TB wrote
How can I respond without seeming patronising given my past comments? I genuinely enjoyed reading an expose of my thinking and opinions. ?
I will discuss your points if you are interested.
Yeah man, I put an absurd amount of time into making them?please do respond & I?m glad you enjoyed reading it. I?d suggest copying it to the specially created TB thread though, as this one is supposed to address the adult school in NYC. Your fans and detractors will know EXACTLY where to find you!
antiSES wrote
A false premise does not imply incorrect conclusion.
Congratulations! You make a point even more pedantic than my original one. Yes, a false premise does not PROVE the conclusion false. It still renders your argument unconvincing.
Hello to the rest of you. I?m an adult student currently registered in what is apparently called the ?Lower School? (!) in New York. I?ll try to stick to the thread topic today, but I am going to start a new thread to address FreeThinker?s post re ?Atman crap they don?t practice.?
I was exposed to advaita Vedanta philosophy years ago through yoga asana practice. I really enjoyed the physical practice, investigated the philosophy underneath it, and thought I had finally found a spiritual tradition that is tolerant, built on true principles, poetically inspiring and yes, even practical, (if that word doesn?t send you screaming away). I showed up at the SoPP expecting, you know, an introduction to western philosophy class, and spent much of Part 1 amazed at my good luck to have stumbled into a discussion group centered around advaita, even if they weren?t calling it that.
So my involvement with SoPP has been only as an adult, only in NY, and only in the beginning sections. I have personally experienced no abuse, and words fail me about how sorry & sad I am for the pain that this organization has caused in so many lives. On one level it?s very difficult to reconcile what I personally experience at the SoPP with the experiences posted here. But at the same time I see a connection between the petty, silly little sexism & elitism I do see at the New York night school, and the real serious abuses.
Here's a short story -- at the very first class, one woman asked if it was a rule that all the female school volunteers wear skirts. We in the class laughed out loud, it seemed so ridiculous that in
Manhattan in the
2000s, that women would not be ?allowed? to wear pants. The teacher did not answer the question directly, but said that the School ?asked? male volunteers to wear a coat and tie and women to wear a skirt below the knee. She emphasized "modesty of dress," and "refinement," and did not say if the skirt thing was a rule or a suggestion.
At the break I went down to register, and asked the woman who was processing my registration if there was a dress code. She reiterated what the teacher had said, that the School wanted volunteers to dress in a respectful manner, and I asked if women couldn?t be respectful in a pantsuit. She responded (and I think this is verbatim,) ?That doesn?t concern you at your level.?
Obviously
I think it concerns me or I wouldn?t be asking. The implication is that I?m at a lower level of value or knowledge than skirt-wearing volunteers like the registrar herself, and my ?concern? has no validity if someone of a ?higher? level tells me so. This is a classic setup for abuse.
My impulse was to snatch my credit card back and leave. However, this woman was not actually teaching the course, and sometimes it?s better to stick it out rather than just leave. I really regret though that I was so dumbfounded at the time ? so speechless (and I?m a wordy person, as you may gather) that I was unable to articulate why the rules of an organization I?m participating in are of concern to me even if I?m not subject to them.
This creepiness with the ?women must wear skirts? thing is what motivated me to do a background search on the internet, which lead me to this site. I know this anecdote must seem totally insignificant next to the posts from Clara & T.S, among plenty of others. But I do think they?re related ? and that Emmalu9?s observation that
the total egomania of the SES?allows the belief that people have differing levels of inherent human worth.
has NO defensible basis in advaita Vedanta.
Way, way back in this thread somebody asked about adult student diversity in New York; Part 1 is very diverse in age though not in ethnicity, ranging from people college age or just out to some in their 80s and a lot in between. Ethnically, the School is nowhere near as diverse as the city. Most students are white, northern Europe ancestry, and the environment has a very strong Upper East Side, Eurocentric feel. (As I?m a white Euro-American myself, I can?t speak to how comfortable Afro or Latino-Americans feel in this environment, but it seems that as long as you have $175 you are welcome to participate.) After Part 1, the age range narrows a lot ? late 20s to 40s, 50, maybe the occasional person in her early 60s.