, and discourage people from reading it. Sound familiar? But eventually, the bloggers adopted the term with pride, because they realized it actually attracted readers and called attention to their messages.
The Chinese government is obviously not an exact comparison to the Fellowship, and I’m not pretending that it is. (I have many friends both inside the fof and outside who I love very much, and I believe there are many facets to this discussion — not just black and white facets.) But a few people in this blog have compared the tide of world events to some of what is happening in the Fellowship and in this blog. So hopefully most people see this article as being somewhat relevant to our discussion.
In fact, it would be interesting to know whether or not FOF members in China would refer to Sheik’s discussion group as “egao/evil work.” If yes, and if this discussion and other discussions will help foster positive communication, then maybe we should wear the badge with honor. 🙂
—–
http://www.coxwashington.com/reporters/content/reporters/stories/2007/03/08/BC_CHINA_SARCASM08_COX.html
Groundswell Of Sarcastic Humor Begins To Undermine China’s Censors
Thursday, March 08, 2007
BEIJING — It’s a Chinese form of “truthiness” that might make Stephen Colbert proud.
China’s Southern Metropolis Weekly magazine recently reported this shocking news: The central government created universal health care for the country’s 1.3 billion people, wiped out bribery and reduced the country’s wide income gap. Migrant workers in the southern city of Guangzhou, notorious for its sweatshops, were “happy” and “respected,” the magazine reported in its print and Web editions.
Of course, it was political parody and all untrue.
Virtually unheard of several years ago, such blatant satire is part of a radical shift sweeping Chinese culture as Internet use spreads and citizens increasingly evade censorship by couching criticism in sarcastic humor. China has become so awash in a new wave of sarcastic — and often subversive — media that the trend has spawned a name: egao, literally, “evil work.”
The word [pronounced UH-GOW] describes “a subculture that is characterized by humor, revelry, subversion, grass-root spontaneity, defiance of authority, mass participation and multi-media high tech,” said a recent editorial in the government-run China Daily.
While the government tightly controls traditional media channels including television, radio and print, “the Internet has given people the chance to express themselves,” said Guo Xinghua, a sociologist at People’s University in Beijing.
“Egao is a term for how average people are seizing back the discourse,” he said.
Last year, the Chinese government issued a list of “Eight Honors and Eight Shames” as part of a campaign to promote morality within the Communist Party. The list included such instructions as “Love the country; do it no harm.”
Chinese Web users quickly posted their own lists on the Internet.
One parody included the couplet, “Love your Mercedes and BMW; do not ride a bicycle,” which some readers considered an attack on rampant official corruption.
Despite government attempts to limit access to many Web sites, the number of Chinese Internet users has quadrupled since 2001 and reached 137 million last December, according to the China Internet Network Information Center.
The phenomenon is also spreading to other media. One of the most popular recent examples of egao was Crazy Stone, a low-budget film shot in Chongqing that chronicles the exploits of bumbling thieves trying to steal a jade ornament.
“Crazy Stone is the first Chinese film that makes fun of everything,” said Miao Di, a film professor at Beijing Broadcast University.
The movie targets Chinese officials in a scene where the main character realizes the ornament has been stolen but decides against calling the police.
“The police?” he asks as he drags on a cigarette. “If we call the cops we’ll lose everything. They’ll just mess things up.”
While sarcasm is stock-in-trade for Western media, Chinese have little history of the technique because the government has tightly monitored most culture, Miao said.
After the Communist Party seized control of China in 1949, the government built propaganda bureaus across the nation and dictated what kinds of art could be produced. The top-down control reached a climax during the Cultural Revolution, a decade-long period starting in 1966 when almost all popular entertainment was banned.
Today, the Communist Party still tries to control media content. Most press reports, films and television shows have to be cleared by government censors and many Chinese journalists censor themselves to avoid upsetting their editors. Beijing employs tens of thousands of Internet police who delete or report content considered objectionable.
Chinese “have to rely on satire to express many of our opinions. There’s not freedom to directly confront social problems,” said film editor Hu Ge.
Hu, inspired by the South Park television series and the Naked Gun movies, helped make a 20-minute film parody that became a sensation on the Web and is considered by many commentators as China’s first example of egao. Within months, hundreds of similar videos “with targets ranging from George W. Bush to Superman” were circulating on the Internet, the China Daily reported.
Government attempts to stamp out the Internet movement could only make it stronger, Guo said.
“Partly the top cultural arbiters are angry because they can’t control the media any more,” Guo said. “The people are creating the culture for the first time.”
March 28, 2007 at 10:55 pm
Mole #261: Very good points in regard to “Be Careful”. Our expectations definitely affect our perceptions, so it’s worth taking a look at that.
However, I’m agreeing with “Be Careful Indeed” on this one for all of the reasons that he/she mentioned. Someone is enjoying the attention.
March 28, 2007 at 10:59 pm
Thanks for posting this LA TIMES article, “More History Needed”–showing once again the meaning of the word “NEWS”…
Of course this article was widely circulated, read and discussed, as we all know very well…
Sure Thing!
March 28, 2007 at 11:02 pm
Some 4 of my prior postings did not make it to the Blog, why I do not know, but I was trying to make a prediction that for the FOF it will be business as usual, in terms of the Spring Donation…there will be no protest, nothing of the kind, the reason: This has never yet happened in the past, and a few fervent feverish bloggers (that have already left) are not going to make a difference here! Nice try though!
This once again is a
Sure Thing!
March 28, 2007 at 11:23 pm
Dear Rita and Friends,
I hope we can answer your questions together, here’s my present attempt
.
Do you honestly believe that it’s possible for Robert to acknowledge his faults or change his behavior?
It does not matter wether it is possible or not that Robert will acknowledge his faults or change his behavior, what matters is that he changes his behavior because he has no support to continue behaving as he is. Indeed, just as we gave him wings to fly into all the excesses we can cut the feathers and control them, just as he cut ours. This is objective external consideration. His was subjective inconsiderateness. The issues involved are not against Robert as a human being, they are about the limitations each individual must impose upon himself when he’s damaging others even if the damage is not considered a crime and if he can not, the reponsability the community has to assume to impose those limits. If, in the end, Robert wishes to be part of that kind of community or not, which he himself helped develop, is up to him. Anyone has the choice to “leave”, including the teacher, in the inner and outer sense of the word.
And would that matter to us anyway?
It matters to us in as much as we can understand that human passions are there to be “transformed”, “turned”, more than prohibited, chastised or convicted. “Life”, or humanity in its own struggle, clearly understands that by not putting anyone in jail, unless passion becomes criminal. There have been no crimes here, no matter how much passion we want to put in it, there have simply been tremendous human weaknesses to deal with the passions, so much so, that the standards of the community have become lower than regular standards in life, (depriving the individuals of rights that had already been fought for and won), for the benefit of one and a few barely acknowledged individuals. But all the money that has ever been payed, has been payed willingly, with the hope of an even more conscious life than life and whoever tries to get that money back is simply trying to get his bet out after he’s already lost it. But then, he’s forgotten what he really bet on and loosened his snake.
