Mark Griffin video: Cognition

[Trunk]

[Trunk]

Part 3 of 3

 

 

 

 

~~~~ Hard Light Intensive, 1 week from today ~~~~

Available from anywhere on the planet (or off) that has an internet connection , via streaming technology. (Details in previous post.)

[Sunya]

Very interesting.. thanks for posting that Trunk.

 

I was lucky enough to participate in last month's intensive with Mark Griffin. I did it through streaming online and it was quite an experience. I set up my environment so that it seemed like I was actually there. I, alone in my room, had big speakers streaming the audio and on my TV I had a picture of Mark. This created an environment that allowed me to tune in.

 

At first, I was slightly annoyed that music was played during the meditation sessions but then I got over it and actually enjoyed it. Not only was the music incredibly relaxing but it allowed me to develop an emotional response to the meditation, which I believe, is essential to opening and surrendering to the energies present in such an event. I'm not incredibly energy sensitive, but I did have many sensations and felt incredibly joyful for the next couple days. Something did happen. Mark definitely has power. His talks were very very good. He has a way of communicating which really resonates with me. He doesn't dumb things down nor does he make things too complex. It's just the right balance between intellectual and simple. I'm very glad for my opportunity to participate.

 

I recommend everyone to participate in an intensive.

[exorcist_1699]

Although desperately suppressing my urge to say anything, based on what I hear and see, I am still forced to say that such way of hair-splitting your mind leads you to nothing deep/high ....It once again re-confirm me the repeated saying that post-modern world people ,their understanding of Buddha/Tao , are really degenerating ...comparing with the clear-cut and simple style that the Taoist and Zen Buddhist ways provided , for example , Taoist's :

 

忘形以養氣 , 忘氣以養神 , 忘神以養虛 .

 

(Forgetting any forms(physical) so that qi can be nourished ,forgetting qi so that spirit can be nourished , forgetting Spirit so that "emptiness" can be nourished )

 

A 3-step long jump, not simple ?

 

Or see what the Zen Buddhist way says :

 

佛說一切法, 為除一切心

我無一切心, 何用一切法

 

 

( Buddha talked about all different ways so that all different minds (pseudo ) can be eliminated; yet if I do not have any minds, what purposes of knowing all those ways ? )

 

At one stroke , you directly reach the hidden core...

Edited May 9, 2010 by exorcist_1699

[Trunk]

Although desperately suppressing my urge to say anything, based on what I hear and see, I am still forced to say that such way ...

 

This is a good opportunity for me to clarify my role in these HardLight threads, the tone I'm hoping to set, and what I'm trying to accomplish.

 

First of all, I am not playing the typical "public relations person" role. That is, I've seen, over and over, public relations people consistently (like %1,000 of the time) deflecting/diminishing/demolishing any criticism of the school/teacher that they're promoting. I think that that approach is ultimately unhealthy and thwarts the well rounded and deep learning that they're actually hoping that students will get. While trying to be protective of the school/teacher, it's actually self-sabotage of the school, imo.

 

I'm embracing the (good parts of) TTBs model. I've seen, for more than a decade in the e-community, that it usually takes around a half dozen people chipping in each with their own very different points of view - in order to get a rounded view of a topic. No one person can say it all, doesn't happen no way no how, no matter who that one person is. Not me, not you, not any single Truly Accomplished Teacher. I just see that, as each student's role in the scholarly aspect of the path that we have to practice clean discernment and really take things apart and put them back together again, from a number of (often apparently contradictory) different angles, in order to get a real working knowledge of a topic. Good working knowledge just isn't accomplished without this, imo. And I think that TTB's open level playing field, outside of the immediate environment of any particular school, allows the social culture where this can happen. Bottom line: I'm embracing and encouraging the spirit of clean scholarship and debate.

 

