[W]hen I entered the makeshift ICU I saw Maharishi lying unconscious in a bed with IV tubes and a respirator just as I had foreseen. My father informed me darkly that after drinking a glass of orange juice given to him by “a foreign disciple,” Maharishi had suffered severe abdominal pain and inflammation of the pancreas, along with kidney failure followed by a heart attack. Poisoning was suspected. Over the next few days Maharishi’s condition worsened. The pancreas and kidney functions continued to deteriorate, and his heart didn’t improve. My father was of the opinion that Maharishi should be taken to England for a course of kidney dialysis. The Indian TM organization, centered around Maharishi’s nephews, Prakash and Anand Shrivastava, were adamant that no one in the movement should find out that Maharishi was grievously ill. The rationale was that his followers would panic and lose faith.
I found myself torn, because Maharishi had long presented himself as being far from the typical Hindu guru. He did not assert his own divinity. He credited his entire career to his own master, Guru Dev. He seemed indifferent to the cult of personality and the aura of superstition surrounding gurus, which includes the notion that they have perfect control over mind and body and hold the secret of immortality. But deeper than that, Maharishi wasn’t a religious figure. Although he had taken vows as a monk, he brought a technique to the West, Transcendental Meditation, that was entirely secular and even scientific. Indeed, his lasting memory will probably be that he convinced Westerners of the physical and mental benefits of a purely mechanical non-religious approach to consciousness. I was troubled that his falling ill had to be hidden essentially to preserve the image of a superhuman being who couldn’t get sick like mere mortals...
Can a real guru be unfair, jealous, biased, and ultimately manipulative?
For a devotee, the answer is unquestionably yes. The role of a disciple isn’t to question a guru, but the exact opposite: Whatever the guru says, however strange, capricious, or unfair, is taken to be truth. The disciple’s role is to accommodate to the truth, and if it takes struggle and “ego death” to do that, the spiritual fruits of obedience are well worth it. A guru speaks for God and pure consciousness; therefore, his words are a direct communication from Brahman, who knows us better than we know ourselves. In essence the guru is like a superhuman parent who guides our steps until we can walk on our own. Was Maharishi doing that to me?
We've got so used to the carnage of the Middle East that we don't care any more – providing we don't offend the Israelis. It's not clear how many of the Gaza dead are civilians, but the response of the Bush administration, not to mention the pusillanimous reaction of Gordon Brown, reaffirm for Arabs what they have known for decades: however they struggle against their antagonists, the West will take Israel's side. As usual, the bloodbath was the fault of the Arabs – who, as we all know, only understand force.
Ever since 1948, we've been hearing this balderdash from the Israelis – just as Arab nationalists and then Arab Islamists have been peddling their own lies: that the Zionist "death wagon" will be overthrown, that all Jerusalem will be "liberated". And always Mr Bush Snr or Mr Clinton or Mr Bush Jnr or Mr Blair or Mr Brown have called upon both sides to exercise "restraint" – as if the Palestinians and the Israelis both have F-18s and Merkava tanks and field artillery. Hamas's home-made rockets have killed just 20 Israelis in eight years, but a day-long blitz by Israeli aircraft that kills almost 300 Palestinians is just par for the course.
The blood-splattering has its own routine. Yes, Hamas provoked Israel's anger, just as Israel provoked Hamas's anger, which was provoked by Israel, which was provoked by Hamas, which ... See what I mean? Hamas fires rockets at Israel, Israel bombs Hamas, Hamas fires more rockets and Israel bombs again and ... Got it? And we demand security for Israel – rightly – but overlook this massive and utterly disproportionate slaughter by Israel. It was Madeleine Albright who once said that Israel was "under siege" – as if Palestinian tanks were in the streets of Tel Aviv.
By last night, the exchange rate stood at 296 Palestinians dead for one dead Israeli. Back in 2006, it was 10 Lebanese dead for one Israeli dead. This weekend was the most inflationary exchange rate in a single day since – the 1973 Middle East War? The 1967 Six Day War? The 1956 Suez War? The 1948 Independence/Nakba War? It's obscene, a gruesome game – which Ehud Barak, the Israeli Defence Minister, unconsciously admitted when he spoke this weekend to Fox TV. "Our intention is to totally change the rules of the game," Barak said.
