Hello again Nick - nice to see you're still around.
1.
nick wrote:I think Mrs Mavro made a valid point. The school is setup for westerners. Try telling people to worship the gods. It is guaranteed there will no longer be any school around. The school is meant to gradually bring you to a certain level if you allow this. Then you make your own choice. Not abuse the person who brought you to that point. One does not abuse his father if there is strict diciplines he is made to follow. Although it is painful one must do it for a better effect. It may take years and years. You may hate him intitially but later it may be worthwhile. In this case we are not talking about results in 20 yrs or so. There is a much bigger view of lifetimes. Not our egoistic life of 80-100 years. One must be strict.
A couple of things here:
(i) I think the notion of "westerners" and "easterners" is a bit hackneyed by now - the kind of multicultural melting pot that is Australia now largely puts paid to the idea that people can be accurately separated into distinct types like this notion suggests. Or do you mean to say that the SFSK is only meant for middle/upper class white people? Further to that, would you say that the couple of Indians and people of non-western backgrounds currently in the School are misplaced?
(ii) I know that you are only using "worshipping the gods" as an example, but think about it - if an idea is that strange, then surely that fact is cause for more transparency, not less? In any case, to what "point" do you think you have been brought exactly? Your argument only makes sense if the goal is clearly defined and the means to it are tested objectively and shown thereby to work. None of this has happened in the context of School. A torturer might well use the same argument to support torture - "it achieves a goal". The question is "what goal?" - it is not established that membership of the School and obedience to the "disciplines" does anything other than engender a rather unhealthy reverence for Mrs Mavro.
(iii) The question of "lives" and so on is entirely dependent on whether or not you subscribe to the theory of karma. In any case, do you really believe that Mrs Mavro knows your "future" in the way that you suggest here? To do so would be to make her practically superhuman, and I really don't think we have any way of confirming that hypothesis. There is nothing about anything she does that makes her anything but human.
nick wrote:I do not. Maybe we were given what we a capable of assimilating. You dont teach Physics to a year 2 student.
This is exactly the point you made in an earlier post. My reply is necessarily the same as the one I gave earlier: "Your analogy about teaching [Physics] to a kid in year 1 doesn't apply - these sources are not incomprehensible. All they require is that the reader speak English. The situation in the School is akin to the teacher of the year 1 student actively discouraging the student from even asking about [Physics]. Why on earth would anyone do this other than to feather their own nest. If Mrs Mavro knows more than her students she can always assume a superior position. What I found upon actually reading ["Physics"] was that Mrs Mavro really doesn't know that much at all. She is very good at appearing knowledgeable, but only because she refuses to answer rigorous questions."
2.
nick wrote:HH has knownt he Mavros for many years. Surely he must have been informed of the practices. Surely the head tutors went to see HH before the great debacle post 2012. I think other factors have played a part in the departures of the head tutors. Areas such as power, money, jealousy, anger and greed that have not been spoken of much. Great traditions have been previously brough down like this. Head tutors of such integrity would NOT go for 20 years plus without doing the apppropriate research, going on trips to HH, asking questions etc. I do not believe it is that self-evident.
(i) First of all, none of the head tutors went to visit HH until about 6 - 7 years ago. The fact is, everyone was discouraged from attending, so eventually no one asked because the retributive answer was sure to follow. Two tutors were eventually taken a few years ago and those tutors have now left the School. A key issue for them was the fact that there was a considerable discrepancy between what they heard from HH and what was eventually "translated" and given to the students at SFSK. "Messages to the School" of around 1-2 minute lengths magically became 12-13 page documents after they had gone through Mrs Mavro's hands. It's just not reasonable to say that nothing was added to those messages.
