The ‘Vedic Teaching’ in SES

Discussion of the SES, particularly in the UK.
trubleshtr
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The ‘Vedic Teaching’ in SES

Postby trubleshtr » Sun Aug 16, 2009 9:41 am

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trubleshtr
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The ‘Vedic Teaching’ in SES

Postby trubleshtr » Sun Aug 16, 2009 5:31 pm

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Open Mind
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Re: How ‘Vedic’ is the ‘Vedic Teaching’ in SES?

Postby Open Mind » Sun Aug 16, 2009 10:58 pm

Watching a programme on Channel 4 this evening called "How Do You know God exists? I was interested in their interview with Swami Pramtattvadas who came across in a very appealing way. Thinking how could I learn more about the Hindu religion and philosophy in line with my normal approach of self-education, I came across The Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies which runs an online course at http://ochs.org.uk/ced/. No doubt they could also advise how you might pursue study of specific aspects even further. The point being that there are other ways of pursuing your interest without going anywhere near the SES. They don't have a monopoly on teaching the subject other than in their own contorted way for their own devious purposes. Why go to some second-hand Western interpretion when you can go for the real deal.

Tootsie
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Re: How ‘Vedic’ is the ‘Vedic Teaching’ in SES?

Postby Tootsie » Mon Aug 17, 2009 4:51 am

I agree with Open Mind when he questions how Vedic is the Vedic teaching in SES. School originally started with teachings from G.I. Guurdjieff and P. D. Ouspensky who called their teaching the Fourth Way. Then came the Indian philosophy of Advaita Vedanta with its many wise men (Shankaracharya's). Then you can throw into the mix Plato and Christianity and even a bit of Henry George. Also School likes to keep some Vedic rules regarding women, but then allow smoking and drinking just because the leader liked a drop of red and a smoke. It is interesting that Leon MacLaren died of lung cancer. (Although we all have to die from something)

So if anybody is interested in Advaita Vedanta philosophy, why would you have a middle man giving you his take on it. When as Open Mind said, you should go for the real deal with somebody that understands it first hand.

ses-surviver
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Location: London

Re: How ‘Vedic’ is the ‘Vedic Teaching’ in SES?

Postby ses-surviver » Mon Aug 17, 2009 5:32 pm

trubleshtr wrote:I have mentioned the teacher Gangaji before on this Forum. She does seem to present the Teaching of Advaita in a manner that xseeker describes: ‘freestanding’. In other words she simply meets whoever is before her and does not seek to change them to fit certain ideas, such as ‘function’, be it gender or otherwise.

I attended one of her meetings at Regents Park College and came away very impressed by her. Her approach seemed much more relaxed, more open and much less rigid than the SES.

stiltrubld
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Re: How ‘Vedic’ is the ‘Vedic Teaching’ in SES?

Postby stiltrubld » Fri Sep 18, 2009 9:47 am

I went to the Gangaji meeting too, ses-surviver, probably the same one. She really seems to me to be in tune with the teaching of 'Advaita', and understanding and love comes through her chats with the individuals that go up to talk to her. But what I really like about her is her delightful, gentle sense of humour.

Nothing to do with Gangaji, nor SES, but I found this through a circular email I received which is some thoughts about how religion gets stuck, which may interest some people:

Encounters on the Shaman's Path with Anthropologist Hank Wesselman, Ph.D.

More Thoughts from the Trail—About the Christos.

In our last column (Meta Arts Magazine 06/09) we opened up an area of depth—a nefarious region where most spiritual seekers… and even theologians… fear to tread.

In doing so, I made an observation… that the original visionary revelations that were experienced directly by the founders of our mainstream organized religions in the Western world today (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) are now so far back in the past that we cannot even perceive them accurately, let alone understand them from reading, listening to and adhering to scripture.

Since those days, thousands of years in the past now, history has documented how the salaried and bureaucratized priesthoods reorganized their emerging and ever-changing religions to suit themselves as well as the times in which they lived. History also reveals how these priests intentionally distorted, censored and rewrote the original teachings and revelations of their founders to support and reinforce their own political and ideological agendas.

The end result is that today’s priests and rabbis, mullahs and bishops now have the extraordinary presumption to present themselves to us as the exclusive intermediaries between ourselves, as well as our communities, and the supernatural realms that they claim to know so much about.

Yet as we have observed, with rare exceptions, most of these worthies possess no visionary abilities themselves. In fact, most of them are no more likely than the members of their communities to encounter the transpersonal forces that the traditional people call spirits, nor have most of them even had a glimpse of the transpersonal worlds that these forces inhabit.

Despite this… our religious specialists, in all their assumed importance, rigidly adhere to and teach what they themselves have been taught by other non-visionaries who relied on scripture themselves. And so almost without exception, those priests will never convey any new visionary experiences of their own to enhance and refresh the original revelations of their religions’ founders.

