Tony
Heavens, i am the one who says Tolle is a phony!!!!! I was no more impressed w/ that Maharishi guy in the 1960's than i am w/ Tolle. They're both the same to me. I should clarify myself though. My response had more to do w/ people on the CRI DF elevating him to a status he does not deserve. He's certainly not a fake in any ordinary sense of the word. But in the spiritual realm, the real holy people just don't bother w/ money It is not in my book that i would ever pay to listen to a holy person speak. His workshop in Rhinebeck charges big bucks and so do his tapes and stuff. He's just a guy trying to make a living off his personal transformational experience. This is the height of New Age adgenda. There's nothing wrong w/ what he's doing. Everyone is doing the same thing. I once went to see a holy man in Tiruvannamalai who lived on a veranda who blessed me greatly and another who just sits waiting for people. Someone asked him a question and when he answered that person, he looked at me & i suddenly felt a terrific jolt of energy shooting up both arms & culminating at the lower back of my skull. No money was involved. I just have a thing about workshops and what i call true spirituality My experience has been different. Not better, just different.

Here's what holy means to me: A person who is capable of knowing what i need prior to my knowing it and giving it to me w/o asking. Someone who can LITERALLLY change night into day & day into night. I have been healed in dreams. I was driving on a highway & came around a blind corner at 55 mph only to see a grey caddie directly in front of me. I suddenly felt myself flip out of my body at the chest area and next thing i know is i'm looking in the rear view mirror at the caddie still on my side of the road going around the corner. There were too many cars for it to get back in. Swami has saved my life a few times.

I once called Mother Meera (Limburgh) to ask for her help w/ a guy i work w/. His 13 month old son was dying and noone and nothing could help this baby. I asked him if he wanted me to call her. He said yes. On the day he was driving his son to the hospital, which he thought was it for this baby, i spoke to Mother & she said to take the baby to the hospital but that she would help. Well, by the time they got to the hospital, that baby was FINE. To this day, that baby is healthy. He was the weaker of twin boys. He had been sick for 3 months & had almost no weight or strength left in him.

Now these are just a couple things. Without any exaggeration on my part...stuff like this is on-going in my life w/ Swami and Mother. Yet there are plenty of people out there slandering them both. I have my personal experiences and that's it. I have seen Swami raise some woman who had been dead for 30 minutes...& in Andhra heat that is something. She just got up and walked away.

[This message has been edited by Margaret (edited May 23, 2002).]