Boys and girls, welcome to the 16th rebirth of the Fellowship of Friends discussion, may you find what you seek for.
For previous parts click on home.
July 22, 2007 by Pavel
Boys and girls, welcome to the 16th rebirth of the Fellowship of Friends discussion, may you find what you seek for.
For previous parts click on home.
subjective morality (around) 490
There are laws. And your understanding of morality is not the only understanding there is. Look at the Nature! Rooster basically rape chickens. And they peck to death weak and sick ones. And do you know how many people on Earth throwing themselves to their bosses for promotion? Billions! It’s not too unusual. It DOES occur. Manipulation of boys to get them in bed? Please! What woman does not manipulate a man with her sex energy to get into a relationship with her? Manipulation, coercion in one form or another exists all the time. And now you want to “hang” one man for it? It’s a joke!
***********************
“Rooster basically rape chickens”…so it must follow that if your Man Number 7 teacher uses his position, your imagination about trust and projection of nobility, your vulnerability and innocence and the carefully cultivated psychotic atmosphere indoctrinated into 2000 cult lunatics to coerce you into sexual activity that you do not want to engage in then any psychological pain and suffering you might experience over the years is simply your feminine dominance hang-ups.
This is the brand of higher conscience the Fellowship of Friends instills in its membership.
490 subjective morality
Wow. Thats a very weird post.
#500 Bullshit Meter
Yes, you are right. She probably will wind up in a mental institution. She has a history of mental illness, depression, and suicide attempts.
Those who bait her — and those who encourage her tirades for their own motives — bear some responsibility.
Shame on you all.
“The twice born is found between two paths, the path of the right, and the path of the left. Whosoever decides to dissolve the ego takes the path of the right in order to be converted into an Ineffable Being. Those who do not decide to dissolve the ego take the path of the left, and they convert themselves into diabolical beings.”
“In order to incarnate the Real Being, one must build the solar bodies by means of the transmutation of Hydrogen SI-12. However, when reaching this state, one must dissolve the ego in order not to be converted into a HANASMUSS with a double center of gravity.”
“A HANASMUSS is someone who has built the solar bodies but who has not passed through the philosophical death of the Masters, and so in this way the HANASMUSS polarizes as an individual with a double center of gravity. Thus the HANASMUSS has two personalities, one angelic personality and the other, a demonic personality.”
“A HANASMUSS is a master of the Black Lodge and of the White Lodge. In the East some sects give the name of Marat/Marut to these beings and some Mohammedan sects worship them. HANASMUSS did work in the Forge of the Cyclops ( influence “C”, single “I” ) but they did not dissolve the ego. They are abortions of the Cosmic Mother, a failed project.”
Samael Aun Weor
“The Initiatic Path”
She’s among friends here, Jeremy. We’re all working some things out, Elena included. My attitude about the blog is that a lot of healing is going on — healing from our own mistakes and weaknesses, and also healing from what we experienced in the Fellowship due to the mistakes and weaknesses of others. It’s not a smooth process.
15/516 Laura
BTW, has anyone here seen the latest Harry Potter yet (Now Showing at a Theater near You)?
My children dragged me to see it and I kept having weird deja-vus thoughout. It was so good it was scary. Please someone help me and tell me I am not going crazy too!
I saw it and it was pretty good, although if I had not read the book I’m not sure I would have followed the story very well. Didn’t have any deja-vus, tho. Although I have no way of knowing, I sense you’re probably not “going crazy.”
Just read Deathly Hallows yesterday. Fantastic finish to the series. Do you read the books?
JoelF
481 Shelley M
Another playwright you might check out is Thornton Wilder. Strangely enough he actually met Gurdjieff.
________________________________________________
Maybe not so strange. Gurdjieff caused quite a buzz among the New York literati when he first went to New York in 1924. He made the rounds of the literary salons, some of which were later transformed into Gurdjieff study groups by Orage. Wilder was attending Princeton around this time, so he would have been in the area. I don’t know if he actually met Gurdjieff at this time but he visited him in France a few years later after he was a published author.
Skeptical Optimist 6
Dear Skeptical Optimist, my Harry Potter deja-vus had a lot to do with what horahkti is referring to in his post above, the whole hasnasmuss catastrophy. Just a lot of symbolic material connected to the things we have been talking about. The book is very good, and I really enjoyed seeing it on the big screen. A few years ago, I participated to a series of discussions on cinema with a Jungian therapist, during which he “unlocked” the psychoanalitic symbolism of various movies, from Mulholland Drive to Crimes and Misdemeanors. Since then, I have a lot of respect for the medium and its potential for the expression of deep inner truths. Sometimes even big Hollywood productions have the ability, when viewed with an humble mind, to help us connect to something deep within ourselves, our indomitable childish nature, still amazingly full of wonder and innocence. A magic we are trying to recreate on this blog, to resurrect the living dead through the touch of our collective divine madness.
As for the book, I’ll have to wait for my daughter Julia to finish it, she’s almost done.
Elena, I madly loved your last post. Keep flying high! And if you have to land, I pray for soft pillows to embrace you. Some of our best poets have been to insane asylums, and you know what? They have also made their way out! These ignoramus have probably never heard of spiritual emergence and emergency, I suspect they only use google to look out for sequences of poo.
To Be Present is the main thing, that we do in the FOF.
and thats all.
To Living The Question, 508.
Sorry I can not surprise you and you are right that I do not have that access to records nor would I wish to. But neither do the critics, so on one hand we all just subjective. I am not looking at things that detailed but in a general way. I have been in the FOF almost 20 years and have worked with administration as well as Robert directly. I am familiar in the general way of the way things are run at Isis. I do not agree with everything, but at the end of the day I feel things are being managed efficently and legally. The FOF has made mistakes in the past and still do but they make the best possible effort to follow the law.
Robert puts a majority of the funds collected from it’s members into building a more beatiful estate for it’s members and our community. If this were not the case I would not be in this School. Some may disagree and that is OK, we all have our different thresholds.
I think this is a conscious school for I try to use the tools given to me by the form and the teacher. It is beautiful to be in this school with so many students who have a common aim; and to have a Teacher who is supporting this. If ones’s aims change or one cannot transform the injustices that they feel then they leave as so many have on this blog. It is Robert’s task to promote this school and he does it in a way he sees fit and it is my opinion it is not from greed as many on this blog expound.
The way in which you present the car situation I would have to say is not exactly true; I will not argue that there is no truth to it but it hardly happens in that way. Again, I do not have the records, but basically Robert may help a friend with a car, or if he buys a car it is connected to some job at Isis. He once lent me a few hundred to get a car, and this was out of his own money. I have known Robert for many years and have had my share of friction with him, but like him, I transform it, have patience and love and something more beatiful comes forth. Our teacher is a human being so he is not flawless and it is my feeling he makes efforts more than anyone I have known to “be present” and to establish harmony with his students. And he also makes the effort to relentlessly teach to his students this concept, “To Be”.
To Be Present is the main thing, that we do in the FOF.
and thats all.
The parts of centers are naive to the fact that they are being used by the king of clubs to displace presence.
It is school work to detect and control the King of Clubs.
Do not be naive.
resist to the most mechanical reactions like negative emotions, and imagination.
horahkti you are very identified, and you look like a real Hasnamus.
Diabolical beings? ja
in the work, bad is that is not useful to be present, and good is that help us to be present, i think we have many I´s that are not interested in presence, be aware of that.
Devil and diabolic are those I´s. observe your queen of diamonds.
words words words, try to stop your thoughts for a moment this will provide you the right atmosphere in order for to be present.
Having read up to the third post by Jeremy.
You all make me laugh greatly, is that what they say in the fellowship since I left or what you´ve decided on this blog? That I am absolutely crazy!
What an honour. Have I met the qualifications for madness?
My goodness, I´ve finally qualified at something in the standards of the fellowship of Friends but I would sincerely enjoy hearing from you where this rumors came from.
Was it from my husband who mentioned such things to make students think that everything I was saying was just because I was mad when I started writing on the blog so that he could undermine the effects?
Or the gay people because I said being gay is the worst identification one could live with?
Or Unoanimo who cannot decide whether I am welcomed or a hipocrite and should look for a Shaman to take the devil out of me?
Just so that you know how mad I really am I’ll tell you myself and try to be as brief as possible so that when you say or hear such things you can have some relativity.
I tried to commit suicide when I was twenty five years old by jumping from a balcony head down. I broke my skull in two places, inside, behind the eyes, had to learn to walk again and saw double after that.
I did it because I had been feeding unnecessary suffering for twenty years after my mother committed suicide when I was almost nine years old. When I survived, it was very clear to me that I had wasted twenty years feeding unnecessary suffering and that I wanted to live. I did not use those terms at the time but it was perfectly clear any way.
It took two years to keep, somewhat under control, the I that was extremely violent. I don´t know about other people who commit suicide, but the problem is very clear to me because once one has developed an I that is willing to do it, then keeping it under control is very difficult. I tried once more without results and never tried again but the I lurks around one and any thing too exciting tends to bring it out. For two years I sat under a great leaf and held myself still so that it would not show up at any turn of my emotions. I mean this emotionally. In actual practice, I married, had another child and continued to raise my children who are both two beautiful human beings without anything so extreme.
The marriage failed four years later as I had started to read the workbooks and I joined the fellowship after two months traveling to London with my two daughters to look for a school. The work worked. The non expression of negative emotions and self remembering slowly strengthened the I and depression moved away consistently. So did boredom and other similar emotions that are closely related to depression. Depression is to me an I that is hardly remembered, a “depressed” I and that is precisely why self remembering can help a great deal with depression. I have consistently spoken against the use of anti depressants for depression so common in the fellowship, when the discussion group existed.
I was intensely motivated by Robert Burton´s teaching for seventeen years and deeply greatfull. I knew that practicing the work had helped me heal an enormous deal. I concentrated mostly in the non expression of negative emotions, non identification and unnecessary talk. I was on my own for two and half years with my children in London, then moved to Renaissance with them, bought a house and worked in the Lewis Carroll School, moved to Colombia and directed a tourist magazine for four years, opened a fellowship center with students who still, many, belong to the fellowship, then opened a restaurant for two and traveled back to Renaissance where I’ve been living for six years.
During those years in Colombia I much struggled with my homosexuality which I don’t believe was physical in my case, (if there is such a thing). I was brought up by maids who were thrown out every other year until at around five I swore to myself that I would never again love a maid. My mother shot herself when I was almost nine and I didn’t cry. I had stopped crying when women left, at the age of five. “Struggled” in that, after my mother´s death, women became a mystery to me and all my homosexual relationships were difficult. Much more than the heterosexual ones. I enjoyed different aspects of both. The emotionality with women, the sexuality and balance with men.
Finally I had a relationship with a woman with whom I committed in a different way to the ones before her. I had already been working on myself for eight or nine years and I made the aim to watch myself as it happened. It failed shortly after and I cried almost everyday for six months. It was wonderful! I cried for every woman that had ever left me and cried more for any one who would ever leave me, and more until the well was empty. When I got up from that bed, women were no longer a mystery to me, I never again felt attracted to them in that way.
I was very much in love with the work and the school when I went back to Isis. I actually went back with a young woman, but we separated shortly after arriving because I just couldn’t hold such a relationship any more. I had a relationship with a male student and then Girard showed up. I was not aware of there being anything wrong with Girard except that everything seemed wrong with Girard but nobody said anything about it in the fellowship. In other words, it was obvious to me that he was not well, that he talked much, repeated much and that he kept going around ideas without reaching out of his rationality but he was so willing to serve, so committed to the school and Robert that I thought that that was the level of understanding of the fellowship and that maybe I could help……. With love. After Cynthia told me the things she told me about Girard, I was shocked but when he showed up again, I was still willing to try.
It was difficult at the beginning. In fact it was always difficult but at least he stopped hitting me and stopped watching porno after the first day in which I told him to leave immediately, that it would not work with that. He’d hit himself and the car and the table. He hit me until after a few months when I told him to leave and he knew I was very serious. But every time we came to this fights and arguments in which I would become very sad and stay in my studio for a long time, he simply waited and became calm, admitted that it wasn´t good and tried to work to make it better. I came to love him immensely because he always made it a little better. He hit himself less each time, started bringing flowers home almost every week and planting trees. We worked much for the fellowship. I loved it.
Wanted to give all that I had to him and the fellowship and I had plenty. I had not been badly depressed for years, knew how to deal with his depression and Dorothy´s Alzheimer enough to help her live a fairly decent old woman´s life. To “deal” with it at least in as much as I had had to have an enormous amount of tolerance and compassion for myself to not kill myself no matter how depressed I was and Girard´s depression or Dorothy´s Alzheimer together, were no worse than mine had been. I knew that all I had ever needed was compassion and I was willing to give it to myself because I was very clear that I did not wish to die. Girard accepted to stop taking antidepressants almost immediately and we rolled down the best we could for four years.
No regular person is willing to give or do anything for any one else unless they are identified with them. If we were all strong that would be fine because it is a pleasure for each individual to carry his own load when he is strong enough, but when we are weak, we need a great deal of help from others, a great deal of “bearing” with us without judgement. Time to “sit under the leaf” while we sort out the Is that trouble us.
Inviting Heather, a student´s daughter, to live with me was a similar situation. She’d tried to hurt herself three times and I knew she would continue if she wasn’t helped. She did not try once in the five months she lived in our place but tried again two months after she left. Even so, she was not helped to receive my help by those around her and she neglected to work on the things I offered her. Still, I dare say, overall, we love each other, know each other.
There was indeed much love between Girard and I, the progress was slow but always a little of it, only we never rested and I became increasingly tired. So very tired that I asked Robert for help and he told me he never wanted to hear from the octave again and that I was not to speak to the four ladies leading octaves in the fellowship about it. That cracked the egg in which I was living. Girard had done nothing to help no matter how tired I was and Robert said I was under feminine dominance and dismissed the issue while still accepting my requirement.
The theoretical confrontations with Girard were always there, with much love. I tried to question why he would not give himself any time to enjoy and was always working for the fellowship and why he could not give his wife time except what we shared in the daily routine of eating and sleeping together. Why we could not rest, take time off. There were deeper areas. Patterns of macho mentality that could not appreciate, I think, any woman for more than the sexuality.
This was not rare to me or something I was not willing to work with. I spent five years, from fourteen to nineteen studying the mass psychology of fascism and male authoritarian behavior and understood the obstacle fairly deeply but understanding the obstacle and having my husband understand it were two different stories. Girard did love me in his own particular way, but it was not enough to protect me or help me in the play in the fellowship of friends. His blind commitment to Robert which simply strengthened his own macho behavior were too strong to be able to help me or what I was trying to offer.
I am a proud and beautiful human being and have lived each second of my life. Specially the last twenty three years since I decided I wanted to live it. I worked and learnt, I taught and shared, I loved.
You may call me crazy but I love this madness if it is madness.
I have not always been this sane or insane, and it has taken all these years to understand that an individual is nothing on his own, his family and his community count and mad are only those who still think that they can live without being thoroughly responsible for everything in their reach.
Why the fellowship did not embrace my love is not my problem. Why they preferred to label me and have me carry the load of Girard´s pornography as if I were little more than a crazy whore, is not my problem, or why my husband left me and was unwilling to stand up for us and protect us, is again, not my problem. Even if these things are not said outwardly, they lay in the background and can be heard loudly. Why labelling me crazy makes them think that students will feel more comfortable with the madness that is going on inside the fellowship, is not my problem. The problems are yours.
I might hurt from your abandonements but if you abandon those that love you it is your problem and if I survived my self twenty three years ago, I swear, you are not a great bunch of people to die for, at least not by my own hand, so don’t worry about my sanity and start questioning your own.
I have never been anywhere close to a mental institution. My psychoanalist who had been a psychiatrist for twenty five years told me the first day I went to see him that the only thing that he had seen that ever helped people, was talking and that was why he was now a psychoanalist. We worked together for two years after I hurt myself and never looked for another one.
I talk to you without fear. I have nothing to hide from you people. You can no longer hurt me with your made up lives trying to fit everything to continue the lie in which you’ve decided to live. Your poor and antisocial lives without any compassion for your children or your old people. Your cold and degraded lives with a made up puppet disguised as a conscious barbie.
Simple Truth – I wish it all was that simple and transparent in FOF…
No, it’s not ‘just being present and that’s all.’
There are lies and crimes and bottomless greed and ‘Be Present’ is just a cover up for devoted sheep like you. Main thing is money and sex and it has always been this way from day one. This is the only driving force behind RB and FOF. Open your damn glossy eyes already!
On a positive note FOF has already lost about 3.7 million in annual revenue due to recent exodus of wealthier students from US and Europe. It’s more than half of the annual income that comes from the teaching payments. (Usually about 6 million). Certainly there is still quite some personal RB’s income from all those ‘teaching events’.
But things are changing all by themselves and it’s not looking good for FOF. Current ‘exit rate’ is 50-80 students per month. New students seem to be a thing of the past ( btw, has anyone seen a new student join FOF lately?) It is not about the actual numbers of students who left, it’s more about the category of the people who are leaving. Teaching payment in USA is $450 per month minimum and it’s usually only around $10-$20 in less developed countries. Therefore losing American students does hurt.
Devoted salaried believers don’t bring much money to RB – they are actually mostly an expense and burden for FOF (sorry Howard).
I think we’ll see lots of action in few months when Fall donation hits the fan… Stay tuned.
ST, make sure to complete all your sequences before the shop closes down!
deleted a the author’s request
I am an “ex-student” (wrong, really, for I am still studying human nature and my own role as a professional teacher of craft precious-metals) and appreciate open discussions such as I have found recently on your website. I would welcome the chance to offer neutral, but powerfully compelling ’snippets’ to your site. Yours……………..Nigel.
Fat Boy :
Thought I’d give you the skinny on just one of the current ‘irregularitys’ occuring around money in the FOF. There are countless more but this one will serve as an example because you have all been aware of it,you just have not connected the dots.
‘La Cucina’ the restaurant on the property that was burned down a couple of years ago. First, put aside the fact that it was originally paid for by FOF ( our doations ). The insurance money from the fire.Where is it? It was spent on gods knows what.
So, you will have been aware of the ‘auctions’ held over the past couple of years specifically to raise funds so that ‘We’ can rebuild our beautiful La Cucina. ….well over $100.000 was raised.Then it kind of ‘went quiet’ So, where is that money ? and where is the new restaurant ? ‘We’ have now paid three times over for a restaurant that does not exist.
Care to comment ?
17 Mole
You are asking the sheep to comment on being sheared? They think they’re just getting their belly scratched.
Simple Truth
‘word words words’
You seem to be expressing more and more of them.Does it ever occur to you how comical it is to listen to you constantly reminding us our ‘Is’ are not real but you obviously believe that yours are ?
#15 Unoanimo
Bravo Uno,
Bravo!
#7 Xena
Thanks! Have you read his Alcestiad? It is his only failed play. But to me it is a masterpiece. Let me know your opinion if you get a hold of it.
xox
Shelley
#514 Elena:
“…the dead are no longer out here but in there, quietly walking to Robert´s bedroom or Robert´s meeting, Robert’s dinner or Robert’s tea. Quiet all their lives because Robert never found that they had anything worth to say.”
And they would call YOU mad?
purchasing awakening, to be present is not a cover is the most important thing in life.
Self-awareness is the
greatest change possible, because in ordinary
conditions of life nobody is aware of
himself, and yet people do not realize this.
The whole idea is to be aware of yourself in
this place, at this moment.
the lies and crime is the negativity in your wrong understanding.
And Mrs. Mole i´m not talking to you, and I dont care your poor understanding.
avoid to express negative emotions that could you feel by this post.
I can suggest where possibly is the money (at least some of it).
About a year ago me and a friend were walking through Galleria, just looking, admiring the beauty. I was showing him various rooms, kitchen, library… The door to the teacher’s room was wide open and I remember that it was OK in the past to simply walk in… So we did. There was no one there. I said: This is the teacher’s room…
And my friend noticed a bunch of brand new mens shirts laying by his bed… They were fancy looking, in their packaging… We noticed the price tags. Shirts were $ 1500 plus per each. We were… a bit shocked. These are the kind of shirts the “boys” wear…
Another true story: once at our house a “boy” got slightly drunk and carried away bragging to other students about his teacher’s many gifts to him. He was showing us his ring, tie, pants, shirt – and exclaiming: This is 1800 bucks, this is 900 bucks, this is 2400 bucks… He was going on and on. It was truly pathetic.
We heard enough and went away and my boyfriend said to me: This jerk over there is wearing 10 of my teaching payments!
Well if you think how many “boys” there are and the amount of expensive shirts, rings, pants, suits, etc they wear – it starts to makes sense where the Bistro money could possibly be.
“The whole idea is to be aware of yourself in
this place, at this moment.” -
This is not an IDEA. Awareness is simple given reality. Simple truth if you wish.
When it is made by your mind into an IDEA – then an illusion starts, and search, and unnecessary suffering – all in your head by the way…
Reality is exactly those “ordinary conditions of life” – this is it, nothing else. Nothing stops you from being where you are now, even thoughts. You are, and you are now.
Ordinary, simple truth.
Seems that things are working out the way they have with my ‘nobility’ name (ap Rhys – impetuous one), I wrote to Ames Gilbert on E S ’s contact email in my first sending for this site, so have had to retrace my steps, as all impetuous ones do, and introduce myself in my true (non-Fellowship experience) role as you will see. When I was living with Cynthia Hill and her (now former) husband, Myles Patrick in Palo Alto, the topic arose that led to my mentioning that I wanted to read more literature, which I was not having the chance to do at the time. Funny how wishes come true! When I had to leave the Fellowship (ask members at the time – June 1989) all I could do was study. I tried to attempt employment, but due to the down-side of what has now been diagnosed as my ‘bi-polar affective disorder’ (“I myself contain Heaven and Hell” – Whitman) could only study. One kind and gentle soul I met in hospital was named Joseph Padroaig Farley, an Irishman, who introduced me to W B Yeats. The email to Ames described some of my experiences and contained this poem, which should sustain all genuine ‘Truth Seekers’.
To a Friend whose Work has come to Nothing……………………
Now all the truth is out,
Be secret and take defeat
From any brazen throat,
For how can you compete,
Being honour bred, with one
Who, were it proved he lies,
Were neither shamed in his own
Nor in his neighbours’ eyes?
Bred to a harder thing
Than Triumph, turn away
And like a laughing string
Whereon mad fingers play
Amid a place of stone,
Be secret and exult,
Because of all things known
That is most difficult.
Please allow me time to pace myself in my sendings as I must compose at a pace (“Work, work your thoughts” – Henry V, William Shakespeare) but will not give up on you.
Yours in Truth..The Answerer (Whitman, again, you will see).
Simple truth.
I understand you do not wish to talk to me but as long as you post here you are in a dialogue.You do not and cannot conrol those facts.
Consider this.Does being aware of yourself mean you are paralysed from acting.doing what needs to be done as appropriate to the current circumstances of your life ? The way that you present your understanding is as if to say that being aware of yourself means that everything is fine as it is and one should do nothing…you think you are above talking to me..but have you noticed very few people respond or address you here? I’ll tell you why. Your ludicrously over simplified ,frankly unintelligent and childish application of the idea of ‘Self remembering’ to neutralise anything you do not wish to hear is exactly the kind of mindset that marks you out as a Cult member. Oh, and by the way, I don’t play the FOF game of ‘Not expressing negativity’ as a means of silencing the exposure of the glaring contradictions between what Robert Burton SAYS and what he DOES.
Janna What are you saying? that Mr. Ouspensky was wrong and you are right?
yes the machine is allways where you are, but you are in the second state, (sleeping imagining that you are awake)
it is necessary make some kind of efforts for to be present.
there is a huge difference between the second and third states.
or you dont know nothing about this?
27 Simple Truth
You have become a parasite feeding on the blog. Do you know what a remora is. It’s that parasitic fish that attaches itself to the life of a shark, or whale or manta.
My enlightened friend. Here is a you. Because as you no doubt know, one cannot see oneself as clearly as another.
“The relationship between remoras and their hosts is most often taken to be one of commensalism, specifically phoresy[citation needed]. The host they attach to for transport gains nothing from the relationship, but also loses little. The remora benefits by using the host as transport and protection and also feeds on materials dropped by the host. There is some controversy over whether a remora’s diet is primarily leftover fragments, or actually the feces of the host.”
That’s you, my cowardly troll. Come on, identify yourself. Show some balls. Are you so aware of your own absurdity that you will not own who you are? So far you are only an anonymous little weasel. Is self pride and inner bravery something that you are waiting to develop until right before you “wake up”? Doesn’t work that way. As long as you remain anonymous, you remain irrelevant. You are only speaking your words so you can hear them. You are the fool of the farce.
Deleted. –ES
Mole said: Consider this.Does being aware of yourself mean you are paralysed from acting.doing what needs to be done as appropriate to the current circumstances of your life ?
the answer is no, being aware of yourself for me means to be present to your own life, is to give your best posibilities, is not to be in imagination, not to express negative emotions, remember that your functions will work better with counsciousness.
Mole said: The way that you present your understanding is as if to say that being aware of yourself means that everything is fine as it is and one should do nothing…?
my answer is no, you must act but not in amechanical way, you must act with counsciousness. to be intentional with your thoughts feelings and movements.
Mole said: you think you are above talking to me?….
again my answer is No, I´m not above nobody, I only wish to share some quotes from Counscious men.
I, just like you and all the people, we are asleep, i already realize this, and i want work to wake me up.
#10 fat Boy wrote:
Our teacher is a human being so he is not flawless and it is my feeling he makes efforts more than anyone I have known to “be present” and to establish harmony with his students. And he also makes the effort to relentlessly teach to his students this concept, “To Be”.
Really? You say RB is a human being with flaws. I hope RB never hears that you wrote this statement. Maybe he has changed his inflated view of himself and his god-like status since I knew him, but if he has not, you would be in some deep shit for making such a blasphemous pronouncement on his level of being. Watch out!
relative morality:
“Roosters rape chickens”. Your argument appears to justify mechanical behavior. Didn’t you join a ’school’ to rise above the billions of sleeping machines, not descend to their level? Just because millions of people smoke cigarettes, that doesn’t make it less unhealthy.
simple truth?
The king of clubs has nothing to do with using parts of centers to displace presence. That is simply wrong and would be a waste of precious life energy, which the king of clubs is designed to conserve. The king of clubs is always present, watching over your shoulder, even while you are in first state. Without it you would die.
What you are really talking about when you say ‘king of clubs’ is everything you don’t like or can’t accept about youself that has been banished from the light of your awareness and into your unconscious mind where it festers. Your higher centers would be better served if you started examining how you are being indoctrinated by the FOF into acting against your own best interests the longer you stay.
You are misguided if you think that you are informing the many ex-students reading this blog with numerous years of working on themselves that “the whole idea is to be aware of yourself at this moment”. For most of us, that is a given.
What is your aim in telling us something we already know? Isn’t it to outwardly convince yourself of something of which deep down you are uncertain?
For the Bruce
Jesus said, “Blessed
is the man who consumes the lion”
“Cursed is the man who is consumed by
the lion”
Bruce you are being consumed by your own lion.
and you can not do nothing.
If somebody is not agree with you, you want to killhim.
what a close mind.
To follow on from 25 (25 is the number for full understanding, by the way!), I have dug up my paperback copy of Leaves of Grass and found ‘Song of the Answerer’. So I can explain my last sending…………………………………..
He puts things in their attitudes,
He puts today out of himself with plasticity and love,
He places his own city, times, reminiscences, parents,
brothers and sisters, associations employment and
politics, so that the rest never shame them afterward,
nor assume to command them.
He is the answerer
What can be answred he answers, and what cannot be
answered he shows how it cannot be answered.
Why this tingling telling of Proclamation?! I move over to Shakespeare (Henry V, again!)…………….
KING: May I with right and conscience make this claim?
CANTERBURY: …………….
Stand for your own, unwind your bloody flag,
Look back into your mighty ancestors.
So – WILL DO!
Price is the common form (anglicised) of the Welsh name ‘ap Rhys’ (of impetuous one) and derives from the Danish king named Rijs who made his way into North Wales during the Viking years and gathered the first clan in the British Isles to surpress the ’shambolic’ feuding among neighbours where he settled. As for the ‘bloody flag’ – if you have the chance to view the Wallace tartan (my mother was a direct descendant of Sir William Wallace – the hero of Scotland – ‘pro libertate’ – for freedom – no wonder she was worried about my connections with the FOF!) you will see it is mostly blood-red with a black ground and yellow flares (black is God’s (the invisible one of the incomprehensible laws) colour and yellow indicates curiosity (from the Scandinavian 1960s film).
How does this all relate to Burton and the Fellowship? I have no doubt that Burton may be conscious – I myself have to take anti-psychotics to slow down and decrease the volume of ‘racing thoughts’ – I am present to every moment of my life, believe me – but did not Gurdjieff refer to the possibility of even making a sheep conscious in ‘Search’? The fact is that “Essence remembers, whereas personality forgets” (again ‘ In Search of the Miraculous’). Buton ‘tickles the ears’ (Biblical term pertaining to false prophets – Revelations) of his followers and sings the ‘body communal’ and not as Whitman would indicate ‘the body ELECTRIC!’
In other words, be real in your own life. God bless. Nigel.
33 Simple Truth
“If somebody is not agree with you, you want to kill him.”
Really? Did you pull that out of your ass all by yourself. You are a deeply disturbed individual. It’s good that you’re in the FOF…it’ll keep you off the street.
False Personality does not grow in Isis, but it grows in life
subjective morality (around) 36
False Personality does not grow in Isis, but it grows in life
*******************
The Fellowship of Friends is based on a form of false personality that is actually below the level of ordinary life. You imagine that you are conscious but in fact you are psychotic. What you mistake for self-remembering is actually increasing your vanity from mere false personality into something far more hideous.
Whale rider
first you said: The king of clubs has nothing to do with using parts of centers to displace presence.
second you said: What is your aim in telling us something we already know?
these two things are contradictory.
have you forgot everything that you have learned?
Mr. Ouspensky called to the King of Clubs the mind besides the machine. and it manipulates the four lower centers for to keep you interested in different themes of imagination.
And I have not any Doubt, as you.
36 subjective morality
“False Personality does not grow in Isis, but it grows in life”.
Really. If you believe that what the hell are you doing here, you arrogant little twit.?
You, Simple Truth and the rest of the homunculi are perfect examples of why people should pack their bags and get the fuck out before they’re broke and are forced to stay where they are.
To 31 Dick Moron:
Robert has said many times he makes mistakes. And refering to himself has made remarks about consciousness is not functions. He knows he is a “machine.” Robert has stated that his higher centers have been awakened. The fourth way view is we all have higher centers but they are used very rarely. Schools are designed to help higer centers function. My opinion is that Robert’s higher centers are functioning more than anyone I have met and the efforts he makes to be present and to teach “presense” I have “subjectively” verified.
I do agree with you Dick Moron that if I approached Robert in the demeanor of his entry 31, then I would understand if Robert would photograph me. But in the past, when I have approached my Teacher, Robert in a sincere and non combative way he is very positively responsive.
Re: #36: Just felt many FOF members cringe at this statement coming from the party line.
Bruce you were student of the FOF?
Laura and I am that,
You both said that you were not “good students”.
I was a good “active” student: never late with donations (paid teaching payment before the rent), worked with the exercises, was sincere and enthusiastic, opened the teaching houses, traveled to different centers in different countries, lead the meetings. I did not have any “big roles” in the school but I was doing what the school asked from me. Until… I found out about the lies…
I think if I would not be sincere and true student, I would never be sure if it is the School which does not work, or I just don’t work on myself.
Only recently I discovered how many students are actually “not good students”, meaning, they take exercises “with relativity”, or as a suggestion, they smoke (a lots of RB boys do it for sure), a lot of people smoke other things than the cigarets, drink waaaaay more than two glasses of wine, express negativity, lot’s of women wear pants, lots of people listen to rock music, dance at the parties, watch violent movies, go to striptease, screw around, read newspapers, laugh showing their teeth, don’t put the first bite aside, and definitely don’t do the sequence, but… they are around.
But isn’t it true that if you are making sincere efforts you have to have some results? And there are no results. Honestly, I’ve got NOTHING from the school. I’ve got a lot from my own life, from other people, from the shocks, from the books, but what did I get from the school? A lot of practices and promises…
27 Simple truth en Fat boy
FAT BOY: You sound more sane than your colleague who thinks he speaks the ‘ simple truth’, emotionally grown up and thoughtful. But I think the framework of your knowledge is a bit narrow. A bit like the people living in North Korea. I hope you know what I mean?
SIMPLE TRUTH: you are vain but it must be nice to feel so superior as you do…(sorry – I don’t want to hurt but this is the main impression you produce in my subjective mind) But there are also good things to say about you. For instance I’m very happy you are so content with your presence. But I also feel in you the dilettante that I was when I was in my mid-twenty’s.
