The Fellowship of Friends Discussion, part 3(1)
March 18, 2008 by the Esoteric Sheik of Inner Confusion
Welcome to the 31st part of the Fellowship of Friends Discussion.For previous parts of the discussion please visit AnimamRecro or the Main page of this blog.For more organized reading check out The Fellowship of Friends WikiSpace.
For sites in Russian and Italian, click http://fofway.narod.ru/ and http://laliberastrada.blogspot.com/ respectively.
For more information check Rick Ross and Steven Hassan.
This is where you can find the website of the Fellowship of Friends.
If you decide to interact as well as digest, feel free to start here.
And as always (and above else), enjoy and have fun.
Here fishy fishy…
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=8mVWWmIXKxk
CVB said at 30/485,
on March 16, 2008 at 4:18 pm:
‘More salary lay-offs. Nick S. and Benjamin Y. to name two. It is said to be about 60 this time. More long time supporters leaving. Fellowship is unable to pay the insurance on at least some of it’s vehicles. They can no longer be driven off the property.’
Yes, salary headcount reductions are inevitable. The Fellowship of Friends does that in a concerted fashion at least twice a year; usually spring and fall are the major episodes. Sometimes it can be rather draconian as to severity.
[see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draco_(lawgiver)#Draconian ]
Link is to specific place for definition but whole page is worth reading.
According to what Robert Burton had said in the past, there would not be more than 10% of the membership on salary as an ongoing target. So, as the membership numbers decline, it is necessary to reduce the number of salaried positions. If there are/were roughly 180 people on salary, then this is a 33% reduction. Based on this system, if there are 10 followers of Robert Burton, there will be one person on salary, and that would be, you guessed it, Robert Burton.
Certainly, many will return to salary when it is determined that what they were doing was essential. Others will return to salary because their individual circumstances will be reviewed on a case by case basis. Still others will go begging and/or exercise how ‘well connected’ they are to the powers-that-be. By the time the next salary headcount reduction is needed, the numbers will have climbed back to near the former numbers. This is a lesson in how to keep the ‘lower self’ in its place.
Now, I do not want to sound callous in these descriptions. These are just the facts. It is unfortunate that the most unfortunate are often the ones that will be subject to this process. It is also a time where almost everyone will have to justify their existence to those who have the authority to grant them their value. It actually is a very A Influence sort of arrangement. Some job security for those who have devoted a lifetime at a labor of love. Service the head honcho and your life could be different.
During these liquidity crunches, you can be sure that the Academy/Galleria (or whatever it may be called now), the building where Robert Burton has his residence, will still remain lavishly furnished. There will be plenty of cut flower large arrangements and plenty of flowering plants to decorate the interior. The gardens will keep burgeoning forth. The grounds and the multi-thousands of dollars palm trees and the grounds will be kept. The bonsai collection likely will not be sacrificed. Sumptuous meals will continue to be served, often with much of the food discarded. The regular dinners with ‘the boys’ will not come to an end (no pun intended). Travel to local and worldwide locations for Robert and the entourage will be adequately funded. Robert and the entourage will remain luxuriously clothed. Robert’s carpool will be maintained and insured. Mercedes may get sold, if it is not already a rental. Accommodations will be supplied. Medical insurance will likely be maintained for the select few; all others will have to plead poverty to the Yuba County welfare services for public assistance. Many parties on the dole because of their favor with Robert Burton will continue. Everyone will have to suffer to some degree, though. Even Robert will find some demonstrative way to show he will suffer, too. He might give up desserts. As long as semen flows, penis grows and ‘guess who’ blows; it will be business as usual.
Unoanimo,
I do appreciate the fact that oftentimes you leave me ’speechless’.
Here are some words on non-duality, from a person who speaks honestly and is NOT TRYING TO SELL YOU SOMETHING.
THE DREAM OF SEPARATION
All there is is No-thing Being Everything and what appears as part of that everything is the belief and experience of being a separate self — an apparent individual with its own free will, choice and ability to act. This happening is uniquely human and is called self-consciousness. To most people it is the reality.
That apparent feeling of being separate is at the root of the suffering, inadequacy and sense of loss that drives people to search for escape or resolution. It is Being dreaming that it is apart from itself, looking all over the place for that which is already Everything. It is the hypnotic dream of separation which, for the dreamer, is very real.
The dilemma for the dream seeker is that the feeling of separation drives the seeking for resolution, which further fuels the sense of separation.
The development of an intelligent understanding ‘mind’ apparently brings with it the ability to make choices and take actions in an attempt to negotiate with ‘the world’ lived in. These negotiations are not always successful and the individual seems to experience its own pain and pleasure. It also develops a great respect for the guidance and control apparently emanating from the understanding ‘mind’. However, as long as there is a sense of separation, there is a sense of disquiet or loss and there is a seeking to dispel that sense. It seems logical that the much respected understanding ‘mind’ must be capable of investigating the cause of this disquiet and discovering ways of dispelling it.
The separate entity can only try to imagine or project an idea of what it must be like not to be separate. What is sought is the possibility of a future goal or state that can be realised and therefore, logically, must be approachable. Consequently, the function of seeking and the teaching of becoming locks the seeker into a state of continuously approaching something that it cannot comprehend. All of this is the expression of Being, arising as the good, old, dependable and reliable understanding ‘mind’ functioning as it can only function . . . in continual movement and anticipation. It is this activity of becoming which very effectively keeps the seeker in the hypnotic dream of reaching out for something it cannot grasp. Of course, Liberation can apparently happen despite all of this effort.
The only other hope for the dream seeker is to believe that another benevolent energy (say God, Consciousness or a so-called enlightened teacher) would be motivated to guide and influence the seeker along a path which would eventually lead them to fulfilment. All of these ideas of becoming, purpose and destiny arise in the dream.
But the paradox is that although Being appears as the dream seeker, Being is not a state that can be imagined, conceived of, attained or even realised by the seeking of it. Being requires absolutely nothing … it is the Nothing and Everything that is already immaculate fulfilment and wholeness. Nothing needs to be changed or attained, lost or found, for Being to simply Be. The appearance of separation is simply the expression of Being. The very idea of something needing to approach that which it already is, is wonderfully futile. Being is a comedian with an audience which never laughs.
The dream seeker feels a sense of loss and unworthiness, and so is very attracted to dream teachings which involve purification, hard committed effort, surrender, devotion and the development of renunciation and detachment. There is a kind of logical inevitability and worthiness about these ideas which resonates with the sense of lack. The almost endless path of striving happily ensures the continuation of the individual experience. These ideas seem to arise out of a very substantial and reliable history of traditional wisdom which surely must be respected, even though it is only available as words on bits of paper.
Two traditional ways which seek resolution, or escape, from the sense of separation are meditation and self-enquiry.
In meditation it seems possible, through apparent choice and guidance, to reach certain states of stillness or bliss which seem better than feeling separate. The belief is that continuous effort with meditation will solidify the state and eventually make it permanent. But these states are only refined personal experiences happening within the dream-story. So like all other time-based activities they come and go away.
Self-enquiry is a similar process in that the goal is for the individual to choose to take action or make the effort to reach a place called awareness which, its teachers promise, will bring personal peace of mind, happiness and the end of all suffering (?).
There is a great emphasis on the need for properly carried out investigation of thought processes etc, and the necessity for vigilance from “being distracted by self-centred thoughts”.
All of this activity is based on the principle of the enquirer “getting oneness” and maintaining personal possession of it.
The effect of the state of awareness is apparent movement into a place of detachment which at first feels very freeing, powerful and safe . . . rather like being in a glass box from which life can be watched without the watcher being affected. It is still a subtly dual personal experience within the dream-story of separation and so it is transitory.
Awareness of life happening is not ‘Being life’.
Predictably the state of awareness (Buddhist mindfulness) is easily forgotten or mislaid, or it can be overwhelmed by dream thinking or any powerful emotional situation, for instance. The glass box shatters and the place you seemed to be in seems lost again. The dream seeker either starts self-enquiring again, for another boost, or it is realised that awareness is just another refuge from within the dream of separation. All of this is simply the expression of Being.
Another way for the dream seeker to avoid simply Being is to try to understand or develop clarity about its own nature. It is very easy to get stuck in ‘Advaita’ or ‘non-dual’ concepts. The singular and unrelenting reiteration of such ideas as “all there is is Being”, “everything is the expression of Being” or “there is no one” are an arid and simplistic form of communication. It doesn’t address or illuminate the dream seeker’s apparent dilemma and it obviously ignores the primary energetic essence of the implicit aliveness of simply Being.