That's the scholarly aspect of the path in regards to intellectually understanding the teachings. The other side of the coin, with an Enlightened Teacher who Teaches through Transmission is that - during meditation with that Teacher, you need to be as clean and focused, centered and open as possible so that you can receive and integrate the internal transmissions. That's tricky because maybe as a scholar you've been aggressively chopping up the teachings in a dozen different ways and maybe you've generated some knashing of teeth as you're chewing things over, some degree of personal turbulence regarding the teachings and the Teacher. Well, it's important to refine that all as clean as you can so that when you meditate with that Teacher that the internals can be transferred as fully and cleanly as possible. And also to be careful and clean in communicating with others so that you don't produce undue turbulence in them that would hinder their internal interaction with such a Teacher. Often the traditional orthodox view is that you simply never question the Teacher and accept everything that that person says %100, period. imo, that doesn't work, simply ends up just suppressing your responses, not working through them, and shunts the intellectual part of the path and perhaps ultimately the full fruition of the internal Relationship as well. I'm a non-traditionalist.

 

So, again, basically, I'm embracing TTB's model: open debate on a level playing field with each person putting their honest real 2 cents in and we can all learn from each other.

 

Obviously I think that Mark Griffin ~ Hard Light has something good (actually, extraordinary) to offer, and that's why I'm promoting. At the same time I don't think that any single teacher/school can be everything to everybody - that the ultimate solution is to gradually promote a culture that is well rounded and has many different schools/teachers with different areas of expertise. And a big part of promoting such a culture, in the long run, is to encourage students to be discerning and progressive.

 

Bottom line: fight clean, have at it.

 

- Trunk

 

 

p.s.

"Embrace diversity as a source of richness."

[Trunk]

Hm. Turns out I've been a tad confused about streaming fees (though it's clear on the HardLight website). The fee is a for a streaming one month pass. That means that it gets you an intensive plus as many regular meetings as occur within the month following your streaming membership date. (I had thought before that there was a streaming fee for only the intensive itself.) Transmission occurs during all HL events, btw, not just intensives (though intensives tend to be more ramped up).

[Birch]

Hi Trunk!

 

I thought this one was very good. I found myself agreeing with it and going "yep, had that experience , had that understanding"

 

So perhaps I should just stop ;-)

 

Thanks for posting!

[Kameel]

Trunk- What do you know about the TMA Seva? I feel drawn to contribute.

[Trunk]

.. going "yep, had that experience , had that understanding"

 

So perhaps I should just stop ;-)

I also find that's a problem with posts I totally agree with and really like. I feel silly just posting, "I agree"

 

 

.. TMA Seva? I feel drawn to contribute.

Mark's branch of the Siddha lineage has roots in Ganeshpuri, India. Hard Light has connected to those roots by building Fire Mountain Retreat Center there and by starting a charitable organization, Third Millennium Awakening (TMA) Seva to assist the area. ("Seva" means "selfless service".)

 

Some years ago HL made a needs-assessment trip to see what was most needed, met with community representatives and looked around. The people are very poor and the needs are at the most basic levels: malnutrition and diseases from lack of clean water are major problems. So TMA's main ongoing project (per my current understanding) is to provide biosand water filters free of charge. These are basically simple concrete containers filled with sand and gravel that filter water and make it drinkable. (I'm not clear on exactly how it works, links at end of post.) They basically last forever and require almost no maintanence. So, a donation of $25 buys a biosand water filter for a local family and provides them with unlimited drinkable water indefinitely. I give on an automatic monthly basis.

 

There is currently a grant through an anonymous source that will match contributions, so your $ goes twice as far.

 

http://hardlight.org/tma.html

http://www.tmaseva.org/biosand-water

http://firemountainretreat.blogspot.com/2009/12/bio-sand-water-filters-are-improving_8605.html'>http://firemountainretreat.blogspot.com/2009/12/bio-sand-water-filters-are-improving_8605.html

http://www.causes.com/causes/275051

http://firemountainretreat.blogspot.com/

 

Donation page: http://www.tmaseva.org/donations

 

- Trunk

 

p.s.

If any of you want to pull quotes from the above links and post'm, that'd be cool.

(also curious from any reference re: the how of biosand water filters)

[Kameel]

Thanks Trunk. Lately I have felt compelled to send donations to worthy causes and this fits the bill. Of course, it is always best to give selflessly, but contributing in this way seems to strengthen and brighten the aura, so good for all involved.

[Trunk]

Here's an mp3 digital audio of Mark talking about current water filter needs & activities during the April 17th, 2010 intensive. (Also of Lee giving updates.) Monsoon season is coming up which floods the wells near the river, which pollutes the wells. So there's a big push to get out a bunch of water filters out right now, before monsoon season.

 

Donation page: http://www.tmaseva.org/donations

[Trunk]