Many writers and theologians have called this one of the truly great tragedies of the modern world—that the spiritually blind have for so long been allowed to mislead and misguide the spiritually blind about the very experiences and revelations that gave rise to our religious traditions in the first place.

And this is precisely why these religions are destined to fail us—and to be relegated to the dustbin of history.

The writer Graham Hancock adds (in his seminal book Supernatural) that our so-called 'paranormal' abilities, used for so long by our indigenous ancestors with reverence and caution to explore and learn from non-ordinary reality and its inhabitants, have been intentionally and continually diverted by our priestly bureaucrats into the various spiritual dead ends of the ‘ecclesia’ where everything is dogma, endlessly repeated, where almost no one has first hand experiences of the transpersonal realms… and where nothing new may be discovered and learned.

Yet the truth is always just there, waiting for us to encounter it just on the other side of the mirror. For this is the epicenter of the shaman's path—the direct, transpersonal and transformative experience of the sacred realms that defines the visionary.

Let us now say a bit more about this, not so much to bash the authorities of our organized religions although many of them certainly deserve it, but rather to give my readers permission to open the doorway into an experience of spiritual freedom and growth that has not existed in the Western world for almost 2000 years....

(there is a link to the rest so if anyone is interested in more get back to me)
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SES: 1990 - 2009 London (Female)

stiltrubld
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Michael Mavro - Conversations, February 1976

Postby stiltrubld » Sun Dec 06, 2009 3:59 pm

Michael Mavro - Conversations, February 1976 (pages i - x)

I have found the above 'conversations' between Michael Mavro and ? HH Shantananda Saraswati - actually the title is simply 'Conversations with Michael Mavro' - it doesn't say who with, but it is presented in SES as conversations with HH, about the 'womenfolk', and HH is mentioned in the text. This was given to me by one of the Senior men in London, JDA (those that knew him will know the initials) who was Head of Economics at the time. Is there anyone who knows anything about his (MM) trips to HH?

Although one of the leaders did indicate to me at the end of last term that MM got out of control, another said that even though he had to be dismissed, his conversations with HH were genuine.

Can anyone can shed any light on this?
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SES: 1990 - 2009 London (Female)

Ahamty2
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Re: How ‘Vedic’ is the ‘Vedic Teaching’ in SES?

Postby Ahamty2 » Mon Dec 07, 2009 11:27 am

Stiltrubld: I find this very interesting re: Michael Mavro Conversations Feb '76. I remember MM going to India in 1976 to see HH as the top group had to hand over one week's wages/salary to pay for the leader's spiritual trip to have an audience with HH. We, in Sydney, never heard or saw the so called conversations. He took one of the top group men with him, a friend of mine if fact, even to this day. When he came back from India this top group fellow was so disgusted by MM behaviour in India and with HH and the questions he asked that he moonlighted from the SOP by having removal vans coming and vacated his flat and disappeared altogether.
Later, he told me he could not stay in the school after what he witnessed in India and had to leave without saying anything to any of us.

Mavro told us that this fellow couldn't handle the light of truth that came from its source,HH, having been ill prepared for it and therefore turned his back on it. Typical SOP/SES rubbish. When are people in these organizations going to realise the real truth that HH and all the other holy gurus are human beings like the rest of us and no more holy either: so they can rattle off the vedas in sanskrit. Well, most of them can't understand or speak english either, hence the power of Jaiswal to interprete as he willed.

I doubt if there is anything sublime in MM convesrations with HH, more "gaud blimey"!
How exciting to have in print.

stiltrubld
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Re: How ‘Vedic’ is the ‘Vedic Teaching’ in SES?

Postby stiltrubld » Mon Dec 07, 2009 10:27 pm

Dear Ahamty2,

Wow that’s fascinating! For someone that senior to just cut and run like that suggests that there must have been something seriously wrong. Don’t suppose you could ask him if he is prepared to say anything now about what happened back then?

I have read it through this document and it is certainly on message as far as the SES attitudes about gender are concerned. If it was discussed properly it may not be so damaging, but some of it is pretty strong stuff. Great care would be needed in presenting these ideas as well as genuine open discussion. Women are after all the best people to say how women are motivated, for even 'wise men' are not women!

Furthermore, when you first attend the SES the philosophy is ostensibly about ‘Advaita Vedanta’, freestanding. Slowly ideas about gender are introduced, so that it tends to be imbibed by the students subliminally.

Stiltrubld
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SES: 1990 - 2009 London (Female)

Tootsie
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Re: How ‘Vedic’ is the ‘Vedic Teaching’ in SES?