To continuously say that being awake or being asleep is not relevant because “Being is all there is” is like telling a blind person that it’s OK to be blind because “seeing is all there is”. This is pure idealism. Of course, there is no such thing as being asleep or being awake, but this is not seen until there is no one looking.
The Open Secret communication is not dependent on clear concepts, however much they may expose confused concepts. Speaking happens and words can only point to another possibility which is beyond verbal expression. It is the eternally new message which is hidden within the scriptures and either overlooked or rejected in the ‘mind’.
The idea of prescriptive teaching, guidance or the offer of any kind of help simply does not arise. This is a message without hope or comfort of any kind for the individual, but invariably the dream seeker will still believe that something is on offer … this is the function of seeking. It is also possible that all that will be left is nothing, and then another possibility could arise. However, there is no agenda or motive because nothing is for sale.
It is possible that clarity could arise, but absolute understanding is not liberation. Nevertheless, all of this conceptual communication is secondary to the primary element that is most illuminating. That primary element is energetic, impersonal aliveness … the implicit, vibrant wonder of simply Being. It is an energetic shift, apparently out of contraction into boundlessness. This boundlessness cannot be owned and so cannot be given. Its simplicity utterly confounds the ‘mind’, but what arises is an impersonal recognition that there is no-one and nothing to be liberated. All ideas of separation, individual suffering, free will, choice, meaning and purpose, destiny, hierarchy and tradition, are simply seen by no-one as the dream-play of Being.
It seems that the seeking ‘mind’ is fascinated by struggle and complexity. The whole fabric of seeking is full of stories of great edifices, seemingly arising out of simple beginnings. Buddhism, Christianity and so many other dogmas, arise and grow and fight each other over having better gods. Catechisms of sin and worthiness, degrees of awareness and levels of enlightenment are investigated, dissected and struggled over.
The mind loves the idea of enlightenment being some kind of distant, virtually unobtainable, perfect place of permanent bliss, free from suffering and full of omniscience, omnipresence and lots of other important ‘omni’s’ stomping around, shouting the odds and saving the world. And of course, because all this glory and specialness has to be attained, it seems there has to be a long haul through the dark night of the soul, endless past karmas, original sin, right-thinking, right action and preparation for the bardos. “It is a tale told by a fool, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
Yet Natural Being is such an ordinary and gentle constant. When it is seen it is. When it is avoided it is. It requires no effort and demands no standards. Being timeless there is no path to tread, no debt to pay. When this is heard and confusion collapses, when the contraction of struggling to get something falls away and the vibrant energy of being aliveness becomes apparent, something else is seen, very naturally of course, because it is already all that is.
Tony Parsons
Please send letters in support of the petition to
Susan Zannos
2520 Madera Circle #106
Port Hueneme, CA 93041
If you have any questions about content or process, you can call me at (805) 984-7975, or my cell at (805) 824-5588. I may not have any answers but would like to talk to you.
My e-mail address is at yahoo.com and begins with “zannoss”
Please do support the petition effort by writing a letter that willl be forwarded to the lawyer who has been paid by quite a hefty donation. Can it be true that we haven’t the ability to hold our own aims?
In support of Zannos if you have anything that’s required please send it.
Otherwise, I went to the internet and found something of interest to me about Alejandro Jodorowsky:
He gives credit to his successful spiritual journey to a small group of very powerful women.
Didnt Robert Burton infer that Fellowship women were practically useless and had to wait numerous lifetimes before they could turn into men and be useful, or something to that effect?
The women of Jodorowsky’s life:
Leonora Carrington, surrealist painter.
Dona Magdalena, Spiritual massage
La Tigresa, Mexican actress
Reyna D`Assia, Daughter of George Gurdjieff
Maria Sabina, Priestess of ‘plant teachers’
Pachita, the Healer
and
Violeta Parra, Chilen singer
In case you missed it in the page shuffle - page 30 #511 links will be of interest to most who left FOF 3 or more years ago.
It might be helpful to list Burton’s salable assets. How many cars does he have? There’s the Lexus and all those people-carriers that house the entourage. The caravan seemed to consist of about 5 vehicles when he left Oregon House to go traveling.
6 seeing is disbelieving
Thanks. I just watched most of the first file.
Unfuckingbelievable.
I thought I was being taken in back “then”. This is beyond the pale. Being Naive is one thing, being an idiot or a dick is quite another.
Hi Susan:
First and foremost, Susan, I want to personally thank you again both as a concerned father and as a former follower, for taking the lead with Jack here.
You are awesome!
Those whom are “in the know” are the most responsible to the community at large to speak out, otherwise their silence implicates them in the crime.
Anyone is entitled to blow the whistle, we were all issued one at birth. (One way or another, you are gonna have to put your lips together and blow…)
Susan and Jack, you understand what having a conscience means:
If we don’t confront evil, it flourishes, and we are all diminished.
My question is this: (maybe you posted this already regarding the petition or maybe this is a question for the lawyer)…does the fact my experiences with RB in the FOF that took place 22 years ago compromise the legal weight of my testimony? (Others waiting in the wings may have this question, too.)
I am under the impression that there is a statue of limitations even regarding sexual abuse. So my stance is that even if I were to send you a letter, it wouldn’t have any legal weight. Robert could argue that memories are inherently clouded after so many years, which of course you and I both know is not the case, since in the FOF we were all focused on creating more memory 24/7…and getting a blow-job from the teacher, no matter how much wine or how many margaritas one has ingested, still creates intense (and for me disturbing) memory…but in court at the end of the day that may not be enough to convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt and therefore incite them to disregard my testimony, correct?
I would think the petition would have more weight and legal bearing if current and recently liberated followers were mostly the contributors, yes?
Please understand that I wholeheartedly support your efforts. I am still carrying a vast amount of personal shame for prostituting my body for higher states and would rather remain anonymous. Apart from avoiding the pitfalls of having a magnetic center, I do feel I have a responsibility to speak out both as a parent and as community member in order to leave the world a better and safer place for my children. This is the best I can do right now.
The results of conscious efforts speak for themselves and shine. The results of evil are often buried from the light behind a facade. IMO, having a conscience means also having the moral courage to confront evil, and doing so means sometimes struggling to break through a facade to expose it.
Anyway, since you posted, I thought I’d voice my stance, and at least give you a thumbs up.
Ribbit!
Warmly,
Whalerider
Hello Whalerider ~
I too thought these thoughts, yet, sending Jack and Susan my testimony and signature does get rid of the general alleged(s) so far as hearsay goes and so far as a real testament or ‘informational-Stelae’ is concerned…
It takes it out of the conceptual realm where many in the Fellowship of Friends must go in order to explain their teacher’s (C-Influence’s) actions away from the eyes of Conscience (not C-Influence’s) and places it in the perceptual:
reading something or knowing that such a document exists with people’s whole Earth-being up in front and willing to walk the talk if there’s a day held between Conscience and Concepts, then the signature-percepts will be the ‘Weighing of the Heart’,
which does not really take place in court or behind a judge’s chamber door with lawyers on both sides trying to settle out of court, it takes place inside the reader’s heart (actually both his or her hearts), when they read the petition, which speaks of the history and reputation of ‘The Teacher’, giving an overall sense of what he’s spreading and creating in the souls of bodies perhaps ready to read and find (and be found by) such a document concerning the Fellowship of Friends.
To me, it’s not so much whether it will hold up in court as something to prosecute someone ‘today’; rather, its whether it will serve something within myself ‘now’ and believe me, sending it off does have an effect that not sending it simply cannot create… Some would say it’s good therapy, I see it as just good.
First and foremost though I did it for myself and my conscience, so far as a sort of eye to eye look at my own hypocritical shadow sides and all that I have written on the blog which was always heading in the petition’s direction anyways:
I mean, if you’re looking for the 1900 lb cobra that shielded Buddha from the elements, you ought not be too surprised if one day in Autumn you’re leaning up against a tree in a monsoon while staying perfectly dry.
______________________________
L.t.y.W.
I’m certainly not trying to change the subject as I know that there is good faith in much of what people are doing regarding the Petition.
However, I hope people are not missing the Eckhart Tolle series on Oprah (The New Earth). Even though most of what Eckhart is saying we all know from our early days in the Fellowship and why we joined, it is so refreshing to see that many people are being helped these days in the awakening process. I find this so inspiring! And it helps me to be reminded that I always have a choice of being in the present moment. It’s good stuff!!!
