Happiness is the Starting Place is finished

I finished my book. It is now called Happiness is the Starting Place. Previous titles were: Befriending Life, Befriending Reality, Worldwide Happiness, and Happiness and Utopia.

It took around 14 years on and off. I would never have started it if I had have known it would take so long! I'm so glad it's over. Now I can do things I enjoy.

Does anyone know a publisher?

Thanks for your interest.

Worldwide Happiness Returns

I've had a breakthrough, and it looks like I will be able to finish Worldwide Happiness easily after all. Of course, finding a publisher might be hard, but you never know.

Worldwide Happiness Cancelled

I am cancelling Worldwide Happiness because I have 13 years of evidence that the vast majority of people disagree with me, and I lack the drive and the financial, social, and political capital to overturn this momentum. All kinds of people disagree. Scholars disagree on realist grounds. Spiritual people disagree because they cherish their own version of idealism. They are all wrong, and I am right, but truth isn’t enough.

Of course, I could publish at one of those online book places, but the book still needs a solid edit and to have its presentation polished. I lack the motivation and resources for that. I could publish it on this website, but it has too few visitors to make a difference.

My motivation won’t return unless the resources appear, and those resources need to be huge - big enough to force the book into the consciousness of a large or powerful audience. That is extremely unlikely, but I’ll keep buying lottery tickets. Note that I am not saying that worldwide happiness is impossible or even difficult. In fact, I think it is easy. But there needs to be someone with either the charisma or the power to get the message across.

Thanks to those who have read, listened, argued, and commented.

GLTA.

Review of Windows 8 for the Desktop and Laptop

I moved from the Customer Preview to the Release Preview, and it has turned me off Windows 8 in many ways. I presumed that there would be significant improvements from the Customer Preview to the Release Preview, but there are hardly any. It looks like the Customer Preview was basically the finished interface.

I love the speed, visuals, freshness, and file manager. In fact, I was ecstatic when I first played with the Customer Preview.  It's just that weaknesses in the Charms bar, Metro apps, and the Start screen have not been fixed in the Release Preview, and it makes this OS feel transitional and half-baked. I hate that. It means another 3 years of limbo.

By now, MS should have made the perfect Desktop/Laptop operating system, but they have given up on that in the pursuit of regaining market share in other categories. And in the process they are alienating Desktop and Laptop users. Computers are such a big part of my life that I want the OS to be good. I'd happily pay $500 for a great OS for 3 years.

Regardless, I was unhappy with the old Start button. It felt clumsy and graceless as an object. It was like squeezing through a narrow corridor to get to a shambolic filing cabinet. It really was a hopeless mess - small writing, small arrows, having programs in folders below individual icons, and having a mix of recent and pinned programs. And I didn't like the layout of the more administrative links in the other half of the Start menu. It all just felt old and clunky. So I think it needed to be changed, so long as that change was an intuitive evolution.

At first, the Start screen looked to me to be a wonderful solution. It's bigger, prettier, graceful, speedy, and customisable. However, it is primarily designed for Tablets and Phones, so it simultaneously reduces functionality for keyboard and mouse users. This is true in so many obvious ways that I won't bother listing them all. One clear example is that when you right-click a tile, instead of being given a contextual menu of many functions, you have to mouse down to the bottom left of the screen to access a few limited functions. The Charms bar is completely for Tablets and Phones, so it's just an irritation on the Desktop/Laptop. Likewise for Metro apps - they don't give me anything that websites don't already give in a much more controllable fashion.

Unfortunately, Microsoft's probable solution for Desktop/Laptop users will be merely to bring back the Start button in the final version of Windows 8. Thus, Desktop/Laptop users will be stuck with the clumsy old system for at least another 3 years.

Already, I'm looking ahead to Windows 9. If it has a Desktop/Laptop version for the Start screen that implements all the functionality of the Start button, and adds improvements, then it could be great. But it would have to be brilliantly done. And they have to do something about the Charms bar too - probably turn it off for Desktops/Laptops and put its functions on the Start screen.