Here's an interview (pdf link, ~6mb) w/ Mark extracted from an old Hard Light group publication called "The Mirror". Thought I'd just tack it on to this old thread.

 

This is the best printed Mark Griffin interview that I've seen that goes over Mark's study with Muktananda, Mark's transition into nirvakalpa samadhi, the function of Guru and Lineage, and the formative stages of the Hard Light school. A good read for introducing who Mark is.

 

- Trunk

[Sahaj Nath]

Here's an interview (pdf link, ~6mb) w/ Mark extracted from an old Hard Light group publication called "The Mirror". Thought I'd just tack it on to this old thread.

 

This is the best printed Mark Griffin interview that I've seen that goes over Mark's study with Muktananda, Mark's transition into nirvakalpa samadhi, the function of Guru and Lineage, and the formative stages of the Hard Light school. A good read for introducing who Mark is.

 

- Trunk

 

 

Thanks, Trunk!

 

i truly adore this man. if you have any other hard-to-find materials, keep 'em coming!

[Kameel]

Much gratitude, Trunk. Marks words are impregnated with Shakti. Have a story to tell about my donation experience, but no time. Will explain later.

[Kameel]

OK, more time now. So decided to give $50 to the seva. Figure that helps 4 families (with the matching donation) decrease their chances of serious illness for a lifetime. I feel good, goddess feels good, K kicks up and we're all happy. Then I decide to get rid of some long overdue books from childhood (visiting parents house). Usually when this is done where I live, not much is acquired in exchange. I head to the bookstore hand them over, am told to be back in 20 minutes, so browse their small "spiritual" section. Not much appeals until I see 3 books together, Muktananda Play of Consciousness, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche collection, a book on Bardos (forget the author). I bring them to the front waiting to see what I owe, the clerk looks at the books hands them to me and gives me $50 extra for my books.

 

So back to square one. I sign up for Deepen Your Practice. Looks very complimentary to KAP practices and thorough curriculum. Then order few extra CDs from Hard Light product center. Finally used the $50. Then I get an email back "Please consider canceling your order for the CDs as they are included in month 5,6 and 18 of DYP. Use the extra time to deeply immerse yourself in each months teachings." Cancel order. Call my friend Scott for a Rolfing session. Get the session, ready to pay and he says "it's been taken care of." I forgot I had worked on his knee in passing a few months before (torn MCL,crusciate, and swelling the size of a softball). He claims the swelling went away by the next morning and no more pain. Anyways, this is a very long-winded way of saying I am feeling synchronistic benefits from the small gesture and have to go now to listen to States and Stages Part 2. Thanks again Trunk.

[growant]

Trunk-

 

I was thinking of doing an intensive with Mark but came across some disturbing info about his Guru on the web, wonder if you have any thoughts on this or if Mark has ever addressed any of it.

 

http://www.leavingsiddhayoga.net/larger_perspective.htm

 

thanks-

[Sahaj Nath]

Trunk-

 

I was thinking of doing an intensive with Mark but came across some disturbing info about his Guru on the web, wonder if you have any thoughts on this or if Mark has ever addressed any of it.

 

http://www.leavingsiddhayoga.net/larger_perspective.htm

 

thanks-

 

i'm a new arrival to the Hard Light sangha, and i'm in no way a representative of Mark, but i definitely want to weigh in on that (embarrassing excuse for an) article.

 

more humorous than disturbing, if you ask me. but of course, you didn't ask me.

 

"He left home not because he encountered a guru, but to attain a higher social rank than was possible in his native environment. This motivation was at the root of all his actions in his lifetime."

 

--i only chose that quote because it's one of the tamer lines in the piece. too easy to pick out the really ridiculous ones. but it's amazing how the author could know Muktananda's most intimate motivations. i mean seriously. could that piece have been written in a more bitter/biased manner? just taking it at face-value, the article discredits itself, IMO.

 

it's embarrassing with how biased an unsupported the claims & conjectures are. the whole thing. that's not to say that there isn't any controversy to be examined, but that the author has such an obvious axe to grind that they substituted libelous accusations & tactical phrasings for actual information & research. it reads like the college undergrad equivalent of "he's a bad, bad man who will eat your kids."

 