EXCLUSIVE RIGHT
So……..your basis message is ‘presence’ is an exclusive right
of people paying money to Robert Burton.
‘Simple Truth’, I don’t think your are a member of this group/cult
for a long time like ‘Fat boy’. But if you are – consider this experiment:
THE EXPERIMENT
Stop paying money to Robert Burton for a while (say two years)
And to work with your ‘king of clubs’ give this money anonymously
to the poor. And just continue with what you call ‘being present’.
HOLY BIBLE
Maybe during this time make an aim to read the complete Holy Bible, old and new testament.
EMANUEL KANT
Maybe study the work of Emanuel Kant and understand that you are and always will be completely subjective an that nobody can nor will ever see the ‘outer world’.
MARKETING
Maybe study some marketing and learn what mechanisms institutions use to support transactions. For instance exchanging a their brand of chicken for money. Or their brand of presence for your money.
LET RESULTS RULE
So… separate from wanting to be special or superior and do this experiment with an open mind. And let results rule, period.
YOU ARE MAYBE MORE WISE
Maybe you will personally verify that you do very well without this ‘school’ an maybe even better. Maybe you will find you are more wise, strong, intelligent, disciplined, present and closer to God than you ever thought possible or even hoped for.
YOU OWN IT TO YOURSELF
Remember that Robert Burton (if he is what he claims to be) spend himself only a very short time in a ‘school/group/cult’. So if you are a longtime member you own it to yourself to see if you really need paternal support to do the thing you want most in this life (hopefully being present and feeling the Depth, Oneness and Grace of GOD)
PLAY FIRST VIOLIN
So it maybe nice and cheerful in the fof but you will always play the second violin in your own life. And you will never find your own true voice.
FOR FREE
My conclusion or simple truth: (maybe yours will be different, and you run back to Robert Burton) If you sincerely value the presence it can not be taken away from you nor can it be given by somebody else. It is completely free and is accessible at any moment by anyone.
So ‘Simple Truth’ and ‘Fat boy’ hope that you are both well and live in accordance with you own simple truth.
Let what you know take you away
Peter
I am a little perturbed, having read some of the ‘blog’ that is on this site, that anger flies about in all corners, and that people seem to have a reason to justify their stance, either in staying in, or for having left the FOF. Sorry to tell you folks, but that has nothing to do with Real I or The Self. I had real trouble with guilt, reading back through Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, having parted from the FOF those years back. Collin’s “Theory of Conscious Harmony” created the third force between the guilt (denying force) and the active force of C influence (for some serendipititious reason, my father’s telephone number was given an added 44 on the town code – you can call him if you like – Deleted –ES – Peter G Price) – two weeks after I came back from Ca) and made me realize that, as Whitman so rightly pointed out, “Knowledge is not finally found in schools”. I can apply a Burton quote to myself, which he may remember or not:-
“I know who I am and I know whom I represent”
Yours consistently…….Nigel.
Dear all
BS meter and fat boy, showed up after HC and ….somebody else left the blog maybe you two can talk with Nick SP first before you publish here.
Please BS meter and fat boy, go and TALK to students, go and LISTEN to them. Go and talk to Gideon’s wife, T, the bookkeepers and open the books. Go and talk to C and all the ordinairy students. I will not advise you to talk with the many ex students around 500 as has been mentioned. You might be ready to go to Mental Health in YC if you can digest their understanding and what they know.
O, and go back to school for math classes. a handfull monthly would be 5 and it is 50 and more.
One more thing the choice of YOUR NAMES??????????
Says enough. Love to you and much sanity is needed to heal. maybe ask our sweet MD’s they might have some anti depressants left.
Love to all of you and we will survive.
I got all my love to give
I got all my life to live
I will survive
Yeh, yeh,
Peter
I´m not feel superior to anybody you are wrong. sorry if you think that, but i´m not better than anybody.
i´m just another asleep human being like you and everybody.
you don´t like my way to express myself?
and one of the reasons for to be in a school is because one is not strong enough for to wake up by yourself.
three things are necesary to wake up, efforts from you, help from people with experience in this work, and knowledge.
Dear Laura,
Thanks for your letter.
Life is a healing process
Giving up illusions
Till we say
O, I am ready to die to day
It was pleasant
Many have gone before me
It is time.
And time does the job
No efforts or “evoked” presence
Just simply now, silence
So your conscience can be heard
The all existent silence
A little love
A kindness
A friend
A beautiful sky
Now
Peter, 43:
Yes, I know what you mean by saying North Korea but would not agree with you using it about me. I agree with you that the framework of how I relate my experience and opinion is narrow and I keep it this way so in order not to get to convulated.
I believe it is more constructive to be clear, simple, non sarcastic, sincere, not to critical torward each other when we write on this blog. But when people start doing the opposite of the above it creates a chain of very subjective thinking that seems not to be helpful; only entertaining.
Robert use to quote Goethe, “If I had more time I would have wrote a shorter letter”.
Simple Truth,
Smug self calming, habitual self indoctrination and in your case almost complete institutionalisation.
You don’t see it and cannot entertain for a second that others do.
Love Ryan.
Dear Simple truth,
It is fine how you express yourself.
And it is not important whether I like it or not.
(Who am I the judge you? I don’t even know you)
You know you are completely right if you say:
Start quote from ST–
“and one of the reasons for to be in a school is because one is not strong enough for to wake up by yourself.”
“Three things are necesary to wake up, efforts from you, help from people with experience in this work, and knowledge.”
- end quote of ST
But when is enough, enough. Robert Burton once decided that he learnt enough for Alexander Horn and leaved (some people say he was fired, I don’t know what is true).
What is the difference between Robert Burton and yourself Simple Truth? You know more than you think you know. For instance on the basis of your own understanding and knowledge you place Robert Burton way up to yourself. Again it is your judgment (a part of you) who is saying to you; HE is up and YOU are under. And people like ME are again under that. I understand this and it is not strange to me because I did the same for almost 12 years.
Now, for me it is different. I see You and ‘Fat boy’ as higher beings than Robert Burton. As you are both willing to learn, make payments and sacrifice from something you believe in. This is a level of being I don’t think Robert Burton ever was able to reach for longer than a few months.
Dear Fat Boy,
Sorry, if I insulted you with the term ‘North Korea’. With the content of your letter I completely agree. But it is fine to quote Goethe yourself (here on the bog the voice of Robert Burton does not have the authority as inside the Fellowship of Friends)
If one of you wishes to write to me personally please send your mail to: mail@PeterSchwank.com
Hi friends.
Subjective morality.. yes true you do appear very subjective.
Fathead boy..
Simple way too simple truth.
If you people are real then I am sorry for you and hope you recover!
484. The USA democratic youre joking surely?
Its not the people who vote but the people who count the votes who decide anything.
500. Bullshit meter. Stick your head back up your ass!
You are that unusual entity, an asshole that talks and of course it talks shit! hope you recover.
3. Jeremy, more shame on you! look instead in the mirror. What motivated your post?
4 Horakhty, thanks for posting this, despite its source. Samael Aum Weor, as you probably know this was not his real name, he was heavily into Quabbalism was from Columbia and wrote around seventy books hmmm seems like he was sampling the merchandise.
Unoanimo !!!!!! was that your own? who ever wrote it, its beautifull.
Nigel harris Price. Funnily enough Wallace means the Welshman,le waleisa. He has been romanticised to death. He was like most Scots heroes not so sharp as to be tricked by the English with their practised subterfuge.
Elena. Thanks for giving your story it gives relativity, please give strength to those I’s which disregard those poor ones who are struggling to become human and still quite short of the mark who post here.
This is from Emily Dickinson please forgive if its slightly paraphrased as its from memory.
” Much madness is divinest sense to a discerning eye.
Much sense the starkest madness.
Tis the majority decide in this as in all.
Assent and you are sane .
Demur and you are dangerous and handled with a chain.”
Hope ive not corrupted it too much.
Better the devil you know than the devil you dont know.
All great people have touched despair it comes with casting your net wider than comfort would dictate.
As a persons consciousness grows it begins to take in an ever larger picture of the world and goes beyond its own subjective little circle.
I wish you joy!
cy.
Stanislav Grof in the link below discusses the use of hallucinogens in the awakening process. Almost all of the major religions began with their use. The mystery traditions all had their use at their culmination. The ayahuascal experience for example in particular because of its primary effect begins with having to let go of the ego as its hard to be egotistical when one is squirting from both ends. In todays world it can give a profound insight into what is possible for us and of course then one can use the insights gained in ones normal life without further use. It is also possible to get to the same places through knowledge and intentional suffering used wisely although much more difficult. The north american indian church uses them as part of its sacrament and they pray for everything in existence while experiencing the higher state, they also purify themselves with sweat lodges, they operate amongst other places in Nevada not far from Las Vegas and welcome strangers from all cultures although one needs a sponsor. It is perhaps a dimension of the sly mans pill. Grof was drummed out of the psychological community or pecked to death at one point for his adherence to and advocating their use as part of the spiritual quest.
Let me know what you think.
May you illumine.
love from cy.
Dear Cyclops
Thanks for your counterfoil – actually Wallace means ’son of Wales’ – and having been to the Katherine Jenkins concert at Margam Park, I am proud to bear that connection – “For I am Welsh, you know” (God almighty! There goes Henry V again) and, just to “strike your father (figure) ’s (Burton) into the hazard” (HV encore!) Welsh is the name that the Angles gave to the people who inhabited that land and means ‘foreigner’ (foreign hire needs money to operate please note – I can be mercenary up to the hilt!)
Your move Cyclops (let’s get into CHESS – maybe the musical by Tim Rice (family again) – rees, prees, reece, rice – the common grain – and did not King John say in ‘1066 and all that’ – “But not the common people” – bloody Frenchman trying it out with Renaissance, now Isis – as my GP and confidante, Dr Adrian Midgley (fly in the ointment – salve to use an old English term) – Lil(l)y can be sued because it has money (they make my Olanzapine [see Formulae book - go on make an effort] but I control the dose so as I can feel enough without losing control). Anyway the quote from Chess (the musical that is) “The man is utterly mad – you’re playing a lunatic”; “That’s the trouble, he’s a brilliant lunatic; you can’t dissect him, analyze him, which means he’s not a lunatic at all” Thanks Eric Nightingale, the mighty chess player and Viking buyer of my very popular ‘dolphin’ rings – dolphins are now coming to their next (4th) evolution – they represent COMMUNICATION – go on CYCLOPS – tell me your real name -or is your one eye just a plastic addition on your forehead? – not the ‘mind’s eye’ (pituitary gland – which is used in critical thought because it can scan the clouds of imagination. In other words HAVE YOU GOT A BRAIN IN THAT HEAD? Show yourself capable of a battle.
Signed……………………………the Welsh Samurai (meaning servant) – ‘fight as if one already dead’.
Too late Cyclops
While you were either having breakfast or pressing your business suit/shirt/blouse or whatever I have another quote – this time from Henry IV, Part I – in which Prince Hal (later to become the king) talks of being involved with Falstaff et al. (false personality, n’est-ce pas, Monsieur Haven). Anyway, you will see what False Personality I was involved with as I do this one of ‘the top of my head’ – by memory, in actual fact, because I cannot be a**sed to wait and visit the library before I go to work this evening and not be on top of my ‘barrage with intent to act’. You may be surprised that we were forced to memorise whole chunks of Shakespeare as punishments at my grammar school (Oh! Trespass sweetly urged. Give me my sin again -Romeo and Juliet – thanks Uncle Will!)
“I know you all and will awhile uphold
The unyoked humour of your idleness
Yet herein will I imitate the sun
Who doth permit the base contagious clouds
To smother up his beauty from the world
That, when he please again to be himself
Being wanted, he may be more wondered at
By breaking through the foul and ugly mists
Of vapours that did seem to strangle him.
If all the year were playing holidays
To sport would be as tedious as to work
But when they seldom come, they wished for come
And nothing pleaseth but rare accident.
So when this loose behaviour I throw off
And pay the debt I never promised
By how much better than my word I am
By so much shall I falsify men’s hopes
And, like bright metal on a sullen ground
My reformation glittering over my fault
Shall show more goodly in men’s eyes
Than that which hath no foil to set it off.
I’ll so offend, to make offence a skill,
Redeeming time when men think least I will.”
For all those in genuine searching, might I recommend the best American ‘feel-good’ film I have seen – “Field of Dreams” – ‘If you build it (a circle of influence, that is) HE will come!’
Beware of Falstaffs (false ‘taff’s = phoney Welshmen)
“Dibs – in Search of Self” by Virginia M Axline (child psychiatrist) – The Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such little ones (big JC).
P.S. Cyclops
I have inherited my maternal grandfather’s book collection including a first edition of ‘The Life of Wallace’. Mel Gibson romanticised him to death, not Bruce or al; and it was the battle of Culloden which finally ‘did it in’ for the Scots, because after that battle, Scots first-born sons were sent to England to be educated. That is why you get so many toffee-nosed gits with Southern British Standard accents being absentee landowners for their struggling Scots tenants even today. Get your facts correct before you ‘issue from the empty into the void’ to quote Gurdjieff.
Nigel Harris Price.
Hi Nigel,
wow I seem to have touched a corn, not even tramped on it. Welcome to the blog!
I didnt say that holly wood had romanticised him! the scots are good enough at that themselves. But too much love of country is Instinctive in origin.
Burtoon If you have read the rest of the preceding blog is no friend of mine. I would like to see him out of business!
He is a grim reaper. Shakespeare whoever he was, I love as much as Rumi.
You do appear to have Scottish Quixotic blood, just spoiling for a fight.
Its a great irony that they have given the world so much, Tv (Im not sure about that being a good thing), but the telephone, major advancements in heart surgery etc and yet always been screwed by the english/german “nobility”. That bitch has a lot to answer for…..
My respect for the bard is boundless.
Remember ” a thousand traitors sit within thy crown”
and
“Now get thee to thy ladies chamber, tell her to paint an inch thick to this favour she must come”. Adressed to your Queen. thanks for the quotes.
Not a plastic eyed…. cy
#3 Jeremy
#13 Elena
Jeremy, you are pathetic .
Elena, you are beautiful.
Aline
43 and 48 are newly moderated.
Cyclops has just posted a link to a Stanislav Grof interview, Whalerider had recommended Holotropic Breathwork on post 13-594. Coincidentally, dr. Grof is the creator of Holotropic Breathwork with his wife Christina, who is also the founder of the Spiritual Emergence Network. They have written a number of very interesting and influential books. If you are not familiar with their work, I strongly suggest you to acquainted with it.
Holotropic Breathwork is one of the most powerful transformative experiences I have encountered in my life, and it’s also amazingly simple. I do it about once a year, and find it a great tool for healing and self-understanding.
One ironic aspect is that I first met dr. Grof shortly before leaving the fellowship, watching a taped interview I checked out at the Goldmans’ video library.
So, Abraham, after all I owe you one…
This Scottish quote seems quite à propos at this point:
“When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.”
Alexander Graham Bell
Hi again Nige.
“Scots wha hae wi Wallace bled,
Scots wham Bruce has often led
welcome tae yir gory bed,
or tae victory.
NOWs the time
and nows the hour.
see approach proud edwards power
chains and slavery.”
“Git” is such a great word!
“hark when the night is falling hear i hear the pipers calling loudly and proudly calling down through the glen”
Is it the heid yir efter? Yi sassenach. Can yir mammie sow? Well git her tae stitch this! Oucha.
yill no cood unnerstaun iz yi bampot eh hink its a ower yir heid.
regards cy. the pineal eye.
Cyclops said:
“Stanislav Grof in the link below discusses the use of hallucinogens in the awakening process. Almost all of the major religions began with their use. The mystery traditions all had their use at their culmination.”
I remember one time after a particularly dull and theoretical meeting, my friend Michael S. said, “What everyone in that room needs is a hit of LSD-25. After that, maybe we can talk about higher states with some sort of mutual understanding and intelligence.”
It’s funny, when I get right down to the bottom of it, what I was really looking for all those years ago, was someone to help me understand what I had experienced at my first Grateful Dead concert; I just happen to run into the fof at the time I was getting serious about that question. Too bad no one turned me onto Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell sooner.
Also, for those of a similar mind, I want to highly recommend John Horgan’s book “Rational Mysticism”. It is Horgan’s survey of what a wide range of “experts” have to say about the modern mystical experience. Check out his web site johnhorgan.org for chapters that were left out of the book. One of them deals with Andrew Cohen, another self-professed enlightened being. There’s also a chapter about the folks that wrote the Guru Papers.
See you in the funny papers.
Another Name, thank you, how lovely
This song goes out to all the sisters out there. Isn’t it nice to be a woman?
love
http://www.ifilm.com/video/2777036
Laura .
Back at you with thanks for your inner and outer beauty.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUiSQZKlZ9A
Most good students were only acting. love Cy.
Fat Boy #40 wrote:
I do agree with you Dick Moron that if I approached Robert in the demeanor of his entry 31, then I would understand if Robert would photograph me. But in the past, when I have approached my Teacher, Robert in a sincere and non combative way he is very positively responsive.
Hey Fat Boy,
Next time RB is blowing you, politely ask him to please take your pecker out of his mouth and see how “positively responsive” he is. Then try to simply walk out of the room and find out how “non combative” he will be.
Dear Laura:
YES, holotropic breath work is awesome! Grof developed it from observing tribal rituals after LSD became illegal. It is indeed a powerful transformational tool. Intense altered states can be easily created without chemicals. Unlike drug induced trips, you can stop the process at any time, and there are no side effects. I use the process myself, and highly recommend it, as long as you don’t have heart disease or smoke.
simple truth?
“Mr. Ouspensky called the King of Clubs the mind besides the machine and it manipulates the four lower centers for to keep you interested in different themes of imagination.”
What the hell are you talking about? The king of clubs is also one of the lower centers, is it not? To what end would it manipulate itself? Please cite the above quote from O so we might carry on an intelligent debate here.
It would be your emotional center that engages in fantasy and imagination, and your intellect that engages in abstract thinking, not your instinctive center. Intentional creative imagination, such as an artist might use involves the sex center.
Your personality, fears, and ambitions drive your imagination, not your king of clubs. The instinctive center is quite occupied plodding along keeping you safe and alive. Remember, it takes eight hours to digest the food that you eat. Imagination happens at the speed of the emotions.
In the interest of your own sanity and mental health, I sincerely suggest you resist labeling any part of yourself evil, as you seem to make your king of clubs out to be. In doing so, you will only cause an unhealthy schism within yourself. If you don’t understand the word schism, do yourself a favor and make the effort to research its meaning. Then you can begin to know yourself a little better.
To Dick Moron 65:
To make it clear I do not have a sexual relationship with the Teacher, and Robert is positively responsive to his students whether sex or not is involved. With that being said, I believe the tone of your comment brings this blog to a lower level.
Thanks, Fat Boy. You are providing your own confirmation (in addition to numerous other accounts on this blog) that sex is involved. Another question is why people don’t see that as a serious problem. But in any case, thanks again… Keep posting.
Simple truth,
all I want to say to you – think for yourself. See for yourself. Fuck Ouspensky! (Besides, he himself said to abandon the system, remember?)
You are what you are – know thyself. Thyself! Not Ouspensky, not Robert – THYSELF. Look within, see what You truly are.
“yes the machine is always where you are, but you are in the second state,”
– Just ask yourself: WHO AM I? And try not to go to you mind for learned answers. All you say is someone’s ideas. The truth is in the Now and may just reveal itself in You if you quietly look within.
“it is necessary make some kind of efforts for to be present.”
– No it is not. What You are is always present and aware, never goes “off”. What you imagine yourself to be (machine, steward, Simple Truth -whatever) – just an imaginary mental image, a label, it’s not You.
“there is a huge difference between the second and third states.” – So what? You are not the passing states. What has those states, where are they happening? Ask yourself.
“or you dont know nothing about this?” – I thought I knew. Now I am happy not to know much. I simply am, and wishing you to discover the fun and ease of it for yourself.
27: Simple Truth:
“Janna What are you saying? that Mr. Ouspensky was wrong and you are right?”
I’m not sure what Janna was intending in this respect, but from my point of view, yes, what she has been saying in the blog points more clearly towards spiritual truth than do the writings of G. and O. Doesn’t mean she’s a “conscious being” though!
“yes the machine is allways where you are, but you are in the second state, (sleeping imagining that you are awake) it is necessary make some kind of efforts for to be present.”
In my experience, “you” or “I” making efforts to be present is a complete waste of time – just reinforces our illlusion of individuality.
“there is a huge difference between the second and third states.”
Maybe, but they are both temporary.
“or you dont know nothing about this?”
Many of us know all about this, practiced it for many years, and ultimately concluded it doesn’t work.
RN
Dear Fat Boy:
“Robert is positively responsive to his students.”
Why wouldn’t he be, fool? How could it be otherwise? You are paying his way!
We are not here to bring anybody to a ‘lower level’, but to unearth what is below the surface of the smiling facade. You have no idea (or maybe you do) the extent to which you are unconsciously ‘influenced’ by product packaging. Wine bottle labels are a case in point.
Hi folks.
Self remembering works for me!
Remembering my real self beyond all of the I’s, beyond the material world.
And I do work to maintain a connection to it. I also bless the day I discovered it. It seems that there is a semantic problem in discussing it thoug,h but its acceptable to me that there are other ways of thinking about it they all lead to the same place hopefully. So some of us believe we have to maintain it like a flower that must be watered and some of us believe that we can do it without any effort isnt that ok? We will all reap what we have sown when we meet our maker, or not as the case may be as I dont want to start an argument about God next.
Id rather give some Native American words by Chief Seattle.
“Human kind has not woven the web of life.
we are but one thread in it.
Whatever we do to the web, we also do to ourselves.
All things are bound together.
All things connect.”
Peace be upon you. cy.
Ps. Goethe said “of freedom and of life he only is deserving who every day doth master them anew.”
In relation to the letter from “Rick Ross” that was mentioned by “Fatboy”. I sent a copy of the post to Rick and asked for his comment. It is the following:
“I have sent out no such letter regarding Fellowship of Friends. This
person has made a false statement.
Rick Ross
http://www.rickross.com
So…someone is fucking around. And the original post said the letter was unsigned. Why was it assumed it was from Rick Ross?
To Bruce, 73:
Thanks for your research and no thanks to the language you use. I apologize if I made a mistake and said it was from Rick Ross, the reason for that was that at the end of the letter, it said something to the effect that you can contact his website. It was a very long letter and I skimmed it but I do believe the writer of this letter intentionally put it at the end to make it think it was comming from Rick Ross. My apologies!
Simple Truth, #9, wrote:
“To Be Present is the main thing, that we do in the FOF.
and thats all.”
Yes, unfortunately that’s not enough. It actually DOES matter what else is going on inside of us — our own thoughts, inclinations, likes, dislikes, talents, weaknesses, gifts. Self-remembering while rejecting and repressing much of what one truly is cannot possibly lead to anything healthy — quite the contrary.
74
“It was a very long letter and I skimmed it but I do believe the writer of this letter intentionally put it at the end to make it think it was coming from Rick Ross.
So, forgive your original assumption, and just go with your next assumption, right?
My language…? I would assume that the higher men that the FOF is producing would enable one to not be offended by “words”. Are they impinging on your efforts to take in higher impressions?
Fuck you very much.
If you remember yourself using Robert Burton and the FoF as your third force then you are actually falling deeper into a state of sleep. If you are using the hypnotic, trance producing, formatory based process called the “Sequence” then you are actually destroying your soul rather than developing it. You are mistaking lunatic for the third state.
Post number 15 was extraordinary. Out of this world it was.
Speaking of out of this world. Lunatics and other crazy people.
While on the road I made a fast food restaurant my sitting room for a couple of years. I met some interesting people there.
One day a bono-fide state certified person that heard and answered voices came in. One day because of lunch rush we were forced to sit together. We had our how do you do’s and not much else. From time to time he would giggle or murmur under his breath.
After that day it became a daily occurance he and I, and the rest of the sitter’s in the living room. One day he learned of my self-imposed living situation and invited me to live with him.
He was conversational and intelligent but during lulls he would wonder off with the voices. One night I began making him really giggle and when he stopped he looked at me with a straight face and said, “arthur you are crazy”.
Another time I was hired to guard a new construction of summer homes. During the week-end I would go into town and visit the bar at a hotel/motel. The first night I sat at the bar and a male sitting close by said, “how long have you been out on the street”? I thought I was dressed. I later found out that the town had a “mental” hospital and some of the patients had week-end passes. Photograph?
Another time someone said, “if I didnt know you better, I would think you are crazy”. And, other side remarks like, “you’re something else”, “You’re nuts”, “you’re a crackpot”, “you crack me up” , “you are weird” and on and on”.
I guess I am a LUNAR with an invisible TIC.
WhaleRider, #32, wrote:
“What you are really talking about when you say ‘king of clubs’ is everything you don’t like or can’t accept about youself that has been banished from the light of your awareness and into your unconscious mind where it festers. ”
Exactly. This is the irony of the Fellowship of Friends, something I noticed early on but didn’t have the courage to accept for years — that is, that in order to conform to the picture of a “work personality” that bears little resemblance to one’s actual self, you must blind yourself to your own reality. In time, this self-imposed darkness breeds some nasty little mushrooms as one’s truer self tries to rise to the surface, only to be banished under the heading of “king of clubs” (“false personality” in my day). Depression and other mental illnesses are pretty much a predictable outcome of this behavior, in my experience.
Fat Boy
I was waiting for someone to get a handle on the situation in this way. Thank you for coming in on cue.
After all, if the status quo is threatened by those previously part of the institution, getting them to rally round the flag again in the face of an assault from outside is superficially a good strategy.
I have little doubt that you are something to do with the FOF organization and that this half-baked attempt is another quasi-official reflex-reaction from the FOF.
The FOF council of parasites and losers has to remain convinced that all this is part of the great play given to the elect by the gods for them to work through these times of friction in our great conscious school.
The chosen few have had to transform the play of crime, made especially painful because the evil ones were previously trusted students that made up the fabric of the school. These special people in their lonely roles as the last nobility of this civilization, who stand firmly by their aim to awaken and their loyalty to their beloved teacher, are to be commended.
Of course this select group brought together by fate and higher force’s direct intervention is above the nitty-gritty of the laws of cause and effect. This is not happening as a result of crimes committed by the teacher and complicity by those in ‘prominent roles’. It is not a natural and predictable demise of a corrupt and unsustainable fraud – this is a trial of your wonderful being and the gods are yet again taking us to the limits.
The FOF administrators and councilors owe a huge debt to influence C; they know full well that most of them couldn’t wipe their own asses if influence C had not written it into their plays.
Hey ho for influence C!
I feel genuine sympathy for people so lost in the momentum of what they are doing that they cannot sidestep the current that is dragging them down.
Maybe you should have a meeting about what to do next? What fun.
Here is a transcript of the unsigned letter referred to as the Rick Ross letter and again with explanation in 74/ Fat Boy. The assumption is that it has been sent to all box holders and the Oregon House Post Office, student or not. Just an assumption.
______________
Dear Oregon House Community: Hello. This is a letter to inform the community of the current efforts to legally, socially dissolve, bring, to an end the Fellowship of Friends Inc., based in Oregon House, California. The FoF, a legal and registered church in the state of California, who, for more than 36 years has, based upon current and ex-members observations of this church, fraudulently handled its monies in regards to the IRS, Yuba County and the State of California, fraudulently misguided and psychologically entrapped its spiritual members and has consistently failed in its responsibilities as a fair and just spiritual school upon this earth.
Please, by the end of this letter and the blog, you will probably not like any Fellowship of Friends person, initially, though, there is a large population of ex-members in Oregon House who are diligently working with friends all over the world and locally to dissolve this fraudulent religious organization and expose it to local, state, and national agencies as a non-entity in the world of religion, spiritual schools and any balanced form of education or wholesome spiritual practice.
So try to be kind to all those in and out of the Fellowship of Friends. Hundred are leaving or have left this organization and several thousands remain. Please make your decisions wisely, read, consider and do research before joining our call for you to write to your California Governor; directing all applicable state & national agencies to consider the 5000+ articles at this website address: http://www.fellowshipoffriends.wordpress.com or by putting in the search box in Google the phrase Fellowship of Friends Blog. There is allot to read. We suggest that you start with Part 1& 2, then move to Part 13 & 14. Part 13 will give you a very good overview of the issues surrounding the nature of The Fellowship of Friends, past and current.
A sample of the current understanding of this church is: (these quotes are from the FoF Blog site) “The best action those who are displeased with Robert Burton’s corruption, venality and arrogant abuse of his position is to take legal action. This does not need to be lawsuit but can be in the form of a complaint to the state and federal attorney’s as well as the IRS.”
“Robert Burton is a criminal and those who support him are part of a criminal conspiracy to defraud. It might be possible for a federal prosecutor to use legislation designed for organized crime to investigate and prosecute an interstate conspiracy to defraud. If the Fellowship has not informed all prospective and present students of the Canons it is fraud (and they have not to thousands). Advertising as a 4th way school and operating as a religion is fraud. Not revealing the true cost or membership is also fraud. Members should be able to make the minimum donations and have full rights other wise it is extortion. Members should be able to vote on the board members and major decisions. There should be a yearly report with full and accurate accounting of all funds donated to the fellowship. There should be no separate funds available to Robert Burton (proceeds from RVW wine sales go directly to supporting Robert Burton;s deeds). This is illegal.”
“…right now the most workable approach is for current or recently departed members to charge the Fellowship and Robert Burton with fraud. If you were not shown the canons and did not accept them upon joining but had them revealed and enforced after wards that is one aspect of fraud. A second is the constant abuse of fellowship fund by Robert Burton for his personal use, what monies he pays out to the entourage, what he pays his lackeys, his fund raising for his personal account, if he did not report this it is an IRS violation. The point here is that a relatively small action may be enough to get a county district attorney’s office, State Attorney General’s office, federal attorney or the IRS to investigate.”
“As manyy here have expressed a “church” that publicly lavishes its leader with extravagant gifts, vacation and travel, while creating a community dependent upon public welfare for health support may arguably be in violation of its IRS 501(c) (3) tax exempt status.”
“He also requests large monetary payments lives like a king, has sex with many of this followers, and excommunicates followers who leave the organization, unless they wish to return in which case further large fees are demanded. He also reinforces the dependency that follower begin to form on the organization, by convincing them that this a unique organization, and encouraging social and other forms of reliance on it. How can this be explained by the argument that he is a higher being? Does not your innate inner intelligence indicate to you that there is some discrepancy here? “(PLEASE READ THE FELLOWSHIP OF FRIENDS BLOG TO ANSWER FOR YOURSELF.)
IRS: If you know of an individual or company that is not complying with the tax laws, you may report this activity by completing Form 3949-A. You may fill out form 3949-A online, print it and mail it to: Internal Revenue Service, Fresno, CA 93888. If you do not wish to use Form 3949-A, you may send a letter to the address above. Please include the following information, if available: Name and address of the person you are reporting, the taxpayer identification number (social security number for an individual or employer identification number for a business) a brief description of the alleged violation, including how you became aware of or obtained the information, although you are not required to identify yourself, it is helpful to do so. Your identity can be kept confidential. You may also be entitled to a reward. (You do not need the offical #’s to report the FoF to the IRS)
INS: The national hotline number for the DHS Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division -” report suspicious activity” (866) DHS 2ICE or (866) 347-2473. (Students have spent time in jail for obtaining illegal passports from the Italian mafia to try and come back to Oregon House to serve RB’s needs; many of Robert’s “boys” marry American girls (students daughters) in order to stay in the country. Religious visas issued to the FoF are fraudulent in the nature of their “official claims of employment.”)
FBI: FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C. Call (202) 324-3000 or write to the following address: Federal Bureau of Investigation J. Edgar Hoover Building 935 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington DC 20535-0001
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger State Capitol Building Sacramento, CA 95814 Phone 916-445-2841 Fax 916-445-4633
Attorney General’s Office California Department of Justice Attn: Public Inquiry Unit P.O. Box 944255 Sacramento, CA 94244-2550
http://www.rickross.com is another site to access FoF reports and fraud history
Please read the blog carefully and write to these organizations. Assist us to bring an end to Robert Earl Burton’s reign.
To Bruce 36: Your vulgar ending to your entry does not offend me in the least, but it is very difficult to have a meaningful and constructive discussion when you are so coarse.
To the moderator and other writers: Whether your a member, former member or otherwise, if it is the aim of this blog to freely express ourselves and debate issues I assume most of you would agree it better to be civil and courtuoes to one another, so please stand up against vulgar insults or please do not allow them to be posted.
I was thinking more today what did I learn from the School. I found something I would like to bring for a discussion here. The idea of Alchemy.