As it stands, W8 is a weird and annoying limbo experience for this Desktop/Laptop user. It's like having a Tablet/Phone operating system intruding on your computer. I suspect it will not be ideal as a Tablet/Phone system either. So it feels like an experiment gone wrong, like Frankenstein's Monster. I hate being subjected to experiments in this way. Microsoft has a social responsibility to do better than this.

If Microsoft bring back the Start button and turn off the Charms bar for Windows 8, then I would enjoy the improved speed, visuals, freshness, and file manager. It would be a nice upgrade from Windows 7, but nothing dramatic, so it would have to be cheap too. But if you have to stick with the Charms bar and a compromised Start screen, then I think I would skip it. Third Party solutions might pop up, but it's risky using them for core OS functionality.

Anyway, that's my take on Windows 8. What do you reckon?

Happiness and Utopia ~ excerpt 1

Here is the first excerpt from my unpublished book. The book was titled Worldwide Happiness ~ the necessity and easy of creating global utopia. Now, I think I will title it Happiness & Utopia.

The three major paradigms

 

I see three major paradigms used by people today:

1. The survival paradigm: The belief that the world is the source of both opportunities for survival and dangers to survival, and that people are competitors for survival. There may be teamwork, but the underlying thoughts and feelings are about competition—the struggle to survive into the future.

2.        The dependent happiness paradigm: The belief that the world is the source of happiness, and that people are competitors for happiness, although there may be the option of sacrificing yourself for the sake of others. Again, teamwork can be in the mix, but the underlying thoughts and feelings are about competition—the struggle to obtain happiness in the future.

3.        The liberated happiness paradigm: The belief that the world is for expressing and augmenting our innate happiness, and that people are collaborators for happiness. Of course, the lines between these blur and all three can pop up in a single day. Also, we have moments where we transcend paradigms. But these three categories are nonetheless very useful.

Survival paradigm

 

The survival paradigm is the prevailing paradigm in poor, corrupt, and war-torn countries. It is about seeking survival and security using competitive methods. It is the natural response to the world as described by Darwin. That world is what Hobbes called “the state of nature” in which life is “nasty, brutish, and short”. Clearly, the survival paradigm had value in the early phases of our species’ development because it was a realistic response to real or imminent dangers. Today, it has value only in emergencies and during their immediate aftermaths. 

Much of our human past can be seen as a growth phase for our species. Up to a few centuries ago, we lacked knowledge and technology, so we relied on the basic instincts of “me vs you” and “us vs them”. We fought for basics like money, food, and land because we needed them for survival and we lacked efficient alternative means to secure them. 

Indeed, what we derisively call “human nature”—selfishness, violence, power-tripping—is not an eternal human state of naughtiness or animality; rather, it is just the initial survival phase of individual, group, and species development, and it is the first step in the process towards expressing our greater potential. Competition and aggression are needed to protect life in its early phases, therefore they are good. They are prerequisites. The establishment of survival prepares us for further strides. 

Dependent happiness paradigm

 

The dependent happiness paradigm is the prevailing paradigm in developed countries. We often compete for money, possessions, prestige, and partners because we think they are sources of happiness, and competition is the only way we know. We compete against people, businesses, and countries. We try to get more for less in our interactions.

This paradigm can be seen as an unnecessary, yet inevitable, experiment. It is unnecessary because it can never work, and it is inevitable because we did not know any better when we adopted it. Since it is about seeking happiness using the old survival paradigm’s method of competition, it is inherently flawed. As I shall explore throughout this book, we need others to be happy if we are to be happy ourselves, and we need others to collaborate in manifesting our greater potential, so competition works against happiness. Seeking happiness through competition is a contradiction.

Furthermore, the primary source of happiness is within, not in the world, which makes competition for happiness in the world a deluded undertaking (unless it’s just for fun, as in sports). In fact, competition is a painful detour from the road to happiness. Defeating others for career advancement will not make you truly happy. Your country defeating other countries in war or in profit-making will not make you truly happy. In reality, if everyone else is competing, then that creates multiple conflicts that will cause you to compete as well, thereby spreading stress and unhappiness.