it wouldn't matter much to me if there actually was substance behind the claims, to be honest. but i happen to be in the amoralist camp, which seems to be in the minority around here. morality is always relative, subjective, selective. it's the small mind that thinks from the base of the mountain it can evaluate the motives and perspectives of those at the top. just like it's the small mind that chases after the 'shakti fix,' as the article puts it. but the real wisdom is there, just the same. that they choose the "new, better, more amazing, spiritual energy stuff" and can't necessarily even see the sublime and subtle wisdom is the folly of the seekers.

 

but it's perfectly fair to not trust such teachers or the lineages in which such teachers thrived. i say be afraid. be very afraid. it's a dangerous path. it truly is.

 

 

unless, that is, you can resonate with that teacher's frequency of wisdom, and not just the buzz from their energy. which is a question of both maturity and cognition.

 

i made a post about this kind of thing in the Shaktipat thread and even took the position of assuming that all the nefarious claims about Muktananda were true:

 

first, let me state what feels kinda obvious to me and seems at least a little bit implied in what you wrote above. the scriptures weren't written for the already enlightened, but rather for the unenlightened. the awakened don't need rule books (except for political purposes). WE do. kinda simple, but kinda true, too. also, the notion of "falling from grace," either as a result of, or as evidenced in, abhorrent behavior, is the same short-sighted understanding that seems evident in a lot of what you've written in this thread. it hint at a mindset of "a Guru must act this way and must be recognized by these people to be legit." i get the need for standards, but it's far from absolute and often gets abused. Muktananda just happened to get caught, but his behavior is far from unique. but i'm getting a little ahead of myself.

 

i think one of the reasons precepts and doctrines are SO important is because in time you reach a state of cognition that is literally beyond good and evil, and the HOPE is that with enough PRIOR training (cuz God knows you're not gonna learn it after the fact) you will tend towards the values that were instilled in you earlier. there have ALWAYS been masters who were considered to be "on the dark side." always. masters who have raped and killed wantonly. indiscriminately. just as the masters who shine like the sun and wantonly bestow blessings. ALL phenomenon is moved by the same hand. but we like to believe in our fairy tales of good against evil, or worse yet, of good OVER evil!

 

 

and so we tend to follow the "righteous" like lambs to the slaughter...

 

 

hm... maybe this is a little too "out there" for this community. well, i guess we'll see.

 

 

all phenomenon is the neverending unfolding of God's self TO Herself. rape and murder (for instance) are part of the natural order of things, and the fact that we find them disagreeable (and we SHOULD, as decent people) doesn't change that. so from where i stand, Muktananda's enlightenment is in NO WAY diminished by his transgressions. nor is Osho's. or the one who put Crazy Wisdom on the map, Chogyam Trungpa. such a mundane level of moral judgment is incapable of evaluating non-rational activity from a higher state of being, yet such judgment is still necessary for the order and well-being of ordinary people in everyday life.

 

 

let me state out-right that i don't believe all the claims to be true, but at the same time i don't even consider the controversy to be all that relevant. and please feel free to crucify me here if my stance disgusts any of you.

 

 

i couldn't receive Max (kunlun) as my teacher. not even close. but Mark i can receive. very effortlessly. and Mark's lineage i can receive. so clearly that it becomes invisible all over again! but many others cannot, i'm sure. who are just getting their fix, or who gave it a shot and didn't "get" anything out of it. and who are feeble enough to be victimized by their own foolishness. they are just lucky that it's Mark that they found, and not some other, more dubious character.

 

 

i walk my path as a lion, not a lamb. and the Siddha lineage suits me just fine.

 

 

for whatever it's worth.

Edited July 8, 2010 by Hundun

[Birch]

Actually,

 

I've been checking out the podcasts from Hardlight. Pretty intense stuff. However, you can get all this and more (do I sound like a cheap ad ;-)?) from doing your own research.

 

Is lineage "catching" - will you ultimately be polluted by "bad things" if you study/take up with specific teachers? May I suggest you both might and might not, if you maintain your own counsel, mindfulness and awareness, throughout the process.

 

Or if you really just want a fast track. Here it is. You are god and you ought to know better. Now go out there and act like one

[Trunk]

This short:

Muktananda died in 1982: I never studied with him so I can't speak much to specifics. From what I've heard (from those that were there) he had a tremendous amount of energy running through him and gave shaktipad to tens of thousands in the west. Unprecedented. While it seems like there was some sexual misconduct, most of what is written in that article sounds like bunk to me from what I've heard from others.

 