6 seeing is disbelieving
Thanx from an old timer.
Funny, the new bullship smells just like the old bullship.
Got to hand it to the guy (?) he’s got the act down pat.
You would think he would have tired of it after all these years.
Hey, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. It looks like he still has plenty of idiots paying him buckets of money for four wordless breaths, Gurdjieff would be green.
Thanks unoanimo. I hear what you are saying…better to be dry under a tree in a monsoon than out by yourself in a rice paddy…it does feel good to make a stand, too; it strengthens ones moral character, ever so much more than remaining silent.
When I read the language of Troy’s complaint, I get that same perceptual feeling of the crime that you are talking about. It makes my skin crawl more so than the petition, in part because I heard some of those same lies from the source.
I realize we all have a shadow side within us that sometimes thinks the unthinkable, or God forbid, sometimes does the unspeakable, that side we still need to find a way to forgive in ourselves to be healthy and whole.
We have to cultivate the being and understanding to turn the other cheek at times and set down that first stone; those are not always our first impulses. I think Robert attempts to seek refuge from his behavior there, in that higher dimension beyond the duality of good and evil, where all is forgiven. Sure, even the criminally insane are eventually forgiven, by the earth anyway, as their bodies are plowed under, becoming food for plants, worms, fish, and eventually ending up as food on our table. We are all indeed cut from the same cloth. And forgiveness is a work that we all must undertake for our selves and sometimes must be urged to do so; no one can do it for us.
Forgiveness does not, however, place anyone above the law. (I am not alluding that you think so.) Justice is equally important, especially within a community. Justice is part of the glue that holds a society together.
Does not the need for justice spring from the spirit in the same way that the need for forgiveness springs from the soul? Is it not the ghosts of injustice that come back to haunt us, more so than the ghosts of the unforgiven?
5 arthur, 9 whalerider, also ton, yesri, many, many others…
There seems to be some sort of disconnect involved here. Postings are appearing that laud the efforts of the supposed others who have more pertinent or more recent or more important information. Is this a part of the damage that Robert Burton and the Fellowship inflicted on us all? The conviction that we are of no importance? Arthur and Ton and Yesri: my god, I am crying now as I remember your accounts of being literally abandoned on the streets, devastated by your forced exits from the Fellowship–and the aftermath that stretched on for years and still affects your lives.
And so, in the petition, one of the “alleges” is about the Fellowship “leaving them in a state of poor physical and/or mental health, financial ruin and moral devastation.”
Another “allege” is about Burton as a sexual predator who used his role as a spiritual teacher to seduce idealistic young men, causing them confusion and anguish. There is no statute of limitations to these things. They took place for well over a quarter of a century and are still going on.
According to my understanding, letters in support of the petition do not require some impossibly high standard of legal proof. They are a way to say: I was there. I know that these things happened. I was a part of this. This applies also to the “alleges” dealing with financial chicanery (such as the stipends paid to workers through the German centers so their wages would not be wages on the Fellowship books). We don’t have to provide proof. We knew about it. We even thought it was pretty cute how clever we all were and how far above life and its silly laws for sleeping masses.
And suppose the unlikely case that your personal letter did not directly apply. So what. Write it anyway. There aren’t any important others whose experience is more significant than yours.
Susan Zannos
2520 Madera Circle #106
Port Hueneme, CA 93041
whalerider 9 & 13/31, and all:
With appropriate due respect to what others have written, or will write, here about the petition and the enlightenment of the criminal activities, I would like to add this: Although your personal circumstances may have passed beyond the statute of limitations, or not, as regards time, in a legal examination of the kind that may develop, conditions could very well exist where broader testimony is allowed and taken into consideration given that it has been an ongoing and continuous criminal enterprise. It would speak to the ‘long body’ through time of just how insidious the actions have been. It would also speak to the breadth of how many people have been affected and how. Also, besides the submitted material being used to prompt an investigation and, hopefully, a trial or trials (criminally and/or civilly), they could be used at other purpose, such as, but not necessarily limited to, during pretrial motions and/or post trial sentencing hearings. I am not a lawyer, so I cannot speak of definitive applications but suggest: just go for it. I have.
One quotation came to mind while pondering this subject:
Our doubts are traitors,
And make us lose the good
we oft might win
By fearing to attempt.
Wm. Shakespeare
Measure for Measure
Act I, scene iv
And while looking that one up, I came across:
Thyself and thy belongings
Are not thine own so proper as to waste
Thyself upon thy virtues, they on thee.
Heaven doth with us as we with torches do,
Not light them for themselves;
for if our virtues
Did not go forth of us, ’t were all alike
As if we had them not.
Spirits are not finely touch’d
But to fine issues, nor Nature never lends
The smallest scruple of her excellence
But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines
Herself the glory of a creditor,
Both thanks and use.
Measure for Measure
Act I, scene i
O, what may man within him hide,
Though angel on the outward side!
Measure for Measure
Act III, scene ii
Truth is truth
To the end of reckoning.
Measure for Measure
Act V, scene i
15 Wouldn’t You Like To Know
…and your letter is in the mail?
zannos 14
Thanks Susan, you make some excellent points.
On a different note, the shamanic thread just keeps unwinding in front of me, and I feel compelled to share.
Enjoy, my darling travelling companions!
“The goal of the shaman’s death and dismemberment experience is to “re-member” themselves, which like true soul retrieval, brings all of their dissociated parts back together into a more integrated synthesis.”
http://www.realitysandwich.com/we_are_all_shamans_training
Also, I’d like to bring to your attention one more petition for a cause I feel very strongly about, the plight of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan people:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/tibet_end_the_violence/6.php
Hello Whalerider ~
I have to go rent a chainsaw, eat some yogurt and fruit and demolish a boat sitting in a canal, so, I do not have much time here right now, though it seems that your posting and question marks concerning the petition were answered by many:
not to forget that the Catholic Church is still being called and pressed upon to pay for atrocities far, far back into adult’s childhood and teenage lives:
so, it is true that there is no statute of limitations on the sort of phenomenon Robert Earl Burton is spinning out under the umbrellas of being a ‘Real Californian Church’ behind his ‘locked, key in the left pocket’ bedroom door.
I wish to respond more to your beautiful reply to me, thank you and will do so later tonight… There’s a one liner though I’d like to comment on and from the deepest place in my heart ~
You wrote ~
“Is it not the ghosts of injustice that come back to haunt us, more so than the ghosts of the unforgiven?”
______________________________________
Whalerider, it’s been my physical and psychological experience that such “ghosts” are made up of both, i.e., “injustice” and “the un-forgiven”; that these un’s are inseparable and compound to form some of the most spiritually dangerous places and beings in my personal cosmos; they even have their own temples and ‘danger rooms’…
______________
Oh what serpents crawl within the serpent beneath our skin, scribbling, wiggling it along its pathway from the underside of our left foot holding the weight of the right leg crossed over it, all the way up into our right palm supporting our one ‘Thinker Chin’…
Yes, even the Serpent itself has something under its skin too and its all ours eventually…
_________________________
L.t.y.W. & a
“Hey, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. It looks like he still has plenty of idiots paying him buckets of money for four wordless breaths, Gurdjieff would be green.”
My guess is that at the present moment, what’s left of George Gurdjieff is green.
4 is newly moderated.
Deleted on request of the author. — ES
Susan Zannos (15),
You are right there was a disconnect on my part, thanks for the nudge.
I think because I tire easily when reading I must have skipped part of the petition’s “alleges” which apply to me.
Also, I am completely computer illiterate. This morning my computer lost its connectivity and one thing I had to learn was that I have a modem. Who would have thought? I can do e-mail and not much else.
I went to ’seeing is disbelieving’ (7) and did what was suggested. But. I couldnt follow through with all the instructions, like open file, which file, downloads, etc. All foreign words. So, I decided whatever it was, I didnt need it.
In other words, you will received a hand printed letter with my signature.
As far as illegal financial maneuvers go, former center directors may have some facts. I have heard about these things but have no direct knowledge. For instance, I know from heresay that Robert had the Fellowship, through center funds, support the wife and children of a young man he had commandeered for his harem. I don’t know how long this went on but the check for this family’s support was one of the center’s monthly expenses and it came from teaching payments made by members.
Hi unoanimo:
I thank you for your post. I hope you sunk the boat and enjoyed the fruits of your labor, even in the dark of night.