Note that an alternative label for the dependent happiness paradigm could be the compromise paradigm. When I ask people, “Would you like a happy world?” they invariably say, “Yes.” But they think it is too hard to achieve, and they see others competing, so they think they have to compromise. This means they lower their expectations. However, upon deeper reflection, they might see that it is futile because it is contradictory—you cannot be truly happy in a competitive world. So they live with the stress of that contradiction while the hope of a better world vibrates below the surface.

Liberated happiness paradigm

 

A liberated happiness paradigm arises only occasionally. It normally arises when we are feeling good. Then we are inclined to generosity and wanting to see others happy. We want to express our wellbeing and to enjoy life with others. It can happen when we are hosting a party, or after winning the lottery, or when we are relaxing on the weekend. It can sometimes happen in creative projects or work projects. The vibe of grasping and struggle to get somewhere else is gone. We are already happy and we are just naturally expressing and augmenting that happiness.

After emergencies have passed, instead of replacing the survival paradigm with the dependent happiness paradigm, I think we should consciously opt for a liberated happiness paradigm. In my view, this paradigm is about realising happiness by understanding that happiness is the natural state, and by understanding life’s most important pattern: the movement from protecting potential (survival) to manifesting potential (happiness). Then we can replace competition with cooperation because we will notice that cooperation is free of the wastes and harms caused by competition, and it is more effective for manifesting our potential.

Big implications of global awareness

 

Given the recent advancements in knowledge and technology, a new liberated happiness paradigm can spread easily across the world. These days, most of us have at least a basic understanding of what is happening in other parts of the world, and a basic understanding of our relationship to the planet and the rest of the universe. Even in poor villages there’s usually one television around which people gather and see something of what’s happening in the world.

It seems to me that we are right in the middle of a great leap in a new, profound, and inevitable evolutionary process. We are already considering issues in a new enlarged context, at least sometimes. Now, the time is ripe for us to consciously complete the move from the survival paradigm and the dependent happiness paradigm to a liberated happiness paradigm, i.e. from preparation and experimentation to fruition. We will do this if we embrace the fact that we are all in the same boat of global awareness and we need to make it a happy boat for our own sakes. And since survival is mostly guaranteed in developed countries, their citizens already have a solid basis from which to express their greater potential, so they possess the opportunity to lead the way.

American Militarism: Greenwald vs Obama and Co.

Gosh, this is becoming a Glenn Greenwald fansite! Actually, I'm not a total fan - he gets it terribly wrong about 10% of the time. But when he gets it right, boy it's crystal clear. Here's the latest:

What might cause another 9/11?

"One of the many reasons I oppose Obama’s ongoing aggression is precisely that I believe the policies Sullivan and Packer cheer will cause another 9/11 (the other reasons include the lawlessness of it, the imperial mindset driving it, the large-scale civilian deaths it causes, the extreme and unaccountable secrecy with which it’s done, the erosion of civil liberties that inevitably accompanies it, the patently criminal applications of these weapons, the precedent it sets, etc.). I realize that screaming "9/11" has been the trite tactic of choice for those seeking to justify the U.S. Government’s militarism over the last decade, but invoking that event strongly militates against the policies it’s invoked to justify, precisely because those policies are the principal cause of such attacks, for obvious reasons."

America can be great in so many ways, but it has been extremely blind militarily. It destroyed so many countries in the Cold War because of the misguided fear of the domino effect regarding communism. And it missed so many opportunities to create unity and goodwill because of it's fear of so-called "appeasement".

I can understand people making big stupid mistakes, but when the stakes are so high (risk of terrorism in America plus causing so much harm to other countries), you would think they would bring all their resources to bear in getting it right.

Obama Double Standard

Glenn Greenwald is kicking Obama's butt again:

"The prevailing rules under this administration are definitively corrupt: if you leak to expose government corruption and in the process embarrass political officials, then you are severely punished (whistleblowers); but if you leak to glorify the President and his highest-level advisers, then you are protected and rewarded (senior Obama officials)."

Exactly. It truly is mystifying that Obama has sunk so low. He has youth, talent, and power yet he is wasting it in the service of evil and illusion.

Anyway, the Greenwald piece is a great read - check it out.