~~~ up to present time ~~~

 

HardLight is a clean operation. Mark is his own person and I wouldn't judge him by anyone other than him. I've never heard Mark speak disrespectfully to people and there aren't shenanigans in the background. Tremendous amount of juice available for anyone.

 

imo, the main difficulty in HL is that Mark often has difficulty relating to students at their level, tends to speak over their heads and ability level. There's been a lot of work to organize his teachings (cd's at the HL store) so that students can work through the material more systematically. Still an issue, imo, but it is at least being worked on (rather extensively).

 

In general (beyond just HL or any particular school) I think that it's difficult to find all of the answers that a beginning student needs in any one school - often even in any one tradition. Too narrow of focus + lack of long term diligence often blocks students from going as far as they could in a lifetime. We are at a time in history where, these last few decades and currently, more information is becoming available from various specialties / schools / traditions. HardLight has a niche of providing very high end meditation experience and exposure and is very worth while to check out, imo.

 

That's my 2 cents.

 

- Trunk

[growant]

Trunk,

 

thanks for your response. I tried pm'ing you first but kept getting error messages for some reason, though it appears you finally got them

 

 

Hundun,

 

That letter is one of many claims/complaints from the website leavingsiddhayoga.net (which seems credible to me). I also sent you a few PMs a while ago Hundun, never heard back, if you still want to meet up in Socal let me know.

 

 

Normally i would seperate the message from the messenger but this particular practice seems especially intertwined with lineage/shaktipat, and it seems unavoidable that practitioners would be 'tying in' with Muktananda's energy, thus my concerns.

[Birch]

"unavoidable that practitioners would be 'tying in' with Muktananda's energy."

 

- How so?

[growant]

I base that opinion on interviews I've read with Mark about his teacher and other reading I've done about the experiences of other students (not Mark's) of the same lineage having 'encounters' with Muktananda tho they never met him when he was alive.

[Birch]

Define 'encounters'?

 

Also, how can practicing mindfulness and awareness be linked to any specific lineage? I don't get that part.

[Trunk]

.. this particular practice seems especially intertwined with lineage/shaktipat, and it seems unavoidable that practitioners would be 'tying in' with Muktananda's energy, thus my concerns.

Interesting point.

 

The heavenly lineage (that community of enlightened beings that reside together in "siddha loka") includes many more than Muktananda. Also there is the Kagyu lineage grace that flows through HL as well. (Not sure how they are related, but they're both there.)

 

I don't know to what degree Muktananda's human karmas (whatever tendencies that were less that clear) are still present in his current state. I know for certain that he's not the only one in that realm.

 

Also, how can practicing mindfulness and awareness be linked to any specific lineage? I don't get that part.

Often teachers are associated with a lineage: a subtle group of advanced beings, often referred to as residing in a 'heaven' (aka 'loka' in the Indian traditions). They lend power, purity and stability. It's a truism that when you are initiated by a teacher backed by a lineage, that you are initiated into the realm of that teacher's heavenly lineage.

 

- Trunk

[Birch]

"when you are initiated"

 

Trunk, could you please define "initiated"? Thanks!