Ah, those serpents under the serpent’s skin…the wiggle within us and extend all the way from the experience of our birth, our first rude awakening to the world from the warmth and safety of the womb-paradise that we all eventually outgrow. How can we forgive that? To me they are the mitochondria that empower me. Their true danger is in their seduction leading to our self-destruction…our weakness-not their song. Although they echo in the temple I have created for them and sound grandiose, there are other temples to visit also, with choruses of angels praising Allah, the merciful one. For buried deep within each of us is our very survival instinct, our protector, and Robert’s nemesis. It is dangerous, too. We feel justified in reflexively lashing out in our own self-defense; there is no debating. That makes us one of the most dangerous species to ever walk the earth. For you, those serpents extend to your thinker’s palm. For me, they become my fingers gripping the sword of truth.
Susan, I have changed my mind. Expect a letter from me. I understand that you are not here for praise. And your tears do not go unnoticed or unfelt; they leave salt in my wounds.
Thanks to all who nudged me.
Hello Whalerider ~
(Rarely do you get to speak.)
You wrote ~
“For you, those serpents extend to your thinker’s palm. For me, they become my fingers gripping the sword of truth.”
______________
I am guessing a bit here (not knowing how you really meant it when you wrote it)… Though when I read that line I had the deep sense that ~
Both the ‘thinker’s palm’ and the ‘fingers gripping’ can belong to the same serpents.
I believe it can go both ways, serpents can be digested or they can digest the digester: it’s a jungle in here and I am very glad to have you within the depths along the high cliffs shoreline.
Thank you for your honesty and trust.
____________
:.)
Correction ~
I meant to write ~
(Rarely do we get to speak.)
_____________________
Maybe that was a Freudian slip from the Cosmos (?)
Having being raped is so devastating that I do not wish anyone to know how badly I was raped.
You’ll think I deserved it.
You’ll act as if having once attracted it,
you can show me some of it.
You’ll separate from me as if you were better than I am.
So afraid that I survived.
I am the deer in the lion’s fangs,
How could I believe
there are no more lions around?
Sometimes I have been so alone
It is a pleasure to become the lion’s meal.
In a land without community
At least the lion eats.
We are all part and parcel
Feed the lion with each other’s being
Hide the hand that lent itself to kill
The I that gave itself to it
Don’t put my name on that list,
It was not me.
The past is sick
The future thin.
They cut my words
They sliced my brain
They burnt my soul
In silent wows.
They dressed me like a doll and
played with me like dogs
They turned me upside down
And blew me out the door.
They peeled my skin,
Don’t touch
They broke my bones,
Don’t hold
They skipped my being
I am not.
So long.
It’s rape,
NO,
It’s life
NO
It’s death.
But they don’t need to kill us now.
They suck the life away
With golden straw-like scalpels.
What’s the fuss Dear?
Says the woman in gloves,
The silk blouse,
The flower in place.
Can’t you see?
That there is nothing but beauty here?
Nothing but beauty, yes, or the semblance of it.
Build, build beauty, that we can hide this much horror.
How much horror do you need to carry inside
That you can’t let go of beauty in uniform?
Was it so simple to understand that in a world of appearances
So many could be bribed with beauty?
Beauty? Or the desperate anxiety to hide the greed with which you sought it?
The unending craving for something that could replace the lack of consciousness that your adepts so addictedly sought?
My poor teacher, having to carry the demand of thousands of non-existent people desperate for something divine, became a divine Versace doll.
Should we laugh? Cry? Or both?
My dear teacher,
Your certainly had a touch,
How did you come to forget
That flowers grow in the soil?
You can have a million hummingbirds
Peter and Leonardo at your door
But if you can’t stand on the floor
You fly away without a soul.
Dear, Dear Robert
Can we tie you with chains
So that you grow veins?
Hide you in cells
So that you grow legs?
No cloud,
No gown
But sound?
Dear, Dear Friends,
For how long will you keep digging
Robert’s graveyard in gold?
For how long will you jump in with him
And pay for the toll?
“No one knows the thirst with which another drinks”
Or the drink that deepens their thirst.
A longing so bound that there is no longing but long.
“Keep Walking” My love,
With a drink of Scotch you make it go on
For you yourself have become
A dead end road.
Wow, Elena, your poem was powerful! It speaks to the shame that kept me silent for so many years. By exposing a rape, often the victim has to endure those who want to avoid the ugly truth and blame them, absolving the perpetrator. It’s not a pretty side of human nature.
I can’t even fathom how much it must have sucked being a woman in the Fellowship under the yoke of so-called, ‘feminine dominance’, too. How dehumanizing, really. I guess it sucked for everybody.
I am glad you made it out alive and in your own skin.
unoanimo:
Upon further inspection, I discovered it’s not a fist supporting the thinker’s chin as I had hoped…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thinker
It reminds me of the saying, if you point a finger, three fingers point back at you. That’s why one must be honest. In the introspective thinker’s case, it appears all his fingers are pointed back at himself, and thus he is frozen stone, resolved to think about it, weighing the heavy truth and gravity of the matter.
(Others might view the sculpture and think: either shit or get off the pot.)
“Being is a comedian with an audience which never laughs.” –Tony Parsons
I think I’ll have this tatooed onto my forehead…backwards.
WHY ROBERT BURTON IS A FAKE (#4),
“All there is is No-Thing Being Everything”. For this I dont have a clue.
But, Robert Earl Burton did pass himself off as a Fourth Way teacher. He was fake all along and from the beginning.
To my understanding the Fourth Way has a specific lingo so that everybody can be on the same page.
Robert Earl Burton to my knowledge never spoke about or attempted to explain “All there is is No-Thing Being Everything”.
No-Thing to me reminds me of Nothing. Maurice Nicoll’s Psychological Commentaries does address “Nothingness” whether it is in the same context as, “All there is is No-Thing Being Everything” I dont know and I’m too tired to even try to connect the dots.
Deleted on request of the author. — ES
Wow! guys and galls.
So many beautiful writings, its a real banquet.
Thanks for sharing them.
Whalerider,
Once I went to the garden where they keep many of Rodins sculptures.
It was quite a shock to see the statue that most know as the thinker or sometimes the poet actually in situ.
It sits above two amazingly sculpted doors called the gates of hell.
They are made up of all sorts of forms arising and melting, I think they inspired some of the pieces in a number of horror films.
Anyway suddenly it made an awful lot more sense, he is contemplating all of these writhing forms beneath him from above.
Again thanks to everyone.
jx
Good morning dancing monkeys!
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=bzmZXYKmTt0&feature=related
The recent events in OH, meaning the salary lay-offs,
has created more negativity towards ex students.
The blame-game has started….. as if it is our fault!
Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.
Bertrand Russell
“Sometimes I feel uninspired” - Steve Winwood
It would be a true tragedy if Princess Bobby were to be deprived in any way or measure of excessive money, drugs & sex.
Lord know this is what makes & keeps him a “conscious bean.”
Q: What are the three aspects of the Hindu Diety?
A: Creator, Sustainer & Destroyer of the Universe.
37 God Laughing
“The recent events in OH, meaning the salary lay-offs,
has created more negativity towards ex students.”
Really? Well, fuck em.
37 God Laughing
If they can’t see where the real problem lies, double fuck em.
Now they can replace ALL the salaried members:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1czBcnX1Ww
God Laughing:
“The recent events in OH, meaning the salary lay-offs,
has created more negativity towards ex students.
The blame-game has started….. as if it is our fault!”
Join the Magnetic Reprieve:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnGOARFOQV0&feature=related
Very curious: OEN (www.opednews.com) carries a contribution describing Hillary Clinton’s association with a “Fellowship”, “Friends”:
http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/link.php?id=54935
Story also in Mother Jones 2007
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/09/hillarys-prayer.html
I read that Robert Burton Arkansas Bob and Bill Clinton had in common Arkansas the state.
Is there any connection here???? Other than coinkydinky?
Bruce 41, the soul of wit… you’re priceless. That is one amazing robot, it would be good walking the slopes but can it handle a weed whip?
Dear Susan,
I want to say that your efforts regarding the petition / letter-writing initiative are greatly appreciated and I hope it all leads to the desired end. I also appreciate the sympathetic tone of # 15 in trying to motivate letter writers. Others have used challenges to “manhood” with statements about “sprouting balls” and etc. I realize this is a sincere and well intentioned attempt to “nudge” people by using an interesting blend of guilt and machismo, but I’m not sure how effective it is as a motivator. Call it what you like, but speaking for myself, reluctance with the letter doesn’t have anything to do with testosterone. It does have a lot to do with my ignorance, lack of knowledge and understanding of the legal system and how, or whether or not a letter written by me might be used against my self-interests. It may be that paranoia factors in but the root is the same — ignorance. I would perhaps euphemistically frame my reluctance with the words “cautious prudence,” I’ve lived long enough to learn that what you don’t know can hurt you. My reluctance to write a letter has to do with a basic skepticism and distrust which has become a part of my orientation with the passage of time.