When I joined the center, first thing which made an impression on me (similarly as on our dear Sheik) was what I later learned to recognize as “a gold alchemy”
It was interesting for me to explore this tool. It was said that the only mechanical part of your essence you can change is your alchemy and if you work on alchemy eventually you will be living in the refine environment suitable to your higher centers and your higher centers will “wake up” more often, because of the finer energy (hydrogen) circulating in your machine.
I thought it was worthwhile trying to bring my every day life in each aspect to the standards of this so called gold alchemy. Unfortunately I could never succeed with this aim, because soon I realized that to surround oneself with the gold alchemy one needs a lot of money.
I would like to read what other students have experienced regarding this “tool”. I already read some thoughts about discrimination and “higher society” life style being so attractive especially for those from the lower social level or third world countries.
But that probably the only thing which still holds me in the school – the thought – what if I succeed and lived in the gold alchemy house, driven the gold alchemy car, showered in the gold alchemy shower, dressed only in the gold alchemy clothes, dined from the gold alchemy plates etc… what if my higher centers awakened and I became conscious????
“I thought I was through with the past, but the past wasn’t through with me.”
Wish I could remember who said this.
Somebody wrote:
“because soon I realized that to surround oneself with the gold alchemy one needs a lot of money.”
You’ve answered your own question here. Everything you need to know about that tool as used in the fof is contained in your realization. Trust yourself.
80
“To Bruce 36: Your vulgar ending to your entry does not offend me in the least, but it is very difficult to have a meaningful and constructive discussion when you are so coarse.
To the moderator and other writers: Whether your a member, former member or otherwise, if it is the aim of this blog to freely express ourselves and debate issues I assume most of you would agree it better to be civil and courtuoes to one another, so please stand up against vulgar insults or please do not allow them to be posted.”
Well I guess you told us. And here we thought otherwise. Looks to me like we’d better re-join, and get our minds right.
Or, you could just get bent.
Hello ~ Simple Truth (38) ~
You wrote ~
“Whale rider
first you said: The king of clubs has nothing to do with using parts of centers to displace presence.
second you said: What is your aim in telling us something we already know?
these two things are contradictory.
have you forgot everything that you have learned?
Mr. Ouspensky called to the King of Clubs the mind besides the machine. and it manipulates the four lower centers for to keep you interested in different themes of imagination.
And I have not any Doubt, as you.”
___________________________
Hello ’simple truth’ ~
When I read what current members are writing on this blog, I try and use creative imagination to picture it as a sort of galleria meeting; then this helps me put your specific brand of ’scale and relativity’ in right perspective,
this assists me in understanding that you, fat boy, HC, siddiq are all very ‘right’, so long as there is a left…
Outside of Oregon House, your ‘personal’ approach simply cannot survive the real world of spiritual ‘heavy weights’, both dead and alive; your ‘points’ belong to fallen churches and perhaps even some new ones, which, in time, will join the rubble of man-gods, who walk this earth looking at the mirrors atop their shoes for proof of god-stepping.
This ‘fact’ has consistently been proven, by none of the Fellowship of Friends current members on this blog ever having successfully ‘holy reconciled’ the Fellowship of Friends ‘in total’ and ’specific’ contradictions and hypocrisies;
everything you say is self-referential and this is the ‘right’ place to start from, yet, as soon as you post your ’self referential-subjective’ so to use it as a ‘milestone’ in order to gauge others in an objective light, this is simply a dishonest ‘triad’ and provokes reactions from others, that, actually I am not too sure you are aware of, how it is these reactions are ‘in nature’ what they are, reactions that do not clarify anything for you, nor your for us, it’s tennis without the balls…
This is why (or how) discussions that the sort taking place in here (the blog) do not take place in the galleria; Robert Burton simply does not know how to do it, i.e., how to separate his ego from that of the ego-thirst of others; in the galleria (like all cults) all the ego’s form one ego, one way, one god, one style of approaching ‘left’ with ‘I am right’ so long as we (the FoF) can subjectively ‘prove’ that someone has ‘left’ something behind that we ‘think’ is ‘right’ to fondle for it’s self-referential vibration of being something, like us with ever growing magnetic centers and no SPECIFIC verifications, abandoned, left to itself, like we were, our esoteric egos left in a cruel, conspiracy heavy world order.
For me, it is absolutely understandable where you are coming from, although very confusing as to exactly where you aim to go in traditional conversation while ‘being subjective’, posing as ‘objective’; to me this is ‘lying’, in the strictest sense of what Gurdjieff spoke of, including Ouspensky.
Your style of thinking and concluding thought forms is shared by 1700+ people in the FoF, including a few billion more who are living their lives through the practice of provoking others, while sub-consciously these ‘provoked’ are their automatic opposites, (current members vs ex-members) to react in ways so to then have a ’soft target’ to practice shooting themselves into, so to get a very normal and human sense of self, i.e., ‘I have created drama, therefore I am.’
See, what I sense is (compliments of Robert Burton’s wiseacring that he’s a real teacher of the spiritual path; do you guys really know what ’scale & relativity’ such a pronouncement belongs to? I see by your posts here on this blog that you do not, nor have you emotionally connected yourselves to other teachers who are older than their shoe size) that we are all sorta looking for (or found already) a certain ‘code of being’ that’s objective, unpolluted by those who are either at the Path’s beginning, thinking it’s the end, at it’s middle thinking that it’s the end or at the end, thinking it’s the end…
All this thinking makes the soul a bit dizzy, that’s why the brain stays in the skull after death BTW.
So much of esoteric education is simply one person standing on the same ‘rope’ of another, not using their heart to sense that this ‘rope’ we all are walking on is ‘one’ really, albeit a very long one, so long that when someone falls off no one notices, ‘thinks’ its normal that the bow in the rope changes from time to time, pays very little attention to the level of attention;
it takes higher centers to see people SPECIFICALLY; something your ’school’, nor teacher, practices with any predictable or consistent patience, nor without severe and cold as steel partiality.
Your posts remind me of my early magnetic centers days when I would ‘think’ that ‘this way, right now’ was the only way;
it was not until I met with a few experiences and video footage of real teachers that it struck me like a 3 phase electrical shock, that where I stood was in actuality only relative to me, not these who were standing ‘there’, that they had already stood in my footprints, so to speak,
I could feel it, because they (without any mental effort on my part) immediately upon recognizing/sensing their spiritual being, became my inspirations and muses; they grew with me and still do;
never has a real teacher or friend (not sure there’s really a difference) ‘died’ in my heart, a real person never dies in the heart, nor you in theirs;
if they are real, they are not effected by your personal mistakes, nor do they excommunicate those that their level of being cannot handle in the moment because something is occurring in that person that’s bigger than the celebration of one’s ego or crystallized lifestyle dance…
You can argue all you want about point of view, yet, truly it really does not make the heart larger or one’s presence deeper, it’s simply saying ‘I love you my darling’ while being alone and masturbating in the mirror;
there’s no ‘darling’ till you loose the ego that feeds on sub-consciously creating contradictions by sub-consciously being one.
No current member of the Fellowship of Friends has yet to reconcile through conversation on this blog the extreme, criminal contradictions handed out by Robert Burton and his mimicking students upon both current members and ex-members, not to mention those who the Fellowship treats as untouchables due to their ’sleep’, or not being ‘pretty to the gods’ enough.
This quote from ‘Fat Boy’, a perfect example of what I just wrote ~
“Sorry I can not surprise you and you are right that I do not have that access to records nor would I wish to. But neither do the critics, so on one hand we all just subjective. I am not looking at things that detailed but in a general way. I have been in the FOF almost 20 years and have worked with administration as well as Robert directly. I am familiar in the general way of the way things are run at Isis. I do not agree with everything, but at the end of the day I feel things are being managed efficently and legally. The FOF has made mistakes in the past and still do but they make the best possible effort to follow the law.”
_____________________________________________
This sort of ‘GENERAL’ taste for spiritual verification and connection with one’s ‘baby conscience’ is what keeps and has established your school as one of Relative Awakening, which, is on the same level as any religious cult on the map; it is pretty much what McDonalds is to freshly ground venison burgers flamed broiled over an oak fire.
‘Fat Boy’ says ~ “…nor would I wish to…”
Here is the ‘key’ to what all of the Fellowship of Friends members posting on this blog is missing, that they are truly beating a dead horse, a dead wax horse at that…
Until you ‘do wish’, nothing objective will come to you, nothing… other than the ‘fact’ that your own si-do conscience-condition suffers the ailment called ‘Gotta post on the Blog to feel better about feeling that my opinion is fact; so if someone else thinks their opposition is ‘fact’, then it must be true’.
It is this ‘wish’ not to ‘wish’ that creates the sort of crystallization that’s creeping up your spines, making your access to higher emotional and intellectual more and more narrow;
I mean, try shooting a piece of hair with a 200lb compound bow… that’s kinda what your doing in the face of a stampeding herd of fleas.
For me, it is most important to see the disconnect between a party of people who actually, right here on the blog, admit that he or she (belonging to that party) are not looking specifically, rather, like ‘Fat boy’ GENERALLY;
this is not the Way of the Blog or any traditional spiritual debate, unless it’s a cult debate, which is not really a debate, it’s a belief battle and you can go to Iraq for that,
at least there you can verify if you’re willing to die for your beliefs or change them in order to survive…
Also ‘Fat Boy’ ‘generally’ asserts that the critics don’t have the facts either; yet 7500+ pages here, available to the world and beyond, shows otherwise, including several high profile court cases and actual ‘victims’ of the Fellowships truer level of being, not becoming.
It is far too easy to assume, this is what keeps nations in deficit and credit card companies in business; we assume it will work itself out, while in the present, the very hydrogen of living one’s daily lifestyle with the ingredient of ‘assumption’ embedded in one’s psyche is a cancer of the soul;
yet, the soul is not the Fellowship of Friends concern, rather, it is the ‘ghost’ of essence that they are building, a ghost that will not escape this struggle of pain and party till it wishes, not through the triad of Robert Burton the Genie, though.
Perhaps it is in our ‘normal’ nature to create ‘ideals’ that we cannot presently life up to, yet there is a sort of ’striving’, even if it’s striving not to strive while whatever it is that we are in this one and only moment, right now,
at least there are those who know their true proximity to ’striving’ and ‘being’, the exact difference between the actual state of being oneself, while simultaneously becoming ‘not that exactly’;
whereas in the Fellowship of Friends, you are persuaded to be GENERAL, to strive GENERALLY, to group-think in the GENERAL;
this is not a school about creating conscious individuals,
conscientious reactions, yes…
while Robert Burton is the axle of the merry go round, you bob up and down laughing, having a good time riding those painted horses, sphinxes, dolphins and dragons; yet where are you in the midst of the SPECIFIC?
If you cannot enter the SPECIFIC within you, nothing real can be done to fundamentally effect the many yous, your struggling self-attached, nothing…
And if you ‘think’ that the external form of SPECIFIC is not worthy, is not the starting point, then, you are simply thinking and not doing the work we’ve all been charged in some way to inhabit.
For me, ‘Fat boy and Simple Truth’, (if) you had no doubt in your hearts, then you would not provoke another without honoring them with some gesture of completeness; honor the spirit of this blog with real answers outside your club house box for one; honor conscious curiosity with SPECIFICS that bridge the si-do interval between knowing, understanding, being your questions and answers from the point of their life and ‘death’ into living into another set of wonderings…
Yet, it seems, through all your postings that you have so far chosen (or wished) to stay, smoking your tires at a perpetually green light;
you ‘prove’ nothing by your partial discussions, only that you are self conscious (inner considering) of not going to the end of anything you pretend to be objective with;
To me, one aspect of being objective means to dismiss one’s limitations felt when identified with a particular idea or theory and to embrace ‘it itself’ without mind-opinion activity, my-additions and subtractions;
the Fellowship of Friends, like ‘Fat boy’, subtract the SPECIFIC and add the GENERAL in places it was never meant to possess; they rearrange objective triads to meet their ego needs, their state of relative awakening and self calming assuredness in The One or The Forty-four;
after all, why be a momma’s boy to one momma when you can have 44?
this is called subjectivity, these are prison ways…
By no means does Robert Burton compromise the king of clubs for higher centers;
if one ‘new bedroom-student’ says ‘no’ while standing (still clothed) in his bedroom, he has that student go down stairs and bring him up a ‘yes’…
BTW ‘Fat boy’, (we) do have those ‘records’, so does the IRS and certain ‘bookkeepers’. There is nothing the circle of the Fellowship of Friends can do to pretend to be a triangle or square when it comes down to ‘facts and figures’ proving their not so ‘higher center innocence’…
Every little mercurial ‘why be formatory’ event and deed is traceable; from the land given to certain ‘favorites’ by Robert Burton, to his own signature as co-signer of certain personal loans for his ‘precious ones’;
where was this ‘conscious being’s’ signature on the ‘one cent treatment of Edith S. or Dorothy, or, or…? or any who does not fit his ‘perfect self calming picture of beauty and complete mirroring of his pretty practiced smiling face?’
It is no where, for those who consciously choose to do for themselves first (from essence), before following or asking Robert Burton’s advice (which is usually not to be taken as normal advice, rather, a command), are shunned;
after all, that’s what Robert Burton is doing all the time, though in a very different way, not from a SPECIFIC essence, rather a very GENERAL way of being egotistical and down right ruthless,
not unlike his students show themselves on this blog site when asked to please take their ‘point of entry’ to the exit and beyond, rather than simply staying in the movie theater, throwing popcorn and putting jelly beans up thier noses.
BTW… Fat boy; I hope, for certain karmic reasons (thinking only for you that is) that you are not referring to the late and great rap group called ‘The Fat Boys’…
You might find yourself in deep doo doo if you are ‘using’ their ‘name’ for some personal ‘tongue in cheek’ reason…
Yet, deep doo doo might just be what you’re GENERALLY into anyway, so, well, can’t say I didn’t tell ya so…
________________________________
Hello Cyclops (52) ~
Yes, that one is mine (so far as to how it is that such ‘things’ form themselves within us); wrote it last night…
_________________________________
Love to you all.
The gritty edge of the verbal discourse here amuses me to no end. I would hate to see it go away.
“What we have here is a failure to communicate.”
–Strother Martin / Cool Hand Luke
80
“Your vulgar ending to your entry does not offend me in the least”
Looks to me like you are a liar…
“but it is very difficult to have a meaningful and constructive discussion when you are so coarse.”
…with an overabundance of buffers and an extraordinary picture of yourself.
Or it could be that we, or I, are not yet worthy of your more evolved beatitudes, unless they are surrounded by the respect you no doubt feel you deserve.
And don’t let me keep you here. I’m sure the captive audience of your peers would love to sit at your feet and listen to your pontifications. Why cast your pearls before swine.
Revelations 12:9 that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, wich deceiveth the whole world.
Phillokalia: When you hear that is necesary to withdraw from the world, you must first understand the term ‘world’ not in its everyday meaning, but in its purely inward significancew.
Do not think never that you know all the tricks of your King of Clubs.
Do you think that is not necesary make efforts to awake?
you are being deceiveth by your own Devil,
The third state is not a gift, we must work in order to achieve it.
The King of Clubs is happy having the control of all your mechanical reactions to the events, and for the other side, we have a part that realize that you are asleep, and wants to make some things for to act Counsciosly.
> “I thought I was through with the past, but the past
> wasn’t through with me.”
>> Wish I could remember who said this.
What a great quote. Google tells me it’s from the movie Magnolia:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0175880/quotes
88 Simple truth
Hello, hello…anyone in there?
Somebody, #81, wrote:
“I was thinking more today what did I learn from the School. I found something I would like to bring for a discussion here. The idea of Alchemy.”
I think “alchemy” was just another tool of repression and self-delusion — that is, creating a “Potemkin Village” that covered over the real world with bright, shiny objects. Think about RB’s motivation for telling us we could change something that is really part of us — it makes everyone conform to HIS likes and dislikes, while quite nicely lending a lustre of authenticity to what is at heart just his greed. A nice little justification for his lust for all things material — “I’m just feeding my essence with these gold alchemy cufflinks. You left them at the hotel? Cancel the meeting so we can go back and get them!”
“I thought I was through with the past, but the past
> wasn’t through with me.”
>> Wish I could remember who said this.
What a great quote. Google tells me it’s from the movie Magnolia:
That’s it. Thanks Veronica.
I remember hearing it in the movie and I started sobbing. My wife asked me what was wrong and I couldn’t even begin to tell her. I used it as a mantra for quite awhile…
Hello ‘Somebody’ ~
You wrote ~
“But that probably the only thing which still holds me in the school – the thought – what if I succeed and lived in the gold alchemy house, driven the gold alchemy car, showered in the gold alchemy shower, dressed only in the gold alchemy clothes, dined from the gold alchemy plates etc… what if my higher centers awakened and I became conscious????”
___________________________
“… what if…? ”
You’d probably not tolerate the golden showers…
___________________________
;. {
Fat Boy writes: “if it is the aim of this blog to freely express ourselves and debate issues I assume most of you would agree it better to be civil and courtuoes to one another, so please stand up against vulgar insults or please do not allow them to be posted.”
Egads. Bruce, would you be so kind as to drive home your point more gently next time?
Kidding.
Personally, I’m much more concerned about the posting of lies on the blog than four-letter words.
But, you know, I’m not asking the Sheik to “please not allow [your lies, Fat Boy] to be posted.”
It’s one thing when people disagree. However… Lying, obfuscation, disinformation, and flat-out ignorance will get a response on this blog, and sometimes it won’t a be “nice” one. I’m not sure anyone is better at recognizing this b.s. than Bruce.
Simple Truth (around) 88
Revelations 12:9 that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, wich deceiveth the whole world.
Phillokalia: When you hear that is necesary to withdraw from the world, you must first understand the term ‘world’ not in its everyday meaning, but in its purely inward significancew.
Do not think never that you know all the tricks of your King of Clubs.
Do you think that is not necesary make efforts to awake?
you are being deceiveth by your own Devil,
The third state is not a gift, we must work in order to achieve it.
The King of Clubs is happy having the control of all your mechanical reactions to the events, and for the other side, we have a part that realize that you are asleep, and wants to make some things for to act Counsciosly.
*****************
“A moralist pronouncing the word ‘man’ will invariably introduce into it the idea of good and evil, and so on, and so on.” -G. I. Gurdjieff
“But what can be called black magic has always one definite characteristic. This characteristic is the tendency to use people for some, even the best of aims, without their knowledge and understanding, either by producing in them faith and infatuation or by acting upon them through fear.”
-G. I. Gurdjieff
In a cult there is no better manipulative device than creating an irrational fear in the cult members over an imaginary supernatural evil.
The character “Simple Truth” has the psychological maturity of a backward teenager, this is the quality of “student” the FoF is currently reduced to. This is one clear sign of a descending octave, the difference in intelligence between those that have left and those still involved.
Bruce,
Thank you for not being vulgar in your last email. Although I do not agree with your tone and critical sarcastic comments and calling me a liar. I really do not want to offend you because I know you will come out attacking but the way in which you address people is not a reflection of them but only of you.
I am not looking for respect only for civility.
To 85: Why would I be in deep dodo, even if it was connecting this name to the band? It is connected to a nick name I use to have anyway.
94:
I am not lying in anyway, and whether you believe me or not I am just doing my best to speak from my heart and be sincere. I do respect others who do not share my opinion, but have little respect for sarcastic and insultive comments from some people. In any case I actually am just giving my personal feelings and shared some minor facts on how I see them; just like most of us on this blog.
96 Fat Boy
“I am not looking for respect only for civility.”
Then get the hell off the blog.
You’ll get neither from me. Now you’re forewarned.
97
“but have little respect for sarcastic and insultive comments from some people.”
That’s too bad asshole.
Fat Boy
Anything else I can give you to motivate to crawl back under you rock?
Graduates, when you were in the FOF your thought was totally the oposite, or you can not remember?
and now?
what do you want to say? that you allways have the absolut truth.
descending octave is your thought because it works without counsciousness, you think that you are allways right.
thats the psychological maturity of a child.
this is a comprobation that we have not Unity.
Pardon my mistyping. For your benefit Fat Boy:
Anything else I can give you to motivate you to crawl back under your rock?
Actually I like to think of Bruce as a priest who carries a 44 magnum, twin like, one for each thigh for the punks who just don’t give a damn and do actually “feel lucky” enough, while not seeing how unlucky, feeling lucky, can be.
What happen to you Mrs. Bruce?
do you want the blog just for you?
Mrs. Bruce do you think you are God?
this blog belongs you?
You want to expulse everybody that not thinks like you.
again, what a close mind.
FB wrote: “I am not lying in anyway, and whether you believe me or not I am just doing my best to speak from my heart and be sincere.”
I will believe that when you can sincerely describe some of your serious concerns and doubts about the Fellowship. You may have tremendously strong ‘valuation’ for the work ideas, and you may have had positive experiences in the FoF, but tell us what troubles you. When I hear that, I’ll listen a lot more closely.
In all honesty, is everything good? Does anything you read here have merit? Tell me it does, and that you have trouble sleeping on some nights because of the same concerns that we’ve expressed, and I will listen.
Fat Boy ~
Rap groups are not called ‘bands’… Thought you’d like to know before you get killed in LA by a slip of the tongue…
104 Simple Truth
What happen to you Mrs. Bruce?
do you want the blog just for you?
Mrs. Bruce do you think you are God?
this blog belongs you?
You want to expulse everybody that not thinks like you.
again, what a close mind.
My simple friend,
Yes I want the blog just for me
Yes, I think I’m God
Yes, the blog belongs to me
Yes, I want to “expulse” everybody that not thinks like me.
Yes, and stop trying to open my happily closed mind.
Now, don’t you feel silly? Or is that capacity gone for you?
Simple Truth: “what a close mind.”
Anyone who can read this blog and who refuses to be affected by it, and who remains resolute in one’s allegiance to the Fellowship and Robert Burton without an ounce of doubt…
That is a closed mind.
104
And by the way, it’s “Mr.” Bruce to you.
BTW Fat Boy ~
A “dodo” is a bird, not something you’d find piled atop your sacrum, while bent over in Robert’s bedroom.
104
And I’m beginning to doubt your poor “English” bullshit. No one posting here is that fucking illiterate.
on 23 Jul 2007 at 2:01 am
9 Simple Truth
To Be Present is the main thing, that we do in the FOF.
and thats all.
I nomanate this as the single dumbest post so far on the blog. This is the exact mind frame that justifies the ignoring of all the play of crime.
To be present is not enough.
It is part of a larger whole.
Dear Bruce and anyone else who cares to comment.
I wonder if you can give me your opinion on a link?
No joking Im asking because I respect your opinion and because I have been taken in by such things as you pointed out previously and am despite having worked a lot against it still quite naive by nature it seems. I hope to hear back from you. The best to you Cy.
Please tell me its bullshit.
on 23 Jul 2007 at 2:09 am10 Fat Boy
To Living The Question, 508.
“Sorry I can not surprise you and you are right that I do not have that access to records nor would I wish to. But neither do the critics, so on one hand we all just subjective. I am not looking at things that detailed but in a general way. I have been in the FOF almost 20 years and have worked with administration as well as Robert directly. I am familiar in the general way of the way things are run at Isis. I do not agree with everything, but at the end of the day I feel things are being managed efficently and legally. The FOF has made mistakes in the past and still do but they make the best possible effort to follow the law”
on the other hand this is pretty stupid.
It is a serious blow to my imagination of an intelligent being that someone this dumb can say “I have been in the Fellowship 20 years”
In those 20 years did you read all the books or like many become accustomed to only taking in what Robert approvedand had published in the journals. This is no different than the Jehovahs witnesses that say study the bible and then want to give you a study guide. They do not realize that this is not the bible. Fellowship of Friends members have so much material from the old journals that they fail to see they have been taken away from the study of the source materials and a balanced approach.
88 Simple Truth: “Do you think that is not necesary make efforts to awake? you are being deceiveth by your own Devil, The third state is not a gift, we must work in order to achieve it. The King of Clubs is happy having the control of all your mechanical reactions to the events, and for the other side, we have a part that realize that you are asleep, and wants to make some things for to act Counsciosly.”
Don’t get me wrong, I sympathise with your fervent beliefs. You’ve been told these things, or read them, and you’ve decided to believe them. I did exactly the same as you, for many years. When you’ve invested so much of your personality in these ideas it’s difficult to admit they’re imaginary. I would just suggest that you try as hard as you can to keep a little scepticism – hold on to the possibility that there’s maybe a 1% chance that everything you believe is wrong. Then at a future date something more real might emerge.
good luck, RN
Mrs. Bruce describes you better because you look like a girl.
and 2b suck Bruce.
I dont exist, i´m not nothing
and from now I give you alone.
now you can feel better without nobody posting things that you dont want to understand.
and the lenguish is not important as that has being said.
goodbye girls forever.
Using the Full name of the Fellowship of Friends , the name Robert Burton and the name fourth way in your post’s helps keep the blog high up on search engines.
The existance of the blog is the single most important event in the Fellowship of Friends since it began.
Just having a resource where prospective members, ex-members and currant members share information introduces a new possibilities.
Cyclops ~
It’s bullshit…
so there.
Simple Truth (around) 101
Graduates, when you were in the FOF your thought was totally the oposite, or you can not remember?
and now?
what do you want to say? that you allways have the absolut truth.
descending octave is your thought because it works without counsciousness, you think that you are allways right.
thats the psychological maturity of a child.
this is a comprobation that we have not Unity.
**************
While in the FoF I was suspected and accused of being a “destructive influence” even then. My king of clubs suspected that Burton was not to be trusted and that the extreme devotional display of the general population was inherently false. I even spoke out using a kind of metaphorical code (from the Fellowship Forum):
“You think it important to know what great things you will do when you are strong and free. It is just this vision that hides from you your petty meanness, your feigning and your fakery. Your fellows scramble with you for the attention of the ‘Wazoo’ and all together you have become house flies. Men must become bugs and you can be no different than the rest. Bugs who have become men simply speak freely and wisely and in doing so they create more bugs and more men. Men have certain possibilities–for instance they can refuse to live like insects–and a man who knows this is already strong and free.”
“descending octave is your thought because it works without counsciousness, you think that you are allways right.”
Translation from cult-speak: because you are capable of mounting a rational argument, rather than relying on the irrational, convoluted, pseudo-mystical nonsense that has me and my fellows emotionally secured within the mentality of cult, you must be under the influence of the King of Clubs and therefore not remembering yourself. Those of us that remember ourselves always have confused, underdeveloped lower centers that can only communicate through various indoctrinating quotes that have been distorted from their original intent and bent to justify our self-righteous stupidity.
I must first express my thanks to the patient gentleman at the gatehouse who was indeed ‘present’ to his memorising functions – ask him to relate the incident – where lower centres combine, pyramid-like, at the apices of the higher parts and allowed me to express myself (agitated and nervous from my adrenal functions, when I am unnerved and do not know how to act – ’tis the warrior blood). I left my local pub after my paranoid-schizophrenic suffer friend who was running the bar gave me two small glasses of water and my ‘punky’ venus-mercurial friend Phil bought me a glass of real ale (“It may be beer is best” – THE SECRET PEOPLE – by G K Chesterton),while the presenter on the TV expounded the details of the Kuwait invasion. I talked to Phil’s wife, Jane, whose mother has suffered from cyclic bi-polar affective disorder as differentiated from my event-sparked disorder (I would trust Diana-Kay on a clinical explanation!) and promised Jane that I would take my double-dose (doctor advised) of Olanzapine as soon as I returned home. The reason for contacting the gatehouse was to inform those who are expecting more rantings this evening that my computer internet connection was down because of extreme weather conditions – FLOOD IS AN UNDERSTATEMENT – the system was experiencing problems. However, the mere act of confronting my own fear at verbal communication in uncertain circumstances, gave way to a slowing down of my functions and relaxing with the TV programme about Moslem family life in Britain (“Treat the alien resident as your brother” – Bible). I tried another way into the internet through the main Google connection and not home-page and ‘wonder-of-wonders’ Fellowship of Friends discussion site top-of-page. I hope even Girard will understand this explanation, since it is the role of one’s Master to control, not indulge, I might stress, ONE’S OWN lower functions. Since I mentioned Rodney Collin in a previous sending I will try to quote correctly from ‘Harmony’ – “Be easy and gentle with those you have once startled (shocked?)”.
I leave you as I try to work myself into accumulator-balancing first-state with the third-force of a quote from ‘Preface to Leaves of Grass’, which should appeal to those who have risen above form and belonging and moved toward human service:-
“Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone who asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labour to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion of and joint of your body”
Goodnight and may your God go with you (Dave Allen – comedian, passed on).
81 Somebody: “It was said that the only mechanical part of your essence you can change is your alchemy and if you work on alchemy eventually you will be living in the refine environment suitable to your higher centers and your higher centers will “wake up” more often, because of the finer energy (hydrogen) circulating in your machine.”
This is all totally imaginary. “Alchemy” is one of the only original ideas that RB came up with, and one of the most ridiculous in the FoF. Sure some people have better taste in some areas than other people and some can distinguish more precisely between different colours or sounds or whatever, but this has nothing whatsoever to do with “awakening”.
If what you’re after is different states of consciousness, those can and do happen anywhere. If you want to be an awakened person, check out who this “you” is who wants this, as Janna suggested above.
The principle results of working on alchemy are to increase one’s feeling of superiority to others, especially “life people”, and to strengthen the imaginary assumption that one is “waking up” by eg wearing more expensive clothes.
cheers, RN
30 simple minded
again my answer is No, I´m not above nobody, I only wish to share some quotes from Counscious men.
Something you don’t get, which may just be a result of not being an english speaker. The people you address and want to teach -evolution 101 by Robert Burton to are already graduates- it is they who are trying their best to teach you the next step.
It is you who are too formatory, too mechanical to willful to make the effort to be present while reading to let in something new.
Try doing what you write about, be the words, divide attention while reading, allow time to take in new ideas without judgement without needing to be right or wrong. Best of all if you are sincere about your work allow the idea that you are wrong to penetrate.
To Somebody, post #81
The idea of alchemy, as taught and practiced in the Fellowship fo Friends, has been quite skewed towards external manifestations that require investing large sums of money, which is an extension of the Fourth Way as promulgated and sold by Robert Burton. Alchemy is esoterically about the transmutation of coarser energies into finer energies, as in Hydrogen 12. This may or may not have anything at all to do with the fine impressions that money can buy. For very little money, any of us can access some of the most inspiring and transforming impressions on the planet. Go out into the wild places such as scenic rivers, the hills and mountains, ocean beaches and tide pools, our magnificent national and state parks, or for that matter take a hand lens or binoculars and just go out into you own backyard. Also, art galleries and many concerts are often quite affordable. No money can buy what is yours for free, which is the power of living in the present moment, where all alchemical transmutation occurs. If ‘fancy stuff’ is all that is keeping you in the Fellowship, I say, “Get a life”. Who knows, you might just wake up gazing at a sunset out over the Yosemite Valley.
-Nancy G
Thanks 106, I see what you mean, although I think I would have to be alittle more deflamotory before they would want to kill me. But point taken!
To 105 2B. Thank you for your entry, it is well written and I believe the questions are legitimate and sincere. I am a little hesitant to answer the questions you pose because of the comments on 98, 99, and 100, and maybe my time has come to leave take Bruce advise and leave this blog.
I am actually at work now and would really have to take time to write those answers to the questions. If the tone changes on this blog maybe I will in the future. Just in short, Yes somethings trouble me but not to the point where I would want to leave the FOF.
81 Somebody
Alchemy (in FoF) = institutionalized bigotry
Alchemy (in FoF) = a doublewide with “gold” faucets
Alchemy (in FoF) = revulsion of the “higher” for the “lower”
JoelF
116 Simple Truth.
I hope you’re not getting so offended by Bruce’s assaults that you’re going to stop posting? Why not just ignore him? Your contributions are valuable. It’s possible to have a decent discussion here if you avoid the mud slinging. RN
124 Fat Boy.
Same applies to you. You’re contributing something useful. If you can ignore Bruce’s insults you could do some good here. It’s easy to skip over his posts and read what interests you.
RN
113 Cyclops
I don’t think it’s bullshit. DU is bad shit.
118. Unoanimo.
I really hope so. thanks for addressing it. Also thanks for your creative writing, you seem able to work in a number of styles the one which grew in you the other night was really beautifull. lty. cy.
Thanks Bruce, despite Unoanimos comment I still had reservations , like him or her I would like to think other wise but when I see Rumsfeldt and cheney doing a laurel and hardy act in front of the press when asked directly about experimental weapons being used in Iraq their body language says they are lying through their teeth. Thanks for getting back to me on it. cy.
129 Cy
On: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium
2/3 of the way down on the right is a graph representing a Basra hospital’s incidents since the invasion with the us of DU.
127
Yes, that works.
Or you can put fingers in ears, close eyes and repeat the mantra very loudly …”I can’t hear you” until the parade’s gone by.
127 Rhino Neal
A question: You really want a discourse with the proponents of such pure crap as Simple Truth’s and Fat Boys’? Seriously?