Postby Tootsie » Tue Dec 08, 2009 7:20 am

Had to laugh at HH giving guidance about unmarried ladies in school. The way it operated in the Sydney school in the 1980's was all the good looking ladies were reserved for the single tutors. For the rest it was open season. Men being what they are would go for the Britney Spears look-a-likes. However beauty is not only on the outside but also on the inside as many school lady told me. So when you rang up the Britney Spears types you would be told that she could not go out because it was bread or yoghurt making night, but plain Jane had a free night and would love to be taken out. So the Sydney ladies had had a strong sisterhood going and it lead to many happy marriages.

Ahamty2
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Re: How ‘Vedic’ is the ‘Vedic Teaching’ in SES?

Postby Ahamty2 » Tue Dec 08, 2009 11:00 pm

Stiltrubld: Mentioned your entry to my wife regarding MM conversations. She replied we may not have heard or read them but we certainly knew about them. Coming back from India with a huge ego boost and HH replies, all hell broke loose on the women in the Sydney SOP; he and Mrs NM unleashed these draconian control over the senior women in the school especially the married ones. There were no holds barred. It is interesting how the single women were telling the married ones how they should serve their husbands and raise their children. They all became experts in married family life even the childless Mavros.

Those of us who have been in the SOP/SES long enough will know about the school’s side streams. The “clayton” groups of the school which are the groups you are in when you are not in a group. The schools method of keeping people in the school (for their money and second line work) without throwing them out, those people who object to being initiated into the meditation or who wilfully will not succumb to the disciplines of the school or those who cannot or will not put their personal lives on hold to attend residentials. Mavro made great use of this with his loyal band of secret informers and end of term reports on every person in the SOP.

I can’t emphasise enough on this forum that unless you experienced the Sydney SOP under the Mavros you will have no idea or perception of what it was like here. I point my finger at LM and the Senior Executive of the London SES including Peter Green for burying their heads in the sand and going into denial about the Sydney SOP under Mavro, just like they have done so with the treatment of the children at St Vedast and St James in London. When I told Dr Roles about it some years later (after all, he was the one who initiated us into the meditation back then) his reply was that he tried to alert LM to the situation here.

All those who followed the M’s to the School for Self Knowledge would have gained nothing except the self knowledge of huge egos and self importance. The people who fall for its advertisements will get plenty of that, but they will never learn anything about humility, dignity or compassion. I will never forgive MM and NM for destroying the lives and families of so many decent people in Sydney. I personally had to visit many broken people since leaving the Sydney SOP.

I believe, even to this day, that MM should be “hung out to dry”.

Tootsie
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Re: How ‘Vedic’ is the ‘Vedic Teaching’ in SES?

Postby Tootsie » Wed Dec 09, 2009 2:12 am

I would agree with Ahamty about schools secret informers. The East German Stasi could have learned a lot from them! Being a secretary in school for a number of years I too was one of them. During the break you would circulate amongst the group collecting information about everybody and then at the end of term you would write a report on what you'd gleaned. This report was then given to the tutor. The funny thing was this type of mentality lead to collecting information about everybody from the school leader, senior tutors etc., and like Tiger Woods eventually the secrets became common knowledge and then the regime collapsed.

Ahamty2
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Re: How ‘Vedic’ is the ‘Vedic Teaching’ in SES?

Postby Ahamty2 » Wed Dec 09, 2009 3:19 am

I agree with you, Tootsie. I used to be at the “house” during term break with all the correlation of term reports going on. I won’t mention any names of my fellow ‘top groupers’ who were involved with all this. Decisions were made about the senior level of the SOP, they were made here. Your second-line work, group nights changes from one group to another depending on what was contained about student’s personal dispositions. Most of these end of term reports said more about the writer of the reports than the students themselves. Many were just attention seeking for their own importance; they were just about all unreliable as far as the students were concerned and some even fallacious and slanderous.
I travelled through the former DDR, Soviet Union and Soviet run Czechoslovakia as a young 22yrs in the early 1960’s on my own in spite of the warnings from the Australian High Commission in the Strand that it was dangerous. Either I was lucky or it was all propaganda because with the exception of the occasional AK47 pointed at my head by some soldiers, I had a great time there while no doubt I had minders nearby. The Sydney SOP’s version of the KGB was much more clandestine and sinister.

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bonsai
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Re: How ‘Vedic’ is the ‘Vedic Teaching’ in SES?

Postby bonsai » Wed Dec 09, 2009 9:09 am

Tootsie wrote:During the break you would circulate amongst the group collecting information about everybody and then at the end of term you would write a report on what you'd gleaned. This report was then given to the tutor.


You can't get much more cultish than this.

stiltrubld
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Re: How ‘Vedic’ is the ‘Vedic Teaching’ in SES?

Postby stiltrubld » Wed Dec 09, 2009 12:40 pm

This is all very interesting, and worrying. The stuff about spying and reporting on each other is particularly chilling.
SES: 1990 - 2009 London (Female)


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