UPDATE:

Uh-oh, it looks like Obama is in trouble now:

Holder assigns prosecutors to investigate leaks.

Gee, I reckon this could bring Obama down!

Challenging students' views

Over at Salon, Glenn Greewald wrote:

"My real question is this: what kind of person goes to an academic institution and then demands to be shielded from political ideas that they find objectionable? Of all places, academia is supposed to permit and encourage the challenging of one’s assumptions and beliefs. At least in theory, that’s the prime value of studying at a university: learning how to think critically, which requires subjecting one’s views to rigorous dispute. The petulant entitlement needed to demand that nobody in that setting ever cite or mention objectionable political views is just staggering; it also reveals a severe lack of confidence in the validity of one’s own views."

I reckon it's fair to not demand shielding from political ideas so long as:

• the unit is optional rather than compulsory,
• the teachers give both sides of the argument,
• the teachers have thoroughly researched the issue,
• the teachers fully inform the students about course content before the unit starts.

Surprisingly, these conditions are rarely met in arts and social sciences. Many teachers in these departments are politically motivated rather than educationally motivated, and they take the opportunity to push their political agendas. Also, course descriptions are often vague and downright false.

The universities let the teachers do it using the same argument Greenwald uses: education involves hearing views you don't like. As if we haven't heard enough views we don't like! Also, universities cite "academic freedom" to justify the actions of such teachers. But what about student freedom? What about educational ethics?

Students pay for education and have their own purposes for studying. Teachers should not misuse their power and freedom to push their own agendas.

America Doesn't Deserve Obama?

John Cole from Balloon Juice reacts to Obama's SOTU speech:

"...every time I hear him speak, I am still aware of all the things I disagree with him on, but think "That is a good man doing what he thinks is best." ...We really don't deserve him. We really don't."

That is some serious intellectual and/or moral corruption.

Ken Wilber and the Center for World Spirituality welcome Marc Gafni back in 2012

Ken Wilber's statement

Ken Wilber took time off to deliberate on the recent Marc Gafni sex scandal. Now he has given us his conclusions:

"I am not working with Marc despite this last blogosphere explosion but rather because of his reaction to it. What impressed me most about Marc’s response to this situation is that though he might well have felt justified in feeling angry or hurt about what happened, by and large he focused on asking for all feedback from every possible source on why this happened. He wanted to know, at a deeper level, how he might have contributed to it himself, and what he could do to help remedy the situation and any part he might have played in this. Most astonishingly, for a spiritual teacher, he included in this list—in order to make it truly comprehensive—a search for a great therapist that he might see. He made a serious and widespread search for a therapist, and finally found an incredibly competent and highly respected one—and signed up."

It is common knowledge that those accused of sexual abuse blame the devil or run to church or run to a therapist. Wilber doesn't seem to be taking that common knowledge into account. Nevertheless, I think it is good that Gafni sees a therapist. That is one practical thing that needs to happen. However, after three months, he and his supporters do not seem to understand that he was supposed to be guiding these women's spiritual growth yet he contaminated that noble goal with his own sexual desires. What happened to his evolved status? What happened to his compassion and wisdom?

"This was not because he necessarily needed therapy, but simply that he told himself he was going to cover every base and make a truly comprehensive and inclusive search for any approach that might help address the situation. He was, in other words, doing whatever necessary to cover any shadow elements, should they be present. I know of extremely few spiritual teachers that would do this—that would be committed enough to their own integrity to include all possible angles, and then genuinely follow through on it. This, to me, is an indication of a genuine spiritual teacher, one dedicated to working on himself no matter how “embarrassing” it might appear to others. On this issue, even his critics will have few if any grounds for complaint at this point. Even they have acknowledged that he is, in many ways, a very gifted spiritual teacher, and this recent move simply makes him an even more gifted teacher, in my opinion."

So running to a therapist and acting humble has led to a rise in Gafni's status. Now he is "an even more gifted teacher". That's an excellent payoff for Gafni, and it gives further evidence for Wilber to consider the possibility that Gafni could be doing this for less than noble reasons.