Have you found ANYTHING redeeming in their rubbish? I found it no different than the drivel from HC, LOL, and the other A.H.’s. In fact, think it’s the same small coterie of A.H.’s.
But, hey, if you did, more power to you.
127
“you could do some good here.”
Neal, by chance, did you fall asleep with a strange looking pod on the floor next to the bed?
133/134 Bruce: I kind of admire the intensity and sincerity (usually) of these guys, although I don’t personally agree with a lot of what they say. If we accept that one function of the blog is to provide a forum where the current beliefs of Fellowship members can be discussed, then we at least have to give them the space to express their opinions. Didn’t you believe most of that stuff once? I did, much to my amazement.
cheers, RN
Hey Cyclops (130) ~
Just a note; that confirmation of it’s being BS was self referential, it is not to say that Depleted Uranium is not some serious stuff; it’s the hype and the additional ‘conspiracy theory hypnotism’ they’re cranking out, that’s BS to me: (I believe) that you can get the facts out of such presentations without believing the blinding light of the sensationalism and victim-hood identities it’s feeding;
after all, when push comes shove, what you actually do with the information, how it makes you feel, what sides of yourself it feeds, what does it strengthen (automatically) without one’s ‘conscious-sieve’ applied to it, this to me, these are better questions for me to ask, rather than “Where can I find more stuff like this.”
Eventually people go around living like Mel Gibson in the movie ‘Conspiracy Theory’, though internally, all sorts of freaky diseases and psychosis phenomenons have developed from such paranoia, worry, resentment, hate, hatred of the stranger, love of a heaven that’s simply not applicable to the devil yearning for it and so on…
It’s wild out here, for sure… there’s nearly always a little truth in a joke, the same goes for conspiracy theories; pinch of salt though, not a column.
I used to like reading about Area 51; the ‘browns’ and the ‘grays’, the brand new airports that are not being used, etc.
Yet, one day I asked, “What does any of this have to do with the fourth dimension, the astral body, the conscience, growing being, love, etc.? Nothing… so, well, these days I read the blog and try to see this day as very different than the last or any to arrive.
I sorta agree with Bruce concerning the validity of such beginnings as Fat Boy and Simple Truth; I mean starting a Lamborghini with a screw driver when the key in already in the ignition is a little silly; but hey, some people have that kind of money to do such things.
I sensed a change of tides for at least ‘Fat Boy’; seems that ‘Simple Truth’ dove off the shallow end, doing to Bruce what Fat Boy was whining about; geez FB, it seems you can also get that kind of treatment from your own kind, so, why bother deluding yourself that the blog-law stops here in cyber space; try telling Robert Burton that you don’t trust him, see where it gets you, or simply ask Collin L., he did and can tell you much (maybe).
I would welcome anyone back so long as they’re not here simply to talk to themselves, otherwise, what good is an invitation if all the guests live in your broom closet?
_______________________
l.t.y.a.
Fat Boy are you actually fat or do you ride a Harley?
#123 living the questions: That’s what I thought Alchemy was About.
Is there thought transference going on? Yesterday, I was thinking about horsey’s that go around and around. And, today I’m reading the blog and the thought shows up.
“……the axle of the merry go round, you bob up and down laughing having a good time riding those painted horses”.
And, that’s not all. I’m having difficulties with a bicycle trailer. A nut backed up to another nut, causing the AXLE to tangle up with the race which chewed causing the bearings to fall out and the wheel to want to fly off.
Anyway, this blog is something else. Leaving for a couple of hours reminds me of the time I was sent to Lansing, Michigan to pick up a rig at the Diamond Reo plant.
Somewhere in Missouri or Arkansas very early morning, I stopped at a truck stop. The driver nearby said, “do you want to race’? I said, “sure”. My truck had wooden mud flaps and a speed governor. Nothing over 55 miles per hour.
He was driving a furniture van. So, we took off. Little by little he went ahead of me. Finally, after so many hills and dales, all I could see were his trailer lights in the far distance.
This blog is a furniture truck.
135
Simple Truthisms…Do you consider the regurgitated platitudes of possibly conscious “others”, through Simple Truth, as “a forum where the current beliefs of Fellowship members can be discussed”? I find nothing of his or her’s posts coming from “the person” themselves. I can go to a book store for this crap, and I don’t need anyone preaching “other’s stuff” to me.
Wouldn’t you rather discuss with members “real shit” and not mindless quotations from an automaton, or the blind defense of the indefensible, or the judgments from someone who would find it difficult to exist in a more real world, than the sheltered harem estate?
These people are the same people, though in a different context, as the people who stand on the corner and hand out the National Alliance pamphlets. They are so far from the intelligencia of the core group or cult that they represent a caricature of the “follower”.
If it’s good for you, cool. Personally I’m embarrassed FOR THEM, but I can just as easily stand aside and let them float their shit if it floats your boat.
#67 Fat Boy wrote:
To Dick Moron 65:
“To make it clear I do not have a sexual relationship with the Teacher, and Robert is positively responsive to his students whether sex or not is involved. With that being said, I believe the tone of your comment brings this blog to a lower level.”
Fat Boy:
I’m sorry my language and tone offended you. Obviously you have not experienced the ultra-inner-circle verification of having RB “receive you.” Must be the lifetime thing I always heard about. You could have been one of those lower life-timers that RB would speak about. He was always positive about your possibilities, but, well– how do I say this without offending you– my feeling was he considered you all to be very well intentioned losers, less so if you could write a fat check.
Or the clue to me should have been your nick, Fat Boy. You are probably not the right body type as well as being stuck in a lower lifetime. Still–Keep working on yourself!
I am very aware of the sarcastic nature of my communications. It seems to be an uncontrollable response to other’s constant lying. I will say for the record that in this case I write from direct experience. Maybe it is better to post more true stories based on my actual experience. No sarcasm, just succinct, very descriptive facts of events that did occur. Would you like that better ? I have a few more true stories, so watch out. They may make you a little uncomfortable.
“And, that’s not all. I’m having difficulties with a bicycle trailer. A nut backed up to another nut, causing the AXLE to tangle up with the race which chewed causing the bearings to fall out and the wheel to want to fly off.”
___________________________
Yes, this happens very often in Robert’s bedroom also; they wrote the book on such events I would only suppose; one of the boys might be able to assist in this ‘denying force’, though I would advise to keep it ‘over the phone’.
Word!
138 Bruce: “Do you consider the regurgitated platitudes of possibly conscious “others”, through Simple Truth, as “a forum where the current beliefs of Fellowship members can be discussed”? I find nothing of his or her’s posts coming from “the person” themselves.”
Agreed. But maybe it’s better than there being nothing at all coming from the FoF side?
BTW I’m getting quite attached to that pod.
RN
141
I understand. But to me, there IS nothing coming from the FOF side.
But at least we’re amusing all the members who are reading the blog on the sly.
And it it’s a great place to announce FOF parking info.
Perhaps some of this applies…
================================
samvak.tripod.com/journal79.html
The Cult of the Narcissist
By: Dr. Sam Vaknin
The narcissist is the guru at the centre of a cult. Like other gurus, he demands complete obedience from his flock: his spouse, his offspring, other family members, friends, and colleagues. He feels entitled to adulation and special treatment by his followers. He punishes the wayward and the straying lambs. He enforces discipline, adherence to his teachings, and common goals. The less accomplished he is in reality – the more stringent his mastery and the more pervasive the brainwashing.
The – often involuntary – members of the narcissist’s mini-cult inhabit a twilight zone of his own construction. He imposes on them a shared psychosis, replete with persecutory delusions, “enemies”, mythical narratives, and apocalyptic scenarios if he is flouted.
The narcissist’s control is based on ambiguity, unpredictability, fuzziness, and ambient abuse. His ever-shifting whims exclusively define right versus wrong, desirable and unwanted, what is to be pursued and what to be avoided. He alone determines the rights and obligations of his disciples and alters them at will.
The narcissist is a micro-manager. He exerts control over the minutest details and behaviours. He punishes severely and abuses withholders of information and those who fail to conform to his wishes and goals.
The narcissist does not respect the boundaries and privacy of his reluctant adherents. He ignores their wishes and treats them as objects or instruments of gratification. He seeks to control both situations and people compulsively.
He strongly disapproves of others’ personal autonomy and independence. Even innocuous activities, such as meeting a friend or visiting one’s family require his permission. Gradually, he isolates his nearest and dearest until they are fully dependent on him emotionally, sexually, financially, and socially.
He acts in a patronising and condescending manner and criticises often. He alternates between emphasising the minutest faults (devalues) and exaggerating the talents, traits, and skills (idealises) of the members of his cult. He is wildly unrealistic in his expectations – which legitimises his subsequent abusive conduct.
The narcissist claims to be infallible, superior, talented, skilful, omnipotent, and omniscient. He often lies and confabulates to support these unfounded claims. Within his cult, he expects awe, admiration, adulation, and constant attention commensurate with his outlandish stories and assertions. He reinterprets reality to fit his fantasies.
His thinking is dogmatic, rigid, and doctrinaire. He does not countenance free thought, pluralism, or free speech and doesn’t brook criticism and disagreement. He demands – and often gets – complete trust and the relegation to his capable hands of all decision-making.
He forces the participants in his cult to be hostile to critics, the authorities, institutions, his personal enemies, or the media – if they try to uncover his actions and reveal the truth. He closely monitors and censors information from the outside, exposing his captive audience only to selective data and analyses.
The narcissist’s cult is “missionary” and “imperialistic”. He is always on the lookout for new recruits – his spouse’s friends, his daughter’s girlfriends, his neighbours, new colleagues at work. He immediately attempts to “convert” them to his “creed” – to convince them how wonderful and admirable he is. In other words, he tries to render them Sources of Narcissistic Supply.
Often, his behaviour on these “recruiting missions” is different to his conduct within the “cult”. In the first phases of wooing new admirers and proselytising to potential “conscripts” – the narcissist is attentive, compassionate, empathic, flexible, self-effacing, and helpful. At home, among the “veterans” he is tyrannical, demanding, wilful, opinionated, aggressive, and exploitative.
As the leader of his congregation, the narcissist feels entitled to special amenities and benefits not accorded the “rank and file”. He expects to be waited on hand and foot, to make free use of everyone’s money and dispose of their assets liberally, and to be cynically exempt from the rules that he himself established (if such violation is pleasurable or gainful).
In extreme cases, the narcissist feels above the law – any kind of law. This grandiose and haughty conviction leads to criminal acts, incestuous or polygamous relationships, and recurrent friction with the authorities.
Hence the narcissist’s panicky and sometimes violent reactions to “dropouts” from his cult. There’s a lot going on that the narcissist wants kept under wraps. Moreover, the narcissist stabilises his fluctuating sense of self-worth by deriving Narcissistic Supply from his victims. Abandonment threatens the narcissist’s precariously balanced personality.
Add to that the narcissist’s paranoid and schizoid tendencies, his lack of introspective self-awareness, and his stunted sense of humour (lack of self-deprecation) and the risks to the grudging members of his cult are clear.
The narcissist sees enemies and conspiracies everywhere. He often casts himself as the heroic victim (martyr) of dark and stupendous forces. In every deviation from his tenets he espies malevolent and ominous subversion. He, therefore, is bent on disempowering his devotees. By any and all means.
The narcissist is dangerous.
141
And I’m sure the pod is just as attached to you you sweet thing.
28 etc. Bruce
> You have become a parasite feeding on the blog.
You are talking about yourself.
> That’s you, my cowardly troll.
You are talking about yourself.
> Are you so aware of your own absurdity that you will not own who you are? So far you are only an anonymous little weasel.
You are talking about yourself.
> You are only speaking your words so you can hear them. You are the fool of the farce.
You are talking about yourself.
>Did you pull that out of your ass all by yourself. You are a deeply disturbed individual.
You are talking about yourself.
> Hello, hello…anyone in there?
You are talking about yourself.
>That’s too bad asshole.
You are talking about yourself.
>Anything else I can give you to motivate to crawl back under you rock?
You are talking about yourself.
> Now, don’t you feel silly? Or is that capacity gone for you?
You are talking about yourself.
>And I’m beginning to doubt your poor “English” bullshit. No one posting here is that fucking illiterate.
You are talking about yourself.
It’s sad to watch you do this to yourself.
FormerFofer
(1978-1992)
145
Cute, and oh so profound.
And sooooooo clever.
I would almost think that you are……wait……wait….wait…”SIMPLE TRUTH” …who disappeared of the face of the earth just a little while ago.
It’s a God Damn miracle.
In 2 hours we should have made it to the 2000 visits to this blog in one day mark; just as I suspected…
BTW Bruce; that letter ‘Fat Boy’ was “skimming” so profoundly, similar to the conscience skimming taught on the fly by Robert Burton’s ‘Yours-truly-example’ of fly fishing in the Sahara for flies…
According to my sources this letter was sent to every resident of Oregon House, nearly 1200 people (non-students too); so says the folk…
So, ‘Fat Boy’ and ‘Simple Truth’ watch for those burning enneagrams in your front lawns, this has been one of the driest seasons in California for a long time; so keep a loaded water hose next to your bee bee guns, you never know…
____________________
l.t.y.a.
Hello All.
Simple Truth, #9, wrote:
“To Be Present is the main thing, that we do in the FOF.
and thats all.”
REVISED:
All we do in the FOF is give presents to RB. That is all.
LL
There are a relatively small number of people doing most of the talking here, but a lot of quiet ones out there watching and listening. A lot of current members. Some of them are still sitting at the front of the room next to Robert at meetings. Some holding his hand under the Galleria breakfast table. Some of them own houses up on the hill. Some of them have kids in LCS, jobs at RVW. But they’re reading. It feels like behind-the-iron-curtain just before perestroika. People watching, hoping, fearing, and talking very quietly to one another, often in code, because you never know for sure who the hard-core devotees are. Carrying the metaphor, this blog is Radio Free Fellowship. I suggest we not get “blogged” down by Simple Truth or Fat Boy. It’s not that they’re idiots; they’re simply not very relevant. Bass Ackwards is relevant. David (#5:121) is relevant. Their voices represent the hundreds who are still IN but trying to carve their own path, maybe through the middle, maybe simply OUT but without the baggage, maybe just trying to understand how it all happened before they leave. The FOF Taliban on this blog who shout their asinine platitudes and take photographing Bruce as their righteous-and-oh-so-noble cause don’t deserve the bandwidth we grant them by responding. Every once in a while someone like Confused comes along and surprises us by telling the real truth, showing what everyone is really thinking. That some do still respect Robert Burton. They’ve seen he has certain powers. They know he’s helped people in ways besides financial. Maybe he even helped them once or twice when they really needed it…and yes, maybe he’s brain-washed them a little. Yet they are here reading this now, reading the incremental-but-gradually-whole truth, and being forced to do something with it. On the other hand, I know for a fact that many current members now regard Robert as nothing more or less than a grotesque cartoon character. Kind of like really gross anime. Compromised and ridiculous, but possibly a necessary evil in their vision of a loving, art-focused community. Their main question: should I bail now, or hang on a little longer to help my friends, arrange my parachute, understand where it all went bad?
A few questions I personally think should be asked more often: Why was it essential for FOF-style evolution that Isis/Apollo/Renaissance be preserved as the seat of squalid, deeply entrenched poverty over decades? How can anyone in their right mind think Isis lifestyle is or ever was actually good for their children, YOUR children? How much more time out of your brief lifetime are you willing to throw away, your precious time bleeding away like good money after bad, because waking up from the FOF dream is just too unthinkable? When do the wives realize that their hubbies didn’t just have a few isolated experiences of sex with RB, but still do it every time they go to a wine cellar dinner? When does the young newlywed realize how at-risk she is of a nasty sexual disease from that gorgeous RB-boy import she snagged? When do we stop being mad and just become sad, because it is all too sad and pathetic and soul-sucking? Maybe that’s the whole question: RB sucked a lot of cocks, but what about the souls, your souls, that he continues to suck and suck…and suck?
Not “with love” today. Screw that.
Joseph G
Hello All.
Have you noticed that is much easier to read posts that are split up? In other words, split long paragraphs up.
It is very hard on the eyes to read big chunks of text.
It is probable that people won’t read them.
Just a suggestion.
LL
For all Fellowship of Friends members, here’s an example of someone who does not need an Asaf (or the quoting every five minutes of ‘44 angels’) to keep one’s essential connection to a healthy essence intact; if there’s a connection at all, that is, in regards to your ‘teacher’ ~
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sYU9qjqGdM
Watch and weep; “For the problem is that you think you have time.” Buddha
________________________
l.t.y.a.
Joseph G, #150:
Wow. Incredible. You may rescue a few with posts like that.
dickmoron, keep the true stories coming.
Re: Post #150, from Joseph G.
Thank you, Joseph, for saying some things that needed to be said, if we all wish to keep this blog from descending into irrelevance.
It is true, I think, that there are many lurkers who are quietly observing and looking for guidance, a clue, anything to help resolve their emotional, intellectual, instinctive and spiritual dilemmas.
To all of you bloggers who take an inordinate amount of space with your petty squabbling, please consider that you can, if you wish, make a much more positive contribution to this forum! Teach what you have to teach; give what you have to give from your experience or, be quiet so that others can manifest. Otherwise, you waste our time.
To those who gift us all with excruciatingly long posts, please consider: If you want to be heard, keep it to 100-150 words or less. Otherwise, your literary efforts simply will be lost in the aether.
This blog is important to many. So, fellow seekers, let’s try to maintain and develop it as a diverse, personal, and relevant art form!
Re: My post #155
Well, as to a reasonable word count for digestible posts, mine was 176 words, so I didn’t manage to keep to my own guideline (max 150 words)…
But, you all get the idea, I hope.
Thank you Joseph G. for returning, beautiful to see you here ~
You wrote ~
“Compromised and ridiculous, but possibly a necessary evil in their vision of a loving, art-focused community. Their main question: should I bail now, or hang on a little longer to help my friends, arrange my parachute, understand where it all went bad?”
___________________
The understanding “where is all went bad” can only ‘really’ take place once one has bridged the ’si-do’ of being in a School of Relative Awakening, i.e., ‘really’ leaving and maybe even giving a few ‘birds’ to RB during a meeting just to make sure that any opposite thinking of returning will be dismissed upon reception… he’s predictably astute to holding vanity-denting accounts… particularly when coming from King-types that are stronger than his (subjectively or not, speaking).
This “necessary evil” is only “necessary” so long as the student themselves reflect some corresponding aspect of the teacher’s ‘evil’, this being the painbody’s need of archetypal ‘hero’s’ and ‘rogues’ so to tattoo themselves with historical justifications and pain identity heritage; particularly when it’s in the name of ‘trandforming suffering’ in order to identify as the sufferer while transforming leads to more circular ‘transforming’ triads.
The ‘householder’ part of leaving is certainly a practical one; yet, to be sure not to fool oneself into thinking that the normal pace of someone being told that a tornado is coming is any different than your “suck, suck… and suck” observation.
To my understanding, one has a six week lead time; so, dropping out spiritually ‘now’, one has ‘physically’ six weeks to get things together, not that you had things together previously either, so, again, leave as you are, not as you wish to be,
otherwise, like so many in cult circles, you’ll never leave if you leave it up to the lunatic feature belonging to a gold alchemy programed King of Hearts from corn-growers-international posing as a ming furniture connoisseur…
Not that I would not rather ‘hang out’ with a farmer type, at least they know the difference between the emergency brake lever and the hood release.
That’s the price, is it not Joseph? To pay for the visions of one’s conscience NOW, not later; I mean within reason, for often times a strong King of Clubs reaction can be mistaken for the highest form of human morality, yet, nine times out of ten, it disregards what the person themselves truly understands (in essence) after the lawsuit ends, the fat lady stops singing and the smoke from the cannons clears.
Robert Burton is the symbol of spiritual ‘fear’, not consciousness, otherwise he would not have gone with the fear of the truth by basing his school on a lie… period.
Yet, to me, no one who leaves the Fellowship of Friends once they are conscious of the whole octave of crime and essence damaging, has wasted one second of their precious path upon the sacred way;
it is you, my readers who scratch your chins for the fear of and from the king of clubs, the body beautiful and un-beautiful, itself, that know now and who have perhaps known for a very long time, it is you who may need to double back a bit and really dig deep within your ‘backward telescope’ depths to see that you’re drowning in three inches of water, three, yelling “44 feet!”.
Too many symbols, not enough of YOU; I mean the love-you, the looker, not the “I have an angle” that Robert Burton has waged all out war on during the last four to five years;
rather, the lover, the cliff-jumper, the smiling one who needs no instructions from another on how and when to smile at god, particularly when you watch as god plays opossum for the atheists and ‘man’ for the believers…
Spend as much time as you ‘really’ need; though beware of using your credit cards on this one my friends.
___________________
Love to you all.
My2bits ~
Still got that Fellowship of Friends Stalingrad thing going on I see.
Joseph, a great post. I honor those who are still members who have the courage to post their independent thoughts.
My experience is that even after leaving, it took years and years and years to understand what actually happened.
The more I learned, the better I understood it.
The more I understood, the angrier I got.
I had previously distrusted and feared anger, but I now know that it can be a source of power. On the heels of new understanding anger can be a constructive force.
To those in, I say, be open to the possibility that one day you may discover that you are passionately angry.
A voice in your head will say something like, “that’s the seven of hearts, which resolutely opposes the steward.”
In that moment, may you discover that having been induced to label your experience in this way caused you to disavow your own ability to be powerful and effective. And may that discovery be the seed of whatever’s next for you.
To Somebody (81)
I can relate to what you’re saying about being impressed at certain level of refinement in FOF. Me too, I got so impressed. Until I saw hi-end hotel lobbies, attended parties for wealthy, and worked in rich people’s homes. So many very “asleep” people out there spend their whole lives in most refined environments, eat and dress like gods, and apparently it does nothing to their higher centers!
Now about the “tool” itself. Although I did embrace it (well, everyone told me I had a “golden” alchemy, so it was really easy to accept) now I see this “tool” as just another tool for judgment and condescending attitude towards others with so called “lower” alchemy. In a way, it’s almost RACIST. And you know that people DO use this “tool” to discriminate and judge, you know that, we all know, all did it. When this “tool” is used to confirm something about oneself – it strokes ones vanity. When it is used to blame or judge something or someone – it again strokes ones vanity and promotes a false sense of superiority.
Now about relationship of refinement and higher states. Firstly, one can experience high states in many other environments, and “golden alchemy” environments are by far not the only ones. This could be candy stores, nature sites, gardens, and also WARS, accident scenes and brutal scenes, disasters, and simply unexpected bright or loud events like fireworks or sirens. Oh, and I didn’t mention drugs. And sometimes – nothing at all, usual environment – and here comes the high state.
So, expensive clothes and furnishings is just one (questionable) way to get high, and not the cheapest. But it happens to be Teacher’s way of lifestyle, so he invented a “tool” to make it look like the “only” way.
Did you ever wondered that in the greatest school of the past – Christ’s school – they didn’t even bathe regularly and ate with their hands? And Jesus was reportedly seeing beauty in not so pretty objects, like animal corpses or crippled people? What about sufis? Not much refinement in their looks either… What about Buddha, his modest looks and his acceptance of whatever falls into his cup?
So – may be – it’s not about the looks? Not about the GOLD? Not about the “alchemy”??? May be it doesn’t matter?
About your question “what if I succeed and lived in the gold alchemy house, driven the gold alchemy car, showered in the gold alchemy shower, dressed only in the gold alchemy clothes, dined from the gold alchemy plates etc… what if my higher centers awakened and I became conscious????” – just look at people around you. Robert’s entourage does just that. For years and years they dress, and eat, and are surrounded by all that glitter. Do they look like happy realized beings to you, do you want to be like them?
Also, I work for very wealthy and refined people, I observe them all the time… Wealth has nothing to do with self-realization and inner freedom.
I would think that IF you succeed in all this GOLDEN things – you’ll be just a well dressed golden looking person, most likely a slave to your possessions and constantly craving more of them – just like your teacher. Look at him! Do you really want that?
If this is truly the only thing that holds you in the school – I’d wholeheartedly say – please leave, and get a job and verify if wealth actually does it. At least, give it a try, get a life. (You can always come back, remember? As long as you PAY).
Consciousness is not “things”. States occur IN never disappearing consciousness – so why hunt for passing states? Are you these states anyway? If you ARE the high state, what happens to you when state is gone?
Joseph, thanks so much for your beautiful honest post.
The way to combat the LIE is to speak the TRUTH.
Let us all do this, speak from the heart, shed light, tell our stories – there are plenty!
There is a point when it becomes too bright, too obvious, impossible to buffer anymore, impossible to bear the light.
He lied to his students and keeps lying – only for his own selfish benefit. Shamelessly, cruelly, criminally.
I read a new article about cancer. A single cell get corrupted and damaged, and it becomes “selfish” in respect to the whole, rejects it but uses it’s resources like a parasite. It multiplies, producing more corrupt distorted cells – each is distorted in it’s own unique way, and the tumor is formed. It is completely dysfunctional and useless, acts separate from the whole, yet uses the resources of the whole, depends on it, and at the same time poisons the whole, and spreads to healthy areas, “recruiting” healthy cells to serve it…
Compare it to FOF idea that “we” are separate from “life” but will shamelessly use “life” for our selfish benefits so we can grow and spread… And talking about dysfunctional…
Re: Post #158 from unoanimo.
I guess so, Uno.
That being said, many do appreciate your excruciatingly long posts! :-)
Live and learn.
Why this ‘hi, boys and girls’ attitude to the site which contains blog names to hide behind. When asked for name (required) I did just that. It’s my real name – just asked anyone from 1989 back in the FOF. And Cynthia Hill knows where I live. (“Bid them achieve me” Henry V). You know which beings are protecting me – without a prompt. O.K. Let’s get rid of the ‘pipple-papple and tittle-tattle’ that the other Welshman, Fluellen refers to.
BATTLE PLAN…………………………….”THE spirituality will raise your Highness so great a sum as never did one King at any time” HV.
THE FACT IS………………………………Lawsuits against Burton are gone about arse-backwards. The only way to sue the twit and entourage is to set an amount that would be reasonable for an in-court settlement and have a ‘law-court for a stage’ or else demand such an outrageous out-of-court settlement that the FOF would be forced into receivership. Of course, should WE win either way then we would agree to let FOF debts to be paid to whomever they are owed, before distributing among the ‘poor’.
“There are rules here? Oh, no – there are no rules here!”) Terence Mann – Field of Dreams MY RECOMMENDED FILM
Meher Baba cannot help but speak again in his quickly returned to Earth role…………………………………..NHP.
Dear Joseph and many others.
Yes speak up,
Angry
Fear
Sadness
Revenge
Just words
Just speak them out
Let them be
See all the emotions
See your pain
Let the pain be what it is
Embrace the pain, emotion
Make it tangible
Listen to its messages
when it can speak and will shout out
because it got its voice
It can go,
Dispersing
And in the void
something new can come
Because it was completely respected
Had its seat, its time
Then ready to part
Simple, one way to let go of the past is to clean up what was stil the residu, in the way.
When cleaned up like a messy house, it feels so much better and new things can happen…..
Cleaning up unfinished business
If you wish this is a form of alchemy ( gold or not, clean up and your brain works better too ..fun side effect.)
One way of getting rid of the past? Try it.
Love to you Joseph and to all of my friends.
This poem is famous and want to offer it again to all the poets here like Uno, Elena, Laura, Arthur, Whalerider and even Bruce :) and to the many of you…
Wild Geese by Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
And a song for all of you and the SE EN
Shout, shout let it all out
These are the things
I can do without
Come on, I am talking to you, come on
In difficult times, you shouldn’t have to sell your soul
In the fellowship of friends, they really really ought to know
Those one track minds that took you for a money boy (and toy)
Kiss them goodbye, so you could jump with joy
so you could jump with joy
Shout, shout let it all out
These are the things
I can do without
Come on, I am talking to you, come on
They gave you efforts, and in return they took your money
As cold as ice, I survive and we will tell the tale
I survive and we will tell the tale
Shout, shout, let it all out, these are the things I can do without
Come on, I’m talking to you, come on
Shout, shout, let it all out, these are the things I can do without
Come on, I’m talking to you, come on
Shout, shout, let it all out (let it all out)
These are the things I can do without
Come on, I’m talking to you, come on
And when you’ve taken down your guard
You could change your mind, heal your precious heart and conscience
Yes really heal your heart and soul,
Shout, shout, let it all out
(HEAL your heart these are the things I want to do
(I’d really love to heal the heart) come on
I’m talking to you, come on
Shout, shout, let it all out, these are the things I can do without
Come on, I’m talking to you so come on
(Guitar solo)
Shout, shout, let it all out, these are the things I can do without
Come on, I’m talking to you, come on
(They really really ought to know by now) Shout, shout, let it all out
(Really really ought to by now) These are the things I can do without
(They really really) Come on, I’m talking to you, come on
(They really really ought to know) Shout, shout, let it all out
(I’d really love to see the fof go)
These are the things I can do without
(I’d really love to see the fof go)
Come on, I’m talking to you so come on
Shout, shout, let it all out, these are the things I can do without
Come on, I’m talking to you, come on…(fade)
And for the SE -ENgines
Fellowship of friends, Fellowship of friends, Fellowship of friends, Fellowship of friends, Fellowship of friends, Fellowship of friends
I really like to see you goooooooooo
Shout, shout
Tears for fears and Another name
For all of you from a warm heart after many rain storms
And a hoarse voice
Enjoy
Thank you 145, you hit the nail on the head.
It is funny to read all the assumptions from others. First I am not fat but very fit and I use to be Robert’s lover 10 years ago.
I am agreeing with some comments and maybe this is a forum best for former members.
To Dick Moron: I think this blog has covered most of the major things that are going on in the FOF. I am freinds with most of Roberts lovers and the people in the administration. I am sure you can add a new story but it will just be along the same lines (not to discredit you). I don’t think you offended me either, I just feel we should write on this blog as if the person or persons we are writing about are in the room. But so many of the writers hide behind their computers and spew out insults and vulgarness.
on 23 Jul 2007 at 5:04 pm
70 Rhino NealIn my experience,
“you” or “I” making efforts to be present is a complete waste of time – just reinforces our illlusion of individuality.’
‘Many of us know all about this, practiced it for many years, and ultimately concluded it doesn’t work.’
It is better if you find a way to speak for yourself. It helps reduce lying.
168 Fat Boy
“I just feel we should write on this blog as if the person or persons we are writing about are in the room. But so many of the writers hide behind their computers and spew out insults and vulgarness.”
Who could you be speaking of? Besides myself, who has used my name from the first, and don’t hide where or what I am, and would say the same things to your face (come on up to Nevada City and I’ll say it to your face) it seems to me that most of the people who jump all over the bull shit either use their names or are readily known as their true selves (Dick Moron, Skeptical Optimist, A Former Student), whereas those in the FOF who defend with inanities universally hide behind pseudonyms, never revealing who they are.
Now what were you saying “whoever you are” hiding behind a false name and computer.
80 Fat Boy
To Bruce 36: Your vulgar ending to your entry does not offend me in the least, but it is very difficult to have a meaningful and constructive discussion when you are so coarse.
its hard to have an intelligent discussion with someone who is rather slow but that has not stopped others fron trying to write to you. You should study the law of three and seven. Form is just that an external pattern. One aspect of a triad. The Fellowship has refined form until it is empty of content. profanity in no way is an obstacal to intelligent discussion and neither is poor grammer or spelling. its fucking idiots that repeat Roberts bullshit and have forgotten or never felt what it means to manifest from ones own being that are the real denying force to an intelligent dialogue.
Recommended reading from the Authorised (King James) Version of the Holy Bible:-
Isiah chapter 42 vss.1-13.
Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians chapter 13.
GOD IS – not has or gives – but IS…………………..LOVE.
In other words, “be yourself, no matter what they say” (Sting and the Police)
And as a practical parting shot, the way to overcome Vanity, to any extent, is just to do what is required – then life becomes one ’see-do’ exercise.
168 Fat Boy
“First I am not fat but very fit and I use to be Robert’s lover 10 years ago.”
“I am friends with most of Roberts lovers and the people in the administration.”
No. Really? Well that changes everything. I guess your credibility runs the whole gamut, from A to B.
n connection with 15/464, a former student:
Rodney Collin also said on page 216 of tToCI:
At the same time it must be remembered that wherever three forces work together, six orders and six processes are possible. Thus there may be a selfremembering for destruction, a self-remembering for healing, a selfremembering for crime. And beyond all these the only true self-remembering, self-remembering for regeneration. For this, we realise, man must place those hidden and higher powers first, himself and his soul passively at their service, invoking as result that plenitude of life and light to which alone this process yearns.
Anyone considered the meaning?
