The trouble is, that the harsh criticism such as that of bagging RB for not vehemently condemning Sai Baba even though he saw a "vision" of Sai Baba (or however you want to put it) creates a judgemental environment in which people who may wish they could describe some non-conventional experience and discuss it become reluctant to do so here because of the criticism they may face. That seems to me to run counter to the raison d'être of this site.

Hi All: What is getting lost in all of this wringing of the hands about seemingly innocent children or innocent seekers who get duped is the the Karmic package that we bring into the physical plane... no one on this board should be deluded into thinking that there are beings on this planet at any time who are innocent and have NO past... that is ridiculous... we are all interconnected through eternity... we have been interacting with each other in good and evil ways for millenia... so no one is wholy innocent or wholy evil... for every act there is an equal an opposite reaction... what you did to others will be visited upon you in full... in the fullness of time.... the hairs on your head are numbered and you shall not come out thence til every farthing be paid.

Remember that when you get self righteous...!!!



S.

Berserk2 wrote on Mar 15^th, 2011 at 5:40pm:


Hi: It depends on the level of confront.

S.

Seraphis:

All your recent post shows is that Aunt Clair's words are very questionable. Even Robert Bruce eventually admitted that Sai Baba molested children. Check the earlier posts.

Regarding her claim that Sai did sleight of hand tricks for children, he did such tricks in front of crowds in order to impress them.

A previous Frank Kepple thread shows that Aunt Clair has a connection to Robert Bruce.

The question is, how did a child molesting self-proclaimed incarnation of God manage to manifest to her in the way she claimed?

I read accounts of people who shared their experiences of being molested by Sai Baba as boys. To me, these accounts  sounded quite compelling.

Some people might say these boys are making false accusations, just as some people might say the same of boys who were molested by priests or women who were raped. It is important that victims don't end up being pointed to as the guilty ones.

I believe this is what happens when exposers of false gurus and such speak up. They the take the time to share what they experienced with an unethical guru with the hope of benefiting others, and then some people accuse them of being dishonest malcontents.

Some quick notes. 

Since i've worked with children with disabilities, i've had various trainings, and some trainings which talked about sexual abuse in relation to children. 
One thing i found interesting that i learned during one of these trainings is that though kids sometimes make up things about different things, repeated research and statistics shows that it's rare and unusual for a child to make up stories about being sexually molested/abused.

  So, if many kids are saying the same or similar thing about a particular person, chances are that quite likely it has some truth to it. 

   But really, i don't get something about this site and some of the people here. 
This is a site devoted to the afterlife, and psychism and psychic experiences are a big part of this site and what people discuss.  Many people here report they have psychic sensitivty or have had psychic experiences. 

  Then why cannot these same people, look a photo or video of someone, tune into them and get that some of these purported "spiritual teachers" are anything but?????

  Where is your psychism and intuition when it counts??? 

  It is so plainly obvious to me, intuitive wise, that this Baba guy is not only a phony, but also a rather sick and unbalanced person.

  I'm not saying one needs to personally dislike the guy or anything, but there is nothing "wrong" or "unspiritual" with being aware of this kind of stuff or speaking about it if there is corroborating, suggestive evidence that supports such perceptions. 

(I started writing a reply to the Bible thread and then realized what I was saying really belonged here, though as usual, I find topics overlap a little. I think I'll post it all here and only partly on the Bible site.)


Quote:


Well the Christian community is not one entity, though it is surprising that the fundamentalist types have established such a foothold in these times. I'm not so sure Christianity was interpreted quite the same way in the 1700's or so, when the country got started. Freedom of religion mixed with freedom of speech are sometimes explosive.

I was searching for some info on the real Nat Turner one time, and came across some information indicating that around 1800, close to the time Turner was born, I think, there was a BAptist preacher in Virginia who was strongly against slavery on religious grounds. The point was made that it was the strongly held belief in freedom of speech that enabled the debate on slavery to be carried out. Slavery was not a new human phenomenon but having the institution co-exist with an active debate on its legitimacy was. The price of liberty is having to allow all this open discussion to go on. I bet that baptist preacher back in 1800 had an ornery side, but that ornery-ness probably served to keep driving the discussion forward.