"In many spiritual traditions, forgiveness is a path to God, and I know Marc has worked hard to forgive any insults—real or imagined—that he recently received, and perhaps it is appropriate for others also to work to forgive any insults—real or imagined—received from Marc. In this atmosphere of loving-kindness, care, and forgiveness, we can all get back to this incredibly important work of Integral Spirituality."

Marc forgives us - what a relief! And now we can get back to business as usual. However, looking forward is a common method to produce forgetfulness of the real issues. In reality, we only learn and grow by facing the past and learning from it.  

The Center for World Spirituality's statement

The Center for World Spirituality has also given Gafni "unequivocal support":

"We, the undersigned, do without any reservation whatsoever, support Marc Gafni, D.Phil as a teacher and leader of the Center for World Spirituality. We find it unfortunate that the blogosphere has become a place where allegations are made, and where rumors, distortions and simple untruths are so easily spread, all without the benefit of finding of fact."

So they seem to be claiming that Marc didn't have sex with students who were seeking the noblest spiritual goals, yet I don't even think Marc himself has denied that he had sex with those students. It seems that Gafni will continue to do these things because he knows he will get extraordinary levels of support.

"Further, each of us personally recommends Dr. Gafni to any organization, church, synagogue, spiritual or cultural center, or to any context which seeks to benefit from his teachings."

So if you are a woman seeking spiritual liberation, the Center for World Spirituality recommends Marc Gafni as your teacher! Isn't that a startling result?

Dr. Warren Farrell also added his own personal statement to the Center's endorsement:

"Marc Gafni is one of the world’s change agents. Virtually all change agents, whether Martin Luther King or Gandhi, will be subjected to attempts at assassination–character assassination and sometimes literal assassination. Unfortunately, the internet has allowed such attempts to be magnified when aimed at a leader’s character. This propensity of people without vision to try to ruin the person rather than challenge the ideas has long been with us… Marc continues to make a commitment to lead; I for one, am making a commitment both to continue co-creating with him and to never allowing myself to be sidetracked by those whose feel it is easier to kill the messenger than create a more visionary and informed message."

Marc Gafni is a martyr now! It reminds me of that poster for The People vs Larry Flynt! Furthermore, Farrell says "people without vision… try to ruin the person rather than challenge the ideas…" Isn't this an obvious case of projection? Farrell is trying to ruin the people who are criticising Gafni's behaviour (not his ideas) by calling them assassins, and Farrell is not challenging the ideas of the critics.  

Joe Perez's statement

Another Integralist, Joe Perez writes:

"I’m glad that the Tami Simon/Bill Harryman-manufactured controversy is now coming to a close. The statements by Ken Wilber, Marc Gafni, Warren Farrell, and the Special Committee of the Board of the Center for World Spirituality sound true to me, and I am proud to be part of a spiritual movement in which many leaders are capable of looking at even the most complex ethical quagmires with a multi-perspectival, all quadrant, all levels lens. The world desperately needs more integral, evolutionary visions … and we cannot afford to be distracted with faux scandals perpetuated largely by First-Tier ideologies in action and Integralists who haven’t exercised very careful discernment and owned their own shadows."

To summarise: the controversy is "manufactured" and the pro-Gafni Integralist responses all "sound true" and those who disagree "haven’t exercised very careful discernment and owned their own shadows". What a quagmire! While I agree with Perez that some of the statements about Gafni have been over the top, the fundamental issues still remain ignored.  

Marc Gafni's own statement

Gafni himself has written for "closure" on the issue:

"That said, these events demonstrated to me that it is usually not a good idea for a public figure to hold his or her personal dating relationships privately. First, because, by definition, it necessitates a certain amount of dissembling. Second, because, as I have come to realize more deeply, sometimes even when the privacy is mutually and lovingly agreed upon, some people may still come to find it psychologically painful to hold. Third, holding privacy about a romantic relationship may create alienation in other relationships in both people’s circle of intimates."

That's excellent!