(ii) Actually, we've dealt quite conclusively with the issues of money and power etc. Again, I refer you to my earlier response to this point: "Everyone knows that tutors at the School don't receive financial remuneration for their work there. So those tutors could not possibly have been tutoring for money. As far as power is concerned, Mr and Mrs Mavro had all the power. This was always so. No one who spent more than a few terms in School was in any doubt about that. Moreover, those two were not about to give up that power, and so the idea that any tutor would take groups for the purpose of acquiring that power is ludicrous. The other thing is: if they wanted power, leaving the School was the worst possible way to go about acquiring it. Even if they were disgruntled, surely staying in the School still offered them a better chance at that power than leaving. As it stands now, none of them will ever possess the power that Mrs Mavro currently enjoys. Thus I think your argument is flawed - if they wanted power the last thing they should've done was leave the School."
(iii) As far as "appropriate research" and "asking questions" is concerned, I think you somewhat misunderstand the nature of the School, at least as it was around the time we left (and certainly before under Mr Mavro). Research and rigorous questing was actively discouraged in order that the Mavros maintain their monopoly on "knowledge". Anyone who spent any considerable time at the School could not but notice the stifled and passive atmosphere that pervaded the place. That doesn't come from free thinking, independent people. In my own case, it was precisely the act of research and rigorous questioning that led me to my decision to leave the School. The conditioning there is so strong that eventually people distrust reason itself, and that truly is a very sad state of affairs.
3.
nick wrote:Again, I am sure others visited. Did they not question etc. Are you saying for past 40 years only Mr and Mr Mavro have seen HH. That is absurd.
I agree - it is absurd, but it is also true. In fact - it is also true that pretty much everyone in School who ended up seeing HH has subsequently left (bar two people recently, but it's probably too early to tell in their case). Moreover, it was their trip to see HH which served as a major factor in that decision. I do not think this is a coincidence at all.
nick wrote:Most of the head tutors are highly educated. Did they not question?
Yes and yes. It is exactly my point that eventually, this questioning led to them deciding to leave the School. On the one hand you say that one shouldn't question the instructions given because they are for you "greater good" and so on; and on the other, you wonder why none of the tutors "questioned" anything. This makes your argument a little hard to follow sometimes. In any case, your presumptions are incorrect in both cases as I have shown above.
4.
nick wrote:She still goes to India, right? It is probably an issue that need to be resolved. You dont simply throw people out after 40 years of service etc. Why does not HH or his associates say anything to the school directly if there are such issues around?
Even if they wanted to, you would only hear what they had to say through Mrs Mavro - do you see the problem there? Also - this forum has served as a way to disseminate that information; however, you seem unreceptive when that information is presented. What makes you think Mrs Mavro will give you an honest version of what has been said about her by HH? The key thing to notice is that we have no interest in lying to you. No one here is trying to recruit you to another School, or to some other organisation or group or tradition. Mrs Mavro, on the other hand, has all the reasons in the world to lie to you and make everything about her relationship with HH look rosy. Clearly, it is not. What I am saying is that, if anything, we here represent a vastly more objective point of view than that which you are likely to be offered by Mrs Mavro. As a general rule, the truth of a situation is much more certainly discovered from objective sources. You have one here, in this forum.
nick wrote:HH has either ignored the problem or there is not problem and people have blown it out of proportion.
There has been no contact by HH directly to the school. This means either HH does not exist or there is no issue.
Again, as I said above, the only way you would hear of an attempt by HH to contact the School is through Mrs Mavro. Hence my points above apply here as well.
Secondly, it definitely does
not follow that lack of perceived contact implies there is no issue. The two concepts are simply not related in that way. The point is this: If Mrs Mavro is so reluctant to have people go and visit HH, it is likely that she is not at all keen to foster any direct communication between him and the students for the same reason. She would not be able to control the flow of information in that case, and this is anathema to her - after all, she has built her power within the School precisely by controlling the flow of information. She is not going to give that up now - particularly when her position is so fragile.
Thus again I say "I think your logic is flawed. Your premises are not established, and your conclusions do not follow from them."
MOTS