Even if Robert retires or dies, do you think that it’s possible to have a healthy community based on his legacy?
Robert’s legacy is the practice of self remembering for thirty or so years amongst a considerable group of people. With the wrong “third force” perhaps, but it is people who have learned to refrain themselves from their passions in some cases, transformed them, in others, and given free reign to them, in still others. The commitment of Robert’s “form” to the remembrance of one’s self and the non expression of negative emotions, (which well fitted the development of his unquestioned “monarchy”), and the work on alchemy which allowed for an understanding of “scale” and “valuation”, unfortunately misused and limited to his kingdom because it did not really extend out to objective human values, still developed a community of people that in the worst case scenario have developed enough being to understand that higher centres do exist; that the magic of unity, is possible; that not resolving conflicts with anger, is possible, even if one looses; that compassion in the highest sense of the word, is possible and that “effort” is necessary. In the worst case scenario, the Fellowship of Friends has developed a group of people willing to give their lives to a cause, hopefully not a “lost” cause, like nations have also done, but if it ‘“be”-came’ the wrong cause, even more than it already has, could they “be” blamed more than nations have been blamed? Is all humanity not struggling to move on after the second world war and all its crimes?
Robert’s legacy will “stand”, for generations to come, for many of our children have it in their being that conflict is attempted to be resolved with love, even if we often don’t manage it. It will stand on the goodwill of the people that worked with the conviction that a more conscious world could be developed, even at their cost. Simple, kind and naive human beings.
Robert’s legacy lives in everyone in this blog and every student who came and left, every student who is still a part of it and every other person whose fate happened to connect him to it through the internet or out of it.
Robert’s legacy is nothing less than the practice of a conscious experiment amongst a decent group of people and the fact that that experiment fell back into the same human cycle of degeneration, simply shows us the obstacles that we’re facing, more clearly. They can only be resolved, in the short run, if we continue to work and “live” the experiment. What will come out of it, we cannot know unless we live it, just as those who never did the exercise of not saying “I” cannot understand the awareness of intellectual mechanicality that it develops.
Someday we will write books about Robert Burton’s legacy, for it is, no matter how misconstrued in practice, the attempt to bring consciousness to the rather mundane life of our “times”.
And who is going to be his heir? On which base he/she is going to unite the community?
The heir of all Schools is humanity. Schools are small pockets of humanity that must always return to humanity in the everlasting microcosmic-macrocosmic flow.
Within the Fellowship, can it be anyone else but the students? We follow each other by what we agree on and question everything we “do”, for it is much easier to “Speak” than to “Act”, as we,ve already noticed. Real external consideration does not limit itself to photographing each other, miraculous as that can be, it also implies the imposition of actual conditions. Lawfulness. Law in life, painfully manipulated by the instinct of individuals, still manages to put behind bars the uncontrollable snake that slides into crime. The difference comes when we do not work together to support an individual but a state, a state of objective aims with objective conditions to which the individual tries to adapt and be molded by. Individuals in which the majority act not conditioned by their instincts but by their heart. All this is, no matter how much still limited in practice in the Fellowship of Friends, the legacy of Robert Burton’s teaching.
Most people still don’t know how to separate and connect their genitals from their head and heart and the work after Robert Burton is to develop that experiment. Is that failure not part of his practice too? Every individual is free to mold himself by any set of laws that he wishes to adapt to but there are laws that we’ve never even attempted to understand, that end up restricting us all when we start damaging each other. Then we get outside help and the Sheiks appear and those who have already escaped give the inmates a hand. Thank God!
Which teachings would be used?
Every one of us is the recipient of innumerable teachings but if we can talk of a slight advantage is that we already have thirty years of experiment on ourselves. There is nothing wrong with the aims of the Fellowship although, like others on the blog, I might rest from classical music…. For about a week!; And take the Walt Disney Barbie coloring off the gardens and plant some organic land so that we don’t just produce flowers, but fruit. True, there is the wine and the Olives, why not the wine and the olives? True, there’s the Prytaneium, the Theatron and all the artists, anything wrong with those? Who would not wish to support a stage for Mari Reeves or all the rest, including those who had to give up their Art to make more money? We might not be able to invite as many life people as we are presently doing if we don’t pay the outrageous amounts that we’re having to pay, but some of those and some of us know who, might come anyway because they do love us. And we will be more people if ex students return and those who are there, continue because they must, and survive.
We could also write books about the things we could acknowledge in our lives besides Art, for in the big scale, the work, the actual practice of living, is the genitals of humanity just as Art is the heart and science, the head; And until we start making love to each other with our work, we will never connect the heart, the head or the genitals and put some serious rigor into our lives.
And would we want to follow anybody at all anyway?
We are “following” no matter who. If we’re unconscious we follow our mechanics or programming and live out our ancestor’s conditioning, never molding out a possibility of our own, each School is a shock to those mechanics; If we follow a Teacher, we end up molding ourselves by his subjectivity and end up loving not only the ballet but the men too; but if we “follow” our heart, “serve” our head to the whole and “harness” our genitals, who knows, we’ll just have to try it and find out!
If you’re committed to play you might consider signing in before the beginning of the month so that we can “Hold” the current flow and stimulate each other, at least by the amount. “Time” counts. It is work on the head and the heart, harnessing the genitals and then, if Robert were really as conscious as we all hope, he might just understand it and resign. Real kings have done that.
March 28, 2007 at 11:27 pm
Dare to Dream (no. 257): What magic words were used to convince you that “Be Careful” is the “real thing”? See my post no. 249 above as to why “Be Careful” is a hoax.
March 28, 2007 at 11:56 pm
Anonymous (244)
Excuse me for pointing this out but I doubt very much if FOF has several HIGH POWERED LAWYERS as members.
Why because if that were TRUE, their 10% gross income would pay for all of FOF utility bills for all the centers. Plus a lot more.
If you were trying to scare people on this blog you just showed them you were sleeping abit too much.
March 28, 2007 at 11:56 pm
The common opinion among students is that people who leave the school do it because they don’t want to work on themselves and to awaken. I want to ask ex-students (who seems to be doing well after they left the school) – what do you think now about the obstacles to the consciousness. We were told on our first prospective student meeting that there are 5 obstacles – imagination, identification, negative emotions, lying and inner considering. Are there not such obstacles for you anymore? Or did you find that it was another nonsense and brainwashing?
March 29, 2007 at 12:05 am
Again, Be Careful”,
The goal sets the needs, right ?
What is your personal benefit ?
which might include a simple honnest “obeying”.
Really interested.
March 29, 2007 at 12:09 am
Re: post 261
“As stated in the excerpt from Miles Barth letter that was posted here some time back,what is of real interest to me is what was it in myself that allowed/needed this to happen.Perhaps you should be asking yourselves the same question.”
Precisely.
