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Message |
| Posted By: |
UT |
| Date: |
30-Oct-2003-14:15:22 |
| Subject: |
"In house" or "outhouse?" - a topic for discussion |
'Way down in another thread a discussion has arisen over strong feelings that many of Rama's students still have towards former students who violated one of his "codes of etiquette" and took their complaints about him and/or his study public. I think it's a healthy topic, except in one respect. To date, no one has really addressed the *assumption* that those strong feelings are based on. That is, Rama's teaching that problems and complaints about a spiritual teaching should be handled 'in-house,' and that anyone who dares to raise issues outside the confines of the spiritual group is guilty of a serious breach of etiquette, worthy of scorn and derision, and has basically incurring a shitload of bad karma.
I know that Rama suggested this, and strongly. I know that a lot of people agree with him. I'm interested in WHY they believe this.
Me, I can see both sides of the issue. If one were dealing with a real, honest, fully enlightened teacher, and one believed that such a being can do nothing wrong, then doubts and complaints about his or her actions might well *be* considered a mere matter of etiquette, and be better kept 'in-house,' and not exposed to the scrutiny of the general public.
The trouble is, not every spiritual teacher IS a real, honest, fully enlightened being. Even if they were, the debate over whether they can make mistakes has raged for centuries without a resolution. So in real life this truism -- Thou Shalt Not Voice Your Doubts And Concerns In Public -- applies *both* to the real, honest, fully enlightened teachers and to those who are at best fallible humans just like ourselves and at worst total charlatans.
That is, the same "etiquette" that preserves the illusion of harmony within a real, on-the-path spiritual community by keeping all complaints out of the eye of the public is ALSO the thing that makes possible tragedies like Jonestown and the sexual misconduct of Catholic priests. In the former situation, several hundred people died because the "internal etiquette" of their particular spiritual group was Thou Shalt Not Voice Your Doubts And Concerns In Public. In the latter, the economics of the Church (hundreds of millions of dollars in lawsuits, so far) and the very moral standing of the Church itself have been threatened by an unspoken but universal agreement among priests that Thou Shalt Not Voice Your Doubts And Concerns In Public. Because they systematically hid tens of thousands of instances of sexual abuse by priests, the very future of the Church is now in question.
So that's my point, and the suggested topic for discussion. We all know the teaching -- Thou Shalt Not Voice Your Doubts And Concerns In Public. Is it a valid and valuable teaching, or do the potential drawbacks outweigh the niceties of "proper etiquette?"
As I said down in the other thread, I really don't know what is "right" or "wrong." I know the conclusion I have come to for myself, but that is Just My Opinion. I'm interested in hearing what the opinions of other Rama students are, and why they hold them.
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