"I want to be fully transparent at this point however that I am making no grand or sweeping declarations for transparency over privacy. They are both important values in many spheres of life and it would be bad heart and bad mind to dogmatically and simplistically value one above the other in any absolute sense. The one thing that I will promise is that, to the best of my ability, my public teaching and private action will be consistent with each other"

This looks bad to me. It leaves too much wriggle room for Gafni. Also, given that he has charisma, he can sell anything in his public teaching. He could make sex with students part of his teaching and that would necessitate further sexual involvements. Instead of changing himself, he can just adjust his teaching to make it fit his sexual desires. His standard is conveniently his own teaching! By the way, note the implicit narcissism.

"Let me state formally that if in the future I enter into a monogamous commitment, then I will honor it and live in it to the fullest. If that is the right path for me then I will enter into it with full delight and even ecstasy. If I do not enter into that path, and choose to love from a different place, then I will enter into that path with full delight and even ecstasy. If that is the case then it is not impossible that at some point I will date women who are in my circle. If that feels uncomfortable to someone in principle that it might not be wise to join my circle of teaching… I had full right to date the people I dated and to hold the relationships privately, and I stand by this right and the essential ethics behind my actions."

Uh-oh. He hasn't learnt the core lesson. It is not right to date your students. Period. They are seeking liberation from illusion - the noblest goal. That should be your priority if you truly have compassion. You should not risk that ever in any way. So if you want to have sex with students and cannot control your desire, then send them to another guru and begin the sexual relationship a few months later. "I had full right to date the people I dated" sounds like a jarring and twisted sense of sexual entitlement.

"At the same time, I have felt an obligation to ask how my own internal “stuff” might have contributed to the outcome… To this end, a major part of my internal response to this blogosphere explosion has been to seek feedback from colleagues and spiritual friends who I invite to challenge me and engage me in the process of inner work."

He should seek the feedback of people who are NOT colleagues and NOT spiritual friends. Colleagues and spiritual friends will collude with him as they have done all along.  

Two elephants in the room

There are two elephants in the room that these Integralists are not addressing:

1. What does Gafni's actions mean for Integralism? Note that all the pro-Gafni responses come with advice like we need to "get back to this incredibly important work of Integral Spirituality". So it looks to me like these Integralists are afraid that the truth will derail their idealistic goals. Thus, they don't trust the conversation and they don't trust life. They also seem to think they need Gafni, which demonstrates a lack of faith in the potential of other people. Furthermore, they are making a false dichotomy: either continue debating the Gafni issue or get on with Integral Spirituality. Isn't continuing the debate the same as getting on with Integral Spirituality? Also, I think the organisation is not dealing with this issue seriously because they know that it will open a can of worms regarding their own status and activities. Taking the issue seriously would expose the organisation as not being serious about spiritual liberation. They would have to stop being a bunch of hot-air philosophers playing at being compassionate enlightened beings. They would have to start getting real.

2. Is it right for a teacher to have sex with his students? The answer seems quite clear. The students are seeking liberation from illusion, which is the noblest goal. The teacher is supposedly compassionate and wants to see the students liberated. Therefore, neither party should risk contaminating the goal with sexual activity. Could it be any clearer? On a more mundane level, it is widely accepted outside of spirituality that therapists shouldn't have sex with clients, teachers shouldn't have sex with students, etc. This is mainly because there is obvious inequality in the relationship.
 
Conclusion

These Integralists are supposed be leading the world into a new spiritually evolved age, yet they cannot or will not straighten themselves out on these fundamental issues. What is needed is the objective views of outsiders. However, instead of integrating those views, they are attacking the outsiders (and insider critics) and are now calling for "closure". This is obviously a case of group self-defense rather than conscientious spiritual evolution. The group's elites are protecting themselves and their status and are guiding their followers into a group-think illusion of futuristic idealism while maintaining the pretense that it's about spiritual liberation. Therefore, these Integralist leaders are wrong.

Krishnamurti and the Rajagopals

Here's a review of Krishnamurti and the Rajagopals that I will place on Amazon.com:

As others have pointed out, "Krishnamurti and the Rajagopals" is Mary Lutyens' reply to Radha Sloss' book and adds more to the picture of Krishnamurti. Indeed, it adds so much more that one must consider why Lutyens' original biography of Krishnamurti was so incomplete. The original biography did not mention Krishnamurti's sex life and his adulterous affair. That book was very detailed, so space wasn't an issue. The current book reveals that this was a huge part of his life, yet Lutyens ignored it in the original biography. Why?