At the risk of exposing a little too much of myself here, but in an effort to help others who may find themselves in a similar frame of mind, I offer this:
I’ve been working with a Jungian psychotherapist for the past six years. One aspect of my psychological makeup which we keep coming back to in sessions is my need for an outside authority to sanction my own inner worth. This belief of mine stems from my childhood relationship with my father. My father was an emotionally unavailable man and took little interest in rearing me. I now know that I’ve spent most of my life struggling to find that sense of self affirmation that I didn’t receive from my father when I was a child. For fifteen years the fof supplied that affirmation for me. It took my low self esteem problem and turned it on its head. Suddenly, I was one of the chosen few. I was in on the secret. Working with this system was going to change me into…?
The thing is, I believed I needed to change for a lot of wrong reasons, most of them based in shame. I was ashamed of myself and could not accept myself on any level, so naturally I believed such fof and fourth way tenets as: there is nothing inside yourself which can be depended upon, you cannot do, you are many I’s, etc. I verified all of these rather quickly and began my search for presence and higher states.
For years this formula worked for me. Then, I started having my first heretical thoughts. I won’t bother to list them as everyone has their own list, I’m sure. But with these thoughts also came an overwhelming feeling that I was a fraud. I talked the talk but didn’t walk the walk. And when I sat down and really analyzed just exactly what the walk was, I knew I didn’t really want to walk that way. By this time, twelve years had passed. It took me three more years before I finally left.
So, that’s a brief synopsis of what I discovered in me that lead me to believe in the fof and stay as long as I did. Do not underestimate the power of the psychotherapeutic process. As always, make of it what you will.
March 29, 2007 at 12:09 am
Just one more thing…the ‘Committee’ ( lets just call them ‘Professional students’ we all know who they are )behind the ‘Be Careful’postings are all shitting in their pants about the effect this blog is having on the MONEY situation.They don’t see students leaving,they see money departing.After all, the first people who’s jobs will be axed will be theirs ! They have my sympathy.It will be kind of tough to have to go out into the Real World again after 30+ years on the payroll…..
March 29, 2007 at 12:14 am
The letter below was sent to Sheila Cousins, also known as Sharole Manering, who had fallen and injured herself in 1980 and had gotten behind in her monthly payments to the Fellowship of Friends.
Sharole died in 1982 after a long struggle with cancer. Her mother was very upset to find the letter from FOF among her papers.
Sharole’s mother also was disturbed to find out that Fellowship members had come to visit Sharole in the hospital, to sit and stare at Sharole, and eventually talked Sharole into returning a cameo “given” to her by Robert (the reason for this is unclear).
You see, Robert “gave” lots of cameo “gifts” to the women in the group, and they had to PAY for them! The prices weren’t cheap, some up to several hundred dollars!
Sharole’s mother was very angry about this, and demanded return of the cameo, with no success. She finally requested the help of Karl Werner (winemaster at the time) and he quickly came to her aid to effect the speedy return of the cameo rightfully to her.
Sharole would have wanted it this way; she was too weak in the hospital to deal with FOF students who came to see her, and could hardly stand to have them sitting there staring at her. We know about this because we lived in Nevada at the time, and we visited her frequently. She confided in us these things. Her mother told us about the cameo scenario, and she was mad as hops. We suggested she contact Karl.
The late Karl Werner had a sense of fairness for such things, and if anybody could accomplish the cameo’s return, it would be him. He, one of the few rare ones, could speak up to Burton and any of the hierarchy. He was unimpressed by people acting snooty.
When Sharole died, the only person “assigned” by Robert to attend her funeral was Doris Elizabeth. When it was discovered that Harold and I were still in Sparks, Nevada, Doris decided to allow us to represent FOF as we were going to the funeral anyway.
We represented ourselves at the funeral, and chalked up another notch for the inconsistencies and insensitivities of FOF members learned from the leadership.
Here is the letter which upset Sharole’s mother deeply because she realized her daughter had kept this letter with her for two years, no doubt very hurt by it herself. It has come to be known among ex members as “The Hell Letter.”
Fellowship of Friends
March 27, 1980
Sharole Manering
Philadelphia Centre [sic: notice English spelling in vogue/sw]
Dear Sharole,
As you requested, herein are the angles the Teacher offered to you.
“Tell Sharole hello for me. And tell her to remember that she is working with Influence C and that she needs to be a good businesswoman with them. Tell her that she has held on this long and that there is no reason that she cannot hold on eternally; that is, until she becomes an angel. Remind her that this is C influence speaking directly with her through me. Remind her that this is their way of warning her and that she has to become current with her donations now or she will have to leave the Fellowship. Tell her that the only other place to go is hell.”
Those are his words, Sharole. Good luck to you.
Sincerely,
s/James B.*
[*happy rumor is that James B. left FOF, 1997)(unverified/sw)]
March 29, 2007 at 12:31 am
Stop being so careful everyone!
look over your left shoulder to see who is seeing your posting to the blog! and you bet, it is sure possible to see who is typing what…just give it some time. keep it up y’all!
Brought to you by Sure Thing!
March 29, 2007 at 12:44 am
To a seeker, as talking to myself:
You loved and served the Teacher you just abandoned. Now you come to me. But I know. The same way you left him you will leave me because if you were finished, you would be finished with EVERYTHING and would not be here!
Do you expect me to exploit him ? To profit from this ? There is no Teaching! There is no Teacher! Don’t take me as your new Teacher!
Go, poor bastard!
To Kiran:
You created a formula (in capitals, SVP!) and this is the beginnin of everything…
Your post is alarming in many ways: so much resentment, so many bill unpayed while much money might pile in your Bank.
It looks like a strange competition.
The one showing more wounds is the winner!
You know how to stimulate the spinal cord but not the heart.
I was raised cahtolic enough to reject the dictat(s).
What ? If I don’t experience coma, I will never make it ?
Another one !
Don’t get me wrong, I respect suffering and even if I do not enjoy pain (probably never will), I recognise it as a great teacher.
So, you got you class. Why show off the diploma the way you do? To hypnotize others the same way you have been hypnotized yourself…
Didn’t you suffer enough ?
Perhaps you should just forgive your “papa”, give him/yourself a break, and conclude with a big kissssssssss!
Why ? Because so much love is waiting for you to open up!
March 29, 2007 at 1:25 am
Question to Mole, is anyone who stays in the FOF blind by definition? what if we can see but choose to stay?
I for one am happy to be in this “cult”–it has certainly made me into a more cultured individual!
Sure Thing!
March 29, 2007 at 3:09 am
Dear Birdsong (#254): Best wishes!
I really admire that you can present criticism of RB’s behavior, take constructive action in relation to it (leaving), and yet still express your love for him. Right now, you are teaching me a lot from that.
We often want people to choose “sides”, and it’s sometimes hard for us to understand nuanced viewpoints for that reason, but your measured tone is very welcome here — by all of us… members of the Fellowship, those who have left, and other participants in this discussion such as Sheik and many more.
I noticed you referred to the adversarial tone in this blog. You’re right that this isn’t unusual in online discussion groups. However, I think the adversarial tone was here long before the blog, and long before the internet became a household word. I believe this blog is simply revealing the adversarial tone, and not creating it. And I believe if all goes well, this discussion and other discussions may actually help foster a deeper understanding. Communication — open communication — is what we need, all of us. And maybe this is the beginning of that.