For true self remembering is the consciousness of one’s relation with another in the presence of a higher power. RC
The King of clubs is no more or less an enemy of awakening than is ones foot. The King of Clubs has a consciousness and intelligence of its own. The king of clubs can control other centers. It can also be a denying force to awakening so can anything else. This distortion by Robert of basic ideas makes it seem more and more likely that he is not conscious enough to see either octaves or triads.
Anything can conduct any of the three forces. this is relativity, the study of relationships. Octaves is prder , the sequence of events. Even the sequence indicates someone who after 40 years of supposed consciousness cannot se an octave.
Those connected to the Gurdjieff foundation suggests practicing “sensing” on a regualar basis, The Buddha originaly taught two forms of meditation on a sitting getting in touch with ones instinctive sense form and a second being aware of oneself during normal activities.(WHAT THE BUDDHA TAUGHT-Dr. Walpola Rahula
Part of the art of awakening is to learn to use the King of Clubs – Walt whitman as have many other poets illustartes the connection of higher centers with the instinctive brain.
Walt Whitman (1819–1892). Leaves of Grass. 1900.
227. Sparkles from The Whe
The scene, and all its belongings—how they seize and affect me!
The sad, sharp-chinn’d old man, with worn clothes, and broad shoulder-band of leather; 10
Myself, effusing and fluid—a phantom curiously floating—now here absorb’d and arrested;
The group, (an unminded point, set in a vast surrounding;)
The attentive, quiet children—the loud, proud, restive base of the streets;
The low, hoarse purr of the whirling stone—the light-press’d blade,
Diffusing, dropping, sideways-darting, in tiny showers of gold, 15
Sparkles from the wheel.
el
The instinctive brain is not an enemy. Overindulging it is bad allowing it to make descions that could use a little intellectual or emotional energy is not that useful because it has limitation. It seeks comfort. Say doesn’t that sound like Robert Burton and how he has arranged the Fellowship to cater to his instinctive desires. Say in my case It still wants Haggan Daz Ice cream in spite of the fact that I am diabetic and over weight. How ever I do know the difference between what observes and what is observed. No function is better or worse than the others all have their place.
How the Queen keeps his workers in line:
By Amber Dance, LA Times
July 21, 2007
A queen bee needs to keep her subjects calm and quiet, and she does so by secreting a scent that prevents worker bees from learning, according to new research.
The study, published Thursday in the journal Science, found that a component in the queen’s pheromone inhibits the sterile worker bees’ ability to learn from negative experiences. The active scent element is similar to the brain compound dopamine, which is involved in learning and memory in *humans* and insects.
By preventing aversive learning, the queen ensures that her youngest offspring will stay in the hive and not use their stingers, even if something unpleasant occurs.
“Aversive learning is when the animal makes an association between a particular odor and a nasty experience,” said senior study author Alison Mercer, a neurobiologist at the University of Otago in New Zealand.
The “nasty experience” in the study was a mild electric shock, accompanied by a particular smell.
Honeybees separated from the queen extended their stingers when they detected the odor. But young honeybees exposed to the queen’s pheromone did not respond. The young bees that groom the queen are exposed to high levels of her pheromone.
Older bees somehow become capable of aversive learning — otherwise they would have little chance for survival as they forage for food outside the hive.
+++++++++++++++++
From Wikipedia:
Dopamine has many functions in the brain, including important roles in behavior and cognition, motor activity, motivation and reward, sleep, mood, attention, and learning.
Dopamine is released by naturally rewarding experiences such as food, sex, use of certain drugs, and neutral stimuli (a stimulus which initially produces no specific response other than provoking attention, i.e. being present) that become associated with them.
Dopamine’s role in experiencing pleasure has been questioned by several researchers. It has been argued that dopamine is more associated with anticipatory desire and motivation (commonly referred to as “wanting”) as opposed to actual consummatory pleasure (commonly referred to as “liking”).
Dopamine is not released when unpleasant or aversive stimuli are encountered, and so motivates towards the pleasure of avoiding or removing the unpleasant stimuli.
Recent research suggests that the firing of dopamine neurons is a motivational chemical as a result of reward-anticipation. This is based on evidence that, when a reward is perceived to be greater than expected, the firing of certain dopamine neurons increases, which correspondingly increases desire or motivation toward the reward.
**************
In layman’s terms, if you want to keep members of a group in line, you create an environment of anticipated reward, not actual reward, such as in the next lifetime or reserved exclusively for those in the ‘inner circle’, as well an environment highly sensitive to the aversive stimuli of negative emotions, which is how we learn ‘good-awake’ (=positive emotion) from ‘bad-asleep’ (=negative emotion). This will produce more dopamine in the member’s brains and inhibit learning from aversion by minimizing it. (That’s why it can take some people 20 years in the Fellowship of Friends before they learn the truth and escape the hive mind.)
It is well known that too much dopamine in the brain is associated with the delusions seen in psychosis and the inability to experience pleasure, leaving the member in a perpetual state of wanting, dependent upon the next dopamine fix, and avoidant of any negativity…especially that painful, negative truth that they have been duped.
The farther away from the queen, the more reality you see.
176
Good one.
on 24 Jul 2007 at 2:27 am
155 my2bits
To all of you bloggers who take an inordinate amount of space with your petty squabbling, please consider that you can, if you wish, make a much more positive contribution to this forum! Teach what you have to teach; give what you have to give from your experience or, be quiet so that others can manifest. Otherwise, you waste our time.
meditate on this
Fuck you
Upgrade your own post’s let me worry if I should about mine.
Maybe there are some who post such as myself that think the rigid oh so proper acts cultivated in the Felowship of Friends are criminal and need a liitle shaking up.
You do not seem to understand that when you argue for this level of interaction you are saying don’t upset my false fellowship personality with any harsh reality.
Well the reality is that if you are a member of the Fellowship of friends or former member you have been played by a con artist. If you want to be treated in the manner you have earned its as a fucking idiot.
Stop whinning
you can ignore whatever you chose
you are not the fucking martyre you seem to imagine you are
155
This post seems similar to what I gleaned from Elena’s old posts about how she was treated and directed in the FOF. Keep it short, don’t cause problems, if you can’t, shut up.
178 It evokes a similar feeling in me also.
Bruce, 170;
Why would I want to meet you? Were you the class bully in high school?
And if you said those things to me as you say on this blog I would probably punch you in the face, so it is probably not in your interest to invite me to Nevada City.
180 Fat Boy
I’m up here any time, and I’m not worried.
But you’re still skirting the point and question of my post, which you usually do, as did simple truth, HC and the rest of the anonymous trolls. Are you afraid of the blow back of identifying yourself on the blog? Might your hand get slapped by your teachers and peers. Are you breaking a task or suggestion from the teacher? Is that how you choose to live? Aren’t you ashamed of your anonymity? Aren’t you proud of what you do and who you are, enough to shout your name from the rooftops?
Not one of you proselytizing misfits has ever had the balls to identify themselves.
180 Fat Boy
“Were you the class bully in high school?”
Actually I was the quiet one who defended the smaller people from the bullies, verbally and physically.
Many thanks to Joseph G for his fine affirmative post[#150].
The beginning of it at least. The end of it, I honestly found hard to take, but then I would, still being a member of the organization.
Recently, I have begun to wonder the use for myself of participating on this blog, since it is primarily a vehicle of elimination and healing for those who have already left or those wishing to find reasons to do so. Personally, I feel like I have plenty of those, or think that I do, but still far more reasons to stay. That’s it. And voicing that sentiment here on the blog will bring in various critics (who need not be named) to pick apart my words.
Still, and nevertheless, I sit at my computer keyboard today and hope there are Friends out there who are also still listening and questioning together with their Friends, wondering what they can “do”?
Look honestly at the alternatives, if you begin to feel disillusioned with the Teacher.
Leave – as most do.
Stay – and find a way to participate that does not go too strongly against your Conscience (this can go on for years).
Stay – with the purpose to awaken your Self and your Friends from imagination (this cannot be sustained indefinitely?).
Stay – with the clear understanding that the information in the Blog is biased negativity from the Lower Self (whew, I almost cringe to write the words, knowing exactly who HC really is, what he thinks and feels and calls Evolution).
The invisible wall of what we have called the “School” is slowly crumbling. Will the students, current and former who truly value the (higher) life enhancing energy of Self Remembering find a way to stay together, to encourage each other, and to offer an unpolluted understanding on to a future generation? I can see that the GFOF website is the beginning of that something emerging from the ashes. Does it mean that the visible wall of the School, Via del Sol/Renaissance/Apollo/Isis can never be that? Perhaps accepting that it can’t, not now, and not ever, so long as the Grand Polluter is holding the reins, is the beginning of the end.
***********************************************
What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make and end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from. And every phrase
And sentence that is right (where every word is at home,
Taking its place to support the others,
The word neither diffident nor ostentatious,
An easy commerce of the old and the new,
The common word exact without vulgarity,
The formal word precise but not pedantic,
The complete consort dancing together)
Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning,
Every poem an epitaph. And any action
Is a step to the block, to the fire, down the sea’s throat
Or to an illegible stone: and that is where we start.
We die with the dying:
See, they depart, and we go with them.
We are born with the dead:
See, they return, and bring us with them.
The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree
Are of equal duration. A people without history
Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
Of timeless moments. So, while the light fails
On a winter’s afternoon, in a secluded chapel
History is now and England.
With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always—
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.
The Four Quartets, V, Little Gidding, T.S. Eliot
Love,
Bass
#168 Fat Boy
Huh?? Are you reading the tele-prompter wrong?
Better consult your coach.
@#$!@#*%^!35???
Bruce,
Your a little more calmer now, maybe because it is late, but you really just can’t help being an asshole by saying, “proselytizing misfits” in 181. The reason why I missed your question before is probably I get identified with your tone.
You had a lot of questions, but I guess your right I would not feel comfortable sharing my identity. I have shared some of my posts with friends and some say I am wasting my time and others say good for you. To be honest I have not thought if my hand would get slapped and I am sure the Teacher would not hear about me making posts, and if he did I don’t even know what he would say; maybe he would say your wasting your time. I am not afraid of my Teacher photographing me for he has at least 10 times that I can remember and they were good photographs about my mechanics.
Sounds like you were afraid of the Teacher when you were in the FOF? If you wish to talk about this then this might be constructive for you – just a suggestion.
I am not ashamed of my anonymity since most others are anonomous, also that is not the point, it is sharing our experiences on this blog; knowing the name will not make a difference in most cases or in my case. Most of the time I am not proud of myself or what I do; for living on this miserable earth “sucks” to put it in your language. And believe it or not the FOF on the whole makes it a better place for me.
And yes, I don’t want my peers or the administation giving me shit for posting on this blog. Although, trully I have never heard from anyone in the administration or Robert asking us not to post on this blog. Also, it is there role to protect the FOF and they will use there judgement and role to see what is fit and make suggestions as they feel are needed. Every organization and family has these dynamics.
Ok, so let’s meet, I am available all week except tomorrow, I would understand if you do not want to publish your address on this blog, so if you want to give me your email we can set a time and place?
Give me your email and I’ll send you mine.
185
You have my permission to ask RB if I was afraid of him. You can copy and paste to show him I said it.
You can send me your email through the Sheik.
Bruce, 187: Come on, OK I believe you on the surface that you think you were not afraid of RB, but why do you write as if you think I am afraid because I do not want to reveal my identity? I don’t believe you were the quiet one in high school either! But I don’t know you, and of course I only have an imaginary picture of you.
As I said in 185 I do not wish to reveal my idenitity to this blog and since you stated you are completely fine with revealing your denitity then I would prefer you post your email address? Would that be OK? If there is another way then let me know?
Dear 183
“Hold on, hold fast – hold out – PATIENCE IS GENIUS” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Work with sincerity and directional agression as I do with my ‘trailing’ martial body type (I have the jovial paunch now, either through progress around the enneagram or 18 years+ of anti-psychotics!). Yours in love…………………………………….Nigel.
I just read your 188 comment; I actually just came to this blog and to be honest it seems the Sheik is not really moderating, I would understand because it probably would be a full time job; but I really do not trust this method.
Why can’t you just post your email; for you said you have no problem providing your idenitity?
Fat Boy
Simple Truth
(All others please ignor……..)
Dear Fat Boy & Simple Truth : and of course (Mole)
Let’s chill out together for a few esoteric seconds….
You know who I am and my email is listed…..
and meet me for a beer (coffee) and my usual
location (apollo d’oro)…..
Love to those who wish…..
Ni_k Spa_ldi_g (around) 192
Fat Boy
Simple Truth
(All others please ignor……..)
Dear Fat Boy & Simple Truth : and of course (Mole)
Let’s chill out together for a few esoteric seconds….
You know who I am and my email is listed…..
and meet me for a beer (coffee) and my usual
location (apollo d’oro)…..
Love to those who wish…..
************************
Current Fellowship members, show some backbone and post to the blog – if you’re not too frightened of the cult retaliation.
To 171, former student,
I guess I will call it a night but just wanted to make a suggestion to you; which I make at the expense of you lashing out at me…I hope you don’t.
It really is the vulgar that makes it a denying force to listen to someone and who wants to understand them. Take your quote, “its fucking idiots that repeat Roberts bullshit and have forgotten or never felt what it means to manifest from ones own being that are the real denying force to an intelligent dialogue.”
You see that went right past me and probably for many others on this blog, which I believe 90% are cordial. You could have said, “its the ‘FOF members’ that repeat Roberts ‘teaching’ and have forgotten or never felt what it means to manifest from ones own being that are the real denying force to an intelligent dialogue.” Then I would have heard that and maybe thought about it.
Oh, and please do not accuse me of thinking I am perfect, I sink to this level quite frequently. Effective communication is an art form, I am hardly and expert and probably also doing a terrible job but reading some of these writings it is obvious that some of the non members just want to keep this blog to themselves so they can vent their problems and opinions of FOF (which I am fine with). It is fine to be direct, have opinions, and even criticize but when it becomes vulgar, infamatory and hateful then only a few people will applaud you. And you shut out others. What does the Sheik think of this. Sounds like this is Bruce’s blog!
194. Fat boy. The teacher George Gurdjjieff “sank” to this level very frequently and delighted in standing on the corns of those prissy “idiots” who became identified so easily, when he referred adroitly to the parentage of someone in the choicest of language. I have worked in many situations where if the number of expletives didnt outweigh the number of actual words in a sentence you would simply be ignored or worse. Perhaps you dont belong in “life” which is where the fourth way takes place, but in a monastery, just watch out if you drop the soap, because not all monasteries are celibate.
Cy
I just ran into this quote and thought I could share it for what it’s worth:
St John of the Cross — “Faith causes darkness and a void of understanding in the intellect, hope begets an emptiness of possessions in the memory, and charity produces the nakedness and emptiness of affection and joy in all that is not God.” (Ascent of Mt. Carmel VI, 2)
Mt. Carmel rings a bell, doesn’t it?
When I first joined the Fellowship of Friends I was told that it was in direct lineage from Peter Ouspensky.
I find out years later that it was NOT in direct lineage. That its inception was founded on deception. That it continued producing half-baked, half-lies until it has descended into a quasi-religion based not only on half-baked, half-lies but pure and simple delusion.
Speaking again without permission from Vera-Mente we wants our money back. Not based on time contributed nor money donated but based on half-baked, half-lies, deception and delusion.
What is the Fellowhip of Friends authorities willing to offer Vera-Mente and me. To go away.
80 and 81 are newly moderated comments. 81 is a re-write of the infamous ‘Rick Ross’ letter.
Fat Boy: To the moderator and other writers: Whether your a member, former member or otherwise, if it is the aim of this blog to freely express ourselves and debate issues I assume most of you would agree it better to be civil and courtuoes to one another, so please stand up against vulgar insults or please do not allow them to be posted
Okay, I am really glad that you found it in you to tell me what to do, not to mention telling me what the aim of the blog is (I didn’t know). I appreciate it. At the same time I agree with 2b’s response to you (96):
Personally, I’m much more concerned about the posting of lies on the blog than four-letter words.
Bruce is this blog’s bullshit-spotter and he is very good at it. I can assure you that most readers will be much more offended by people like you, or Simple Truth rather than Bruce’s vulgarity. Bruce is staying, so are you. So fight your own battles and don’t hide behind other people (especially me). Why don’t you just ignore Bruce as all of us have ignored some people on the blog in the past, that is if your ego allows it.
Here are the intellectual underpinnings of the Church of Robert Burton:
“There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. (Lt.) Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn’t, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn’t have to; but if he didn’t want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle. ‘That’s some catch, that Catch-22,’ Yossarian observed. ‘It’s the best there is,’ Doc Daneeka agreed.’”
Later, military agents explain: Catch-22 states that agents enforcing Catch-22 need not prove that Catch-22 actually contains whatever provision the accused violator is accused of violating. A woman translates. “Catch-22 says they have a right to do anything we can’t stop them from doing.”
Joseph Heller, Catch 22
From the ‘fact’ of multiple lifetimes, to the ‘fact’ that people who leave the Fellowship of conditional “Friends” are ‘food for the moon’, to the ‘fact’ that Burton is at a ‘higher level’ than anyone else on the planet, to the ‘fact’ that Beloved Teacher is the necessary intermediary between a student and higher forces, only able to ‘progress’ through Burton’s intervention, to the ‘fact’ that Burton is a goddess trapped in a man’s body (!), to the ‘fact’ that the Sequence represents the highest product of ‘higher schools’ stretching back to prehistoric times…
and on and on and on…
All designed to put one in the classic bind. No way out but to swallow and take a big gulp of “faith”, and watch one’s conscience shrivel away, a sacrifice to Burton, the gift he demands so one can stay safe in his shadow, nestling like chicks under his wings. But unlike real chicks, which must grow and fledge, choosing to stay chicks forever.
My goodness, why, here’s an invitation from Ni_k Spa_ldi_g, who has posted his latest ‘last’ offering,
“Let’s chill out together for a few esoteric seconds…”
with beer, or coffee—and a deep chug of faith. That will dispel any lingering doubts, for sure.
“Look at the bars across the high window in the cell, the way they interrupt the sunlight streaming through. Have faith, hang on, one day, if we pay enough to bribe the prison warden’s daughter, she’ll smuggle in a file, we will be able to cut those bars, and enjoy all the sunlight we could want…”
Yet behind, the prison door is open.
In fact—the entire wall is missing!
Did anybody else think it was kind of weird that ‘Ni_k Spa_ldi_g’ suddenly popped up back at post 194? I thought he quit the blog a while back. Wasn’t he the one who suggested that Howard Carter and Siddiq stop participating?
Obviously he and many others in the Fellowship continue to monitor this blog. It sounds to me like ‘Ni_k’ thinks that Fat Boy is getting in over his head and would like to dissuade him from actually meeting with Bruce.
Could it be that he is afraid that if Fat Boy continues to participate in the blog and interact with ex-members that he might actually become convinced that Robert and the Fellowship are not what they say they are?
While it may be true that Robert and the Fellowship authorities have not issued an official edict prohibiting students from posting or reading the blog, I’m sure they want to discourage it at all costs because it provides a forum for criticism of Robert. And if enough current members read and ponder the criticisms they just might begin to catch on to the truth and decide to leave.
‘Ni_k’, why are you so afraid of an open dialogue about Robert and the Fellowship?
Re. “The letter”
Some “formatory” statements about it.
Fist …Im sorry I meant first, a little freudian slip there, “assumption is the mother of all fuck ups”.
Assume nothing verify everything! Thanks Bruce.
And “all is fair in love and war” the Fellowship of Friends was based at its inception on a lie.
In this case WE dont need to lie about whats been occurring there, there are many of us like myself who will testify under oath if it comes to it, as to the truth of the statements we have made.
I have personally carried funds from outlaying centres in the form of teaching payments in cash to I’s I’s.
Unregistered tax free cash flow.
I have personally experienced the dismay of newly wed young and not so young wives who asked me if their husbands were having sex with Butman as their husbands were lying to them and even then couldnt bring myself to feed the lie to my female friends just to make them temporarily feel better.
I had to admit the impediment to the marriage of true and not so true minds, to paraphrase the bard, as it seemed better they found out sooner rather than later and who wants to live a lie?
I have personally experienced the greedy, grabbing completely selfish ass ault of the “beyond feminine dominance”Queen of the hive and the blind eye and closed hearts of the procurer drones and their paradoxical judgement/envy.
While they watched the constant stream of situationaly compromised young and not so young men enter the heavily over loaded to one side arena of the Queen, with what seemed like the complacent attitude of, as long as my security isnt compromised, who cares if there are some casualties, if they leave then surely they were weak and unsuited to evolve thats why “C influence released them.
An attitude created by fear and “small self” oriented lack of real thought and perhaps the thought again instinctive, that the more who left the more chance they had of enduring to the end and being one of the chosen few.
Whoever put together “the letter” thank you for your effort whether you are an individual or a community your efforts are appreciated.
Drops of water can wear away stone and a flower can grow up through concrete!
Can you post information as to where one can join you? as it seems that we lack organisation and a definite direction besides individual guerrilla tactics.
May your Good be with you.
Cy.
Ames, #201, wrote, referencing Ni_k’s little “invitation”:
““Let’s chill out together for a few esoteric seconds…”
with beer, or coffee—and a deep chug of faith. ”
Followed with a chaser of guilt and fear, and the piece de resistance, “Robert has requested…”
Chilling indeed.
Gold alchemy – from my angle.
I try to see gold alchemy as something we all have to strive for, not as something that any of us actually possesses (permanently).
I try to achieve gold alchemy with as limited means as I have: keep my surroundings neat and clean, buy some flowers for in the house now and then, listen to a classical music cd if I can’t afford a concert, etc. In fact, I even think literally displaying (too many) gold items in either clothing (jewels) or housing has nothing to do with gold alchemy.
I think gold alchemy is not a primary tool in the Work, but I do think it is an important secondary. The feature I most often observe in life (and in myself) is tramp; intentionally striving for gold alchemy seems to me a necessary step in counteracting the relativism so predominant in contemporary civilization.
Imagine you would go out of the house for a stroll right now; you walk out and you see everywhere around you dirty streets, junkies, unmaintained houses, ugly concrete flats, broken cars, people dressed in (fashionable) rags (and lots of golden jewellery, even on men), people eating stale fastfood and dropping refuse on the street ; when people talk, they shout, curse and argue, etc. What kind of impression would such scenery make on you?
I see gold alchemy for example in G’s exhortation to ‘work like a man’:
“The secret is small and very easy—one must learn to work like a man. And that is when a man does a thing and at the same time he thinks about what he is doing and studies how the work should be done, and while doing it forgets all—his grand-mother and grandfather and his dinner.” (Early Talks)
On the other hand, striving for gold alchemy in externals but not in internals seems to me worthless and less than worthless. I think this is where the teaching of the fellowship of friends has gone wrong: it has fallen in the direction of the pharisee, polishing the outside of the vessel at the expense and neglect of the inside.
“The lord said unto him, Now do ye Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the platter; but your inward part is full of extortion and wickedness.” (Luke XI.39)
Or, in the words of M. Nicoll:
“You may treat a person outside you well. Yes, but how do you treat the person internally, in your psychological world – this invisible world known only to yourself? After a time in the Work, if it begins to act on you, you feel far more uncomfortable through wrong feeling than through anything you may have done outwardly. The Work is not mainly about outer life, but about inner life, and here sincerity and valuation are necessary – not pious, not artificial, but genuine. You can feel a fool for having behaved wrongly externally but you must begin to feel worse than a fool if you have silently, in the privacy of your internal psychological life, your real life, treated a person in a mean and miserable way in your thoughts and feelings, though no one knows it. So it has often been said to you that it is how we treat people internally, invisibly, in mind and feeling, that counts. The commandment: ‘Thou shalt not murder’, means, esoterically, in one’s inner life. It has a psychological meaning apart from a literal one. I fancy that some of your now know what I mean and what inner wretchedness can arise when one speaks to oneself negative things about others, and enjoys them, and then plasters up one’s face and appears externally as an angel. The inner and the outer must correspond. This is a long task. They must, like two clocks, keep the same time.” (P.C., vol. 2, p. 694)
And last but definitely not least, I don’t think higher centres are dependent on outer gold alchemy; this is perhaps a case of confusing Refinement and Regeneration. My own highest states (incl. HEC experience) have been produced – all a-f-t-e-r leaving the fof – by reading G’s books, practicing G’s Movements, and trying to apply the Work ideas as explained by Nicoll in the Commentaries. Of course, other methods may exist, I just expose here what worked for me so far. Fellow bloggers, please share your methods!
Gurdjieff on the subject of Robert Burton and the Fellowship of Friends:
“But it must be remembered in this connection that a ‘black magician,’ whether good or evil, has at all events been at a school. He has learned something, has heard something, knows something. He is simply a ‘half-educated man’ who has either been turned out of a school or who has himself left a school having decided that he already knows enough, that he does not want to be in subordination any longer, and that he can work independently and even direct the work of others. All ‘work’ of this kind can produce only subjective results, that is to say, it can only increase deception and increase sleep instead of decreasing them. Nevertheless something can be learned from a ‘black magician’ although in the wrong way. He can sometimes by accident even tell the truth.
“Their work simply consists in aping. But imitation work of this kind gives a great deal of self-satisfaction. One man feels himself to be a ‘teacher,’ others feel that they are ‘pupils,’ and everyone is satisfied. No realization of one’s nothingness can be got here and if people affirm that they have it, it is all illusion and self-deception, if not plain deceit. On the contrary, instead of realizing their own nothingness the members of such circles acquire a realization of their own importance and a growth of false personality.”
Ni_k Spa_ldi_g, I liked you as a Howard Carter. It showed a quite interesting side of you that I haven’t seen before. Ever consider going back to HC? We almost miss him here…
Yes, I know it was you, so please no buffering, no denying, and really – who cares? Lots of us are playing name games here.
Big hug to you.
152 Joseph G. Thank you.
81 Somebody on alchemy
I also much appreciated Robert´s work on alchemy in as much as the way I chose to understand it was that one could improve everything around one´s self and that was beautiful.
I still wish to live by that principle. It was difficult to realize that Robert´s slavery to alchemy was more conditioned by his feminine than by a true understanding of what making effort to make things beautiful can give one.
And deeply disappointing that we would spend years making gardens and events beautiful but were unable to make our relationships beautiful.
Then the superficiality of it all was unmistakeable and the realization of the “barbie syndrome” became clear.
Barbie syndrome is to me that excessive alchemy that marks extreme homosexual men of a certain kind of which Robert is a great exponent.
Still, I do not hate Robert and am speaking about him with as much consideration as I can but I despise where he has brought the fellowship and the way he has used and abused people.
The fact that alchemy in the fellowship stayed a fad and not a wholesome practice of development was also clear to me when it became obvious that students like Girard dressed up as if wearing the “uniform” rather than deeply appreciating the beauty of the exercise and that it became a question of how much money people had, that they could show off their belongings. In as much as that happens so intensely in the fellowship, the tool turns against itself and enslaves us to the form without content.
I don’t agree with your statement Sombedy that to have gold alchemy one has to have a lot of money. While money helps to acquire more beautiful things, true gold alchemy cannot be bought.
The Antioquenian peasants of Colombia live in dirt houses but hang flowers all around them so very beautifully and wear their cheap chinese dresses with frills so lightly that the gold alchemy flows out freely beyond the kish style.
Fat Boy
As I mentioned, you can send your email to me privately through the Sheik. I will retain your anonymity.
75 Innernaut
“Yes, unfortunately that’s not enough. It actually DOES matter what else is going on inside of us — our own thoughts, inclinations, likes, dislikes, talents, weaknesses, gifts. Self-remembering while rejecting and repressing much of what one truly is cannot possibly lead to anything healthy — quite the contrary”.
I agree with the gist of your comment Innernaut and would add that self remembering is a great tool if not the greatest and most beautiful tool to work on first line.
It is the practice of walking the rope between the material and the spiritual and harmonizing both in one´s self as an integrated duality, a whole.
One of the problems perhaps is that it turns against itself if the rest of the system is not practiced. Second and third line are work on external consideration or love in the ample sense of the word and in as much as Robert worked only on self remembering, the practice turned against all of us and made him a king with servants and tax payers instead of an enlightened being and a balanced, creative community.
For whatever it is worth, while I rant and oppose the fellowship as it is today with all my guts, I am convinced it had a sincere beginning that turned bitter, mostly because Robert´s own good will was not enough to deal with the immense power he was given so quickly.
Every single student had a sincere beginning but the machinery carried it away and we all dwelt in it for too long but hopefully not for ever.
#79 “I see” said the blind man:
“The FOF administrators and councilors owe a huge debt to influence C; they know full well that most of them couldn’t wipe their own asses if influence C had not written it into their plays.”
This is the confession from a spiritual hit man. Like they say in the mafia…I own you, you belong to me. This is spiritual extortion and racketeering! These fuckers need to be stopped! Goddamn it, the person who wrote that a criminal!
#80 TO WHOMEVER SENT THE LETTER IN QUESTION:
BRAVO!!!! God almighty that was BRILLIANT!!! That is the spirit! You have my highest esteem! You brought tears to my eyes!
Now we have a copy! If any of you have any balls left after 20 years in prison, copy that letter post #80 (spell check it first) and send that letter every week if necessary to every post box in Oregon House! We need to send it to the wine distributors, too! I vow to pass it out to prospective victims if the Fellowship of Friends hosts a recruiting meeting in my home town ever again!
Whistleblower, show some spine, you may be entitled to a monetary REWARD!!!!!!!!
Here’s the link to print out the IRS form for report tax fraud:
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f3949a.pdf
I recommend we circulate a petition around to ex-Fellowship of Friends members with as many signatures as possible and sent it to:
Attorney General’s Office California Department of Justice Attn: Public Inquiry Unit P.O. Box 944255 Sacramento, CA 94244-2550
Let’s rock the House!
209 Elena
“I am convinced it had a sincere beginning that turned bitter, mostly because Robert´s own good will was not enough to deal with the immense power he was given so quickly.”
I think that’s a powerful truth.
All spiritual paths speak of being “tested” at each step of the way. Robert’s first test as a teacher obviously gets an “F” as he was quickly corrupted by the power, and the sycophantic gushings of those who “tended” the queen bee.
I also believe it started with, more or less, altruistic aims, but turned into it’s opposite. Unfortunately it’s a hard test. There are very few “teachers” who aren’t corrupted by the temptations of power and adulation.
But this also doesn’t preclude the possibility of taking something from one’s experience, for oneself, that can be of great value. One needs to “know when to hold em, and know when to fold em”. Otherwise what one has gained will also turn into decomposing dreck.
To 200 Shiek: OK, I will not hide behind you, maybe I was not clear on your role regarding this blog. But on some level since you are the moderator and support the vulagarity rather trying to curb it then I don’t see how I can share my experiences in the FOF.
In my opinion, I don’t think people are really lying on this blog, they might be wrong, but they are telling things as they see it. Yes, there may be a few lies, but it seems to be the habit of Bruce and others when somone wants to talk about their positive experiene in the FOF he jumps all over them with vulgarity. That is not spotting Bull Shit.
For instance, I read all these negative stories from former students and I believe they have twisted the facts and the deamonor to suit there purpose; Former members would say the same thing about member stories maybe too; but I don’t think they are lying, they are just being subjective. So if we want to refute someone why not be courteous rather acting like teenager with a bad mouth.
So Sheik, and others keep enlightening yourself with your one sided debates.
Has anybody ever have a second thought while writing something? For instance something is written down and in reflection a second thought occurs as as in, “I wonder where that thought came from”?
In my post 199 I had no forethoughts. Except to post a reminder to whomever it may concern.
In post 200 by the Shiek he reminds us that post 80 and 81 are newly moderated. I go back after I finish reading the rests of the posts, and what do I find? Two words used in my post. Half-baked and quasi.
I will admit that my intelligence is about 1/4 of everybody elses. So, what is going on? Is it possible that I am picking up thoughts off this blog. Half-baked and quasi are not usually my kind of words.
FB wrote: “So Sheik, and others keep enlightening yourself with your one sided debates.”
Well, if you have some strong arguments supporting the notion that Robert Burton has never had sex with his followers on a regular basis, that he has never lied to them, that he has never misused the money donated to the Fellowship for his own selfish needs and for his own pleasure, and that he is actually a man of integrity, and that followers have never been hurt by this man — by all means, let’s hear those arguments. If you know some others who would like to join you, invite them. Try to balance this “one sided debate.”
But keep in mind that it’s already been a “one-sided debate” for the past 37 years. Now there’s an open discussion on the the topic. It’s open to anyone, FB, even you.
212 & 187 Fat Boy
I jump on a post when it’s clearly bull shit, or just the playing of FOF “tapes”. You’ll notice I didn’t comment on your post 187 because, in light of all your previous posts, this one contained more of “you” and a bit more honesty about your thoughts and feelings, and they’re “yours”- I have no problem with that. I have no problem with any posts from members when it’s honest, deep civil discourse without the flowery airy fairy crap. That’s probably what you wish also. But when the party line is put forth with no discrimination, from a place that is not one’s own, and just mimics what a “good student” should say, I’m going to call it good and hard.