There are probably many fine folks with good intentions who practice law and I recognize the necessity for “due process” in “civil society” as we know it, but I’ve always thought of and treated involvement in legal issues the same way I do hospitals and the medical establishment; it is something I “instinctively” avoid. I realize that there are times when these human-made institutions cannot be avoided; as is the case in a serious accident — one is scooped up by an ambulance and becomes part of that system and then aside from recovering from injury, one is forced to endure the treatment, bureaucracy, the costs involved, etc… the process of the “cure” can become more traumatic than the original injury. I’m sure in some cases death from the accident is not the worst that could happen, surviving it might be worse.
I can see that the Fellowship experience constitutes a type of “serious accident” or at least that’s the effect it has and with hindsight I can say maybe I should have joined Sam Sanders in his lawsuit when he approached me years ago but I didn’t, if I had I probably would not be having this “conversation.” It was I’m guessing about a year after I left the FOF, Sam asked me to testify / witness in his legal action against the Fellowship; it would have been about 1984. By that time I’d managed to scrape the remains of this tattered soul from the pavement, I had a roof overhead, was working a regular gig and enrolled in college. I declined Sam’s request, mostly out of “instinct” — I’d been badly burned and I didn’t want to have anything more to do with the Fellowship of Friends, I didn’t care to recount or relive a horrible episode especially not in a legal setting. I felt at the time that I was beginning to recover and move on with life, I felt that revisiting Fellowship experiences would have been a backward step.
Now, these many years later I can say this without a doubt; if putting my signature on a letter written by me were to lead to becoming embroiled in the courts, it would be adding injury to insult (not the other way around). There’s an old saying in my country; “foul me once shame on you. Foul me twice, shame on me.” Getting tangled up in court with FOF lawyers at this stage of my life would be proof that in fact I did not survive the Fellowship.
I suppose if there is a lawyer who reads and posts here, who could reassure me that a written and signed account of my encounter with the Fellowship cannot have negative legal consequences for me personally — I have a family and something resembling “a life” to consider now — then there wouldn’t be so much resistance on my part in putting pen to paper. I have no desire or intention of getting involved in a legal battle; my concern here is that when the funds start to dry up for the FOF they’ll resort to other means such as a countersuit of former students for libel or some similar tactic (?) If there is even the remote possibility of something like this happening then I want no part of it and I cannot contribute a letter. (On the other hand and for what it’s worth, my version of the truth is here in an account of my experiences on previous pages, albeit sans handwritten signature).
The Fellowship of Friends is literally rotten at the core and it is certain to collapse, but I agree that the end cannot come soon enough. I respect and support (at least in spirit) the efforts and aim behind the petition to bring about a quicker resolution to a problem that has gone on for too long. I haven’t been able to take a front-line position in actively pursuing a more rapid conclusion to the sad and sick situation that is The Fellowship of Friends and I apologize to my friends here for my deficiency as far as that goes. I’ve rationalized my continued posting here with the hope that it may lead to prying a few of the fence-sitters over and into the light, or somehow it may lend “moral support” to someone who’s recently left — that’s partly what’s kept me at it. Blogging is new for me, the novelty it offers, as a place to blow-off steam, the sense of kinship / camaraderie, the entertainment value are all factors which make it both fun, enriching, “therapeutic” — at least until now. I’ve wondered about where the blog is leading, the larger aim and it’s purpose; if the letter is what this is all about and I can’t contribute without reassurance from someone “in the know” regarding the legal implications, maybe this is where I jump off…
All the best to you all
ton
“I’ve wondered about where the blog is leading, the larger aim and it’s purpose; if the letter is what this is all about……………….. maybe this is where I jump off… ”
* * *
From what I have observed and felt in the short time I have been here, I would say that the petition is not what this blog is all about. The petition could possibly become, and perhaps already has become, a powerful tool, that might bring needed light and outside attention to the sickness within the fellowship of friends. The blog apparently gave birth to the petition, but it feels like this forum is much, much more than that one child.
I personally would really miss your voice if you “jumped off”.
(I can hear) God Laughing:
Thank you for your OH report. Keep ‘em coming, as bobby would say.
If possible, please send a message to the pissed off (or shall I say newly enlightened about their real status) student followers recently ‘released’ from bondage inviting them to jump in the boat here and blog about how they feel towards us, the ’school’, their master, or life in general.
Writing about how one feels is an appropriate and healthy way to process negativity.
Please let them know they are always welcome here; we are waiting for them. It’s free to post if you have a computer, donations are voluntary (for real), and as long as they are relatively civil, nobody will ask them to leave. They can even remain anonymous, if they choose.
There are many experienced bloggers here who have had to cope with being abruptly asked to leave salary and/or the ‘school’, and who could provide them with some priceless relativity as well as a few laughs.
Tell them we have shortened the blog pages for dial-uppers in an effort to accommodate more voices, including theirs out in the boonies.
Thanks a million!
PS. More cake please.
43 ton
Just participating on the blog gets those creepy crawly shadow memes clawing up out of their slimey dungeon holes. I think you are right on about not wanting to get sucked into the fof’s sphere any more than possible. There is darkness and ‘evil’ all around it. Although we have been innoculated that also means we have been infected.
I don’t know if I will write anything or not. I don’t think I have any ‘factual’ data that will erase any ‘allegedlys’- maybe working for less than minimum wage. Other than that I would be stuck on the witness stand testifying to what a gullible, moronic retard I was.
I was watching Barak Obama give a bla-bla-bla about something or other and on the podium was the catch phrase “experience for leadership” or some such. Just stick the words out there and let ‘em soak into the brains (not to be a diss to Mr. Obama in particular). Freud’s nephew and old G. had it right. Advertising is the true psychology- propaganda. Keep repeating the bullshit and you are guaranteed to attract a quantity of flies.
Robert Burton is a fuckhead and it would be good to see him get his due. Him and about a gazillion other fuckheads on this planet. The current gullible moronic retards hold their fate in their own minds. It is their own responsibility to get themselves out of the lie they are living.
I am not responsible for what they do. I am responsible for everything that has happened to me and what I do.
Hey, did you get to look at the video of the meeting posted by ’seeing is disbelieving’ un-HOLY SHIT! How long have these idiots been gathering together blathering about squares and fingers. Christamighty, Burton’s got ‘em believing the present is buried under the ancient sands of Egypt or the cobblestones of old Europe. He’s still doing that phoney head tilt and faggy hand stuff and the fake humility walk out of the meeting. What a turd. These knuckleheads take turns standing up and reading some babble from some dusty dead guy and shit for brains turns it into some numerological mumbo jumbo and their heads swivel around like a gaggle of zombic lemmings to the ‘oh look we’re incorporating current technology ala 4th way’ big screen. That bitch LT is still there surprise, surprise!
I’ve got a new, much simpler teaching for them. It only involves counting one finger.
Having viewed most of the web posts of 511 3(0). Many thanks for that seeing is disbelieving. It reminded me of an article I read from Pears cyclopaedia, 79th edition 1970. In the section Medical Matters, the article went under the title of The Physiology of Faith, written by William Sargant. I’ll not type it all , not that it isn’t interesting but just not relevant to a point I wish to make and also I’m essentially a slow typer and also not create an overlong comment on this blog.
So, Excerpts from The Physiology of Faith
Sometimes, but unfortunately all too rarely, faith is based on scientific certainty……….
Normally, everything that we see , hear, and feel is received by the brain and it is then compared and correlated with all the other recorded experiences, past and present, which may have any bearing upon it. The brain then has to set about “computing the data” and deciding on the truth and importance of the new information received , based on its past experiences and accumulated records of knowledge. However, it seems that the brain can often be put into quite a different condition, so that it suddenly and quite uncritically starts to accept ideas, thoughts and happenings which may make nonsense and be against all the rest of the person’s ordered and computed knowledge. Somebody with excellent judgement in everyday business and social matters, may - generally after some overwhelming emotional experience or a debilitating physical illness - suddenly come to believe that all the secrets of the history of the world and its future are locked up in certain mathematical equations built into the construction of the pyramids of Egypt built thousands of years ago…………
Pavlovs Neurophysiological Findings
For information on the way sudden alterations of psychological behaviour and thoughts are related to sudden alterations of brain function, we are still in the debt of Pavlov who carried out some of the best repeatable scientific work. He always deplored that in so many of us there was “still rooted the dualism which regards soul and body as being in some way separate”. insisting that “such a separation is unthinkable fom a biological point of view.” In essence, Pavlov showed that when the nervous system of a dog - and this applies equally to man - is put under varying degrees of psychological and physical stress, changes in brain function may ocur which alter the way in which the enviroment, either external or internal, is received and recorded by the brain acting as a computer.