Incidentally, where did the adversarial tone initially come from? (rhetorical question.) For many people, maybe it’s because they’re far past the point of reasoning when discussing these issues. They tried reasoning long ago, but maybe they were told (in so many thousands of different words) that, “Higher centers are beyond reason.”
And this is maybe one of the bigger choices in relation to the topics in this discussion:
Do we believe that awakening (whatever our definition of “awakening” may be) not only transcends the reasoning faculty, but that we must put reasoning far behind and follow impulses that bear no resemblance to it?
Or do we believe that awakening actually begins with reason? And that it then continues with reason during the entire long journey into the unknown? And that the two are inseparable friends, each helping the other?
Someone once answered that question, whether they realized it or not, when they said (paraphrasing):
Keep your feet on the ground as you look at the stars.
———-
(It may have been Theodore Roosevelt, Goethe, or Oscar Wilde, but I don’t know.)
March 29, 2007 at 5:17 am
In response to Be Very Careful Indeed (272):
No “magic words” necessary–I knew it was “official” because the email I was sent by “Be Careful” (i.e. arjunavishnu@gmail.com) in response to mine was defined in my inbox by the name of the poor dear in the FOF. Don’t be silly, lawyers are not always the best writers! I would reveal it here but since he’s a lawyer, I should be careful;)
March 29, 2007 at 5:22 am
Re Post 254–very sweet story about the dinner –thank you.
…rain is still falling and the teacher is still taking people for a ride…
so what has really changed? is it inside or outside?
Have you tried to embrace the change in direction of the school/teaching with the being you have build for so many years? Why would Robert not go in the direction he feels has been shown to him? (and of course, you too are doing that–can it be any different?).
I do not believe that by being a member we are necessarily condoning any wrong behavior, just as Catholics donating to their church are not supporting the many priests gone bad…
the FOF is on a smaller scale but really so far from this blog, we should recognize that all of this is just rumour mill, gossip and so far there is no one daring to come forward that says there is anything not consented to occurring anywhere. is all of this really worth this loss to you that you are clearly feeling?
Reading your post, I can almost feel your pain–remember you are not alone, wherever you go. Thank you again.
Once again, a contribution from
Sure Thing!
March 29, 2007 at 5:38 am
Re 275–Confused–I have been asking myself the same question but as to the friendships that are reputed to be by some so much better outside the Fellowship.
Would that mean it is better to never have joined? and then that 8 billion folks on this busy little planet have all a distinct advantage over students making efforts well beyond those needed for a merely biological experience?
Is their perhaps another explanation for this strange phenomena? And does that explain then why so many former members still seek out friends from within?
March 29, 2007 at 5:41 am
Dear Knowledge, when you ask : CAN YOU SEE? Your lower self ” – I want to ask too – can you see it, really? Can anyone here actually honestly SEE the lower (or higher ) self? No, not imagine, or mentally label – but – actually see, observe? Did anyone ever SAW a Lower Self and not just used an learned intellectual label?
And before you lash at me, please take an honest look. I know, I know, we’ve been told this important idea, it was “verified” – whatever this means for each of us. But please lay it aside for a second and just take a LOOK. Right here, right now. What do you actually OBSERVE? Not imagine, not remember – but really physically observe, experience in a present moment? Ok, here are some objects, stuff, your body, thoughts, sounds, light… Any lower self out there? Or may be – this guy steward? Or some other entity you THINK yourself to be?
Nothing. No separate entities in the now. Just stuff and thoughts. But something is definitely alive and observing all this! Just this simple observing going on, right? Never stopping, never changing, just this looking, hearing, watching… It is totally aware of whatever is observed, watched, remembered, or imagined. It registeres it all. Very neutral. Simple.
There is no tangible lower self, unless you think it out and label something that is simply observed. One’s “lower self” is just a learned idea in the mind. So is the “higher self”. So is – “your very name”, a “person” you think you are. None of it is real, none of it can be truly observed in the present. There is nothing certain about you now except this Watching. This, What is observing, is right here, is undeniably real – but it has no name, and it has no judgment, no form, no age, no face. This is who you truly are, pure consciousness, and the rest is observed by it, or imagined or stored in memory or believed in. Just see it for yourself, notice, recognize it, and all these “lower-higher selves” along with other 10,000 idiots will not matter anymore.
“Can you see the I’s?” – Sure! It’s pretty obvious. We were trying to observe I’s for years in the school. Now, WHAT IS – THAT IS SEEING THE I’S and everything else? What’s behind everything, like a canvas behind the painting? Because if you see it once, if you dare to look, you’ll know who you really are, and passing I’s will not be seen as a big deal anymore. Like clouds, they’ll come and go, no problem., they have nothing to do whith Who you are.
“Be clever Remember yourself” -How about : Have luck to what/who you are, know thyself and be free. You’ll never forget yourself again.
“work over yourself, this is the work.
observe and resist.” – No, no. Work and all is simply done or it is not done. It’s not up to little “you” or “me”. Are you in charge? Anyone you know is in charge of what’s going to happen next? It all unfolds without our little opinions. (Thank goodness!)
Recognize who you truly are, right here right now, relax and be happy. It’s not about “resist”, it’s about “embrace whatever comes your way”.
Who we truly are is infinitely bigger than “Selves”, “Stuards”, “Prescious Special Me” and other labels. The truth of who we are is in us right now.
“A billion stars go spinning through the night, blazing high above your head. But in you is the presence that will be, when all the stars are dead.” … Rilke
Wishing you good luck, Knowledge, really.
March 29, 2007 at 6:25 am
Kid Shelleen #277 — I appreciate and honor your post.
March 29, 2007 at 6:49 am
Wow, it‘s getting noisy in here. Must be the sound of freedom of expression! (Thanks Comrade, China is an interesting parallel; and I would heartily agree that cults are all over the place, out “here.” It appears to be deeply ingrained in human nature –contrary to Woody Allen’s nature— for people to want to “belong.” And once “in,” for the people in positions of power to want to keep control of ‘em).
The question from Confused (275) deserves addressing. I can’t speak for all the exFOFers on this blog or elsewhere but I feel the sincerity of your question and so wish to explore it, without resorting too much to the dreaded “I” personal pronoun. On the one hand, there exists (me thinks) a little bravado in exFOFers who feel the need to prove that they haven’t, in fact, lost their souls and are doing JUST FINE living pretty FABULOUS lives outside of the school and perhaps have even AWAKENED (oh? Spend some time Iraq wondering if your legs are going to be blown off at any moment and then talk about how awake you are). All this is a little understandable in light of the fact that we’ve had to work so hard at dropping the hell-raising (see above, 279) dogma that we were imprinted with —willy nilly— in the FOF.