212 Fat Boy
“For instance, I read all these negative stories from former students and I believe they have twisted the facts and the deamonor to suit there purpose;”
Here you are deluding yourself, and I’ll jump on it. I was actually there during the enactment of many of these early “stories”. It also happened to me personally. You can believe it or not, but I’m telling you, they are not only true but accurate representations of what occurred.
You might want to consider the possibility that you have a need to negate or buffer this in order to validate your own faith. That’s fine, but maybe you’re kidding yourself. To refuse this possibility does a great disservice to yourself, and your friends.
Back before RB was forced to “come out” of his idea of “celibacy” he was surreptitiously “doing” only one boy at a time. Even though many of us lived together in the boy cottage, many of us were walking around in a daze asking ourselves “why was it happening to just me”. We were so shell shocked that none of us could assume it was happening to others. No one would speak of it. Finally it became pretty obvious what was happening, that RB was living a lie. Yet RB still clung to the big lie until lawsuits etc. forced a change.
You might be alright with it happening to you. More power to you. But that was your choice. As I mentioned on previous pages, for myself, I divide the “boys” into two groups (not a judgment, just an observation). The idiots and the whores. I was an idiot…enthralled and vain about my access to RB, feeling special etc. The whores (many of whom I loved as friends, though it was hard) more concerned with the gifts, travel, food, cloths etc. who entered the relationships knowing what was coming, but balancing the discomfort against the “toys” one would receive. Everyone, to some extent, does this at different times in their lives. That’s life on earth. At the same time, the spiritual criminality of what was being done exists as it’s own entity. This is what many here have revealed with their stories.
Trust me, very few who have opened their wounds here are adding embellishments to their pain. Yes, it’s through their eyes, but it’s fairly easy to filter the stories and see what the main point is in these revelations.
213. Arthur.
Ok now I will have to come clean! I have one of your old socks which I have used as a physical anchor to remote channel the blog into your subconscious. I promise to stop but cant speak for the owner of the other sock . lty Cy.
213
I have the other sock.
Arthur, #213, wrote:
“I will admit that my intelligence is about 1/4 of everybody elses.”
Don’t be down on yourself Arthur — you sound plenty smart to me. In fact, you’re one of my favorite people on the blog. If I lived in CA, I’d like to hang out in your driveway.
Dear Arthur and others
When I first joined the Fellowship of Friends I was told that it was in direct lineage from Peter Ouspensky.
I find out years later that it was NOT in direct lineage. That its inception was founded on deception. That it continued producing half-baked, half-lies until it has descended into a quasi-religion based not only on half-baked, half-lies but pure and simple delusion.
“This is exactly what makes me so angry, upset, betrayed. There was no lineage and all was based on lies.”
Speaking again without permission from Vera-Mente we wants our money back. Not based on time contributed nor money donated but based on half-baked, half-lies, deception and delusion.
What is the Fellowhip of Friends authorities willing to offer Vera-Mente and me. To go away
“What can we do…? Hope others do not get into this trap”.
Hope that center direors now in all parts of the world will be more honest?
“Love to all of you and have acceptance of your own situation forgive yourself”.
Good morning (or afternoon) ‘Bass Ackwards’ ~ (185)
You wrote ~
“Look honestly at the alternatives, if you begin to feel disillusioned with the Teacher.
Leave – as most do.
Stay – and find a way to participate that does not go too strongly against your Conscience (this can go on for years).
Stay – with the purpose to awaken your Self and your Friends from imagination (this cannot be sustained indefinitely?).
Stay – with the clear understanding that the information in the Blog is biased negativity from the Lower Self (whew, I almost cringe to write the words, knowing exactly who HC really is, what he thinks and feels and calls Evolution).”
___________________________________________
I truly cannot conceive how it is that one (or you) can “look honestly”, “feel disillusioned”, then possess in your heart a compromise that would play itself out as an “alternative” way to stay in that environment which created such a hypocrisy agenda within you in the first place (?)
Please educate me, one or all, as to how it is that you live within such a diametrically opposed environment as to that which you initially sought in your prospective student meetings (and within your ‘private’ selves) or is it that you’re hearkening backwards to a time of ‘kinda so so’ magnetic center days, where the struggle to be you ‘is’ you?
BTW, who writing on this blog is still working on The Path, so to speak, whatever that ‘path’ means to you?
“That does not go too strongly against your conscience…”
Really, Bass, even as an example of ‘real choice’ within the subject field of conscience, is this possible?
Is there a level of conscience that is debatable, compromise-able and for what price, perhaps imagined ignorance, when your heart, in the now, truly is the only genius you’ll ever get to know (?)
Is this ‘compromise’ not simply a reflection of what ’students’ are doing internally (and not doing); how not start with your daily day? And leave the Fellowship of Friends out of it, eventually this will be everyone’s story BTW.
Is a ’school’ really supposed to be the ‘center of attention’ when the shit hits the fan and you, or YOU? To me, it’s a buffer to defer the ‘pressure’ and ‘inner turmoil’ to the fault of the ’school’ or even Robert Burton; these feelings are your buttons having been pushed or revealed as having been stuck to ‘ON’ for a long time…
Leaving the school will not ease these feelings, nor staying in the school; albeit it does seem it’s your ‘teachers’ (way) to self calm these inner forces and defer them into the future, yet, these ‘negative forces’ are your astral lot, it is the alchemist’s lead… you know the rest.
You wrote ~
“Stay with the purpose to awaken your Self and your Friends from imagination (this cannot be sustained indefinitely?).
Ah, is this not “imagination”?
Is not ‘real purpose’ what you know/sense you can (within the realm of your conscious probabilities) do now, now, now?
Yes, ’sir Lancelot syndrome’ can last till one’s dying last breath; so, yes, it can be “sustained indefinitely”, so long as there are those who would rather teach others how to help them than themselves.
You also wrote ~
“Perhaps accepting that it can’t, not now, and not ever, so long as the Grand Polluter is holding the reins, is the beginning of the end.”
_________________
To me, first and foremost, this is an observation and question for your inner world, your work, without external affirmations to relate or invest such questions in; eventually all affirmations have to be recalled, brought back in and dissolved, turned towards ‘doing’, ‘being’ consciously effective, not consciously effected (or infected);
the stars we wish upon are the ones that also fall…
Our friendships will never ‘die’, yet their form and subjective contexts will; so get used to it or at least try and get a feel for it’s inevitable arrival and transportation of all of us into the unknown;
yet this does not have to happen by ‘default’, by the happenstance of the physical death, we can start anytime we ‘wish’ and ‘do’, by being consciously sincere, no matter how silly it sounds.
I have met many who have left The Fellowship of Friends; to me, their work is still ‘their’s’; the question, regardless of whether you’re in an affirmative-third force school, a denying-third force school or alone with certain conscious experiences and verifications, i.e., one’s own path and relationship to C-Influence, is always there, “I am that I am?”
The work is the work, it changes, it deepens, we grow, we love, make what we sense are efforts and the ’shocks’ never stop so long as you don’t;
All conscious work attracts ‘attention’, it’s a law and Robert Burton does not hold the keys to that Law of Attraction; I can go anywhere in the world and find ’swans’, Oregon House is not the only ‘pond’…
Can the ’school’ be internalized; what lifestyle does being a conscious individual imply to YOU?
Eventually, as all ’schools’ imply by their name, nature, and level of the teacher’s being, you graduate and move on as a different being;
you have the degree on your wall (or sleeve?), yet, somewhere having it hanging up there has begun to be more of a conversation piece than application, this is relative awakening, though that’s where all of us need or needed to be, not by one’s choosing, but by the processes placing of one’s self ‘right there’,
personally, I do not think C-Influence changes our diapers indefinitely nor holds our hand in every ‘play’, jerking us here and there regardless of our level of being; eventually one looses ‘them’ in a certain way, to gain them again anew; to be received, not conceived.
What Robert Burton preaches concerning the nature of C-Influence’s ‘brand’ of external consideration is not his own; he sells products that he himself does not use, how’s that for ‘conscious’ being?
___________________________
Love to you all.
Hello ‘Fat Boy’ ~ (and Bruce)
You guys can use an anonymous email gotten from Yahoo or Earthlink to communicate with each other;
I hope ‘Fat Boy’, that your previous post does not stay your first choice of ‘reconciliation’; to ascribe, prescribe and chastise Bruce and all of us ‘one sided’ ones…
If you ‘do’, this would be a ‘perfect’ example of Fellowship of Friends ‘doing’, relative awakening communication, i.e., habitually choosing to stay in the struggle rather than meeting face to face, have a chat, (have) eye contact, verify that you are human beings and deeply far more connected than by ‘personal’ feelings and fellowship history…
Though, like being in Robert Burton’s school of voodoo poo poo, you’ll most likely back out of Bruce’s invitation, yet, to me, it’s an invitation too from your real inner world circumstance trying to trigger some real reconciling due to your most expert ability to wiseacre about facts coming from the dark side of the moon, when you’re actually only showing a tan that would place you closer to the earth’s equator.
Get a grip… Bruce is inviting you to be YOU, how many ‘friends’ in the Fellowship of Friends have done that in the midst of a storm? Or maybe it’s a bit too much for your crystallized idea of ex-students, to think of it! That it could be possible, that of all stereotypes in your book, that Bruce could actually be able to consciously ‘DO’…. Wow!?
That’s just too much for your true personality addiction (or is it?)
____________________
l.t.y.a.
185 Bass Ackwards: “Look honestly at the alternatives, if you begin to feel disillusioned with the Teacher. Leave – as most do. Stay – and find a way to participate that does not go too strongly against your Conscience (this can go on for years). Stay – with the purpose to awaken your Self and your Friends from imagination (this cannot be sustained indefinitely?). Stay – with the clear understanding that the information in the Blog is biased negativity from the Lower Self.”
Any of the worthwhile activities you mention in your post can be achieved much more effectively outside the FoF. I would suggest that for most students at this time, including you, the real reason for staying is fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of losing friends, fear of being more asleep. These fears are totally groundless. Real friendships are strengthened by leaving. Spirituality blossoms more freely away from the corruption of the FoF. Pretty much everything is better!
187 Fat Boy: “Most of the time I am not proud of myself or what I do; for living on this miserable earth “sucks” to put it in your language. And believe it or not the FOF on the whole makes it a better place for me.”
Another reason to stay in the FoF: imaginary perception of being unable to cope with the outside world, again based on fear.
216 Bruce: Thanks, great post.
Rhino Neal 223.
Exactly !
To Bruce #216:
Beautiful post. Thanks.
Bruce 216: “Even though many of us lived together in the boy cottage, many of us were walking around in a daze asking ourselves “why was it happening to just me”. We were so shell shocked that none of us could assume it was happening to others. No one would speak of it. ”
Like you, after I figured it out I thought I was an idiot. Even today it is surprising to hear that I was not the only 20-something who could not see the truth about how many of us there were. And even someone as perceptive as you (we used to call it “well-developed negative halves”) thought you were the only one. It just keep getting better…
Respect.
I think Elena is right about the ‘sincere beginning’, but even that was tinged through and through with lies.
His first conversations with Bonita, by her testimony, were composed of many lectures and some observations Robert Burton had gleaned from his studies. But even here, with her, were always the implicit lies. The first was that he had more being than she just because he ‘knew’ more 4th Way theory, and could convincingly regurgitate it. The second was that his method of teaching, a one–way authoritarian transmission from the ‘more knowledgeable’ to the ‘less knowledgeable’ was valid; in other words, that Bonita had nothing to teach him. His “teaching being” was exactly what he in turn had been taught, both by Horn, and by the educational system we have in our society; it was unmodified by actual experience. This means he was incapable of learning from his elementary school students, and he extrapolated that to all susbsequent teacher/student relationships. Why do I make this claim? Because I am married to a great (retired) teacher, and have met other great teachers. I have experienced a few great teachers, and talked to others who have had the same privilege. In every case, without exception, one of the great “Ah–ha’s” for a real teacher has been that the student has as much to teach the teacher as the teacher has to teach the student, that one of the major rewards of a teacher is the gifts the student brings.
Being stuck for thirty–eight years in the authoritarian mode of teaching shows Burton’s lack of progress, and thus also his state of consciousness relative to the rest of us. Not understanding what his lie to Bonita meant to his new ‘school’ is another sign of his lack of being and state of consciousness. Maintaining the First Lies for so many years, not going back over his life (in the Ouspenskian sense) to ‘repair the damage’ (tell the unvarnished truth, apologize, explain without self–justification, heal), clinging to his lie and building on it (squashing rumors, attacking whistleblowers as liars in public, pronouncing his ‘celibacy’ anew), all this clearly shows his being, and that is very very low, lower than any ‘student’.
Worse, and this is important, living these lies dishonored the efforts of his students, made a mockery of their truths. Then on, ever downwards, the web of deceit was woven thread by thread. Countless times, Burton told the lie of celibacy in the morning and that same evening raped one of his students (fucked them against their will), used blackmail and further lies to complete the deed, used the Work language to serve his own base purposes. Used their shame as a weapon to ensure their silence. Bruce has told it, how isolated each of the ‘boys’ in the Blake Cottage were, each thinking they were the only one. This poison contaminated every aspect of the Fellowship. What do the grandiose dreams of good declared by Burton mean in the face of this? In the balance, far less than nothing, a negative amount. The horror outweighs any possibility of good. There was good, of course, but it was not intended by Burton, it was accidental, from his point of view, it was out of his hands, because it resulted from the efforts and labors of ‘his’ students. But, the price had to be paid. Just because the price was unknown to most at first, or known later, does not negate the price and its payment. The good, the common weal, was contaminated. That conforms to law.
Fat Boy and the others like him and in the same position as him do not understand the implication of the “First Lies”, how they permeated and fractured the foundation of the visible and invisible parts of the organization, and how they pollute the well to this day. They do not understand the difference between Burton ‘coming out’ voluntarily and admitting his own lies, and having the knowledge coming out to confront him unilaterally. That is, they do not understand triads, like their master. Burton has no real knowledge about the law of three or the law of seven, few of his follower do. He not only lacks the intellectual capacity, but even any curiosity. Oh, some followers can spout a pretty angle, maybe an entire ‘block of knowledge’ from one of the workbooks, blithely refer to Rodney Collins’ ideas of ‘crime’ if it suits them, but very few have applied that knowledge to their own lives and made it their own. If they had, they would be blogging from the ‘outside’ right now, they would know how the First Lies were not only screwing up Burton’s possibilities, but were contaminating their own work and possibilities, right up to the present moment.
The energy of these First Lies and their spawn (the continuing cover–ups and justifications about Burton’s ever enlarging weaknesses—the twisted sexuality, greed, and dominance) continue to reverberate. Vibrations such as these do not diminish (in or out of Time),in fact they increase until the resonance cracks the form. Burton doesn’t understand it himself, hence the futile excuses/buffers such as being a “goddess in a man’s body” and such, and now the final retreat into religion. Again, this retreat shows he is not ‘conscious’ in the 4th way or any other sense, it is mere desperate ‘circling the wagons’.
Those who go on about how his constant reminders to be present proves his ‘higher being’ delude themselves. He is good at that, sure, he has a team of researchers finding suitable quotes to selectively (very selectively!) back up his fantastic stories, but the fact is, all the efforts of his followers are their’s alone. He may indeed provide reminders (after all, his living and lifestyle utterly depend on repeating the ‘magic formula’), but the saddest point in this sad tale is that the followers then dedicate the fruit of their own efforts to him. That is the final proof that he is no true teacher, that he is unconscious, that he does not understand the laws; because gifts so obtained mustturn to ashes, and not only leave him unsatisfied, but beset by longings that can never be assuaged. He can only grasp for more and more and more in the material world, and anyone with open eyes can see that happening right before them. He can mouth the esoteric words, an excellently trained parrot, encouraged by the ‘inner circle’ of sycophantic followers, but he cannot ‘be the words’. He cannot make himself as a simple child and enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
Fiat Lux!
141 dick moron, speaks of having a few more true stories, and someone suggested that perhaps we have had enough stories, or perhaps it was that there isn’t much more that’s new to tell (paraphrased, can’t find the post).
I doubt that the average new reader will go through 7,000-8,000 posts looking for the stories that some of us have already read. New stories will be read by new people, and the re-posting of some of the old stories will let them be read by new people.
Keep the stories coming!
Bass Ackwards #185: “Many thanks to Joseph G for his fine affirmative post. The beginning of it at least. The end of it, I honestly found hard to take, but then I would, still being a member of the organization.”
It’s true. I started writing that post with an aim to be “affirmative,” or at least moderate, but it sort of took its own course. The soul-suck experience may be much more acute when you live at or around Isis, vs. living in other centers (especially smaller ones). For me the last two years before leaving were extremely oppressive, and the weird thing is I was blaming myself for about 80% of this negative feeling, then blaming myself for not blaming myself for the other 20%. And if my soul was being sucked, who other than RB could have been the biggest soul-sucker, and how many others was he sucking – is he still sucking – all thinking (like me and Bruce?) that they were “the only one”?
A current-member friend visited us recently and we had a laugh speculating on who would be “The Final 12″ – kind of like RB’s Last Supper of his most extreme die-hard devotees. (BTW, no Bass, you did not make the list.)
We were also talking about money: the “been down so long it looks like up to me” psychosis that causes so many people at Isis to rationalize (read: buffer) what are intrinsically squalid living conditions by judging others around them. This judgement can take many forms but the most common are (a) judgement that someone living in better conditions is a slave to A Influence, or (b) judgement that someone living in slightly worse conditions is a putz and “thank god I don’t have a tramp feature like him.” Meanwhile what we fail to see is how stuck we are/were, and that this state of entrapment is (clinically) what it means to be in a cult.
The FOF did not used to be this way, or at least this bad. There would be the “exhale” periods when centers were being opened in other parts of the country / world. These changes forced some to go beyond their comfortable squalor, though there are those today who literally would not be able to survive in “life” if they had to leave Isis tomorrow. Fear is a major motivator, but let’s not forget comfort, which when combined with tramp and vanity can make the lowest of low living standards seem like a genuine “gold alchemy” experience. And then there is always “the property,” that magical place full of palm trees and gilded staues and banners and fountains. The place that is one’s true home. Home of the king of hearts. Paradise found; until it becomes paradise lost.
Since leaving, my problem is I can see the forest now and not just the trees. Oh, actually it wasn’t a real forest; it was a swampy jungle. And under every lily-pad-memory it now turns out there was an awful lot of slime. Thus the soul-suck ending to my earlier post.
Nothing personal, as you well know Bass. Just trying to arrive at the truth.
With love to you, and to all my friends both in and out,
Joseph G (1976 – 2007)
Hello Arthur,
we probably have similar feelings on some of the issues with the fof…
If I could find the courage to tell my story here you would probably understand even more about me and our common perceptions.
Please forgive my lack of openness, I do not trust this blog completely, I do not want to give too many clues to some of the readers here who are not my friends after all…
I’ll come out little by little (and I am not lunar! :), in the meantime I enjoy you and many others here who seem to have a real sincere heart.
196 Fat Boy
“It really is the vulgar that makes it a denying force to listen to someone and who wants to understand them. Take your quote, “its fucking idiots that repeat Roberts bullshit and have forgotten or never felt what it means to manifest from ones own being that are the real denying force to an intelligent dialogue.””
There is an online group called the Greater Fellowship which is open to all currant and former members many of the same topics spoken of here are also covered there in a very clear open dialogue. It does require identifying yourself to join.
If you or any currant member are such a moral coward. That you can only lurk and post anonymously on the blog you have not earned any respect.
Consider this. Who is your friend the con man who tells you what you want and takes your money or someone who tells you the truth you don’t want to hear.
Go ahead dress up, play make believe higher consciousness, with imaginary friends ,,in an imaginary school and be offended at someone who says wake up.
Currant students are addicted to bullshit. It may be a very well packaged high alchemy covered with French perfume. It may have a beautiful frame, be presented in a Nordstrums box, even be gilded by the spirit of Stanly Robinson it remains a piece of shit.
The truth however need no special package. It comes down to you. If you cannot see truth a better package is not the answer.
Maybe your not ready to hear certain things yet. Should I not say it because it may take you a year or two years to hear it?
Try to actually think of the effort it requires to be vulgar and rude, Huh? You think I don’t inner consider, become identified with my imagination of what others think, want to present a nicely polished false personality to others?
In other words do you think I am any different than you?
No, it is another step in evolution that I am trying to do what is good for you instead of me. Obviously you lack exposure to such behavior. It is my opinion that there are a spectrum of resources available. There are former members, many you may know, in and around the Oregon House area who have offered support to those leaving. Not ready for practical help, sitting on the fence?
My opinion is that what you need is a good kick in the ass.
The idea of right action means doing what is necessary to achieve a desired end. You cannot talk a nail into going into a board, you cannot wait and let it grow into the board, you cannot pour water on it or pray to it you have to hit is soundly with a heavy object.
You wrote
“You see that went right past me and probably for many others on this blog, which I believe 90% are cordial. You could have said, “its the ‘FOF members’ that repeat Roberts ‘teaching’ and have forgotten or never felt what it means to manifest from ones own being that are the real denying force to an intelligent dialogue.” Then I would have heard that and maybe thought about it.”
This is stupid, obviously it did penetrate. What you call cordiality I call phony Fellowship of Friends bullshit. If you are a currant member consider when interacting with these noble beings how they will react if you ask honest questions. Just do it.
Don’t take my opinion. try an experiment. Be honest try to be brave enough to be honest. That all.
I been hangin’ on threads,
I been playin’ it straight,
Now, I’ve just got to cut loose
Before it gets late.
So I’m going,
I’m going,
I’m gone.
Guys, I can’t believe the Letter posted in #81! Was this mailed to ALL Oregon House residents??? OMG.
Whoever did this – brave soul, and thank you.
Enough lies already! Enough bullshit, enough fear.
I am sure people will act on this, especially if one can stay anonymous and just submit a report. Let investigators investigate and find out.
In reply to Ames Gilbert especially in entry 227 I have to paraphrase a Gurdjieff statement that “On entering that room (did he mean the room of higher self) it may be completely empty” Maybe Burton is a ‘nothingness’ pretending to be something (by gilt [gold leaf/facade over plaster] of France, oh guilt indeed – Henry V). Collin talked about the kernel and the shell – a series of shocks, not nice experiences – are needed to make the separation and can we not perceive Burton as a rotten core. Essence needs to be a robust, compassionate, empathetic (your hurt transformed by my heart) and inerasable in the Universal Plan of things.
Why do I openly tell the truth? Because I see a lawsuit looming and in reading a suspects rights in Britain they are encouraged thus – “It may harm your evidence if you do not mention something you later rely on in court”.
Yours truly……RAM (Random Access Memory) of God.
I have a very small story.
Did anyone who was around during the Age of the Cameo learn that their cameo appraised at exactly 1/3 the price they paid for it?
I decided to sell mine after I left. After I had it appraised by a reputable jeweler, I spoke with others who had the same experience, and the numbers were the same — the appraised retail value was 1/3 what was paid (to the FoF) for it.
I clearly remember being approached about buying it. “Robert would like to know if you feel ready to have a cameo.”
Gosh, golly, I sure didn’t want to say that I’m not ready for something the teacher thinks I should have.
I had the first one for about a week, then the same inner circle person approached me and said that Robert felt a different one would be more appropriate for me. The second one was nearly twice the cost of the first one.
I don’t remember the exact details about this next part, but there was some convoluted transaction with the exchange. I didn’t just exchange the cameos and pay more money. I think I gave the first one back, paid the entire amount for the second cameo, then received the cost of the first cameo directly from the student it was sold to next.
A receipt was included with the second one that appeared to be from a jeweler in Europe. The receipt said that it was made in the 1700s in England. When I had it appraised they told me it was made in Italy (showed me a mark that indicated this), probably in the 1920’s.
#229 Joseph G.
Joseph,
The forest looks a lot different when you have finally emerged from the shadows into a sunlit meadow. Sounds to me you are well into the clearing, friend.
All the best to you and your family.
I read the letter and was pleased to see that some of my comments where included. In a discussion with an attorney at the Federal attorney’s office for northern California yesterday they suggested going to either the FBI or the Dept of Homeland security.
FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
Sacramento Field Office
SACRAMENTO HEADQUARTERS
4500 Orange Grove
Sacramento, CA 95841
Phone: (916) 481-9110
Fax: (916) 977-2300
Special Agent in Charge Drew S. Parenti
Assistant Special Agent in Charge Mark F. Johnson
Assistant Special Agent in Charge David A. Picard
Chico office that covers Yuba county
95 Declaration #5
Chico, CA 95927-1183
Phone: (530) 893-0655
Fax: (530) 893-1359
The attorney also told me that the willingness of former members in filing complaints and filing affidavits will have a significant impact of how seriously the FBI takes a request for investigation.
Hello Janna ~
OMG?
Yeah home girl, tha sheet has hit tha street!
Every resident of Oregon House now has a piece of Robert Burton’s classic wax apple pie circa 1705 (able to last several life times) sitting on their lap, so to speak.
;.]
omg?
arthur,uno, something happening?
#235 Was Kathleen W.
Ah, the cameo era. RB, the patron saint of shopping. Why not a cameo for every lady? Such a thrill to shop for someone else, with their money. This happened so much. Any student who happened to have a little money they were not using, and let RB know about it, can probably contribute a little story about how they were assisted in gradually blowing it on on pricey fashion accessories, fine leatherbound books encrusted with semi-precious stones, ostrich skin Hermes bags, shoes, belts, whips etc.. And, RB would select everything for them. I will never forget observing him slowly coerce a very adult professionally successful student into buying an expensive briefcase that the student did not like or want. Guess who won?
Does anyone remember the details of the time (during the cameo/tuxedo set era) that a member of the entourage neglected to declare some expensive jewelry purchased in Europe and RB and party were submitted to all kinds of searches by U.S. Customs. You can imagine the places they would look for hidden jewelry.
240
Don’t forget the briefcase “covers” so only you could see the expensive attacher, and of course the fabled “briefcase cover” covers.
I think I left before the briefcase cover cover covers.
240
And the era of the “boy purses”. You and I had one Dick.
That should have been:
You and I had one, Dick.
whoops
241, 242
The briefcase covers provided a nice little cottage industry for Ramona.
Sorry, Bruce, I didn’t carry a man purse like you. I had a real cool black Mark Cross attaché case! Must have been Colin.
245
I sometimes still use the case–without the cover, which I tossed when I left FOF. The leather did get scuffed and is not perfect, but at least I can see it now.
To The Letter in Question (#16-81), thank you for posting the ‘Rick Ross’ letter.
Would you or anyone else who has an actual copy of this letter please tell the rest of us exactly what it says (printed or written) on the address label? And, if it was mailed at Bulk Rate?
• If the (printed) address label shows a personal name, that tells us that it may have been taken from a commercial list, that is probably the renter of the list was interested in getting to specific ‘customers’ more precisely targeted than “all mailboxes in a certain zip code”.
• If it says, “Postal Patron”, “Box holder”, “Addressee”, or such, it probably means it was sent to all mailing addresses in a Postal District (an entire zip code or just a part of it, based on the +4 part of a zip+4 code), that is, a list originally generated by U.S.P.S.
• If it was a bulk mailing, this tells us that there were enough pieces posted to qualify for a lower rate, at least several hundred. And, it tells us who the bulk mailer is, because they will have a permit number and originating zip code somewhere in the upper right corner (for example: Permit #65, Marysville 95901). If not, there will be a stamp and a frank mark that shows the time, day and originating zip code.
Of course, there may even be a ‘return address’, and we can make enquiries…
So, if it came in an envelope, get it out of the trash, please. If it was a self-mailer (folded sheet with address information on the front) look it over. And if it was hand–addressed, tell us that as well. Either way, save it all. There may be other questions…
Thanks very much!
Ames Gilbert
245
Sweet Ramona deserved to have that business. I encouraged the 15 or 20 RB’s “secretaries” to have the special “cover covers” made. Never got kickback from Ramona though.
247/Ames
Dear Ames
The letter in question was sent in an envelope with a first class stamp, postmarked Sacramento.
A label on the envelope was addressed to “Current Box-Holder”; the PO box number was filled in by hand. No return address.
best
l
#203 Cyclops
You have already joined. You have interacted several times with him already.
250. Yesri baba.
Hmm?
NikSpaldig aka: “Little Eichmann”
No I won’t ignore your post. Like I won’t ignore other petty tyrants.
You are in no position to consul or give advice. You are a brainwashed member of a cult. You are living in a fantasy.
A story. (It could be good for the INS – let them figure it out)
I learned that Asaf who is Robert’s successor is actually married. No he doesn’t live with his wife and never did. The marriage is on paper only. (which kinda means illegal and against the law in this country.) His listed wife is E—ta and he was married to her for quite some time.
I guess Asaf needs a green card ASAP – otherwise how is he going to be our next teacher?
#212 Fat Boy
Don’t you get it?
You are crying vulgar over a few colorful words!
The vulgarity is the manipulation of peoples deepest yearnings. Taking their money for false knowledge. Their use as free labor and sexual abuse. That is vulgar asshole.
Re: 247
Hi Ames,
In addition, the letter was postmarked, 20 July 2007 PM 1
Sacramento CA 957
No return address. Liberty Bell 1st class stamp. Plain white #10 envelope.
Yesri baba (around) 252
NikSpaldig aka: “Little Eichmann”
*************
Though a loyal member of the FoF he certainly is, apparently, nevertheless he is a nice guy and doesn’t deserve to be painted as a Nazi (which is what I’m guessing you mean by “Little Eichmann”).
I don’t know the extent that current members feel threatened by certain FoF long-timers, but Nick Spalding and Linda Kaplan in my memory were some of the least brainwashed-plastic-personality people I’d met in the FoF. I don’t know what they are up to now, but let’s not demonize just for the sake of upping the ante on the “us and them” mentality. Yes, I know I’m guilt too.
So, Uno, (#16-238) it doesn’t look like the ‘Rick Ross’ letter went to ‘every resident of Oregon House’, unfortunately. See my questions to The Letter in Question, above, and his/her swift response (#16-249). My (admittedly undeveloped, or at least unverified) powers of detection tell me that the mailing was only to a few. But, maybe now we have the text (and thanks, Fat Boy, for alerting us to this in the first place!), we could either send it out verbatim, or have you revise it in your editorial persona, not your poetic one (the audience is variable and general, after all). You seem to have a pretty good grasp of current events and ongoing connections with present, as well as past members. I am quite sure you are capable of raising all 800 hairs on both eyebrows of every recipient a couple of inches by adding verifiable, up-to-date, and actionable information. Think of: parrying and exploring with the left, seeking out weaknesses, then the old one–two punch; the shocking blow above the heart followed by the uppercut, delivered across just six inches with the full power of the body.
You could post a draft copy, invite anyone interested to add personal angles and ‘gotchas’ that will resonate with this aforesaid general audience, and then hold a fundraiser to cover the costs of a blanket mailing both here and on the Greater Fellowship website. And any lawyers reading, both ‘here’ and ‘there’, could chime in regarding both effectiveness and any legal traps… For example, would this become a ‘conspiracy’ if there is no secrecy? We’d certainly invite current members for any contributions!
Whaddya think? Right now, I can think of some ‘downside’; the hunkering down of the followers, the unleashing of Abraham, and so on. Is this the right action at the right time?
It is fine to reply ‘poetically’ to this question, in fact I look forward to it. But any letter itself… —you understand!
Warm regards,
Ames
Oh lord, Purchase Awakening,
I thought Asaf was engaged to a very nice, very young daughter of followers, right at this moment. If what you say is correct, then there must be some very interesting conversations going on between the two affianced, the parents, the present wife, and Burton. I’m sure the phrase “C–Influence wants…” is being overworked as well. Adding the INS investigators and the INS judge to those conversations would certainly liven them up!
Excuse me while my mind boggles anew…
Bruce ~
You wrote ~
“And the era of the “boy purses”. You and I had one Dick.”
LOL… Fast catch Bruce… good thing you caught it; I was diving for that base line hit!
Hee hee…
:.)
247
What’s with the bloodhound thing Ames?
227 Ames Gilbert
Ames post is clear and articulate. I doubt I could write as well if I really tried hard but I don’t need to Ames is there to do it.
It is still just one note of an ongoing process. The Fellowship teaches that freedom is dangerous, that independent thought is something to be feared, that acting like everyone else is good, that not having individuality, consciousness, conscience and will is good. What does a real teacher say?
Dr. Walpola Rahula writes in his book “What the Buddha Taught” (pp. 2-3), extrapolating from the Kalama Sutra how far the Buddha went: “He told the bhikkhus that a disciple should examine even the Tathagata (Buddha) himself, so that he (the disciple) might be fully convinced of the true value of the teacher whom he followed.”
