pamu wrote:The overall tone in the forum is quite serious, maybe a little bit too serious, almost stiff upper lip-class. Why is it like that?
Maybe it is hard for me to be my usual jovial and clever self in the written form or maybe I am simply afraid of being misquoted and misunderstood? Maybe because I am serious about the topics we are discussing? Or maybe not. Sometimes I have been sarcastic. See my replies to niab.
I have only a vague idea of who are participating on this forum. Mostly I see some texts, but cannot connect the writing with anybody. Maybe this is one of the reasons why this forum has a touch of stiff upper lip? It would be comforting and personal to be able to read something about the persons taking part in this forum, their origins, interests, inclinations, about them in general. Now they are just names.
Most of the participants enjoy their anonymity. It is their right to reveal themselves as they like. For example, who knows who Pamu is? I agree that knowing who I am speaking to is much more fun than speaking to unknown names, but those who want to reveal themselves can as they wish.
Past sleeps but is not dead. I do not know if it ís me or is it so that there is a tinge of uneasiness in you when you have to write about our common past in Iskcon. You mention that you want to be of service. It is quite clear that many of us who have left the Iskconian days behind us or are about to do so, have some catching up to do, and it seems that many of those, especially your old students, have things to clear up with you. If you have the strength and desire to do that, it would be a great to service to many of them.
It is very, very hard to write in a manner that appeals or interests all the viewers of this site. We have had a broad spectrum of personalities here and I do not see any purpose in attempting to answer all the doubts, confusion, challenges, or critiques that have been offered beyond the way I have done it. My answers are well thought out and exactly what I wish to write. I do not think the resolution to the lingering uncertainty many feel will come from me; rather it will come from each person when they become aware of what it is that stimulated their reactions to whatever it was they thought I did or do, or their own reactions to their experiences from their traumatic times. As far as I am concerned, to explain why I left and the factual circumstances around it would take a book to describe. I have seen that a short reply that touches upon sensitive issues is worse than avoiding the issue totally. For each person to describe how they were misunderstood, exploited, mishandled and so on, would fill this site with verbose ventilations which would not serve to heal, but would rather clutter and disperse the healing effect of open discussion of the underlying themes of our pain. After all, I am not as interested in resolving the traumas that were created in the old days from the perspective of the old days as much as I am in expanding our awareness to accommodate new perspectives borne from one’s own experiential initiative and eagerness to move into the future without being a prisoner of the past. Further, I have already discussed many of these topics extensively in the lectures, many of which are unfortunately not posted on this site, and as the vast majority of the participants of this site have heard many of these talks, I do not wish to constantly return to subjects which are long gone from our active interest. For those who are stalled at certain past points, the good old days forum is a chance for them to get some relief. However, I am not eager to participate in that forum for I am tired of the subtle and not so subtle statements that I should continually bear the cross of other’s pain. The best way to overcome victimization is to stop being a victim. But, I still respond to each text in the old days discussion with the same serious and steady tone as I feel is proper.
Your answers are good, but boy oh boy are they sometimes loooong! You remind me of my father, who explains things so thoroughly that not one stone remains unturned. I notice myself sometimes skipping over lines. That is not a good sign.
The questions are complex and demand complete replies. It would be disrespectful of me to rifle off trite and terse answers to questions which are deep, filled with uncertainty, indicating internal damage, or the curious desire to know more. I have no problem if you skip over lines or entire texts or even the whole site. I give what I think is right and you take what you want. I cannot function in any other manner. After all, each person will skip over different lines and if I listened to all of you my replies would be merely a ‘.’
I would also like to take this opportunity and thank you. If you would have left Iskcon quietly and just disappeared silently into the night, I would still be carrying a big monkey on my back.
I am not sure what that monkey is. I like monkeys and always wanted to have the small, smooth ones as pets. However, wiser mates have discouraged me from that since they are mischievous and extremely sensitive. But thank you for your appreciation.
I am very glad that our relationship still exists and I am even more glad that now we can relate with each other as two human beings.
Strange, I always saw our relationship as human and very friendly. Maybe it was you who created the non-human idea? We do create the guru according to our expectations. Better to skip this illusory ideal and simply accept each person as they are.
Why dont we accept right from the beginning that this world is mostly just a long unbreakable line of misunderstandings and that only every once in a while we happen to really understand each other? It is just a fact of life. It does not even matter so much whether we write our thoughts or try to see each other face to face, sooner or later and most probably sooner the misunderstanding occurs. We spend a large chunk of our time trying to explain our real intentions to each other. A serious and regulated way of expression is one way to try to avoid that. That causes another problem, mainly the illusion that we have things somewhat under control. Soren Kiergekaard said that humour is Gods way to see the creation. It is so complex and full of contradictions that there is no other way. Laugh, yes, but not in a mean way. I guess sarcasm is slightly meanspirited? 