And on the other hand, as you can read here, many exFOFers have simply stopped playing the Fourth Way “game” of awakening. We’ve come to a different understanding of consciousness itself (read THE POWER OF NOW, even if they say you shouldn’t;) which is not about “getting” somewhere else, it’s not about internalizing “good student” or mental calisthenics. It’s about opening, connecting, flowing….for me it’s also about dancing. Sure it’s not always easy— I’m by no means always present. But I know in my bones that getting at the sweet essence of my life is about breathing into these precious moments through my body—not through my head! It’s not that we don’t think that obstacles exist in our psychologies to presence or self-remembering or whatever you want to call it. It’s that the map that G and O and RB apply no longer works. My favorite and oft quoted Gurdjieffism is: Religion is like the wrapping on a candy bar, most people eat the wrapping. Some of us, dare I presume, are enjoying the deep dark chocolaty deliciousness of life itself as it melts over our own warm bodies.
And of course, that’s what can be so cool about the FOF: have you ever seen so many bright shining eyes gliding around as many palm trees? Those gold statues have nothing on students who are truly in life (hee hee). The presence-people-power quota is, I believe, higher there, and that’s what makes it so weird and wonderful (and so hard to leave). Robert’s legacy? I’m not so sure. Tiny footnote: I once got a ride from RB with a girlfriend up the steep dirt hill from the swimming pond. At the top, he said something about how nice it was that he could give us a ride AND a few moments of the third state. My friend and I gulped and stifled a laugh as we tumbled out of his car. Who was he kidding? As if we needed or even wanted him to flip some switch in us? The FOF legacy, I would posit, is rather in the open-hearted student who lets the world wash over him like diving into a cool pond on a summer day. We could argue as to whether or not RB set the stage for suchness. Maybe I have some father issues and don’t feel like giving him too much credit but in short: no one else can eat the candy bar for us.
You have to admit it’s a kind of high– presence, consciousness, sex, trying to self-remember, you name it. And folks in and out have sometimes fallen prey to that high in strange ways. Even some folks on this blog seem pretty darn in love with themselves…but who are any of us to judge? (In fact, it is tedious to keep returning to the finger-pointing on this blog. Let’s help each other, make each other laugh, open each others’ eyes, or just LOG OUT already.)
I was wondering today what my life would be like –what my mama’s life would be like– if the FOF never existed. I really have no idea. I, like other children of students, have my own particular set of obstacles to living a meaningful life (and can highly recommend finding a wise therapist) but those are pretty mild compared to the real suffering and aesthetically detestable cultural deserts that so many on this planet seem trapped in….
A closing note to you fine freaky friends: I really am glad this place exists in cyber space. We need to heal, we need to find a way to love our pasts and our presents. I think it will be a little easier for me to visit Oregon House now. I won’t feel so alone.
Love,
Ah heck, you know who I am
March 29, 2007 at 6:57 am
Dear Confused (post 275) – I cannot say anything about other ex-students, I would assume it is unique and different experience for each one, and common opinions probably don’t apply.
You asked about “Obstacles to consciousness”. (“imagination, identification, negative emotions, lying and inner considering.”)
I can share my present understanding. One day (while still in the school) it simply became very clear that consciousness actually is all there is, always and everywhere.That is who we are. And there is also a mistaken identity that we all have since early childhood, mind obstruction, a mental image of “me”, that came with our name. We all believe that we are this “me” without ever questioning the whole concept. We don’t ask “Who am I ?”, we usually ask “What do I want?” And all is about what this “me” needs to do, achieve, change, acquire, etc. Never about WHO is this “me”. So we go our whole life (sometimes) believing that this “me” is who we actually are, and consciousness is something we are not and need to get. The whole branched out personality is developed on this single notion of “me”, and lot’s of defense, suffering, udentification etc, is based on this “me” guy.
However, consciousness is never turned off, it’s aware and watching whatever is going on – “me” thoughts, imagination, lying, identification, negativity etc. But because it is so subtle, quiet watching, it is simply overlooked and innoticed, obscured by loud thought “me” and it’s antics.
So in a way, there are no obstacles to Consciousness, because Consciousness always IS there, watching and alive. It’s like saying that clouds are obstacles to the sun. Well, sometimes it seems so, but they are on such different scales, there is no obstructing the sun by the cloud! And yet – until the unquestioned belief in the “me”-guy continues, consciousness seems totally obscured and as if not even there. Imaginary person “me” seem to have lots of questions, opinions, problems, things to do and directions to go, usually in the future somewhere. Because this “me” entity is imagined and unreal, it cannot exist in the present moment. It is always in the mind, imagined, OUT of the Present. So there is a seeming struggle to get into the Now for this “me”. No wonder it’s futile. Illusion continues, and lots of unnecessary suffering, desires, pains go with this condition. Unreal “me” tries to wake up. While alive Consciousness is totally there, ever-present, but over-looked. Can it be called “sleep”? May be, but it is rather a “mistaken identity”. Real is not asleep and unreal will never wake up. It’s more like hide-and-seek game between real and imagined. It’s like Hafiz looking for Beloved.
When the truth of who we are is seen – something happens internally, a deep relief, a sence of ease. No more hide-and-seek. The personality somehow loses it’s power, crumbles. A whole lot of suffering goes with it – identification, most negativity, inner considering… There is no “me” in the picture anymore, just what is – whatever is! Good, bad – no problem, it is all simply accepted. This is my experience, and few friends I know.
So, these 5 obstacles are not really obstacles to Consciousness or Who you are. It’s the “me” that is blocking the obvious from being seen. The “me” is the obstacle. “Get out of the way, Hafiz, you’re blocking the light!” But this “me” is very dear to us, isn’t he? It’s most scary to lose it. Each of us hold dearly to our identity. That is what seems to be so unique and special and superior and great and whatever-else-we-think about us. “Me” holds ideas, beliefs, principles, memories, stories… He seems so solid and serious! And – amazingly – he is not even there. It’s a thought, an idea, a label. So the loss of “me” is not even a loss. It’s a cosmic joke. You get a Kingdom for a pin, or everyhting for the price of simple honest looking.
So are those ideas about 5 obstacles just crap or brainwashing? No, they are what they are – just ideas. At some point they were belived in, and were very inspiring to a “me” who liked efforts and thought it was in charge, could do and choose.
malaec@yahoo.com
March 29, 2007 at 7:01 am
Dear Innernaut,
Regarding your post #328 on page 3:
Thank you for your comments on my post and for a warm welcome. I have enjoyed your posts, as many other sincere and genuine contributions to this blog.
I fully agree with your point concerning the reality of the ‘I’s at the “essence” level. I was going to write about it in my post, but it was getting too long, so I left it out. Interesting that you picked up on that. Somehow I don’t think there is a contradiction between our two perceptions, and I think you pointed to this too. Naturally, I cannot change the innate characteristics of the machine, the person, the me, whatever we want to call it, any more than I can change my bone structure or the color of my eyes.
When I embraced the form of the school, I learned to appreciate the beauty of things I never considered before, like formal dinners, certain styles of art promoted by the school, ballets, etc. I had amazing states being dressed up like a princess and treated like one by courteous and well-dressed men (wouldn’t any woman have a third state under these circumstances?). My essence absorbed the beauty and the refinement, for which I feel grateful. On the other hand, I felt that my natural likings, which did not go away, were inappropriate, did not fit into the form of the school. At times, when I was gently reminded by students that ladies should not move furniture and should generally act more helpless, I felt uneasy, since my everyday reality involves being in the saddle or around horses all day, which is much more strenuous than moving a chair. Anyway, I felt guilty. There was a general pressure to conform.