That is true even here. I just wish the concepts could be argued. It ends up being done in a way that makes it feel unsafe to some people to discuss their personal experiences because they might be criticized as falling sway to some teacher who is unpopular with another board member or having an experience that is not in line with someone else's guidance. Those arguments start to sound narrow, like all fundamentalist arguments. I don't see the logic in discounting everything that Robert Bruce says because he happened to have a psychic encounter with a person who he later learned had by many accounts engaged in sex with boys. Something seems out of perspective in that. Robert Bruce does not do what he does in the name of Sai Baba.

I don't discount the veracity of the spiritual experiences people report, i.e. that they had a spiritual experience,  because of what I see as faulty arguments in their analysis of that experience.

And discounting Robert Bruce does nothing to help those boys. What's the issue here, helping victims of sexual abuse? The priesthood of the Catholic Church systematically allowed far more sexual abuse of children than even Sai Baba could accomplish. Mother Teresa did everything she did in the name of the Catholic Church. To me, that is far more supportive of child abuse than anything Robert Bruce ever did, yet she is never criticised for that.

Is the issue abuse of children? How about asking how we can have spiritual development through action in the world? How many folks here are attached to their cell phones? Apparently there is a precious metal needed for the parts of a cell phone and that metal is found in the Congo region in Africa. And that metal is part of the reson for the unrest in that region. That metal could be said to be behind the rape and mutilation of women and girls that constantly goes on in that region. I think cell phone use is unspiritual for that reason. If you want to be spiritual, put that cell phone down! Oh but wait, that's girls getting machettes up their vaginas, not nearly as serious as Sai Baba having sex with boys. I almost got things out of perspective.

But I still end up wondering, is it logically consistent to avoid Sai Baba because he diddled with boys but then to use a cell phone?

(ps I don't own a cell, and of all the people I know, I should have one because of driving late at night to go to work).

I think you are overstating your case.

If you don't like Robert Bruce that's fine. If you choose to not try any of his techniques based on this dislike, that's fine, that's your perrogative. I don't disagree with that. Why should anyone have to pay tuition to take a course with a professor that he/she finds obnoxious?

I imagine that what evolved was that RB said something about Sai Baba and then found out later he put his foot in his mouth and then took it out rather awkwardly. ...(Been there, done that myself). I can't imagine he would support any kind of child abuse. Didn't he have a child who died? He must be sensitive to issues with children.

To be blunt, I hestitate to argue with you on this because you are so adamant on this issue that I think you must have personally suffered something, but it isn't my business to ask that or to know; I just wanted you to know that I worry about that a little. It is such a personal issue for you.

I am more interested in whether or not RB's techniques work. I am more interested in "Comparative Techniques 201" than I am in sticking to any one person's writings.

And there are still unanswered questions on this. So let's all agree that Sai Baba was an unrepentant letch or diddler or whatever you call it. Then why was he able to manifest to people the way he did? That is a very curious to me.

Years ago, when all this Eastern guru stuff was new in this country on a big scale, I knew a woman who was a "devotee" of one of these Indian guys. I don't remember which one because they all look the same to me (except for Gandhi and Ramanujan) . So I asked her why she was interested in this person; how did this interest come about. And she related the story that one night before she had any knowledge or interest of Indian philosophy, this Indian guy appeared standing at the foot of her bed for a brief period. Later, when she saw a picture of the guy, she knew he was the one she had seen that night. I could understand how that could influence her choices. Not my cup of tea, but it is interesting. I lost contact with her years ago so I don't know how things turned out. So when people say they "saw" Sai Baba, well, I think it is interesting.

If Robert Bruce had been a student of Sai Baba's and had let Sai Baba molest his kids and then had defended Sai Baba, I would have a problem with that. But that is not what happened.

Maybe the lesson is that we can't assume anyone is without stain, or whatever. Maybe everyone makes up stories. Gee I hope the Dalai Lama has a clean record. But as far as world leaders go. I imagine there is alot more Sai Baba type stuff out there than we would like to admit.

That's why I prefer to discuss the ideas and the conjectures and the techniques. You made your point. Can we just talk about the techniques now?