Try and imagine meetings in which Robert Burton answered all questions honestly. Compare this to reality ask yourself if you are a Fellowship member if this is acceptable.
The Kalamas Sutra #9 from “What the Buddha Taught”
“Therefore, did we say, Kalamas, what was said thus, ‘Come
Kalamas. Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing;
nor upon tradition; nor upon rumor; nor upon what is in a scripture;
nor upon surmise; nor upon an axiom; nor upon specious reasoning;
nor upon a bias towards a notion that has been pondered over; nor
upon another’s seeming ability; nor upon the consideration, “The
monk is our teacher.” Kalamas, when you yourselves know: “These
things are bad; these things are blamable; these things are censured
by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to harm and
ill,” abandon them.
Just a by the way “What the Buddha Taught” by DR. WALPOLA RAHULA
is probably the single most accessible book on the Buddha’s teaching.
It available for free online at
http://www.angelfire.com/realm/bodhisattva/rahula.html#N1
Ames 257 – it sounds to me as though the sender printed out a bunch of letters and envelopes with all the address printed except the box number. Then went to the OH PO, looked at the numbers there, and hand-wrote them in. So, the letter may have indeed gone to all the OH PO box holders.
I collected the “stories” from only recent postings. I just wanted to see more facts together without much “water”
‘La Cucina’ the restaurant on the property that was burned down a couple of years ago. First, put aside the fact that it was originally paid for by FOF ( our doations ). The insurance money from the fire.Where is it? It was spent on gods knows what.
So, you will have been aware of the ‘auctions’ held over the past couple of years specifically to raise funds so that ‘We’ can rebuild our beautiful La Cucina. ….well over $100.000 was raised.Then it kind of ‘went quiet’ So, where is that money ? and where is the new restaurant ? ‘We’ have now paid three times over for a restaurant that does not exist.
Care to comment ?
Another true story: once at our house a “boy” got slightly drunk and carried away bragging to other students about his teacher’s many gifts to him. He was showing us his ring, tie, pants, shirt – and exclaiming: This is 1800 bucks, this is 900 bucks, this is 2400 bucks… He was going on and on. It was truly pathetic.
We heard enough and went away and my boyfriend said to me: This jerk over there is wearing 10 of my teaching payments!
When do the wives realize that their hubbies didn’t just have a few isolated experiences of sex with RB, but still do it every time they go to a wine cellar dinner? When does the young newlywed realize how at-risk she is of a nasty sexual disease from that gorgeous RB-boy import she snagged? When do we stop being mad and just become sad, because it is all too sad and pathetic and soul-sucking? Maybe that’s the whole question: RB sucked a lot of cocks, but what about the souls, your souls, that he continues to suck and suck…and suck?
When I first joined the Fellowship of Friends I was told that it was in direct lineage from Peter Ouspensky. I find out years later that it was NOT in direct lineage.
I have personally carried funds from outlaying centres in the form of teaching payments in cash to I’s I’s. Unregistered tax free cash flow.
I have personally experienced the dismay of newly wed young and not so young wives who asked me if their husbands were having sex with Butman as their husbands were lying to them and even then couldnt bring myself to feed the lie to my female friends just to make them temporarily feel better.
From the ‘fact’ of multiple lifetimes, to the ‘fact’ that people who leave the Fellowship of conditional “Friends” are ‘food for the moon’, to the ‘fact’ that Burton is at a ‘higher level’ than anyone else on the planet, to the ‘fact’ that Beloved Teacher is the necessary intermediary between a student and higher forces, only able to ‘progress’ through Burton’s intervention, to the ‘fact’ that Burton is a goddess trapped in a man’s body (!), to the ‘fact’ that the Sequence represents the highest product of ‘higher schools’ stretching back to prehistoric times
Every single student had a sincere beginning but the machinery carried it away and we all dwelt in it for too long but hopefully not for ever.
I am convinced it had a sincere beginning that turned bitter, mostly because Robert´s own good will was not enough to deal with the immense power he was given so quickly.
Back before RB was forced to “come out” of his idea of “celibacy” he was surreptitiously “doing” only one boy at a time. Even though many of us lived together in the boy cottage, many of us were walking around in a daze asking ourselves “why was it happening to just me”. We were so shell shocked that none of us could assume it was happening to others. No one would speak of it. Finally it became pretty obvious what was happening, that RB was living a lie. Yet RB still clung to the big lie until lawsuits etc. forced a change.
…we want our money back. Not based on time contributed nor money donated but based on half-baked, half-lies, deception and delusion.
Hope others do not get into this trap. Hope that center directors now in all parts of the world will be more honest?
I am so mad at myself that I did not see it before, that I stayed so loooong and I am so mad that nobody told me when I joined that there was so much alcohol, sexual and power abuse….They did not know? O.K. we were all blind? Guess so it still makes me mad that it is still going on now as we speak.
Prospect students are recruited. Young men’s pictures taken and send to Robert with or without measurements. That is what I want to stop, stop, stop and I feel powerless and again angry at myself…
Yes I am still angry, now I think of it…of many more things, the way women and men were treated in the fellowship. Elena was right that women were treated like second rate citizen. How we were exploited and our money taken from us in the name of building a civilization ( Where? in the bedroom). For the children who were often second or third choice and will never feel like they were worth the love of their parents. The parents were busy, surviving, working to make ends meet, ooo I can go on, but I will stop. Yes the blog is mostly correct.
…stopping this ongoing pain factory happening for many students, as we speak, now.
205 is newly moderated.
Fat Boy: Were you by any chance looking for a confrontation from the start? – judging by the choice of your name, your repeated calls that this discussion is one-sided, negative, vulgar and badly moderated, your ego trip against Bruce,…
Robert Burton is the best example of a tramp feature that the Fellowship has. Shopping and buying fine things is not a higher alchemy. Providing good housing and medical care for fellowship members is a correct sense of values. Paying inflated prices to indulge one sense of importance is also tramp.
Tramp is a lack of correct values.
Many years ago in the late 1970’s I remember being envious of Robert basically thinking why does he get to be in his features all the time. I don’t want anyone giving me used Gucci shoes, Hermes ties and Dunhill lighters. I’ll take the cash. He was always micromanaging everything, a first class pain in the ass. Thank goodness he never actually did any work. No not Bobette. No riding tractors, digging ditches, planting vines for Bobby.
He has not changed in over 30 years,
.
Time to put an end to his abuses of his students.
Whether legal action will come about is secondary the truth is all that’s important for all the time the Fellowship has existed he has managed to control access to information. That in the past. He cannot survive truth. He is like a Vampire in the sunlight. Whoooosh bye bye .
Elena you are a much better person than Robert and all his inner circle jerk. Your honesty is compelling and transcends
the medium.
#258 Ames
You’ve just thrown a “hot potato” to Uno. Will he catch it, let it fall or throw it to someone else (maybe back to you)?
And what about all the hundreds of thousands of dollars raised to build/finish that ridiculous Theatron that Robert coveted when he was enamoured of the Greeks? It seems to have been abandoned. Any one know how much was spent on it thus far?
I have been waiting to hear about the fund raisers for a pyramid. Who knows, Isis might even be taken over by a theme park operator some day.
Hello Ames ~
You wrote ~ (258) ~
“So, Uno, (#16-238) it doesn’t look like the ‘Rick Ross’ letter went to ‘every resident of Oregon House’, unfortunately. See my questions to The Letter in Question, above, and his/her swift response (#16-249). My (admittedly undeveloped, or at least unverified) powers of detection tell me that the mailing was only to a few.”
__________
Keep verifying… ‘Sharon’s closer to the real picture.’ As I stated before (from the word of the ‘folks’ themselves), the letter went to 1200+ people; everyone who has a post office box at the Oregon House P.O. Box Office…
Interesting that you’d say “unfortunately” in the context of “undeveloped & unverified powers of detection”… guess you’re pretty excited; and for good reason, at least it’s not about Robert Burton’s “stolen from his luggage” cameo; if you know what I mean.
__________
You wrote ~
“But, maybe now we have the text (and thanks, Fat Boy, for alerting us to this in the first place!), we could either send it out verbatim, or have you revise it in your editorial persona, not your poetic one (the audience is variable and general, after all). You seem to have a pretty good grasp of current events and ongoing connections with present, as well as past members. I am quite sure you are capable of raising all 800 hairs on both eyebrows of every recipient a couple of inches by adding verifiable, up-to-date, and actionable information.
___________
Sure! Let’s roll with it… Maybe the Sheik can make a separate area (similar to the scrapbook) where the letter can initially post and be revised by people for the next few weeks; then we can do the un-ninja thing with it…
___________
You continue ~
“Think of: parrying and exploring with the left, seeking out weaknesses, then the old one–two punch; the shocking blow above the heart followed by the uppercut, delivered across just six inches with the full power of the body.”
___________
I vote for the six (or was it 4?) point death strike as seen performed upon ‘Bill’ from the movie “Kill Bill Part 2″ ~ more intimate, feminine and handy in the middle of a conversation that’s not going anywhere.
But, hey, maybe we can double team and both get what we need (?)
___________
You wrote ~
“You could post a draft copy, invite anyone interested to add personal angles and ‘gotchas’ that will resonate with this aforesaid general audience, and then hold a fundraiser to cover the costs of a blanket mailing both here and on the Greater Fellowship website. And any lawyers reading, both ‘here’ and ‘there’, could chime in regarding both effectiveness and any legal traps… For example, would this become a ‘conspiracy’ if there is no secrecy? We’d certainly invite current members for any contributions!
__________________
No conspiracies here, so long as the information is factual and connected to a real set of vertebrae willing to back it up if called on it, in or out of court.
Actually making it public would be in our spiritual interests; after all, you guys have graduated from the Fellowship of Friends ‘ways’ right?
__________________
You concluded ~
“Whaddya think? Right now, I can think of some ‘downside’; the hunkering down of the followers, the unleashing of Abraham, and so on. Is this the right action at the right time? It is fine to reply ‘poetically’ to this question, in fact I look forward to it. But any letter itself… —you understand!”
________________
LOL…”the unleashing of Abraham”… That’s so Old Testament! But I love it anyhow!
With the Fellowship of Friends list of ‘doings’ on this blog, I would not worry in the least about the Fellowship’s attorney’s, if they set fires here, this will only look ‘fishy’ to the already reading FBI, INS and Yuba County officials: if you ask me (and I guess you sorta did), they’re just waiting for some sort of ’shark frenzy’ to occur from the Fellowship of Friends side, so to send in the Killer Whales, who eat sharks BTW (that one’s for you Whalerider)
Firstly I advice all to copy and paste in their hard drives and on memory sticks (place in secured bank vault boxes) every page of all this blog run so far; just in case… who knows what hacker they’ll hire next (?)
Then, scan, copy and lock away extra duplicates of every and any ‘proof’ you have; always and never keep originals around till court day, the real court day that is…
_____________________
So, the ball in in your court Sheik, let’s get this party started…
_____________________
l.t.y.a.
Hey xena ~
Thanks for the support babe… love you too.
When people speak from their heart, which seems to be the theme of 1/6, everybody listens.
To 265 Sheik,
Yea, I made a mistake and was not expecting such a confrontation when I related my experiences, thoughts as honestly as I could; and the more you and others keep attacking the further I go away…..this is what you want I would gather. You can still be direct and drive your point across but can’t we be more polite and civil to our fellow man. Because I am new to this blog I only know Bruce as the attacker but his 217 response changed my opinion; not that I would agree or disagree but the tone was more appropriate.
You see what I am seeing is what you are accusing FOF of certain things, whether true or not, is happening on this blog too (I don’t mean the sex but the pyschological warfare).
I could be wrong but somehow I would say a good deal of the writers agree with me in that if we limit the vulgar, insults then the discussion would be more constructive. But I think that some writers would be afraid to support me on these points because they would get a host of critics on their asses and they too want to be accepted. There is so much hypocrisy, much more in this blog than the FOF.
It seems one has to be certain way to be accepted on this blog, or your going to be run off with insults; seems we have to make our comments in such away as not to piss off some of the vicious attackers. I never once lyed, but would say I could be wrong. Only comments regarding how bad FOF is – are accepted here. Sounds like a certain brain washing is going on here in my opinion right on this blog?
Another story.
I learned that earlier in his reign Robert asked married women not to have kids and if they already did to give them away. Many apparently listened and obeyed. Apparently Linda was persuading pregnant women to have an abortion “to follow the will of the Teacher”. Gently ask older female students in FOF what happened to their kids.
Also teacher gave a task to students to euthanise or give away their non-pedigree canine companions. Many obeyed and killed or abandoned their dogs. Please read Stella’s story.
Then not so long ago he ordered to kill all black cats around the property because of his superstitions (apparently he thought black cats bring bad luck and are connected to the devil).
These are acts of a conscious being #7 (or higher), the teacher.
Hello Fat Boy.
I guess it would probably be rather disorienting to suddenly burst upon this scene.
There is a history and a long term dialogue that has been in play for months now.
Perhaps if you were to peruse all the posts from the previous discussion boards you would see how it changes and moves and progresses.
There have been many phases and topics of discussion.
There have been aggressive current members who have participated vigorously and, in some cases, righteously.
There have been questions about why current members would bother to engage with “moon food” seriously.
There have been requests from other current members (i.e. “Nick Spaulding” (sorry, can’t remember the “missing” letters”)), that participating current members cease from participating.
I can’t possibly describe the ongoing dynamic fully in one post. It is, at this point, very complex.
Your assessment seems to be based in one phase.
Also, your sense that this discussion board is discriminatory is a bit off. Although your opinions and thoughts may be challenged, they are welcomed. One cannot, however, expect any to agree with, succumb to and/or love your beliefs.
This discussion questions, argues, proposes and examines issues. It does not accept one way of thinking or responding.
Instead, all are free to communicate in whatever manner they choose.
Naturally, that does not mean that agreement is in the wind.
It also does not mean that anyone needs to be polite.
Further, the moderator, the brilliant Sheik (I’m forever grateful to you my sweet!), has chosen to moderate maturely. I also recommend that you look into the history of this moderator’s participation and the choices made in terms of how to run the board most effectively.
In a nutshell, you are entering a discussion that has been ongoing for months and has many dynamics. It is necessary to delve into its history in order to fully understand the mode in which you have chosen to participate.
Best of everything to you and yours,
LL
Fat Boy (around) 272
It seems one has to be certain way to be accepted on this blog…
***************
No one even knows who you are and you are still inner considering and feeling the weight of social pressure, you don’t see something odd about that?
273
There was also a time where hysterectomies were being suggested to women for birth control because once it’s done, that’s it, no more problem.
To my understanding some even took the advice.
Dear Fat Boy, you said:
“Only comments regarding how bad FOF is – are accepted here. Sounds like a certain brain washing is going on here in my opinion right on this blog?”
I think that comments how good FOF is are totally accepted but kind of not needed here. This is what you hear anyway at every meeting, every teaching event, every dinner with devoted followers. This is the only allowed and encouraged comments within FOF, aren’t they? “It’s so wonderful! Robert is just amazing! Aren’t we lucky? We are so much luckier than “life”. How beautiful it is here! We are standing on the shoulders of giants – ancient prehistoric schools! Let’s drink to our outrageous good fortune and our precious sequence that really works!”
Why would you need more of it here? Haven’t you had enough of these statements already? We all heard it for years, believed in it, repeated it. While any criticism or independent thinking were immediately squashed.
If anyone wants to read how good and special and great FOF is – please go to the official FOF website, or attend a prospective/recruiting meeting. There is enough of that positive advertisement going on.
This blog often represents and exposes the other side of the coin, hidden side, not so shiny… There are 2 sides to any coin you know.
But please don’t be discouraged to post. Anything anyone has to say is valuable and has truth in it.
Re: Post #180, from A Former Student.
“meditate on this
Fuck you”
Well, A Former Student, let’s talk.
It has been a good while since I’ve been told in anger to go fuck myself. But I’m beginning to see your point. As unoanimo and others have correctly observed, I am still entrenched in the FoF “culture” — the product of 20+ years of immersion programming.
I am on my way out, but I am trying to find my own way out, and for me it is a slow process. I’m oriented toward healing, not retribution.
By the way, I don’t see myself as a “martyr” of any kind… I’m not trying to save anything or anyone but my Self. In my previous two posts, I guess I was trying to “save” the blog (or what I would wish it to be), but obviously the blog doesn’t want or need to be saved. It just wants and needs to be what it is: many things to many people, wild and free.
When reading and re-reading your post to me, I flashed to a distant movie memory of The Storming of the Bastille: Mobs of angry revolutionaries are filling the streets, carrying their torches, demanding an end to the despots and their aristocratic lackeys. I imagined myself as some wannabe aristocrat in a powdered wig, with holes in his/her pantaloons, wandering confusedly amidst the swelling crowd, pleading with those in the crowd to “Please, be reasonable!” and answered with a barrage of rotten eggs and curses.
I now understand that, for many on this blog, the time to “be reasonable” has passed. There has been too much suffering and abuse, and there is an agenda. However, I am not a barn burner, and do not intend to participate in furthering the destruction of the FoF. I’ll leave that to The Fates, and to you and your fellow revolutionaries, A Former Student, if that’s what guides you.
I’m for saddling up and riding into the sunset, whistling a tune and looking for the next esoteric adventure.
However, I honestly do not know how I will be able to deal with the accumulate anger and resentment from my years in the Fellowship, under RB’s questionable tutelage. I’m curious if expression of anger in this forum would help me heal… Should I join the rebellion? Am I like you, A Former Student? No. I’m not.
I wish us both the very best!
Hello ‘Fat Boy’ ~
You wrote ~
“I could be wrong but somehow I would say a good deal of the writers agree with me in that if we limit the vulgar, insults then the discussion would be more constructive. But I think that some writers would be afraid to support me on these points because they would get a host of critics on their asses and they too want to be accepted.”
________________________
I’m not afraid; sure there’s some bar room talk in here, yet, when considering where your monies are going to support the porno, the erection drugs, the drug drugs, the illegal weddings (and the gifts, which are sorta illegal too, in my book), the damaging of unsuspecting essences (most are when they’re hypnotized by a perpetually spiral kinda guy), I am far from willing to fairly compare the two (or what sort of inner vocabulary it takes to buffer your conscience) and take ‘the shop talk’ with a grain of salt, a very tiny grain, about a fourth of a grain… and the list goes on… not to mention your dictator’s humanity that’s up there with run away lawn mowers and “Help, I can’t get up’ sprained ankles.
The shop talk is sometimes (in my book) shocks for certain ’spirits’ to get a grip on the handle bars and quit putting they’re wagging tongues in their own spokes; often, it’s no different than that ‘gotta have those cuff links’ story concerning your Man #7.8.3331023487… or the ‘Hell Letter’ from your Man etc., etc., so, where’s your ’scale & relativity’… if you don’t have it, please do not use it?
Yes, there’s even some Jack Nicholson kinda stuff in here too, i.e., The Shinning; yet, if you’re afraid of souls in progress, go back to your School of Relative Awakening, drink some margarita’s and cum and live the good life.
If you have not seen ‘comparable’ negativity expressed by by your teacher and his ‘groupies’, i.e., the inner, inner, inner, inner circle… then please give me your physical address, I’d love to see what you’ve done with the underside of the largest flat rock in this geological area; I am sure there’s some back taxes owed on that thing too, so keep it hush hush….
________________
You also wrote ~
“There is so much hypocrisy, much more in this blog than the FOF.”
________________
Considering that 8/10th’s of the hypocrisy on this blog is discussions and quotes concerning the hypocrisy concerning the Fellowship of Friends; I want to thank you for your confirmation, sorta…
your being kinda silly for July, it’s actually kinda refreshing, you should be ready for a Sheik of Inner Confussion tattoo by the end of August…
________________
Have fun in here Fat Boy and shake what you got, not what you want; don’t be so serious, good grief, even Ouspensky laughed and raised hell once in a while and don’t even get me started with George ‘the bruce lee’ Gurdjieff…
________________
Love to you Fat Boy; hold on homey, this is
the ride of your life, right now, no buffers needed…
L.L. 274: Thank you for making it clearer, and I believe that if I went though the posts I would see it a little different as you say. But other members have said they were attacked abruplty and verabally in the same way. You say my opinions are welcome but it does not feel that way to me. It is not the questioning nor the challenging, but vigorous, rude, vulgar, sacrastic shit. Your post was sincere but I do not feel you have really put yourself in my shoes or the shoes of member who would like to make comments. In any case, so be it.
I now have a new understanding thanks to Janna.
277 Janna: we were friends. I respect your feelings in your first paragraph, althought I do not see it that way personally. But I do want to commend you, sincerely, on your elequence in a non judgemental way of me and explaining why this blog is not a place for positive postings or defending the FOF.
I guess my time is up, may you find “happiness”.
P.S. Fat Boy ~
You wrote ~
“Only comments regarding how bad FOF is – are accepted here. Sounds like a certain brain washing is going on here in my opinion right on this blog?”
________________________
Thank you Robert Burton for teaching your students the difference between gods and man…
________________________
So, let the ‘positive list’ begin ~
Little story/testimony:
When I got pregnant I was leaving at Renaissance and my husband was on salary. We did not have the money to go to a doctor and were worried about future hospital bills.
My husband called Robert, but not until years later did he tell me what the teacher had said in response to a request for financial help for the birth, namely, that we had missed an opportunity to oppose our catholic upbring by not having an abortion.
A student on salary with family later suggested we go to County Health Services. Fortunately I had excellent care.
BTW our child is an absolute delight, a gift beyond measure.
Thanks anyway for the advice, Bob.
My2Bits ~
I am very glad you decided to stay; I only hope that what you effort out of your inner world to share here is not guided by ‘two sides of the coin’ thinking (no offense Janna) though, actually there’s three sides to a coin BTW.
You wrote ~
“I’m curious if expression of anger in this forum would help me heal…”
__________________
We’ll My2Bits; if you have to be curious first, think about it first, kinda like testing a bear trap with someone else’s big toe, then no, it would not help because negative emotions happen, in my opinion, they are not consciously planned and if they are, then, they are not ‘really’ negative, only, intentional insincerity, something ‘Fat Boy’ seems to have missed in his prospective student meeting.
For your inner god’s sake BE YOURSELF and sorta not yourself, if you know what I mean…
There may be some motorcycle grease on the china, but there’s real love in here and all you’ve gotta do is read a little Rumi to get a sense of its Sufi-ish tendencies…
Remember the story about the new guy in town that arrives to a Sufi campfire celebration with his donkey?
Love, my friends, that’s what I get here; every lotus has it’s swamp…
And the soul rises from the soon to be rotting corpse.
_______________________
l.t.y.a.
Re: Purchasing Awakening 273 & Bruce 276 “Women & Bearing Children”
I never understood the few, lovely, women I met who had left their children in the care of others at the behest of the FOF leaders. Please note that the directives may have come from Robert after Center Directors told him of situations that might threaten the student’s devotion and or payments. (Darn those silly outside influences.)
I had an abortion before joining the FOF and emotionally and physically, it is not a simple procedure. I have since had difficulty in giving birth to my children because of scar tissue from the first abortion and had complications that have resulted in several surgeries. The results of my own decision have caused life threaten hospital procedures and months away from my newborn children. Enough said, it was my decision but what about the women who followed orders from FOF headquarters.
I knew of a visit from Fran, an older women, who was sent to escort a happily married women to a hospital for a late term abortion of healthy twins. Why was this married student in a happy relationship guided to go to the hospital to abort two healthy fetuses? Robert loved the beautiful, handsome husband and it was during the mid/late 70s when the School could not afford to have students be distracted by the emotional or expensive aspects of children.
This potential mother and father were in in pain but followed Robert’s directives – it was not a pretty situation. Years later Robert got his guy back and the wife was left to earn money outside of Renaissance while her husband was on salary.
Fat Boy wrote ~
“I guess my time is up, may you find “happiness”.”
________________________________________
That’s just like a cult member dammit! Give up just when the self-initiated deprogramming begins…
It’s that ‘drop out in the middle of the twelfth grade thing again’, OH HOW IT HAUNTS ME SO…
____________________________
Wear something floral ‘Fat Boy’… Through the smoke grenades and helicopter dust I’ll see you better and will rescue you, if you want…
Thank you vera.mente; somehow, and this is not being said with ‘tongue in cheek’, I do not think telling this story in any way compromises your real identity; it’s the story of many, many, so many that Robert Burton would be hard pressed not to flat out lie (imagine that) if he were to try and guess your name.
________________
My love to your conscious family.
Fat Boy – if we WERE friends, we ARE still friends.
I didn’t denounce any friend since I was asked to leave FOF. Some of my friends decided to cut off any communications after being so connected for many years. This is truly sad. To me friendship and membership are not the same. In a way these 2 things are on such different scales… I value genuine connection to people a lot. If we were friends – it’s not because we were members, it’s because we liked each other and enjoyed each others company.
The “exercise” of terminating friendships with those who left the school – is one of the most cruel and heartless expressions of Robert. It’s based on selfishness, fear and jealousy. I have a feeling this man has never experienced true friendship or love, regardless what he says.
Otherwise, how he could order lovers to separate, children to be given away, friendships to be cut off, pets to be killed? Which king of hearts? This man is as COLD and heartless as a rock on the moon. Except that he actually inflicts pain and suffering to others while the rock is just peacefully laying there…
Please e-mail me to malaec@optonline.net and I’ll invite you to fun and friendly Greater Fellowship online community – where friendship seem to outlast membership.
284: Your such a funny guy!!! In anycase I will read this blog from time to time but don’t think I will share my thoughts or experiences about FOF since they are not welcome since they may tend to be more positive.
286: Janna. I like you and of course we are still friends. No thanks to your invitation though; maybe someday we will meet up again.
#257 Graduates
Twice he has posted veiled threats to current members posting on the blog. How fascist does it need to become before he is called on it.
Yesri baba (around) 288
#257 Graduates
Twice he has posted veiled threats to current members posting on the blog. How fascist does it need to become before he is called on it.
***************
Your observations will carry more weight if they are realistic, stick with the actual scale rather than trying to illustrate your perceptions through exaggerations. Yes, he is using a practiced cheerful language to put his fellow students under feminine dominance. Nick always had a lot of feminine dominance brand of self-righteousness, the kind that hopefully ingratiates oneself with those on up the chain of command. Even so, he is hardly a war criminal. He’s just a cult member.
I am wondering if people inside and out believe that the blog and the letter will make a difference in terms of the ability of the Fellowship of Friends to continue or will it all just be pushed under the carpet as things have been in the past? Before anyone writes questioning why I’m asking – I am not in but am close to someone who is and would hope this may push them to leave – I’m afraid it will have the opposite effect.
289
“he is hardly a war criminal. He’s just a cult member.”
I would agree with that.
Well, Uno, thanks for your observations, I was trying ‘to be a bloodhound, to verify. I found your words…
…sufficiently unclear (I thought you were expressing hope rather than fact) that I thought I’d try a bit of ‘remote sleuthing’ to try to tighten up my understanding. It’s quite apparent that I’m several lengths behind…
And you knew all along!
You’re right, I was getting a little excited (“queeny”, they’d say), and throwing out propositions on insufficient or outdated evidence. I’m going shut up and meditate on this whole thing for a couple of days, and see whether I want to be first force or third force in ‘pulling down the pillars of the temple’. It is one thing to be third force, that is, write on the blog, and have folks in the FoF come here to read my words, and incorporate them into their decision making or not, and another thing to be first force, and tell what I know to third parties (noting that strictly, any first–hand information is necessarily 13 years or more out of date and therefore subject to ‘statute of limitations’ considerations and such); yet I suppose I know enough to outline agendas and give broad hints for an investigation that wishes up–to–date information. First force or third force, that is the question. Another reason for me shutting up on this subject for a couple of days is that you or others will have more to say on the subject, I’m sure.
And I have a fresh appreciation for the advantages of anonymity you enjoy.
Fat Boy,
I appreciate your honesty about the level of verification you made about the finances of the FoF, that is, in reality very little. Of course, the standards I proposed were very tough; the FoF would only let you in with a forensic accountant under duress, that is, with a court order or something of similar power. And you are right, I don’t have any current information. I was trying to find out how you scrupulously you defined ‘verification’. That and your carelessness over the origin of the ‘Rick Ross’ letter told me much about your standards. I’m not passing judgment, just establishing a baseline so I can make the necessary allowances.
Speaking to you in general terms (and others have made a similar point), I have to say that we have indeed been in your shoes; we have ‘been there and done that’. We have been the fresh young enthusiastic student, we have been the hard workers (we built the vineyard and winery that our leader ordered), we have been the dedicated followers, we have been the experimental subjects, we have been the secret–keepers, we have been the shamed, we have been the power possessors, we have been the servers, we have been the angle givers, we have been the proud, we have been the haughty, we have been the deceived, and we have been the deceivers, we have had our third states, we have run sex energy, we have been asleep. We know about exhilaration, about doubt, about verification, about blind belief, about being humbled, about betraying, about being betrayed. We know something about conditional friendship, unconditional friendship, and the difference.
So, it’s true, we do give short thrift to FoF—speak; we’ve heard it all before, every single angle (we invented some of them ourselves!) and no longer have the patience.
But, if you tell your personal story, and we feel your heart, and you express your feelings honestly, then that is new, that adds to our being by broadening our horizons, establishing a fresh point of view, and we do appreciate that.
If you are being naïve in my estimation, it seems fine to tell you that, if you are making an error of reasoning, surely you yourself would seek and appreciate a ‘photograph’ (and ours are free!), but I don’t think you’ll ever be blasted for honesty, clarity, or for offering a gift of yourself. I think that you’ll find us collectively to be rigorous (there is no time to be less than rigorous) but not deliberately unkind. And of course, gray areas will continue to be gray, so come prepared to make allowances.
I hope you stay and talk with us, and encourage your friends to do so as well. Frankly, I don’t think that the N_ck Spauld_ngs and their ilk are your friends, esoterically speaking; they are the wagon circlers, and the circle is spiraling inwards. Join or leave, what the heck, that’s your decision to make on the best evidence you can accumulate. But, I encourage you to join the larger group, the Company of Adventurers (which may include some who are ‘in’, who cares, I don’t), who are willing to try to look the truth in the eye, and learn not to flinch.
With love to you all, ‘in’ and ‘out’,
Ames
Hello Ames ~
Thank you for your Post ~
If you look a little ways above that post I made to Janna, you’ll see what else was beaded on the string of that reply… She started (if I recall correctly) with OMG! and then went on to say something questioning the letters being sent out or not… scroll upwards, you’ll find it.
You wrote ~
“First force or third force, that is the question.”
_________________________
Hummmm…. I thought it was ~
“To be or not to be, that is the question.”
Hell Ames, you’re a war veteran, be both; why, it’s your existence, be all three…
___________________
;.]
My litle offerings for today’s blessings from the Invisible Forces that have sacrificed their lives for Human Good is from ‘Frondes Agrestes’ (aggressive ferns? – come on ye latin scholars – make it specific for me, the Generalist Teacher, who allows students to work towards their own specific undrstandings and goals) by Rushkin, a turn of the 19th/20th century Evangelist, connected with William Morris, the founder of the Arts and Crafts Movement (of which I am a Distinction Licentiate) in Britain during that time.
Section One – Principles of Art
2. The temper by which right taste is formed is characteristically patient. It dwells upon what is submitted to it. It does not trample upon it, – lest it should be pearls, even though it looks like husks. It is good ground, penetrable, RETENTIVE: it does not send up crowns of unkind thoughts , to choke the weed seed; it is hungry and thirsty too, and drinks all the dew that falls on it. It is an honest and good heart, that shows no too ready springing before the sun be up, BUT FAILS NOT AFTERWARDS; it is distrustful of itself, so as to be ready to believe and try all things; and yet so trustful of itself, that it will neither quit what has been tried, nor take anything without trying. and the pleasure which it finds in things that are true and good, is so great, that it CANNOT BE LED ASIDE BY ANY TRICKS OF FASHION, DISEASE OR VANITY; it cannot be cramped by its conclusions by partialities and hypocrisies; its visions and delights are too penetrating, — TOO LIVING, — for any whitewashed object or any fountain long to endure of supply. IT CLASPS ALL THAT IT LOVES SO HARD THAT IT CRUSHES IT IF IT BE HOLLOW.
With blessings to you all………..THE HAPPY GOD!
#272 Fat Boy wrote:
“Only comments regarding how bad FOF is – are accepted here. Sounds like a certain brain washing is going on here in my opinion right on this blog?”
Guess what Fat Boy… this blog has never been a forum for praise of Robert Burton and the FOF. If you spend a little time and effort to read the early pages of the blog, you will see that 99.5% of the participants here have long ago recognized and accepted that there was/is MUCH imagination and little substance to Robert Burton and his “teaching”. This blog has been a discussion for those who have already escaped from this “brain washing” you mention. Yes, most everyone here considers FOF bad. Do you really expect anyone here to sympathize with your whiney complaints…
“It seems one has to be certain way to be accepted on this blog, or your going to be run off with insults; seems we have to make our comments in such away as not to piss off some of the vicious attackers.’