I think that all the scrambling and rearrangement of the ‘I’s induced and promoted by the work was useful at the time as a form of discipline and an exercise in relativity. But there was another thing happening simultaneously: while learning not to believe the ‘I’s from the “essence”, there was a strengthening belief in the work ‘I’s that purportedly composed the Steward. There was a growing internal discomfort and dissonance because of that shift of identity. The nagging sense of insincerity. Another thing to put on the shelf and suspend judgment of. On the one hand, there was the quote: “Believe no ‘I’s, be present”, on the other hand, the growing pressure to identify “myself” with the Steward, an imaginary (virtual, as Robert said) entity ever engaged in doing. The illusion of doership was at the same time denied (basic 4th way ideas) and subtly perpetuated (steward and his endless battle against the lower self).
Out of the school, the “essence” is shedding the imposed rules and regulations. From the point of view of the school, am I just being consumed by the lower self? Is this what would be called “relative awakening” – having balanced the centers/functions, and living a happy, healthy, harmonious life – IN SLEEP? This was one of my biggest fears, making me petrified at the thought of ever “losing” the school (now I find this wording curious and maybe even manipulative – “losing” – presuming some mishap, inattentiveness, SLEEP). From the point of view of the work, I must be asleep, since I (the Steward?) am not making efforts. But only from that point of view. My immediate experience is telling me otherwise. And I am now very unwilling to surrender my immediate experience to concepts, however fair and appealing.
It seems now that we were trying to deny and bury the most genuine, spontaneous, endearing, and delightful part of ourselves in favor of the righteous and solemn steward. I don’t think that the particular way one’s machine manifests has anything to do with awakening, but neither does the steward, the way I see it now. So we were engaged in this internal battle, trying to banish the “bad” parts, support the “good” parts and generally alter and refurbish the way we felt, acted, and manifested, externally and internally. It was revealing and exciting in the beginning, but eventually became so distorted and artificial that it just could not go on, and it was hard to keep believing that this was leading to awakening. Besides, I was only in my eighth lifetime, in the best case scenario.
Dear Comrade (posts 4/104, 4/220 and others): thank you for your thoughts. I experienced what you said about substituting transformation with buffering. The difference is so subtle. Shut those unpleasant emotions away, and it feels so good! They are just gone! It means I have transformed them! This was not what the actual teaching was indicating, but I found myself and others often succumbing to the formatory take on it: you are negative, just transform it, use the scale, etc. If you are the one being photographed, you feel the pressure to lock that inappropriate negativity away. If you are the one giving the photograph, what are the motivations? For myself, it was often unwillingness to deal with another person’s emotional turmoil. I suppose it falls into the category of the “fourth line of work” (work on others) .
By the way, I would have never put a smiley face in my Fellowship correspondence, because it’s jack of hearts. Feels nice to put it in and not feel guilty for it!
If I met with some of my former friends now, they would probably see a – “life person”. What I would see would be very sincere people devoted to awakening and making their best efforts on this path, but trapped in artificial, stilted concepts, and missing the simple fact that they can be, in fact, ARE, awake right now! Who is right? I don’t know. I feel alive and immediately connected, this I can say, and it is just my subjective experience. Even a thought of doing the Work seems preposterous, like laboring at building a wall in the midst of this beautiful aliveness and expecting to become present! At the same time, I really don’t want my words to be taken as sweeping statements negating the work. For me, the work worked while it worked. It works no more. Vacation time. I have all the respect and love for those students who are sincerely doing their work. Who am I to pass judgment on them? I wrote this, and I am aware that what I said in the beginning of the paragraph sounds like judgment. I have not found a way of expressing my thoughts and not running into a contradiction within just a few sentences. I’ll just let it be the way I said it, and hopefully those who read it will understand that I did not intend to hurt or offend anyone.
Thank you everyone for your posts, and thank you again, Sheik, for making this possible.
With love.
March 29, 2007 at 7:57 am
In reply to Sure thing post #262.
I f you really do realise you are in a Cult then….fine by me.You are simply a cult member.
As Paul Simon ( Not a ‘Consciuos being’) once sang .’A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest La la lala…’
March 29, 2007 at 8:22 am
Attention friends,
The post # 131 from Be Careful is a pure provocation! This post only sounds like an intimidation but in fact it carries much serious purpose.
What is really happening on this blog?
During the discussion people are trying to look and review the relationship which they have with them self,with the school and with Robert.This blog serves as microscope thru which you can clearly see the truth about all those matters.And what Be Careful is trying to do is to disfocus this microscope.
Be careful is trying to bring down the dept and the scale of that discussion to the level of ordinary arguments,squabble,political intrigues and blackmail.
You MUST KNOW that the dept of your understanding and your clear vision of things is a deadly threat to Burton’s political status,his undivided power and his religious business.
And all there is which on the other side of scales is a virtual treats of the virtual Be Careful.
The typical Fellowship style-to exchange the shiny shit for real gold.
STAY FOCUS!!!
March 29, 2007 at 8:58 am
I am a member. Are there frictions and injustices with FOF, of course. That is the nature of living on planet earth. I do not think it will be possible to find a perfect School and have it run the way we want it. Schools are not ment to be a democracy, “thank God”.
From my stand point I am in a real School that helps me to awaken and I have not seen anything out there that comes close to it. I also have a Real Teacher, who happens to be a human and likes sex and is open on some level about it. (Consciousness is not functions, Ouspensky 101)
There are elements of truth and sincerity all over this blog, but there is also alot of judgement, opinions, and sarcasm. I sincerely feel that it is fine for former members to have a forum to express their grievences, thoughts and even criticisms; somehow I think it should be more private, I say this for their sake for I think they would go further internally in gaining insight into questions, and problems they have had with the FOF in the past.
FOF members and others were “lured” for lack of a better word into this blog, and got spammed an email from someone saying they were from the FOF administration with this link. So on some level I would consider this improper, deceptive and juvenile, and then all this blogging that follows seems to focus on how the FOF has deceived and lured them. A little ironic!
One other note is that most of the things written is nothing new under the sun. There is nothing sinister or cultish about the FOF; but it is a controlled environment, which is needed in any “School” if one wishes to “know oneself” and be more “awake” (my opinion). One is free to leave FOF at anytime.
March 29, 2007 at 9:42 am
A few observations by a current member of the FOF:
It has been mentioned that as many as 100 or more visitors come to this blog over the course of any given day. What I have found is that in spite of the larger number of visitors, the majority of posts may come from as few as 25 or 30 regular authors. The makeup of these authors can change somewhat over the span of several weeks, but the amount of contributors seem to remain fairly constant (I also have a suspicion that some posters change names periodically, or post under multiple names).
I would also say that perhaps 50% of these 25 or 30 regular posters represent a faction I would call “hardcore” critics of the FOF/Robert Burton. By that I mean to say the primary, if not the sole, intent of these 12 to 15 individuals is to discredit the Fellowship and/or Robert Burton.