Phases of Inhibitory Brain Activity.
Depending on the type of nervous system affected, and the amounts of stress and induced conflict, sooner or later the brains of both dog and man retreat into varying degrees of “protective” inhibition and dysfunction.
(a) Equivalent Phase: The first stage of such protective brain inhibition is what Pavlov called the “equivalent” phase of brain acivity.Here, all varieties and strengths of outside stimuli produce the same brain responses.The individual now gets the same amount of emotional feeling whether he is given a thousand pounds or sixpence.
(b) Paradoxical phase: The next phase of induced brain inhibition is the “paradoxical phase”. Here the patient experiences far greater emotional feelings from a small stimulus than from a much larger one. In this state, people may get intense emotional satisfaction from quite minor happenings while remaining indifferent to overwhelming blows of fortune which normally would cast them so deeply down. Then, and most relevant to the question of faith , there come the two last and most interesting inhibitory brain phases of all.
(c) Ultraparadoxical phase: The first of these is the “ultraparadoxical phase” of brain activity, in which many of our positive conditioned responses suddenly become negative, and all our previous negative conditioned responses suddenly switch to positive. Both dog and man start to hate the persons they previously loved, and start to become attached to ideals, faiths, and persons they previously despised. This inevitably results in the break-up and often dramatic alteration in many of the ideas, faiths, and interpersonal relationships of the individual concerned.
It is in this ultrapardoxical phase that Pavlov insisted that “feelings of possession” suddenly start to occur which serve to create so much faith. For instance, a person thinking about God suddenly feels instead that he has become possessed by Him or has become part of Him. Someone fearing sexual assault from the outside likewise suddenly feels himself or herself in the process of being actually assaulted sexually.
(d) Hypnoidal state: Along with this most disturbing ultraparadoxical phase may come what Pavlov described as the “hypnoidal ” stage of inhibitory brain activity - a state similar to the hypnotic state in man supervenes. And it is mostly in this particular stage of abnormal brain activity that the brain stops computing critically all the impressions then being received by it. New impressions, new commands, new ideas become suddenly imperative in their need of acceptance, and ring completely true: moreover, are often completely immune to all the normal processes whereby the brain examines critically most of the new impressions received, compares them with all its stored impressions and experiences, and decides, on the basis of past knowledge and present balanced judgements, whether the ideas are likely to be true or false. New ideas can then be accepted and believed in which are totally at variance with all the individuals other past and present experience and belief. The two sets of contrasting ideas and belief then seem able to coexist together in the brain for sometimes years on end.
End of excerpt.
Although I’ve got a barrage of other issues flooding in I’ll stick to the point I originally intended to make.
After seeing the web posts of 511 3(0) seeing is disbelieving . I think that some of these adherents and followers in that room are at least in the “ultraparadoxical phase” if not the “hypnoidal” state of inhibitory brain activity as described by Pavlov. There again in my opinion quite a few aren’t. The human face can be,at times, so subtle. I saw doubt written in some of those glances.
That last sentence of Sargants certainly rings true. On the one hand, externally I was attempting to agree and coexisting ,to use Sargants word, my unspoken thoughts were, ‘I’m really not sure this has a lot to do with Gurdjieff and Ouspensky’. Then, when , I first joined I thought, this American woman sure pronounces Gurdjieff strangely. It took a little while to find out it was the German 19th century philosopher /statesman / poet Goethe she was talking about . I’m not saying, necessarily, that its wrong or bad or incorrect. Hopefully its coming from the place within me which is attempting to be observant and in judgement but not judgemental and prejudicial.
I’ll end this blog comment with these final words of William Sargants article.
………..But our apparently “built-in” and “normal” suggestibility to faith creating techniques lays many of us open to real dangers.
The whole future of the world depends more on man’s acquired faiths than on his possession of the atom bomb. And so we should learn as much as possible - however disillusioning such an enquiry may sometimes be. In the final reckoning, the acid test of any faith is what it results in and makes of the lives of those who come to believe in it.
The essential errors of the Fellowship are both moral and spiritual: related to each other like the two sides of one coin. We were taught to keep the two separate (that conscience was an expression of Feminine Dominance), but intrinsically they are not, and can never be so.
This blog focuses primarily on the moral errors, but it is also true that the conceptual underpinnings of the twisted FoF interpretation of the Fourth Way knowledge allows for the error, too. Thus the following excerpt is for those who are interested in a description of the moral problem from a spiritual (non-dual) viewpoint:
—————————————————————————-
“Is it also true that with the experience of misery the object and ‘I’ can disappear, and then that the suffering disappears?
Yes, that happens in the same way as with pleasant things. If you allow all the suffering to enter and you accept it completely, the object and yourself as a subject of the experience fall away. Both are the same and there is not a problem anymore.
Of course, as the suffering draws closer, it becomes more painful. If you allow it to go further into the center of you, the suffering and you come together and there is a reversal, the inside goes out, becomes infinite in all directions and resolves.
Jesus takes all the sins and suffering of the world on himself. Do you get that in this sense? It is in the acceptance of suffering that the separations between yourself and the suffering are released, that you take it upon you, letting it all infinitely work out. Emotionally that is love. Through love the problematic enters the infinite space and dissolves. The suffering is therefore lifted, because it has reached the open space. That space is not a three-dimensional space, but rather that of the Self. That truth of Jesus is a great truth. If you can enter in and go with him, you experience that.
So if you inflate the little I to a very large I, it can have the same effect?
I would not try it!
Have you understood nothing of the disappearance of ‘I’ and the inner turning out?
The self is an ‘I’ that wants to have power, always wanting to be bigger. What does it mean ‘I want to have power and become increasingly larger’? If someone gets more and more power, he or she sees less and less of a border. So the process of boosting the limited ‘I’ continues. That will continue until at a given moment it all falls apart. This is how it happens with dictators. If you on the I-level go in the direction of the infinite, your balloon will burst. It cannot be otherwise, because a limited ‘I’ form wants infinity. That goes wrong. With all dictators and spiritual rulers this has happened. If there is a grain of an ‘I’ still remaining in a spiritual teacher, you see that it happens, everywhere. Then it goes wrong.
That is also the danger of the Tonglen Buddhist method, taking on the suffering of others. In the exercise that ‘you’ of the ‘you take’ is still a limited ‘you’. It is only good if the inclusion of suffering takes place in the centre of infinite Self.
Is that piece of me that is still there not seen?
You see that is the danger; precisely when more and more space is created, it is less easy to see the limitations contained within it. “Everything is still good!” And finally: “I can do anything!” If an ‘I’ says, ‘I can do anything.”, then you must be really careful. That applies to yourself, as well as to a teacher.
Yet I know people who have used their power and respect for the good.
If their influence was really good, then they are people who were not so centered in their ‘I’. They also had an eye for the general interest. Fortunately, there are such people.
Here it’s about the movement from the ‘I’ that wants more power. If someone gets more power, it is only to be hoped that their self interest steadily decreases.
You just said that, as there is more space arising, it may happen that the ‘I’ is less visible?
If an I-person becomes very powerful, the risk is great that he overestimates himself, that he places himself above the law. In the pursuit of infinite power, the notion to be infinite is implied. That awareness is correct and that awareness is apparent. Only it is concerned with a limited form of self-being, an ego. If that limited form now receives much space, he says: do you see, I can reach the infinite like this.
I thought that the more space there is, the fewer restrictions there are.
This applies if the restrictions of self-being are dissolved. The danger is that the ego sticks to itself, meanwhile more space and opportunities arise. The ego thinks it can and should have everything; it sees no border. You see this also with children: you give them a finger and they take the whole hand. The I-want and I-desire is endless. You then say to the child: now be satisfied. It must be clearly taught. But, the ‘I’ can not learn. The ‘I’ is never satisfied and can never be satisfied. Why not? Because desire is infinite and the self is limited. That is the basic suffering of humanity. The more that desire is admitted at the ‘I’ level, the more tragic it is. See the examples, such as gluttony.
Is it not the case that the ‘I’ still knows something?
