Brother David "curriculum"

Hi Annie.

First of all, the "table" we were discussing about is the table for discussing "what is Christianity's ultimate goal and stages to reach that goal"; so of course the persons invited to the table should be people that the Christian tradition validates as 1) Christians and 2) realized Christians.

Bd. David pass both requirements, while Macintosh could pass the first. But the second? Do someone validates his spiritual experiences? or it is up to him only? 

This is not a prejudice but a reality.

If there is no authority whatsoever to validate what you are experiencing,

then who says what is simply pre-personal or even psychotic experience from what it is transpersonal spiritual?

I think you are being naive here. One of the main teachings of Ken work has been to root spirituality into traditions. It doesn't matter what tradition, but one. You can even find videos on youtube with Ken recomending to chose a path and follow it until the end.

I'm not saying that it is impossible to make it without teachers. I believe that can happen, as an exception.

But the norm is that the human experience is so vast that there is a 80% chance that you will lose in the way. 

That is why we need teachers, lineages, institutions, methods, books, maps, and so on.

In any event, what you are saying to me here applys for AQAL in general, cause Ken has always manifested that we need traditions and teachers to guide us and to validate spiritual experiences and discern those from simple imagination and narcissist fantasies.

I ask you: if not by teachers validation or traditional guidance, what is the mechanism you use in your own life to know if you are having a psycotic episode or a non dual ultimate experience?

It seems to me you don't understand the basics of why institutions (in spirituality and in everything else) are so important.

An example: I can get up in the morning tomorrow and for different situations (like chemical unbalances in my brain) have a vision; in that vision a diffuse light, with a Buddha at the center tells me one and over again "the end is a fat King". So coming "back" from that experience (when it finish) I proclaim that Budha told me in an "spiritual experience" that the end of the path is not non duality, but to become a fat King, and so that AQAL is wrong or incomplete because it doesn't situate that as the goal of Spiritual development.

If there are no levels of intrinsec value of spiritual experiences/interpretations, nor a system to verify their authenticity, then that interpretation should be taken into account in the same table with for example, Traleg Rinpoche's or Bd. David ones. See how ridicule it is? 

Love,

Fede

PD: as I said to you before, I am sorry before hand if I will not be able to respond to some posts at this time. Hope to be more available in some 20 days. Love.

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Hi David,

Thanks for your textual ‘pointing out’ instructions. I followed them and sure enough there is the text that Federico posted to begin this thread.

It's fair to say that i overstated the case by making the unqualified claim that the link is irrelevant to the current discussion.

However, the original cut and paste contained no quote marks, or direct links, indicating it was anything other than a production of Federico’s own mind and hand; although what aroused my suspicion was the quality of the language; it was not congruent with Federico’s manner and style.

So in spite of all the song and dance my original question has yet to be answered. . .

But i do appreciate your interest and participation.

Warmly,

Charles

88W13'31" 41N54'51"