A smaller number of regular posters include those who are moderately to mildly critical of the FOF/Robert Burton, (characterized by some positive comments mingling with the mentioning of things they don’t/didn’t like about the school or the Teacher). When one adds the two groups of critics together, it seems to me reasonable to assert that at least 9 out of every 10 posts are of a critical nature (a very conservative estimate). The remaining 1 out of 10 + posts come from people like myself, who although they don’t perceive the school as perfect, still believe wholeheartedly that the FOF is fulfilling its role as an esoteric school with a conscious teacher. I would also count “Crybaby”, “David Dalton” and ” A Friend’ in the group with myself, although Crybaby, while his/her comments are not without substance, still has not verified that those in the school might profit from reining in as many outward manifestations of negativity and identification as possible if they wish to adequately represent the school on this blog. The same goes for D.D.
But this faction of extreme critics/former students engage in several tactics that serve to amplify their collective voice. One such tactic occurs when one of them posts a typical commentary that is either scathing in nature, or liberally sprinkled with a biting sarcasm whose only purpose is to demean someone. What happens next is that several other members of the faction will chime in with remarks praising the author’s insights and degree of articulation. This serves at least two important functions; one, it reinforces in the minds of the readers the “correctness” of the post. It also gives the author an immediate positive re-enforcement which empowers him/her to continue in this vein. Thirdly, it serves to warn the “minority” of the strength and status of the “ruling” faction.
In stark contrast to this tactic is what occurs when a supporter of the FOF comments. This post is immediately attacked (see Crybaby), anything remotely resembling a contradiction or inaccuracy is duly exposed, and the dog-eared trump cards come flying out – they must be “brainwashed”, “delusional”, “in denial”, etc. This also serves a good purpose. It reinforces in the readers minds the “incorrectness” of the post in question, plus it creates a very unwelcome atmosphere, just in case the author intends to post another “supportive” comment. The imbalances in number produce a sort of “in bred” status quo where the “critics” will beat their chests knowing that eventually the “supporters” will fall silent until the next short lived skirmish. Please don’t take this as a complaint on my part; the blog is what it is. Other “supporters” like me should at least not underestimate the obstacles inherent on this site.
Speaking of trump cards, the B card – as in “brainwashed” – triggered a realization in me recently. I sent in a post not long ago (3, #195) to challenge those who were countering every post that indicated the FoF actually worked for someone with theories that the author must be brainwashed or have his/her head in the sand.
I wrote in simply stating I was not brainwashed, in denial, etc. but the school was none-the-less delivering to me what it promised. Interestingly, someone wrote back kind of giving me the benefit of the doubt on the brainwashed issue, but then asserted I surely had turned the school into a “religion” and compared me with those happy faces she saw coming out of church on Sunday morning who have never verified anything. This got me to thinking: why is it so difficult for the critics/former students to give an inch on this issue of someone “getting what they came for” regarding the school? Then it all fell into place – the reason is simply this: If the notion is allowed that someone is getting what they came for, it implies that maybe there is something in the school that they could have gotten, but didn’t. This opens a potential Pandora’s box of enormous proportions. Could it be that the school is real after all, Robert a real Teacher? That’s the last place former students, predictably, want to go, or even can go.
There’s been some talk of “graduation” from the school lately (that’s another way of side stepping the “is the school real?” issue – so what if it’s real, it still has a “ceiling” and I reached it/got all I needed). Robert once said that “there is no valid reason to leave a school”, the key word being “valid”. Maybe he was referring to the scale of Schools when he said that; the scale being longer than a lifetime. So one can’t “graduate” during this lifetime, one can only drop out. Even at death, one does not graduate, but only changes grades. And when one does “graduate” from the school one becomes nothing less than an Angel.
March 29, 2007 at 9:52 am
EGAO [pronounced UH-GOW]
Music to my ears.
Thanks for that Comrade (post 268)
RR
March 29, 2007 at 9:54 am
Confused #275
The “third state” transcends and includes the “second state”(I don’t much care for this terminology but for the sake of common ground i will use it)
The obstacles remain but become more or less ghostly as does confusion.
March 29, 2007 at 10:21 am
Idiots…this blog is the 10,000 idiots.
have fun!
March 29, 2007 at 10:22 am
Mystery. I just wanted to make sure this word made it onto the blog at least once.
Sure Thing. You give a whole new meaning to the idea of “eternal recurrence”.
March 29, 2007 at 10:36 am
To IT DOES NOT MATTER WHO, post 4/272:
Good luck to you – you might be one steward of the real work that may still be possible, and your energy was familiar with the promise that you feel. Although your post speaks alot of “we” and “us”, I could hear your own voice.
Will you please explain further what you mean by “….there are laws that we’ve never even attempted to understand, that end up restricting us all when we start to damage each other.”
From a neighbor,
ACROSS THE RIVER
March 29, 2007 at 11:12 am
‘Let your Conscience be your guide.’
Jiminy may be small, but he’s far from your average cricket. He can turn an umbrella into a parachute and looks great in a top hat and spats, and he carries a mean tune, as well as a nearly inexhaustible supply of home-brewed common sense. It’s no wonder he is chosen by the Blue Fairy to be Pinocchio’s ‘official’ conscience. Unfortunately for Jiminy, it’s only after he blushingly agrees to his appointment as ‘Lord High Keeper of the Knowledge of Right and Wrong, Counselor in Moments of Temptation, and Guide along the Straight and Narrow Path,’ that he realizes what a job he’s gotten himself into. Like any conscience, Jiminy is occasionally late on the job, and frequently ignored even when he is around. Fortunately, Jiminy is nothing if not persistent, and he eventually succeeds in steering Pinocchio back to the right path.
Consider then: ‘short Be becomes long BE,’ is to ‘flacid becomes erect,’ is to ‘truth becomes lie,’ as Pinocchio nose (or, is that, Pinocchio knows?) grows (or not), or is any of that the other way around? What hath god wrought (or, is that, rot? or rod?)? I’m conf-you-sed? Go figure. Will the real boy please reveal his self?
‘Let your Conscience be your guide.’
Jiminy Cricket
March 29, 2007 at 11:44 am
Arjuna Vishnu? the archer/hero and the preserver, doing god’s work in the world (96 or 192)! How pathetic; or, is that path etiquette? Likely author of the ‘Be Careful’ postings is: a (FOF sanctioned, comedy) team effort, with AG (and that does not stand for ‘attorney general,’ if you know what I mean!) and NS (FOF bull dog run amok; here niki, niki. How righteously indignant you can Be over something as small as gnat on your brow – seemingly putting on a good show when there is an audience; but ‘when shows break up*,’ what then? violence?) spearheading the effort. Just deserts: made FOF look even worse while scaring only possibly the gnat.
Then again, possibly hoax. Leave ’em laughin’ when you goes.
* Quicksand years that whirl me I know not whither,
Your schemes, politics, fail – lines give way – substances mock and elude me;
Only the theme I sing, the great and strong-possess’d Soul, eludes not;
One’s-self must never give way – that is the final substance – That out of all is sure;
Out of politics, triumphs, battles, life – what at last finally remains?