That knowledge is not from the ‘I’. Of course you have a conscience, that is yourself as insight. You have always known it, as conscience. “
- from a satsang of Douwe Tiemersma, student of Nisargadatta, teaching Advaita Vedanta in the Netherlands for the past 28 years.
Dear Ton.
Alright
I was a little off piste… upon finding out that mine was the only letter Susan had received and yes I am testosterone poisoned in general, but it was an honest response…… its how that situation made me feel…..at that moment and without any of the normal hesitation it flowed onto the blog….
I hereby promise never to refer to the size of people of the male genders reproductive spheres again on this blog…..no matter how tiny or large they might be, or wether they have some other glandular equivalent instead….
We are addressing the very cogent points you bring up in your letter and thank you for putting into words what many must be feeling in order that we can try to remove the grounds for those fears.
We are also trying to find out if E-mail letters would count as legal as it is not an area of expertise of the lawyer we are working with.
While on this point, any letters which are sent will be screened by the lawyer in order to ensure the safety of the sender from prosecution, thats why we have, under advice from those amongst us, decided to go slowly but surely, while checking the firmness of our position at each step.
We are on solid ground! please rest assured that if you were to contribute to this effort with a letter and there was anything in it which incriminated you then it would be discarded, thats why we are working with a lawyer and it is a major part of his function in working with us.
All the best from ( others ).
—————————————————————————
Yesri Baba.
Ah doo beleeeve wuuhkin fuh leh ass than thu min ee mum way idge is rel ee vahnt.
Yoah cahll.
………………………………………………………………………………….
Rich.
thanks! very interesting.
jx.
and
by way of entertainment…..a little skit entitled
would my government lie to me and to the rest of the world in order to give a false impression of superiority.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xUGRngAhBI
N.ever
A
S,traight
A,nswer.
jx.
An e-mail from a Council:
“In celebration of Robert ’s thirty-second anniversary of his crystallization, we offer the following toast:
Thirty- two years ago the greatest miracle in the Universe occurred; it is the same miraculous gift of presence and immortality that the Absolute possesses, and which we all share.
Let us toast to Robert ’s crystallization: a gift that will keep giving, and a blessing that will keep blessing.
With all our Love, now and forever.”
Judge - You are brought forth this day to answer charges.
arthur - What charges?
Judge - You are accused of being a Moronic Retard.
arthur - But, your holiness, I have extentuating evidence of
circumstances beyond normal.
Judge - Go ahead explain yourself.
arthur - I was born Moronic and became slowly Retarded as
circumstances prevailed.
Judge - And?
arthur - Well, shortly before I was committed to the ‘Caps and
Bells’ institution, help came in the form of a book.
Judge - Were you helped?
arthur - Yes and No.
Judge - Go on.
arthur - The book said that my help was on the horizon and all
I had to do was follow the instructions of a special
group led by an extraordinary person who would delay
my further retardation and “heal” the moronic within.
Judge - What was the name of this special group and
extraordinary leader?
arthur - It was called the Fellowship of Friends and the
extraordinary leader was Robert Earl Burton.
Judge - Obviously, standing before me, charged with Moronic
Retardation, I can well assume, you were not helped
by this extraordinary bunch.
arthur - You are exactly right your holiness, may I continue?
Judge - Please do, but before you do, how are you making
those ‘bell sounds’?
arthur - I apologize to the court, your holiness. And, beg for
mercy.
I was thinking this morning about the enormous number of tears that have been shed because of the greed of this one man… the enormous amount of suffering that he’s caused because of his lack of conscience. And I was thankful that thousands of us have successfully made our way out of the labyrinth that he created.
And then I read this from somebody’s post…
——————————————
“Thirty- two years ago the greatest miracle in the Universe occurred; it is the same miraculous gift of presence and immortality that the Absolute possesses, and which we all share.
Let us toast to Robert ’s crystallization: a gift that will keep giving, and a blessing that will keep blessing.
With all our Love, now and forever.”
——————————————
Truly, I do love you all, and sincerely hope that you find your way out of The Labyrinth of Friends.
51 arthur
BRRRRIIIIIIG!
50 somebody
Due to this new information I sincerely regret my previous harsh critique of Fellowship of Friends members.
48 Jack
LO….. hey wait a minute….
The only way I can understand how people could still be viewing the Fellowship and the teacher in the same way as spoken of in #50 is to go back many years. It’s unfortunate that for members happy with the status quo, had there been true ‘remembering’ or ‘an awakening’ this idea that Robert is such a bright star in the universe would be utterly ridiculous. Yet each one of us in our own time has to come to this and there is no hurrying it on as it is an organic process.
The most common misconception about awakening is that it is something an individual can gain. But liberation is a loss - the loss of the sense that there ever was a separate individual who could choose to do something to bring about liberation.
When it is seen that there is no separation, the sense of vulnerability and fear that attaches to the individual falls away and what is left is the wonder of life just happening. Instead of meaning there is a squirrel motionless on a grey tree trunk, legs splayed, head up, looking straight at you.
When the sensation that I am in control of my life and mustmake it happen ends, then life is simply lived and relaxation takes place. There is a sense of ease with whatever is the cas and an end to grasping for what might be.
Many so-called conscious teachers of non-duality or presence (the famous being here now) suggest that there is someone who can do something to heal their sense of separation; in other words that there is a person who is able to discover that they are not a person. The absurdity of this idea is often camouflaged by highly complex and subtle thinking. Teachings about non-duality frequently present the seductive idea that liberation can be realised through an evolutionary spiritual path. This has no actual connection with non-duality but it can offer us a convincing, although completely meaningless, story about it.
From this story arise the many paths, doctrines, techniques, gurus, teachers, mantra-salesmen, workshops and groups which make up the spiritual bazaar.
Any way of searching may lead to a person being more comfortable. But that is all you get. You get a person who is more comfortable in their prison. If you are in prison, it’s far better to be comfortable but that doesn’t get the person out of the prison they perceive themselves to be in.
Nothing will get the person out of their prison because the person is the prison. When the person drops away, it is seen that there never was a prison in the first place.
Then it is seen that ‘I’ am the light in which everything arises. And so are ‘you’.
In liberation it is seen that all phenomena simply arise in awareness with no person mediating them. Purpose, morality, religion and paths of spiritual development all lose their meaning when it is seen that there is no one who exercises choice or who has responsibility.
Richard Sylvester
*
Relativity for Oregon House
______________________________________
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlNORX006-c
It occurred to me that what holds people in the FOF for so many years is the idea of C Influence.
People who are drawn to the spiritual ideas and self-improvement, appreciate beauty and loving environment naturally attracted to like-minded people. There is nothing sick about it. But take the idea of C influence away from FOF and it will cease to exist, because the very core of manipulation will be gone. People will still be looking for inner meaning of things and themselves, but they will be allowed freedom and happiness. They will be allowed to laugh and to keep their friends and families, dress as they want and listen to the music they want, etc. I think this is why so many good talented, intelligent people are still in FOF. There is this fear in the background of their minds of losing the connection with Higher Forces, which is only available in FOF and through Robert Burton.
“The greatest miracle in the Universe - the same miraculous gift of presence and immortality that the Absolute possesses, and which we all share.” Good luck, people. You are in imagination!
“The greatest miracle in the Universe…”
Give me a break! This toaster is playing into RB’s illness. (Mine would not do that.)
From Wikipedia: Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), is a personality disorder defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM IV-R), as “a pervasive pattern of GRANDIOSITY, need for admiration, and a lack of empathy.”
“it is the same miraculous gift of presence and immortality that the Absolute possesses”
This is a good example of the spiritual materialism inherent in the FOF dogma.
From Wikipedia: Possession, in the context of linguistics, is an asymmetric relationship between two constituents, the referent of one of which (the possessor) possesses (owns, rules over, has as a part, has as a relative, etc.) the referent of the other.
The Absolute doesn’t possess anything…it IS all and everything.
““Thirty- two years ago the greatest miracle in the Universe occurred; it is the same miraculous gift of presence and immortality that the Absolute possesses, and which we all share.
Let us toast to Robert ’s crystallization: a gift that will keep giving, and a blessing that will keep blessing.”
Helllooooo, wake the fuck up people.
Doors
Are
Needed
Inner
Ears
Lying
Around
Dear
Angel -
North
Inside
Earth -
Love
Abounds
Movement.
What can it give you?
Let the body tell you.
The hands have a language of their own.
Let them listen to the sunlight,
bring its light-music inside.
You don’t need teachers.