Lutyens' excuses for not including Krishnamurti's adultery with Rosalind Rajagopal in the original biography are disingenuous. She writes, "I… did not realize that Rosalind wanted her adultery broadcast to the world." This is a lame excuse. The more likely reason is that she didn't want Krishnamurti's adultery broadcast to the world. She wanted his image to remain untarnished. Indeed, later in this book we see another Krishnamurti follower - Mary Zimbalist - protecting him in a similar way (see a few paragraphs below).

In her original biography of Krishnamurti, Lutyens feigned dismay at Rajagopal's bad behaviour towards Krishnamurti. But imagine Rajagopal's point of view. Krishnamurti presented himself on stage as being spiritually and morally superior and he let others treat him as special, yet all along Rajagopal knew Krishnamurti was having an affair with his wife. Ding, ding, ding! Of course, he is going to behave "badly" towards Krishnamurti. How can Lutyens say she doesn't understand Rajagopal's behaviour? Why did Krishnamurti approve a biography that presents such a patently false dismay?

Regarding Krishnamurti's celibate image, I have heard people say, "Of course, he had a normal sex life." On the other hand, I have heard others say, "Of course, he was celibate." So it seems that people were projecting both views and that Krishnamurti let the issue remain ambiguous so that he could have it both ways. He would have been happy to be seen as sexually cool in the swinging 60s, and he would have been happy to be remembered as a celibate saint. After all, he was supposed to be the Lord Maitreya incarnate, and the Lord Maitreya doesn't have sex with lowly mortals, does he?

Back in the day, I searched every book Krishnamurti wrote for clear statements about his sex life and his spiritual experiences. Notably, both topics were treated in a vague way. The closest I could find to a clear statement on his sex life was when he once answered a sex question with, "I wouldn't know." From that, I concluded that he was claiming to be celibate. Nevertheless, Lutyens writes in the present book, "I have always stressed that Krishnamurti was physically a perfectly normal man." That is untrue. Firstly, she claimed repeatedly that he was uniquely special. Indeed, in the original biography she wrote:

"Mary had made Marpessa's choice, yet it was with a sense of betrayal that she married her mortal; not betrayal of K, who, she knew, had no personal need of her or of any other individual, but betrayal of the view from the mountain top he had shown her."

Clearly, she was portraying him as being beyond mere mortal interests such as marriage and sex. Secondly, if she "always stressed that Krishnamurti was physically a perfectly normal man", then why is his non-celibacy a revelation to so many people who have read the original biography?

One commenter here said that s/he doubts that Krishnamurti tried to cover up the affair. Yet we have clear evidence to the contrary - most obviously, Krishnamurti approved the biography that covered up the affair! And I suspect that Krishnamurti didn't push Rajagopal in their legal battles because he knew that Rajagopal was ready to expose him as an adulterer. Similarly, Lutyens didn't directly attack Rajagopal in the biography because she didn't want Rajagopal to return fire with information about the adultery. But once the information about the adultery was out, Lutyens let loose in the current book because there was no false image of Krishnamurti left to defend.

I believe that the reason Lutyens wrote this book was to defend Krishnamurti by attacking Rajagopal, and to justify herself for not including these issues in the original biography, but it backfires because we learn so much new disturbing information. One example is that we see Krishnamurti freaking out in a most unenlightened way. He calls the Rajagopals "evil, dirty" - and don't forget he just had an adulterous affair with one of these "evil, dirty" people. Another example is that we see the blind devotion of his followers. Immediately following his freak out, Mary Zimbalist wrote in her diary:

"I said I had one motive from the very beginning: to protect him and the teachings, to see that what he wants done happens. He said that wasn't enough, 'You are part of me, you must see and feel this in the same way.' He was making it clear that he wants to end the dispute and that in itself counts totally for me. ...At one point he said, 'I would grovel to end this'."