When shows break up, what but One’s-Self is sure?
Walt Whitman
March 29, 2007 at 12:44 pm
Lord Krishna (the Avatar, Vishnu) reveals His real four-armed form to Arjuna (the supreme archer). Arjuna began to pray with folded hands.
Then spoke Lord Krishna, ‘Those with the vision of eternity can see the imperishable soul is transcendental, eternal, and beyond the modes of nature. Despite contact with the material body, O Arjuna, the soul neither does anything nor is entangled.’
Bhagavad-gita
Arjuna’s illusion is now gone, and he is acting according to Krishna’s instructions. Krishna, the driver of countless universes, is driving the chariot of Arjuna.
Wherever there is Krishna and Arjuna there will certainly be opulence, victory, extraordinary power and morality.
http://www.asitis.com/gallery/plate44.html
Bhagavad-gita
March 29, 2007 at 1:02 pm
Sheik, there is some interesting stuff between posts 272 and 283.
I don’t remember thanking you and Sir Knight, so here’s a bravo, kudo, and a regular thank you for this blog.
And, who knows, maybe Infuence C saw you coming down the road.
March 29, 2007 at 1:22 pm
Dear Confused,
In 4#275 you pose a very good question about ex-students, asking in relation to ”imagination, identification, negative emotions, lying and inner considering. Are there not such obstacles for you anymore? Or did you find that it was another nonsense and brainwashing?”
I can only speak for myself. I tried to make some assessment of my relationship to the Teaching in 4#13 which you might find relevant to your question. But more specifically I would say my viewpoint has changed from these being ‘obstacles’ to ‘obscurations’.
When seeing these as obstacles they become something to struggle against, something to be stamped out, a part of oneself to be rejected. This indeed formed a major part of my work in the Fellowship. The positive part of this work is that to do this one must eventually access Will; false will can only take you so far, and if your work stays alive in the School over many years, then you need true will. So Fellowship students generally have admirable qualities of will and accompanying commitment and dedication to the Work. This forms part of the snare: to leave can be seen as ‘defeating will’. As a former member I still do not generally communicate with current members out of respect for their desire to work with the ex-student exercise; I do not want to contribute to defeating their will. But it is a snare – because will alone is not enough. And it is a snare, because if something is going sour in the structure, one still clings to it out of will.
I now see the emphasis of work on will to be an imbalance, or not enough on its own. Trying to work on these obstacles becomes efforting, efforting, efforting. (Reputedly Ouspensky’s last words being ‘More effort’ etc). If one’s work is stuck, it means one has not made enough (or the right) efforts. For myself I eventually found this to be a dead end, and approaches of ‘opening’ rather than ‘rejecting’ being more fruitful. Maybe that is what the theory is. As Robert said, “Steward is designed to fail”. However, I took that failure to be something such as the penultimate step before a permanent awakening. My personal realization of limits to this approach are much less grandiose.
So seeing these aspects of personality as obscurations shifts the emphasis for me. Rather than trying to minimize them or whatever, I now wish to enquire into them. A bit like ‘observation’, but more active – really trying to understand them, examine the content, and figure out why they are there. They are obscurations, because their existence (as veils) obscures our view of reality, they obscure my view of what I am, and they obscure my view of the outer world. So while rejecting these parts of my soul, I failed to see what else was there, they obscure the view of the riches, and the truth of ones being.
A concomitant part of the Teaching is that we are ‘many I’s’. The implication is that they are legion and not worth examining or indulging in. Although the existence of the many I’s is self-evident to any who looks – this interpretation of it now seems to me almost blasphemous to creation. It results in a lack of valuation for the individual. It leads to saying reading this blog is a waste of time – just many I’s. It leads to the Teacher disrespecting his students, and student to disrespecting one another. Well I now find that the many I’s are worth examining – difficult work, but someone has to do it.
One finds that the many I’s are not random. Indeed there is pattern and structure to them, based on the conditioning influences in one’s life history. They are all in the present moment too. Kid Shellen’s post #277 shows what can be understood by looking at the many I’s. Although almost shunned in the FOF, one can find that a psychological approach can be used not only for therapeutic purposes but for spiritual purposes too. And now I find that the will I developed in the FOF is useful for staying with enquiry into the truth, no matter how hard or difficult it is. But instead of being ensnared with the struggle with my obstacles, I take pleasure in sensing into myself, enquiring into what is here right now, finding heart, finding stillness, finding change.
David.
March 29, 2007 at 1:44 pm
To: Arjuna Vishnu (a.k.a. You know who.),
From my film, ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’
Like Mr. Potter, you are warped, frustrated old men.
By now you should know that you cannot unring a bell.
Teacher says,
every time a bell rings
an angel gets his wings.
ZuZu
Remember, no man is a failure if he has friends.
Thanks for the wings,
Love Clarence.
Clarence P. Oddbody
Angel Second Class
March 29, 2007 at 2:05 pm
We need very strong ears to hear ourselves judged frankly, and because there are few who can endure frank criticism without being stung by it, those who venture to criticize us perform a remarkable act of friendship, for to undertake to wound or offend a man for his own good is to have a healthy love for him.
Michel de Montaigne
(Ooops, sorry, that was not prehistoric enough, was it?)
March 29, 2007 at 2:44 pm
Thank you Sheik and Knight.
Perhaps it is now time to turn the page
or would that be turn the other Sheik?
March 29, 2007 at 4:30 pm
So many believe, are ‘identified’ with their own words and, even more psychologically deforming – with the words of others. Is it possible to realize, to ‘verify’ that (from wherever your personal pronoun arises in the moment) : All my words lie, including these? Is it possible to ‘say’ more with less? If commenting on the ‘truthiness’ of another’s words, is it possible to undo content without attack or judgement, or even assessment? Is it possible to remember that, independent of your current relationship with RB and/or FOF, both were/are primary influences creating the ‘who I am’ self-definition of indivualism of nearly all who herein post? Love cannot become its seeming opposite, except in minds that cannot or will not formulate unconditionality.
March 29, 2007 at 5:30 pm
Dear ‘It doesn’t matter who’,
Thank you for sharing your vision of the possibilities for the Fellowship of Friends. Although I don’t think that it is possible to redeem it after all that has taken place there, I would love to be proved wrong.
Wish you much strength.
Dear Inner Jewels,
Although I don’t think I know who you are, I think you are lovely, funny and very much alive.
March 29, 2007 at 5:54 pm
“Could it be that the school is real after all, Robert a real Teacher? ” – of course it could. It is all totally real on a certain scale.
More importantly, Are “you” real? The “you”-character you think yourself to be. For the “me”-character a lot of things are real, time is real, direction is real, separation is real, struggle for awakening is real. It’s a celf-centered, personal and vulnerable perspective.
If it is seen that “me” is not real, and there is just one conscious awareness watching the play and playing it – then many things naturally don’t seem as real as they used to be.
March 29, 2007 at 6:03 pm
I opened up a new discussion board.
NEW DISCUSSION.
This discussion is therefore being closed, you will only be able to comment in the new one. The old comments will stay here.