Dear Mr. Warren,
The gays point out, accurately, in my view, that one would not invoke "civility" to have a Nazi give an invocation and then provide "balance" with a rabbi giving a benediction. As a Buddhist and a scientist I, too, am deeply troubled by your selection to give an invocation at the inauguration. I have seen you espouse your views, and even if you are doing charitable work, would not your invocation be giving tacit approval to the morally unsavory aspects of your "ministry" ? And please, please do not blaspheme by claiming somehow it's a deity talking and not you. And make no mistake about it when I say "morally unsavory": in your "news and views" segments a heck of a lot of ego comes through, and very little loving-kindness.
I will not tell you to reconsider your presence at the inauguration, but I will ask you to realize that there are people to whom you cannot impose your limited moral views, just as I cannot impose mine. Above all such morality as received by "revelation" cannot be legislated.
I will note in closing that your church's website, like many "evangelical" websites does not represent Buddhism accurately. If civility requires anything, it requires honesty, even if, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer noted, it does not require candor. Please reconsider how your church represents other religious and non-religious views.
Sincerely,
but I got an iPod Touch. Some readers may already know this and some may not but:
The amazing point: you can now surf the web, really, and really read & reply to your e-mail (and read Word Attachments) without all the nonsense of booting up a PC (or Mac). You can sometimes read embedded Excel files too, sort of.
Yeah, that's what I wanted it for; not the increased RAM or the video stuff.
The bad part: flash applications don't work except, it seems for Youtube, which works like a charm.
I can't believe this blog is still going, although it was serious hiatus for several months in 2007.
If you clink on the links at the right, you'll find a whole bunch of dead ones, most of which will have been removed some time in the next month or so, and probably will have new links added (if you have a blog you want listed, let me know).
Which means, inter alia, that this is one of those posts that will refer to things that are not going to be saved, except perhaps via archive.org.
But it turns out blogging has been useful; it's helped me to "remember" all the weirdness of the past few years; and I think it's truly helped make a small difference in the world.
I can tell that folks have visited my site from literally around this world (in the past month).
So I'd like to thank everyone who's visited and I'll try to improve whatever it is I'm doing here in the future.
The Palestinian groups again launched barrages of rockets and mortars into Israel on Sunday, extending their reach further than ever before, and the Israeli government approved the emergency call up of thousands of army reservists in preparation for a possible ground operation...
A military operation had been forecast and demanded by Israeli officials for weeks, ever since a rocky cease-fire between Israel and Hamas fully collapsed a week ago, leading again to rocket attacks in large numbers against Israel and isolated Israeli operations here.
Still, there was a shocking quality to Saturday’s attacks, which began in broad daylight as police cadets were graduating, women were shopping at the outdoor market, and children were emerging from school.
The center of Gaza City was a scene of chaotic horror, with rubble everywhere, sirens wailing, and women shrieking as dozens of mutilated bodies were laid out on the pavement and in the lobby of Shifa Hospital so that family members could identify them. The dead included civilians, including several construction workers and at least two children in school uniforms...
Israeli officials said that anyone linked to the Hamas security structure or government was fair game because Hamas was a terrorist group that sought Israel’s destruction.
Historically, churches were wary of debt, and many old-line congregations have owned their buildings free and clear for decades. But borrowing by churches became more common in the 1990s, reaching $28 billion nationwide in 2006, including mortgages, construction loans and church bonds, according to Lambert, Edwards & Associates, a consulting business in Grand Rapids, Mich. New companies and nonprofit organizations focused on church lending sprang up, as did real estate investment trusts and other bundles of church loans, which were sold to investors.
The rise of nondenominational churches and a resurgence in the evangelical movement also led to more religious institutions seeking to borrow. Churches were often founded in storefronts or school auditoriums, but as they grew, they built sprawling edifices, including so-called mega-churches. At the same time, some older churches lost members as young people went elsewhere, and had to borrow to survive.
Some in the church lending industry say aggressive lenders pushed church mortgages, too.
“Some of the mentality that you saw taking hold of the residential marketplace probably shifted into the church,” said Dan Mikes, executive vice president of the church banking division of Bank of the West, a subsidiary of BNP Paribas. “Lenders loaned far too much, they loaned into lofty projections of future growth, and they just saddled the churches with far too much debt.”
At least a quarter of religious properties have mortgages, according to an analysis of property and mortgage filings in 115 United States counties completed for The New York Times by First American CoreLogic, a data provider in California.
A country where flowers are priced so as to make them a luxury has yet to learn the first principles of civilization. -Ancient Chinese Saying, According to the Internet