Bruce the “attacker.” Scary. If you are a FOF member who is considering leaving FOF (why else would you be on the blog?), try reading more and moralizing less. Check back with your conscience–it’s still there, if you ever had one. Stick around the blog—humbly—maybe you will find your way out.
Just a few odds and ends…
Someone asked about Asaf’s current marital status a while back. I understand he’s planning to marry Ansl.P, the whole ‘waiting for the under-aged to mature’ myth has been abandoned.
I participated in the Research Octave, doing much of the work on the Sufis. There are two groups of researchers, one of about 100 for run-of-the-mill events in the charge of Mihai, another smaller group of about 30 for ’special’ events run by Yoad. We all sent in quotations – usually about half-a-page’s worth which then get refined – oftentimes out of existence! – by an inner panel at Isis. People were expected to use wordsearch to pick up appropriate quotations… so if the subject was ‘The Passions’ for instance, you’d just type in ‘Passions’ and see what you got. I am not computer-friendly, so I did it by reading through a lot of books and putting endless bookmarks and dog-ears in them! This was much more fun for me, and helped my understandings a lot.
Long quotations are discouraged, they put too much strain on the English/Understanding of the panel recipient. Quotations are frequently altered, or taken wildly out of context by the panel. For example, one quotation from Ibn Arabi: “If you do not see Him, he certainly sees You”. The ‘Him’ here is Allah, with the rough meaning that God/Presence is always available, two millimetres underneath the ’skin’ of Life. When the quote was used (frequently) by RB at meetings/events, however, ‘Him’ was mysteriously translated as the King of Clubs, with the idea ‘Be fearful, KC is always watching and waiting to pounce’. The difference in Life-attitude this change represents shouldn’t require any further comment!
The Research octave is happy to skip over the surface of the deep pond of the religions/philosophies it proposes to ‘distil’. The attention-span of the octave is superficial and fickle, it doesn’t stay with any one subject long enough to really allow it to penetrate to a deeper level. The use of wordsearch as a tool is typical of this ’shortcut’ mentality.
Students are now being requested to ‘find’ visual images which re-inforce the current teaching and can be corralled into RB’s current constellation of interests (Pre-history etc). They have also recently been asked to pay particular attention to the number “11″ or “10+1″. I.E. 6 steps of the sequence, plus 4 wordless breaths, then a new “Be” – the eleventh step – beginning another cycle.
To Ames, 291:
Thank you for your post, it create a much better envirnment to be open; I was about to delete this page from my favorit folder but you inspired me; although I was open before; but I understand now that to much positive spin is not accepted here. You are seeking relativity from me I think. Not to put words in your mouth, maybe you see 10% good and 90% bad about the fellowship, I would see it the other way. I am a thinking person, definiteley not brainwashed and I weigh things. I am sure there is a bunch of FOF who are brain washed, maybe Robert has something to do with it but I think it there own attraction in my opinion. Whether one once to say brainwashed, I woud say Robert has storng influence and I am gratefully so for this; although I have my frictions with it. I am sorry you think you made these efforts in vain when you were here, you did say you got some third state out of it. And for me, it is this third state I have made my aim to try to achieve; to work to be in my higher centers which takes efforts; and I rarely achieve these aims but I know in my “heart” this is what I want to achieve more and more (third state) before my death. I have verified I am a machine and full of features and false personality, and only being sincere with myself, trying to observe myself and tyring to divide my attention, that is being aware of my self and the enviroment and trying to keep a connection with something higher. The Sequence Robert is working with now is a new tool that I do support but I am still verifying it and experimenting with it. I am not in the group that thinks I have to follow Robert by the letter but I do believe that he is the best teacher I come across and I need to have faith in him and after 20 years still do and and it has only increase. You know, he has been teaching the same thing, to be present for over 30 years, and I do have friction with the new form, but the form is always changing and the message remains the same. Robert or this school has not taught me everything, Ouspensky, Gurdfieff were a big influence but FOF is in line with them, even now and it’s envirnoment helps me to achieve these aims. There is no doubt that even with Robert huge sex life and greed he loves his students from his heart, and guess what even loves his former students. He is very sensitive in my opinion. Sure, in a language that a few will appecitate he likes to suck a lot of cocks……Now, as for the juicey thing syou might want to her, I had a sexual relationship with the teacher and because I was homophobic at first it was dificult; but in my case I set the limits with Robert and he agreed. Now with others, I understand that they may have had bad experiences, I can only talk about my experience. When it ended I actually wanted more, not the sex, I gave Robert what he wanted but I got what I wanted, compassion and emotional energy and this balance was fine for me. There is alot of morality around sex and so many of us will have our opinions of what should be right or wrong. It is really subjective. I never felt negativity from Robert in the Bedroom and I will say there was a little pressure but if I was not up to it he never forced it on me. Absolutely Not! But yes this is sooo confusing issue and I see how it dis heartens alot of members and former members but for me it does not bother me in the least. It did though when I found out he was having sex, it took me five days to transform it and that is where the real work on morality came for me. Our society or culture hardly looks at sex objectively and myself included are bound by its forces. Everyone is going to have their own opinions of what is right or wrong.
Now, because I am a man, I will retorically ask some of the men if your single or when you were young and chasing girls, did you want to get layed, of course! So you buy a women flowers give her gifts, ect. Yes maybe it is love sometimes and it is emotional but your objective is to get layed, at least for me, and I think I am pretty normal. And did you maybe put some pressure on the women to get some pussy, maybe make a few promises? Probably, and that is OK, so why can’t Robert do this, he is a man, (yea, I know I am going to a bunch flack that he thinks he is God); but I will just leave this for the moment. This whole blog is not about the FOF, it is about Robert’s sexuality and possible abuses of power; this is what it boils down to.
OK, that is it for tonight if you want more my experiences then follow Aimes que; but if you tear me apart then I’m gone and there wil be no hope of “deprogramming me” 284.
Joseph G [#230]
No offense taken, as you well know, too.
Yes, I agree, School life in centers, even small “healthy” centers, can be great to a certain extent, so long as one doesn’t peek under the lily pads, or smell the stench. No one else here does. But we do. We (gently?) try to show the slime to our Friends. And it is not a welcome sight. We experience the beginning of the “Shun” knee jerk response. But we are still in and “trying” (in their minds).
We have flexibility about our meetings. These days most students prefer not to lead meetings on the Thoughts Journals. Instead we can choose a topic and smatter it with understanding and quotations from Nisargadatta. Students listen and love it, love to feel their own minds and hearts (finally) expanding. This is happening. Remember that song from the 60’s? “The revolution will not be televised, the revolution will not be televised, the revolution will not be televised…” Well, it won’t be televised, not on this Blog, though it will be because of it.
Consider this: those who disappeared in the past did so quietly and quickly, we never knew the exact reasons or details, so they went into the “silent” cubbyhole. Those who were louder, were “negative”, so we could put them in the “negative” cubbyhole. Now, the silence is broken, but the straw that will break this camel’s back is UNDERSTANDING.
We are doing everything we can – within the School – to bring real UNDERSTANDING to real students. It is the only way out of this Catch 22, the tautological impasse. Once a person leaves the School the chances of being heard diminish by about 100%. I understand this very, very well. It is a fact of (FOF) life. If one stays and offers to a Friend pure, undiluted, freeing understanding, in a non confrontational way, it is the best solution I can think of for dissolving this huge hypocritical misunderstanding called the Fellowship of Friends.
Uno, call me a momma’s boy. That’s fine. Water off my back, kiddo.
But I know your heart is true.
And so is mine.
Love,
Bass
Who is acting from the king of clubs?
Consider this:
Where can people like N_ck Spauld_ngs or Linda T. go when the fellowship of friends falls apart?
They become poor, old and jobless citizens.
284 and 291 are newly moderated.
UnoAnimo: Do whatever you like about the letter, e-mail may be a better idea than using the blog. If you want me to start a new board solely for the purpose of finalizing the letter then that can be done also.
hello friends.
Two spirits passed two souls sitting on a cloud whilst ascending to heaven.
“Ahh spirits ” said the souls.
The spirits were too polite to answer!
ltya. Cy.
Arthur – 214
“In post 200 by the Shiek he reminds us that post 80 and 81 are newly moderated. I go back after I finish reading the rests of the posts, and what do I find? Two words used in my post. Half-baked and quasi.
I will admit that my intelligence is about 1/4 of everybody elses. So, what is going on? Is it possible that I am picking up thoughts off this blog. Half-baked and quasi are not usually my kind of words.”
***********************************************
Here is my opinion re. this “Twilight Zonish” experience which we all have from time to time, some of us more often, and a few of us all the time.
For those of us who are regular customers (addicts) of this blog, we have acquired neurologically speaking a particular vibrational rate when we focus on The Blog. The Blog itself is a conglomeration of vibrations which has in the moment a certain common denominator. Literally speaking I would say that it has a certain “flavor”. Yes it is always changing, which means it is a living thing, a sort of entity, but by now and until a catastrophic event befalls it (which we all anticipate), the frequency actually doesn’t vary all that much. Now what you were getting at and suspecting. Every single thought is energy and energy cannot be destroyed. So the blog exists as a bunch of ‘mentation’ somewhere out here. Every time we connect with it we connect to a sort of entity, through our minds, like we do with a radio receiver (O.). This is the way that you pick up those words and thoughts. Now you can add a little more bass to your radio if you happen to prefer more bass and there are plenty of other fine tuning possibilities because after all it IS a quality device. There is also a common denominator between The Blog and YourSelf, and it is also changing from day to day, moment to moment maybe. If you want to check it out go back a half dozen pages or so and you might be a little surprised to find some other contribution you have made in the past that no longer feels familiar. Wonder why?
To take this business a little further, the vibrations we contain affects our physical body and our non-physical body.
For those of us still young enough to provide progeny (kids) to the world through our DNA, we can expect those kids to retain some of this vibrational info, in other words the thoughts which make up this Blog. So let’s not be surprised if some of them give us a big “Fuck You” from time to time.
Cheers, my lovely friends All. Imo, All IS Extremely Well Indeed, and that is before breakfast even.
Dear fat boy and others,
Thanks for your extensive letter and that is why I write back to you. Often I skip people who I feel are rude and negative.
Reading your letter, I can see that we are coming from a complete different “stock” although we are both in the fellowship.
For many years because of my job I really could not believe other students when they expressed themselves. My preception of the fellowship was that we there were similar”schools” similtaneous going on in OH at the same time. With this understanding I could explain different aspects of the fellowhip of friends. Now after knowing so much more I can not quiet my conscience.
That is my first question to you: How can you live with the fact that young men are recruted for Robert, by sending pitures and asking for the size? How does your conscience see this?
You can not compare this with courting, with young adults R spins a web for his “younger, non homosexual men”. That is very unequal, out of wack. Not an exampl for a new civilization to my understanding
How can you explain the dissapearing of funds and sick people like J e-s-a, who can not afford medical treatment?
How do you live with the fact that Rober uses money from inheritages for different purposes then the original plan of the deceased student?
I do not think you have children, maybe I am wrong, what are you going to tell your son when he is 18? How can you live with this.
I myself am not brought up with flowers and getting laid or laid….first friendship and then when things happen they can happen. From my point of view that is not the way I would teach teenagers. Remember the fellwoship is trying to go above life?
I encountered many students who were alcohol addicted and the pain they have/had. How do you live with this info?
Robert is very cold if you go your own path and if you do not see this I know there is something wrong with your emotionally. The way he lets students go especially the one who are not rich and do not have a lot of importance in art or the financial world is very cold and painful. Bad role model for students and children.
Now at this phase in my live I can see that presence is here all the time. It is here while the physical does it thing. Enjoy it. This is what is called life. Presence is what is and what will be here, the body is an extension of that presence, a form that does it thing. If you need a Teacher enjoy it. I am grateful to give up dependency. I verified world 6 and 12. Something is connected to 3 and 0 …but I have no words for that.
I am so grateful for what I have verified…I am still healing recovering from years of giving up my self will, from unnecessary suffering….I see now how many decisions I made on the wrong information. I have a lot of restorations to do. Time will solve these issues.
In the meantime, my energy is now with you and I give you lots of light and warmth. A wish you can recognize and see what is already in you.
Love, to all of you.
Close but no cigar once again! An article on aboriginal art.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070725/en_nm/australia_art_dc
On a completely different topic,
This quote helped me find my true path. It maybe was given with good intention, but the laughter it now evokes serves me well:
” I have made more mistakes than any of you, but I have never repeated them”. R. (paraphrased, though may also be exact)
Bruce, #276:
“There was also a time where hysterectomies were being suggested to women for birth control because once it’s done, that’s it, no more problem.
To my understanding some even took the advice.
So how was the crown jewel of the new civilization after Armageddon, the glorious “1,000-year Reich” of awakened beings supposed to survive past the first generation without children? I guess that’s just another example of how us lower beings can’t understand the higher. Cause it sure don’t make sense to me.
Sarcasm aside, I feel very sad for anyone who followed that madman’s “advice.” I’m sorry.
Close but no cigar once again! An article on aboriginal art.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070725/en_nm/australia_art_dc
This quote helped me find my true path. It maybe was given with good intention, but the laughter it now evokes serves me well:
” I have made more mistakes than any of you, but I have never repeated them”. R. (paraphrased, though may also be exact)
After bloging yesterday I visited Isis and was amazed to see that a revolutionary spirit did not touch it AT ALL. I was prepared to see students worrying, talking about “what’s coming”, but – it is all peaceful as always, and the blog feels from there as something two-dimensional, and quite powerless lake a TV program which disappear when you turn it off. Unfortunately…
Made me think that even if FBI will show up for investigation there they soon will leave “in peace”…
To All,
There has been some warrior chest beating going on in some the blog posts lately. I have a couple of questions to ask those of you who think taking down the FoF and Robert Burton would be for the best:
1. Have you really thought about what it means to become ‘first force’ in this triad? History is loaded with examples of seemingly noble crusaders ‘making the world safe for democracy or for the one true religion or whatever’ and just look at the results.
2. Are you really prepared to accept full responsiblility for the results of your actions if you do become first force? Use your God-given creative imagination and mind to project some of the fall out and decide if you want to be responsible for this or not?
I do not see this as a question of objective right and wrong; it is up to each of us to connect deeply with our consciences and do our best to see who we are what we actually want in this time and place.
“Caution is the better part of valour”
-Nancy
my2bits, #278:
Nearly 15 years after I left the Fellowship of Friends, I discovered I was very angry about what had happened to me there. In the intervening years, I had actively tried not to acknowledge it, mostly out of fear of some sort of divine retribution, I guess. After many years of chronic illnesses and chronic pain, things kind of came to a head, as they say. I acknowledged to myself that I was angry. It was quite shocking, actually how angry I was. I surprised myself.
I recommend: 1) a good therapist and 2) screaming into a pillow (to avoid upsetting the neighbors/family).
Good luck.
Fat Boy (298)
You wrote “Now, because I am a man, I will retorically ask some of the men if your single or when you were young and chasing girls, did you want to get layed, of course! So you buy a women flowers give her gifts, ect. Yes maybe it is love sometimes and it is emotional but your objective is to get layed, at least for me, and I think I am pretty normal. And did you maybe put some pressure on the women to get some pussy, maybe make a few promises? Probably, and that is OK, so why can’t Robert do this, he is a man …
Well, Fat Boy, can you not see that there is a big difference between me using my own money that I have earned by the sweat of my brow to buy gifts for some woman and what Robert is doing? He uses the donations from the members (most of whom think the money is going to be spent for the common good) to buy outrageously expensive trinkets and clothes for his boy whores. Furthermore, most of those boys only give in to his advances because he says he is their conscious teacher, goddess, etc.
Ask yourself why you gave into him. Isn’t that the reason? Because you thought he was conscious and he was doing it to help you somehow? Imagine if you became conscious. Do you think you would use your newly acquired powers, enlightenment, etc. to have your way, sexually, with others? Is that the way you think conscious beings would act?
You also say, “There is alot of morality around sex and so many of us will have our opinions of what should be right or wrong. It is really subjective.”
Forget morality, subjectivity, and all that. That’s just your way of justifying Robert’s behavior. What about just plain common sense? If a survey was conducted in the general public regarding the propriety of Robert’s behavior, how many do you think would approve? I doubt if a single person would. Why do you think that is?
Finally, let me say that I’m glad you’re on here expressing your opinions and so forth. All the former students contributing to this blog were once thinking the same way and justifying like you are. If you keep trying to be honest with yourself I think someday you will figure it out and leave the Fellowship. I’m sure everybody on here is pulling for you to do that. Good luck.
Dear fat boy, 298
your letter touched me deeply. I know you so well! I don’t know your name, but what you wrote I heard from many friends of mine who are in a similar situation as you and it is just braking my heart.
You are vulnerable, sweet, you are so open as if you were naked in front of dressed and armed people, but only those who love you can reach you…
And I love you. And from this deep love of my heart I tell you with tears running down on my cheeks – you are an abused, confused, taken advantage of, naive boy, RUN from there. Those five days of “transformation” you were talking about were the days when the big damage was done to you.
It is as in the Andersen’s fairy tale “Snow queen”. As Kay you are trapped by the powerful snow queen and your heart is frozen and your eye has a piece of mirror that makes you see things up side down… only the tears of love can melt your heart, it will hurt, hurt so much that you will cry too and then the piece will fall out of your eye…
Much love to you…
What a treat over my cereal!
Thank you Another Name, Fat Boy and Bass Ackwards.
Respect for you each.
Dear Arthur-
Although my head is in the clouds, I try to keep my feet firmly on the ground.
Yes there are mysterious things happening and we are connected in very subtle ways.
Many times I come to the blog to find that an idea or a subject I had wished to address has been expressed more eloquently than I could have.
We are less different than our ego would have us imagine we share many of the same concerns and perhaps connect to much finer levels than we are normally aware of which connect us all, the air we breathe is the same air, we breathe air that the Bhudda breathed and also anyone else you care to think of.
There are beautifull and mysterious things occuring all of the time.
I try to only accept those things which are absolutely verifiable and put the others on hold.
Some people like Rawbert Burton become deluded by not doing this and pre-maturely accepting the first apparently from another level things presented to them and establish what to me appears to be a faulty habit of doing so.
The now famous forty four is a case in point.
Once while driving to the bay area alone with him in his little mercedes coupe, I asked him directly how he had come to the conclusion that there were that precise number of conscious beings working with us.
His reply to me as to others was that he had had the question occur to him and immediately after saw a sign with a big forty four on it.
While beautifully naive and childlike, to me this constitutes building on a shaky foundation.
He then because of believing this intensely without a shadow of doubt and through constant repetition, also because of his position was able to hypnotise many people that it was true.
here is an exerpt from the teachings of the Bhudda who avoided meta-physical discussion.
Dhammapada. Chapter one. entitled Contrary Ways. Stanzas.11 & 12.
“Those who think the unreal is, and think the Real is not, they shall never reach the truth , lost in the path of wrong thought.
But those who know the real is, and know the unreal is not, they shall indeed reach the Truth, safe on the path of right thoughts.
Also Arthur “the race is not to the swift or bread to the wise”
lty. Cy.
#286
Thank you Unoanimo.
You are right, this is a common story.
We need to remember and write all our stories for the people who are considering joining the fof and also for the authorities who may be observing the crime going on at OH.
The other story, the one who drove me out from the fof, is much more painful and created a big change in my life.
It was a blessing in disguise after all. I am still journeying and am on the open path.
True, I feel lost sometimes, but not for too long.
Life is too precious to be wasted under a false guru and school.
Love back to you.
(I’ll be off list for a few days…many changes can happen in the meantime…until then!)
Because US is a free country FBI will hesitate to get involved due to the constitutional issues. INS might try something but it hardly will change much.
Newspapers are not interested in writing the article unless some legal action is done. But one thing can make a difference – a public opinion. One or a few people can write a letter to an editor and that will show up in the newspaper.
http://www.appeal-democrat.com/sections/services/forms/editorletter.php
Some light entertainment of a mysterious nature.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gt_bq4gBKzs
ltya. Cy.
299 Bass Ackwards: “If one stays and offers to a Friend pure, undiluted, freeing understanding, in a non confrontational way, it is the best solution I can think of for dissolving this huge hypocritical misunderstanding called the Fellowship of Friends.”
Some of my current member friends are trying the same thing here in OH, organising dinners and so forth.
It reminds me a bit of when Christina Nielsen tried to separate the European part of the FoF from the U.S. part. A group of sympathetic centre directors, including myself, got together for a w/e in France to discuss how this could be done. It came to nothing because most students viewed Robert as their teacher and their main reason for being in the FoF.
Times may have changed since then, I suppose, and I wish you luck, but I have to say that what I see in the people here who are trying these things is that it’s just another way of delaying leaving.
best regards, RN
So few current Fellowship of Friends students are posting to the Blog because the majority are asleep in feminine dominance, Burton has managed to pervert the idea of “being present” into a form a behavioral control.
Crouching Tiger, thanks! It is hard to believe that this home-made ‘teaching’ could be taken seriously by anyone with brains…
And here is an example of visual distortion: an altered Tarot cards manufactured to fit the ‘keying’. A student was actually hired to redraw the original cards.
(I’ve included an original card with various animals and fake ones with sheep and goats)
http://img354.imageshack.us/img354/2881/sheepfx7.jpg
And here’s the description to confirm the lie (note that Robert doesn’t admit the card forgery in his ‘keying’):
“Turn around and rise above the world” refers to the wheel of fortune. In the Wheel of Fortune tarot card [X], the wheel is turning to the left, towards the goats—the ten thousand ‘I’s that oppose presence. Rumi said, “Turn around”—that is, turn to the right towards the sheep—the ‘I’s that promote presence. In Exodus 3:1, Moses “led the flock to the backside of the desert.” This means that Moses, the steward, went to the edge of the second state with his work ‘I’s; he turned it around.
Re #287 Janna
“I have a feeling this man has never experienced true friendship or love, regardless what he says.
Otherwise, how he could order lovers to separate, children to be given away, friendships to be cut off, pets to be killed? Which king of hearts? This man is as COLD and heartless as a rock on the moon. Except that he actually inflicts pain and suffering to others while the rock is just peacefully laying there…”
______________________________________________
You are describing one of the most chilling characteristics of a pathological narcisscist.
Re #297 Crouching Tiger
Regarding the way quotes and ideas are gathered for meetings:
I always found it rather amusing that students found the quotes and then paid to go to the meeting to hear them read.
_______________________________________________
I want to echo some of the posters who are encouraging personal stories. I think that these stories, related as accurately and sincerely as possible, contribute alot towards helping current members begin to question.
#297 Crouching Tiger wrote:
“Long quotations are discouraged, they put too much strain on the English/Understanding of the panel recipient.”
This entire scenario sounds like the old engravings/daily card projects years ago in FOF. Researchers dug up short, profound sounding quotes that RB liked and they were displayed below the steel-engraved visage of the writer. And the little card with the letter-pressed quotation was always waiting for you on little tables at the Lodge, on a daily basis. Most of the journals published by RB had the same clipped quotes and thoughts.
For me the pattern through all this has been RB’s inability to develop a thought for more than a few seconds. Why write a treatise (which is much work) when you can recite a 2-line quote pulled from someone else’s work. Do this with a seriously pained expression on your face while wearing expensive clothes and gaudy jewelry, and you have a teaching.
Some thoughts on gold alchemy and a question (or request) for all here.
I try to see gold alchemy as something we all have to strive for, not as something that any of us actually possesses (permanently).
I try to achieve gold alchemy with as limited means as I have: keep my surroundings neat and clean, buy some flowers for in the house now and then, listen to a classical music cd if I can’t afford a concert, etc. In fact, I even think literally displaying (too many) gold items in either clothing (jewels) or housing has nothing to do with gold alchemy.
I think gold alchemy is not a primary tool in the Work, but I do think it is an important secondary. The feature I most often observe in life (and in myself) is tramp; intentionally striving for gold alchemy seems to me a necessary step in counteracting the relativism so predominant in contemporary civilization.
Imagine you would go out of the house for a stroll right now; you walk out and you see everywhere around you dirty streets, junkies, unmaintained houses, ugly concrete flats, broken cars, people dressed in (fashionable) rags (and lots of golden jewellery, even on men), people eating stale fastfood and dropping refuse on the street ; when people talk, they shout, curse and argue, etc. What kind of impression would such scenery make on you?
I see gold alchemy for example in G’s exhortation to ‘work like a man’:
“The secret is small and very easy—one must learn to work like a man. And that is when a man does a thing and at the same time he thinks about what he is doing and studies how the work should be done, and while doing it forgets all—his grand-mother and grandfather and his dinner.” (Early Talks)
On the other hand, striving for gold alchemy in externals but not in internals seems to me worthless and less than worthless. I think this is where the teaching of the fellowship of friends has gone wrong: it has fallen in the direction of the pharisee, polishing the outside of the vessel at the expense and neglect of the inside.
“The lord said unto him, Now do ye Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the platter; but your inward part is full of extortion and wickedness.” (Luke XI.39)
Or, in the words of M. Nicoll:
“You may treat a person outside you well. Yes, but how do you treat the person internally, in your psychological world – this invisible world known only to yourself? After a time in the Work, if it begins to act on you, you feel far more uncomfortable through wrong feeling than through anything you may have done outwardly. The Work is not mainly about outer life, but about inner life, and here sincerity and valuation are necessary – not pious, not artificial, but genuine. You can feel a fool for having behaved wrongly externally but you must begin to feel worse than a fool if you have silently, in the privacy of your internal psychological life, your real life, treated a person in a mean and miserable way in your thoughts and feelings, though no one knows it. So it has often been said to you that it is how we treat people internally, invisibly, in mind and feeling, that counts. The commandment: ‘Thou shalt not murder’, means, esoterically, in one’s inner life. It has a psychological meaning apart from a literal one. I fancy that some of your now know what I mean and what inner wretchedness can arise when one speaks to oneself negative things about others, and enjoys them, and then plasters up one’s face and appears externally as an angel. The inner and the outer must correspond. This is a long task. They must, like two clocks, keep the same time.” (P.C., vol. 2, p. 694)
And last but definitely not least, I don’t think higher centres are dependent on outer gold alchemy; this is perhaps a case of confusing Refinement and Regeneration. My own highest states (incl. HEC experience) have been produced – all a-f-t-e-r leaving the fof – by reading G’s books, practicing G’s Movements, and trying to apply the Work ideas as explained by Nicoll in the Commentaries. Of course, other methods may exist, I just expose here what worked for me so far. Fellow bloggers, please share your methods!
Do you like music as a motivator? Try ‘Dire Straits’ – “Local Hero/Into the Wild” – pure intelligent melody. “Music hath charms to sooth the savage breast……………….Nigel.
308 somebody
“After bloging yesterday I visited Isis and was amazed to see that a revolutionary spirit did not touch it AT ALL. I was prepared to see students worrying, talking about “what’s coming”, but – it is all peaceful as always, and the blog feels from there as something two-dimensional, and quite powerless lake a TV program which disappear when you turn it off. Unfortunately… ”
I would be pleasantly surprised if people were openly talking about the blog at “Isis” but I’m not expecting that for all of the reasons stated here in the blog: mostly, the fear of being kicked out.
Don’t you think the “revolutionary spirit” that you describe is very unlikely to show itself out in the open — at meetings, dinners, receptions, etc.? When it does, those people are immediately shown the door. That spirit is much more likely revealed in private settings, in one-on-one conversations, and in private residences, and in coffee shops away from other members of the fof.
Since you are still a part of the FOF, why don’t you openly ask some people what they’re thinking? Go to Apollo D’Oro, and ask: “What do you think of these allegations against Robert Burton?” “Have you read the blog? Are you still reading it?” “Are you thinking about leaving the FOF?” And tell us what types of reactions you get. And then continue to ask these questions. What happens?
323 Nigel
- Yes.
- Just did. It left me wordless :)
Thank you, Nigel.
PS. Here are some of my favorite musical links:
http://alicelovesshakespeare.blogspot.com/2006/05/pythagorean-music-with-links_24.html
The prophecies of this blog’s early demise were about as accurate as Robert’s prophecies.
Thanks to those who put their heart and souls into sharing with friends.
Ask 10 people on the street if they have heard of “Scientology” and most likely at least 8 or 9 of them will be to answer affirmative. Clearly B-influence, high-profile, celebrity connection, etc. Now ask same 10 people if they know of Gurdjieff, 4th way, etc. and you will mostly get puzzled looks. C-influence protect relative purity of teachings.
If, in fact, C-influence has left the school ( and it sounds like mostly under dominion of A-influence now – i.e. money, power, sex.) Then it will not be long before attack dogs from national media move in. Bill O’Reilly vs Big Bad Nobodaddy and all the ex-fofer’s boo-hoo-ing on The “No-Spin Zone.” Yikes… what a circus will be!!!
Horahkti prediction #1 most likely to be realized soon.
Fear can be a great denying force to moving on with ones life. I have gone through many changes of being in my life. Each time I experienced a transformation it appears that I only went kicking and protesting and only proceeded with a good kick in the ass. In general only when some situation became to unbearable to continue would I move on.
It is the difference between theory and practice. At best the Fellowship is a nursery for young souls. Strangely each member enters seeking consciousness, unity, conscience and will. Yet when faced with choosing to follow ones own verifications hesitates, becomes doubtful seeks comfortable conditions.
I am coming to believe that the relationship of members to the Fellowship of Friends is similar to an addiction and may need to be addressed in a similar fashion.
Here are a variation on the first 3 steps of AA
1)We admitted we were powerless over Robert Burton and the Fellowship of Friends–that our lives had become unmanageable.
2)Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3)Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of a higher power of my own understanding
Step one admitting one is powerless includes accepting everything is exactly as it has to be. That’s it. Yes, powerless can mean the same as “man cannot do”. You can however be.
step 2 came to believe-describes a process of spiritual awakening. This is part of developing faith in your own verification of a higher power of your own definition.
step 3- Of course this is the same as Rodney Collins description of the right triad of self remembering. So interestingly enough the “cure” for the fellowship is self remembering but in a sense of developing your own relationship with a higher power.
One of the crimes of Robert Burton and the Fellowship is not being the words. Each of you has all the information you need. Lack of knowledge is not usually the defining problem of Fellowship members it is lack of being. The 12 steps are an octave and define a process. Done correctly they require three lines of work. For oneself, others and the larger whole. They also require a sponsor, this can be seen as a teacher but not like Robert. A teacher in the sense of someone who has already done what you need to do. To find such a teacher it is necessary to know what you want and find someone who has it. Then ask in the right way and do what your told.
This is a process in itself. It should be part of the Fellowship, I fear it is no longer cultivated.
For a member considering leaving. This may mean finding someone who has left and asking for help. Perhaps there is someone you know and respect who would agree to serve as a guide during this time. This is not a forever relationship. Know what you want, go after it ,move on.
Work for others means you can’t slink away like a coward but you need to make some effort to educate those still trapped in the imaginary world created by the Fellowship. It is not important that they “get it”. It is important that you do it. Being requires the courage to follow conscience. You need to start now.
Also the blog can be important.
!2 step group have meetings. There is a general proces involved. At first new members hear other people describing experiences, thoughts and feelings they have not articulated, this begins to give them the courage to tell their own story, this is an important part of healing. after a while you tell your story for the new comers because it is important that someone be there for them as someone was their for you.
There can be no rigid heirachy when eveyone is moving at their own speed. What is critical is the idea of putting one person in your place. If you are in the Fellowship it is not important that you foster negativity towards the school or teacher. It is important that you get in touch with your own capacity for critical thinking, sense of values, feelings of conscience and your own sense of a higher mind.
This is an absolute Law. Higher mind on the planet earth wants you to remember yourself, develop individuality, consciousness and will. The words don’t matter . These experiences are and will be uniquely your own. Robert Burton is no different than any false priest in all ages in all cultures who wants you to believe that only though him can you contact higher mind. This is foolish as it implies higher mind is stupid and cannot think for it or them selves.
These steps are not the beginning of change. They only begin when you have already begun to move out of a state of denial about your situation. If you are a happy camper in the Fellowship they have no value. These are for someone who has already begun to feel a definite “SOMETHINGS NOT RIGHT HERE”
You do not need to give up efforts at self remembering or your individual development to leave Robert’s teaching. The opposite is true. Efforts to remember oneself, develop conscience, individuality and will can help in fact are the only real indicators of what is the right direction for you to move in.
Gurdjieff said “remember your self always and everywhere “not to say you want to just do it.
272 Fat Boy
“I could be wrong but somehow I would say a good deal of the writers agree with me in that if we limit the vulgar, insults then the discussion would be more constructive. But I think that some writers would be afraid to support me on these points because they would get a host of critics on their asses and they too want to be accepted.”
Try not to be in imagination about others just be yourself. And stop the fucking whining its unbecomin