This Saturday, July 25th 2009, we'll have our monthly all-day zazen thing at Hill Street Center. Info is over there to your left in the links. I am no longer handling the administrative end of these get-togethers so I do not know if there will be an oryoki lunch or not. I'll post the info on that as soon as anyone tells me.
Also, I got a very nice write up on Belief Net! I thought those guys hated me!
OK. Now on to our topic for the day. Someone sent me this link to the funniest spiritual scam I have yet to see on the Internet. Apparently this was actually advertised in one of the Google ads that pop up on this very page!
My God is this thing hilarious! Endorsed by none other than Ken Wilber Himself, it says, "Millions have heard Eckhart Tolle’s story of spontaneous awakening to a super-conscious state – a timeless, transcendental state. Mystics maintain that this 'pure now' moment is the doorway to liberation, and the mystics are right."
Oh my gosh! The mystics! They're right!!
The ad then poses the following questions:
But have you ever wondered:
• What factors cause me to fall “out of the now”?
• How can I access this state more quickly and more consistently?
• What can other world-renowned spiritual leaders offer in addition to Tolle’s recommendations to accelerate my spiritual growth and stabilize my awareness in “the now?”
• Where can I turn to find that wisdom?
Oh dear! What causes me to fall out of the now??? I need to know!!! Please tell me!!! How can I access the state that the mystics have acquired right this second without having to give up my busy schedule of watching reality TV, trolling the Internet and eating junk food? I want wisdom and I want it right now!
A need is created and the fulfillment of that need is offered. Classic advertising technique. Is there really anyone left who doesn't know this?
Anyhow, it turns out that what you really need to be in the now all the time is to spend $199 (That's $50 off the regular price, they say. And just where is it selling for that price?) on a special kit containing 5 DVDs, 2 CDs, 3 booklets, a poster and some of what they call "one-minute modules." Plus, if you act now, you get 7 free gifts (that's right, 7 free gifts -- and this is exactly the way they say it in the ad. They say "7 free gifts" and right afterward in parenthesis it says "that's right, 7 free gifts.") I can just hear the voice of Casey Casem yelling all this at me from a TV left tuned on at 3 in the morning.
And you wonder why I hate the whole spiritual master business so much. If people are falling for bullshit as blatant as this... I don't know. I don't even want to know!
If you think "the now" can be yours for $199 and a few DVDs of a bunch of slime balls talking about spirituality you deserve what you get.