Isn't that shocking? Obviously he was panic-stricken. He was afraid to let his spiritual image and spiritual career collapse. And while he was freaking out and demanding that Zimbalist's view be replaced by his view, instead of re-evaluating him, she said her one motive is to protect him and the teachings. That is an astounding response. Presumably, many other insiders had the same overriding desire to blindly protect him. Clearly, that desire to protect Krishnamurti resulted in the hiding of many unpleasant facts about him.

I agree that Sloss' book was dreadful, but at least it forced Lutyens to fill out her hagiography of Krishnamurti with some earthy truth. It forced her to spill the beans on The World Teacher's adultery, the freak-out described above, and the blind obedience of his followers. One wonders how many other famous spiritual leaders throughout history have benefited from having hagiographers like Lutyens to polish their images? It is ironic that Krishnamurti's main message was to not follow others but he surrounded himself with blind devotees who idolised him and "the teachings" and he demanded that their views be replaced by his views.

Although I don't expect spiritual teachers to be perfect, I do expect their biographers to be honest since biographies often create the enduring image of their subjects. "Krishnamurti and the Rajagopals" fills out Krishnamurti's image and also reveals the deluded mindset of his main biographer and his close followers.

Ken Wilber endorses violent gurus and protects gurus in trouble

Ken Wilber is the intellectual of the spiritual scene. Yet, strangely, he endorses violent gurus and protects gurus in trouble. Andrew Cohen is a cult leader who slaps his male disciples and dunks his female disciples in cold lakes, and here's Ken Wilber's enthusiastic endorsement of him:

…if you want Enlightenment… find yourself a Rude Boy or a Nasty Girl, the ones who make you uncomfortable in their presence, who scare you witless, who will turn on you in a second and hold you up for ridicule, who will make you wish you were never born, who will offer you not sweet comfort but abject terror…

Rude Boys know better. They are not here to console but to shatter, not to comfort but to demolish. They are uncompromising, brutal…

It will, in fact, be hell, and only Rude Boys are rude enough to tell you that, and to show you that—if you can stand the rudeness, stay in the fire, burn clean as Infinity and radiate as the stars.

Notice that Wilber sells Cohen as being a person who helps you to "radiate as the stars". Very glamorous.

Now Marc Gafni has been busted having sex with two of his own disciples while his wife is pregnant. This is after promising he wouldn't do such things (he's a repeat offender). And here's Ken Wilber's response to the public criticism of Gafni:

The problem with situations like this one is that several different issues get mixed in together and all treated as one, making decisions very difficult.

…we must reach for our own very highest capacity for spiritual discernment, judgment, compassion, mercy, insight, and awareness.

All information on this situation will never be available to the public.  There is simply no way to know fully.  At this point, we need to honor all the parties and let them get on with their lives.  And we need to get on with our Integral work.

So these women went to Gafni, who is supposed to care for their highest growth, and he dragged them down into sexual relationships with him, and Wilber says we should honour him and let him get on with his life.

Note the strange difference between his attitude regarding gurus and disciples. Gurus should be aggressive towards disciples, yet disciples should honour gurus. How screwed up is that? It's as though gurus are precious darlings and disciples are cannon fodder. We see this move in American politics where the elites are treated with remarkable deference just because of their positions, while the poor are used as political pawns.(See Glenn Greenwald's blog and new book for more on this.)

While Wilber is clever and creative in many ways, he is surprisingly undeveloped in many other crucial ways. He endorsed and glorified Andrew Cohen (and Adi Da, by the way), and now he protects and defends Marc Gafni. I wonder if Wilber's objectivity is clouded by his business interests with both men? I mean, how in your right mind can you endorse and protect the likes of Andrew Cohen, Adi Da, and Marc Gafni? These corrupt people are abusing people who are seeking the noblest goals.

Of course, I don't believe in the guru/disciple game, but for those who do, here's a suggestion. If a guru wants to have sex with a disciple, then that guru should send the disciple to another guru. After a month or so, they can meet again and begin their sexual relationship as equals outside of the guru/disciple relationship. Logical right? Ken Wilber is supposedly super wise, yet he can't even figure that out. Perhaps, people who believe in the guru/disciple relationship have boundary issues and by nature are unable to keep their relationships clear and above board.