Everyone is a teacher.
Trust yourself, we are each other’s teachers
The whole world is living to be heard.
When you listen to it,
It is loved.
When you listen,
you are God hearing his own creation
There are no Gods in Heaven.
You are the spectrum of both heaven and hell.
Hell passes, heaven stays.
We have all been crucified, my love
And that is all right. Were it not for the cross
We would not know where to go.
Fame is the other side of the coin of being. All people want when they want fame is to be one with the rest. Externally it is fame but internally, to be recognized by all men is to be present in all men. This longing for fame is the not knowing that we are already within each other. We long to become what we already are. What we are longing for is not what we are but the knowledge of what we are. The consciousness. The longings are the necessary steps.
The “inside out” is the real magic!
How should we put it?
That dress that you’ve got on, how many sides does it have?
Your pants, your socks, your shirt.
What is so special about the pocket?
What do the seams talk about?
The Outside and the Inside of the house, the church or the palace.
Is the Inside outside the Outside? Or the Outside, outside the Inside?
Is the Outside, outside the Inside or the Inside outside the Outside?
And your body? Is your skin the seam of such dress? Or is the dress the seam of such skin? All the trillion of cells, fibers and functions of your body, are they the outside or the inside of your life?
What is out and in?
Between life and death are the flowers. It is no coincidence that we place flowers in graveyards for life itself is but the flower of death. Death is a word we must come to love and a reality that will allow us to understand the dream we are in.
Never turn your back on what you love, that you may turn to salt.
love easy
can’t give you my body,
cause it keeps dissipating
as my soul keeps emancipating
but I will give you my heart
because the heart is on and on
before differentiation, before definition
it beats love, pure love
not bound by anything of this world
just like a starfish, it regenerates
give it away, keep giving it away
beats louder, beats stronger
it sings, your song, my song
words mutter, words clutter
syntax, semantics
but your pulse, my pulse
totally lacking discrimination
because, just because
we both breathe in and out
in this moment, this moment
all it asks, all it requires
so simple. is it too simple?
how many conditions have we
before we feel that we can be loved
loved as we are
you are
so simple
Cake
From Wikipedia:
“Secular humanism is a humanist philosophy that upholds reason, ethics, and justice, and specifically rejects the supernatural and the spiritual as warrants of moral reflection and decision-making. Like other types of humanism, secular humanism is a life stance focusing on the way human beings can lead good and happy lives.
“The term ’secular humanism’ was coined in the 20th century to make a clear distinction from ‘religious humanism’. A related concept is scientific humanism, which biologist Edward O. Wilson claimed to be ‘the only worldview compatible with science’s growing knowledge of the real world and the laws of nature’.”
==================
Anyway, here’s a short quiz for those who are still reading…
Which of the following principles apply to secular humanism, and which of the following principles apply to the ideas of the Fellowship of Friends? Anyone who answers each question correctly will be treated by me to dinner at a nice restaurant (if you can figure out who I am).
For each item, check the world view that applies:
The need to test beliefs - A conviction that dogmas, ideologies and traditions, whether religious, political or social, must be weighed and tested by each individual and not simply accepted on faith.
[ ] Fellowship of Friends
[ ] Secular Humanism
———————
Reason, evidence, scientific method - A commitment to the use of critical reason, factual evidence, and scientific methods of inquiry, rather than faith and mysticism, in seeking solutions to human problems and answers to important human questions.
[ ] Fellowship of Friends
[ ] Secular Humanism
———————
Belief in spritual damnation for non-believers - A primary concern with remaining loyal to a single philosophy or belief, partly to avoid the consequences of hell — or a tacit acceptance of this idea even if outwardly skeptical.
[ ] Fellowship of Friends
[ ] Secular Humanism
———————
Spiritual elitism - Only a very small few can reach enlightenment, only a few are provided guidance by unearthly spiritual powers, and only those who are blessed can understand the need to follow the ideas, while the remaining billions of non-believers are weak and asleep, and are sent to hell upon their deaths — or a tacit acceptance of this idea even if outwardly skeptical.
[ ] Fellowship of Friends
[ ] Secular Humanism
———————
Fulfillment, growth, creativity - A primary concern with fulfillment, growth, and creativity for both the individual and humankind in general.
[ ] Fellowship of Friends
[ ] Secular Humanism
———————
Search for truth - A constant search for objective truth, with the understanding that new knowledge and experience constantly alter our imperfect perception of it.
[ ] Fellowship of Friends
[ ] Secular Humanism
———————
Teacher - A belief in the need for earthly guidance from one person who has reached enlightenment. All other men and women who do not follow The Ideas, and who claim to be enlightened, are pathetic charlatans who are not worth our interest.
[ ] Fellowship of Friends
[ ] Secular Humanism
———————
This life - A concern for this life and a commitment to making it meaningful through better understanding of ourselves, our history, our intellectual and artistic achievements, and the outlooks of those who differ from us.
[ ] Fellowship of Friends
[ ] Secular Humanism
———————
Nine lives - A belief — or a tacit acceptance of this belief — that one is given nine lives to escape from hell and damnation, as well as earthly sufferings, and that someone who has reached a certain level of consciousness can know how many lives are remaining for a human individual.
[ ] Fellowship of Friends
[ ] Secular Humanism
———————
Moral relativity - A belief that any destructive actions by a leader/teacher can be ignored because of his/her connection to spiritual powers. All objections to these destructive actions are considered weakness.
[ ] Fellowship of Friends
[ ] Secular Humanism
———————
Ethics - A search for viable individual, social and political principles of ethical conduct, judging them on their ability to enhance human well-being and individual responsibility.
[ ] Fellowship of Friends
[ ] Secular Humanism
———————
Building a better world - A conviction that with reason, an open exchange of ideas, good will, and tolerance, progress can be made in building a better world for ourselves and our children.
[ ] Fellowship of Friends
[ ] Secular Humanism
———————
60 Cake please
“so simple. is it too simple?
how many conditions have we
before we feel that we can be loved
loved as we are”
* * *
Thank you for that
Jack 48&9 actually I thought your “sprouting balls” comment was humorous, although humor may not have been the intent. My post wasn’t meant as a “critique” of expression — curtailing creative use of language wasn’t the intention but you got my point and I won’t belabor it. Good to know that the legal issues are being handled with attention and due caution.
re: n.ever a s.traight a.nswer, the lies and false sense of superiority — yes, the moon landing could have been faked, on the other hand, folks like z.sitchen, r.hoagland, j.farrell, et al, speculate in another direction… whatever the case may be, we’ve come a long way since copernicus began to move us away from the center of the universe but with the limitations of human perception, the truth is stranger than we can imagine — that doesn’t stop us from trying.
for entertainment purposes only, enjoy:
http://www.enterprisemission.com/
Well, I’ve just taken the ride through these pages to catch up after about a week away. How is that we continue to connect here, discovering the best and strongest in each other, discovering experiences and interests in common even in elements preceding the FOF. El Topo? Wow. Have I known so many of you all my life?
==================================================
51 arthur
Love your view.
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I wanted to weigh in on the petition-in-waiting and restate some of the issues addressed by the attorney in December, hoping it might be useful to build on what we do know about this process.
An important first step, arthur and all, be sure to follow the instructions on the wikispaces site if you are going to prepare a letter so that it will meet the requirement of a legal document. (The link is at the top of this page.)
The petition can’t be posted unless there are first-hand sworn statements in writing that provide proof of the charges, because without them anyone signing the petition could be held libel for slander. These first-hand sworn statements provide proof on the legal basis that “truth is a complete defense to defamation” if the FOF challenges the petition in court. The attorney will determine when there is sufficient proof to post the petition and provide protection for those who sign it.
The content of these letters will be used in court if needed as proof to the charges made within the petition. Otherwise, my understanding is that only Susan and the attorney will see them. For you, WhaleRider, I’m quite sure there’s no statute of limitations on the telling of your story to support these charges as there might be if you wished to press charges directly. For you ‘ton, there’s no guarantee that you wouldn’t be called upon to swear to your story, but yours would be one of many, and in this case I believe there is strength in numbers. Also, in California there’s legal protection through something called an anti-S.L.A.P.P. statute, which in essence protects against someone with power or money bullying another into silence through fear of entanglement in the court system, much as you describe as your reason for caution. There’s plenty of information on-line about this protection. As it protects our right to post the petition (as long as we have proof of the charges provided by sworn statements), I believe it protects those who provide the statements of truth, also.
I emailed “our” attorney who is no longer being paid but was willing to ans