E-mail David Christopher Lane
directly at dlane@weber.ucsd.edu
Author: Greg Publisher: The NEURAL SURFER Publication date: January 1997
E-mail David Christopher Lane
directly at dlane@weber.ucsd.edu
I
want to go back to the home base now.
On Thu, 16 Jan 1997 03:13:44 GMT, sar@atl.mindspring.com (Steve Runfeldt) wrote: >David Lane has written an expose on Kirpal Singh's techniques of >giving initiations. He says in effect that they are fakary. He even >did an experiment on a group of Catholic school children inducing >experiences with the light to prove his point. Steve, I guess since I've started to try and keep this point clear, and you keep making statements that I think are misunderstandings, I have to keep following up. So, here goes again. 1) David Lane did *not* write an 'expose' of Kirpal Singh's 'techniques of giving initiation'. The 'technique', Nam Dan, is the same as that used by his own initiating Master, Charan Singh, and there isn't anything in particular to expose. 2) Lane's article 'The Kirpal Statistic' is about the inner experiences of light and sound that initiates may have had at the time *attendant* to initiation. It is *not* about either the validity or the authenticity of the spiritual initiation itself. 3) Lane believes that he has shown that these inner experiences can be self-produced by the initiate independent of any effect from the initiating Master. I believe he is correct in this. 4) It may, indeed, be disturbing to initiates of Kirpal to consider that these adjunct experiences may not be the direct result of the Master's personal action, especially since Kirpal himself made a point that these inner experiences could be used as a test of the spiritual status of a Master. 5) Lane, therefore, is the bearer of disquieting ideas for initiates, but this is not the same thing as saying 'in effect' that Kirpal is a fake. At the worst he is saying that Kirpal was wrong about his own understanding of what he did. A fake intends to deceive. Nowhere does Lane attribute any such intention to Kirpal. Enough with the numbering, already, the bottom line is that it is no disrespect, it is no accusation of fraud, to be rationally critical of the phenomena surrounding transcendental experiences and events. In fact it can express the highest form of respect and regard. a close friend of minewas initiated by Kirpal Singh in 1972. She had inner experiences of light and sound at the time of initiation. I've discussed these very issues with her. She has seen Lane's article. She knows my opinion. She has no problem with any of it. Her own belief about theexperiences she had at initiation is that they were directed by Kirpal, and her love and devotion to that person is unshakable, but she knows that in any case the ultimate initiation is done by the Master Power above (as Kirpal called it) not by the man in front. She also agreed that Kirpal perhaps used this business of asking about light and sound experiences at the time of initiation too much. She knew of people who on initiation had profound transformational experiences but without the symptomatic fireworks and were temporarily set back by their failed expectations. The point is that my friend understands this critical work clearly, is not threatened by it and in fact sees spiritual value in it. Finally, just so my friend and I aren't too quickly pigeon-holed, she was the person who suggested to me that I look into Eckankar. Long before I knew much about it or had even heard of David Lane. Peace, -Gregg
