Hello all,
?May I ask, did you challenge your tutor on the points which are easy to refute??
I did try to respond to the tutor's points, but I didn't get very far. I'm surprised that there doesn't seem to be a very extensive tutor-training program in place, because they are Damn Good at shuting down opposition. I really did try to counter-argue, but he was a wall.
I had decided in advance to take the tack of letting him say his piece first, (especially since I really couldn't imagine what defense the org would have.) I tried to let him express all the reasons it didn?t matter, thinking that then I would refute them. But when I started challenging he just got sorta mad and said that obviously I believed the website and so we didn?t really have anything more to say to each other. He switched to ?If you don?t like it here of course you can always leave,? which I let distract me from closing down his points.
Grimep wroteWell it's comforting to know that after this incredibly long long time since the way-back-when 1980s when people still thought the moon was made of cheese, the SES's reality-distortion field is still working in full effect.
Grimep, you crack me up.
See, I think the basic problem is that this tutor did not read Clara's or TS's story with one tenth the attention he reads a Ridyard Kipling poem to us in class. If he had, if he had just ABSORBED that a teacher at St James punished pubescent girls by forcing them to take off their clothing, I think he would have to see that a school which tolerates such behavior has serious, serious problems. But he didn't really read ANY of the posts...before accepting his tutor?s judgment that there is nothing to be worried about.
?It seems to me that new recruits do little in the way of challenging pronouncements made by those in positions of authority within the SES; those who disagree simply leave?
EXACTLY. So the org is left with a bunch of ?like minds.?
There?s a Doonesbury cartoon I love. The Hunter S. Thompson character has taken too much acid, and he?s at a book-signing, and all the people have turned into animals. In the final panel a man with a large sheep?s head comes up applauding and says ?BLEAT! That was just BLEAT!?
I?m thinking to spend a bit of time (and money) among some sheep?instead of ?simply leaving.? A friend of mine used to say (re Catholic church ? she was a lesbian feminist) ?Don?t quit the church, make them throw you out!?
Would feel weird about paying the $175 except that what they charge is such a drop in the bucket compared to what the School must pay in property tax & operating costs. The School is NOT getting rich off me ? if anything, the preschoolers whose families pay $23,000 tuition are subsidizing ME.
I found it ironic that during this last class the tutor read a story ascribed to Shantananda Saraswati. Those of you who went to SES/St James schools will be familiar with it I?m sure, but I?ll reprint it so those who haven?t will have something to go on.
?There is a story which happened in Lahore. In a co-educational school, a girl lost her pen and she complained to the teacher by accusing a boy pupil. When the boy was accused, he asked the teacher to let him know the price of the pen so that he could pay tomorrow. Next day he paid and the topic came to a close. Since young people are not too clever in such matters, the real culprit brought the pen in his box which was seen by the girl. She went to the teacher and said that the pen was taken by one and the punishment paid by another. This injustice ought to be corrected. After a search, the pen was found. The perplexed teacher then asked the first boy why he paid for the pen when he had not stolen it? The boy had very disciplined parentage. He said: ?If I had protested my innocence, who would have listened to me and this would have pained me. So it seemed to me that peace of mind was more valuable than five rupees and I paid the money to save my peace.? The teacher was astonished at this answer worthy of only a great man. This established an ideal and all paid their respects to the boy.
Part 2 Session Eleven
Isn?t that an AWFUL story? If Martin Luther King Jr had understood advaita Vedanta or satyagraha this way black people in America would still be in the back of the bus.
NYC
PS
?I'm interested if major disasters like the Boxing Day tsunami were ever discussed in your class. If so was there a "justification" for the over 200,000 dead??
Hi ADG,
I don?t recall the tsunami coming up?except possibly in the sense of ?you can die at any time,? but I?m not sure about that. I can tell you I would definitely remember if the tutor said anything that blamed the victims, or implied that they deserved a tsunami to strike.
The karma aspect of advaita is probably prone to misapplication?the toughest questions any religion has to answer are probably 1) why do horrible things happen to children, and 2) why do we have to die at all.