'Myself, I lived in the ashram at one time, participated in numerous events around the world, and lately simply attend weekly videos with the one premie couple living in this town. I was tempted to post a lively reply as you did, but then reconsidered figuring why bother? All this pissing and moaning and somebody fondled somebody in '76, and he robbed my life and on and on ad nauseum. As far as I'm concerned, Maharaji's message hasn't changed, he's just got ridden of a lot of the extraneous nonsense, including his family (mother, brothers,) DLM, and so on. And did you ever think Bob Mishler knew what he was talking about?!? It's funny that so many of the 'ex-premies' still want to tell everyone the 'way it is', just like they did as so-called premies!

Oh well...much much MUCH better to simply sit and practice, take a run, and catch a video! Later...'

Sincerely,
Scott

Well, I'm still on vacation but well, you know, I was checking my mail and thought I'd just well...you know

Scott, I really feel that creating this new forum of yours is a bad mistake. I know the simple answer is that if I'm not interested in contributing there or, perhaps more to the point, if I don't QUALIFY, I should just ignore it. Of course I'll never contribute there. After all, I DON'T qualify. Any more than I would for a carefully demarcated Christian forum. Perhaps that was my problem with Harlan. Perhaps he assumed that any visitor to his 'premie' site would respect the basic premie ideology, however vague and contradictory. Well you know what they say about 'assume'. (I always hated THAT little Joe Anctilism).

Anyways, my real complaint is that I think your creation of a 'doubting believer' forum is philosophically and symbolically misguided. You state that the forum ' is simply meant to provide an atmosphere where many of the views that seem to have been stifled here might be expressed a bit more openly without feeling the need to exert so much energy defending one's self.' And that reminds me of Carl Sagan's final work, The Demon-Haunted World, an excellent paen to science. Sagan states a simple but extremely important point which, nontheless, is often overlooked. The virtue of science, unlike all (most?) other mental conventions is that it INVITES hard questions. The scientific orientation is truly the most humble philosophical attitude as it never ignores the possibility that our ideas may be wrong. While it's commonplace to nominally admit as much in any discussion, the scientific attitude is the only one that encourages people to take that warning to heart. Moreover, science teaches that, all in all, one should always appreciate the benefits of being 'liberated' from a false idea.

Your statement above suggests that you don't feel this way. It suggests that people should be encouraged to exchange their views here without the risk of persuasion. Your tacit offer for the new forum is that 'here is a place where you can say and think anything without the risk of honest feedback. Here is a place where you can be as stupid and silly as you like, as inconsistent as the moment inspires, and no one will be so rude as to point that out to you. A safe place, safe at least for your ideas.'

Scott, I know that you personally are about as far from an insulting person as I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. But I suggest to you that your comment above is in fact quite nasty. Think about it. You claim that some have had their ideas 'stifled' here. How's that? Oxford says to stifle is to 'suppress, smother.' What I've seen here is anything but that.

I've seen some pose some challenging questions to various people in order to flush out their beliefs, not suppress them. It's quite misleading to suggest the opposite.

Similiarly, I think you shoot dangerously wide of the mark when you claim that people have had to defend 'themselves' here. Don't you mean their ideas? The only ad hominem attacks I've seen have been from the believers. Even you, in your attack on scientists' integrity, indulged. On the other hand, those challenging the various 'spiritual' ideas here have, as far as I can tell, avoided this tactic. And why not? We can afford to because, after all, we're already loaded with these good, hard questions. In other words, there's no need for the low blow.

My main point is that the very way Maharaji sucked us in to begin with was by convincing us that hard questions were bad. As soon as we break free from that assumption we begin to reclaim our real self. How can you think that those questions are good for Maharaji but not for any and all 'spiritual' thinking? Isn't that hypocritical?

So I wonder what could possibly happen on that other forum of yours. Are people free to discuss there or is it going to look more like Harlan's page where people make isolated comments but no one actually has the guts to even begin a discussion? You should decide quick because if a discussion does start up you're on dangerous ground. Someone might actually challenge someone else's comment. In that case, what will you do? Offer yet antother ICU for the newly-challenged idea, a protected forum within protected forums? Or will you kick out the newl-offending challanger and banish him or her to the 'anything' hinterlands?