a consideration of the yoga sutras (4)

a consideration of the yoga sutras (1)
a consideration of the yoga sutras (2)
a consideration of the yoga sutras (3)

Sutras 1-15 have laid out the undertaking. Now 16-22 clarifies more detail. The difficult word in sutra 16 is puruṣa (purusha). Fortunately, we all know what Purusha is; it’s Mahesh’s monastic thing, young guys wearing wet diapers so they don’t get erections. Ah, vṛtti spotted. A preconceived notion can really be a limitation. Mahesh’s Purusha either hadn’t been invented when I started my translation project or, more likely I didn’t know about it.

In Sanskrit, puruṣa means many things. These days, it’s easy to check on-line dictionaries for many languages. When I started my project, however, there was no “on-line”, so I bought many, many dictionaries of Sanskrit, Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit, Pāli, Chinese (because many Sanskrit texts were translated into Chinese and knowing what the ancient translators in China thought the equally ancient Sanskrit words meant is quite valuable).

So, puruṣa; here I think the word just refers to the individual person. But in the sense spoken of in the preceding 15 sutras. Not just the ordinary person, but much more likely, the essence of the individual person. The sutra could be read: this [is] the essence of non-attachment (referring to vṛtti), the ultimate clarity of the individual (what is the essence of the individual person, mind, of course, just mind, clear mind, unclouded by preconception).

17: this is an explanation of 16 – [the essence of non-attachment is the ultimate clarity of the individual (mind)] [i.e. this] samprajñāta (insight or clear sight) is accompanied by awareness, happiness and reflection (as in thought or contemplation, pondering; any yet, not exactly the same as thinking).

Meditation becomes a matter of clarity of a fully awake mind. Curiously, Hartranft’s text add’s rūpa, but Taimni does not. No one makes this easy. Do not leap to the conclusion or vṛtti that Patañjali is talking about pure consciousness in TM terms. He is definitely talking about pure awareness, pure consciousness in terms of the always awakened mind being free from all obstruction of perception. The mind seeing things just as they are, not as bad, or ugly, or nice, or possess-able or any such thing. He is talking about just seeing/perceiving.

18: the remnant of impressions left from before is no more. The pratyaya (tendencies or propensities) is no more.

The author is talking about proper training, something involved both in intellectual understanding of what to do, where to aim and how to do as well as doing it with intent and purpose. One does not learn to realize clarity of mind by thinking a meaningless thought.

19: those/for those [who are] absorbed in the natural (prakṛti) videha (dead?, probably not, more like “no-more-ness”) [i.e. those who by diligent practise achieve (merge with) calm and clarity, videhaprakṛtilayānām)] become.

I don’t think bhava here means to take birth. That doesn’t seem to fit. The meaning seems to be that those who are diligent in applying the lessons presented here achieve awakening, something like “realization of” their calm and clarity which then becomes that in effect is what could be seen as taking birth.

20: others, people who do not have the advantage of this teaching may achieve this “birth” or achievement of clarity and consciousness by faith, diligence, mental-purposefulness (smṛti), trance (samādhi … lots of meanings for this word, but I think that at this stage the author is talking about just plain ‘spacing-out’ which really does generate insight sometimes, which we all know from experience) or wisdom (prajñā). Some people are just very wise, have penetrating understanding. We’ve all met them. They’re just that way. For the rest of us, there’s hard work and application (as directed).

21: it is near for those who are seeking it.

Obviously, be careful what you wish for. The sutras lay out the definitions and the procedures. There is a clarity here, difficult to wade through, granted. But what to do and how to recognize the correctness of what one is doing as well as how to recognize the goal and whether or not it is being achieved is here. It's a cookbook and the author is at pains to make sure you know how to pay attention to the directions (if, of course, you are paying attention to begin with).

22: how near? That depends on you. Like somewhat outdated computer language, GIGO. You get out of it what you put into it.

a consideration of the yoga sutras (5)

REMAINS OF IGNORANCE: Protecting the Maharishi

I'm a full-time therapist who has worked with a number of children of divorce. Something I've noticed, and which has been widely discussed in the literature, is the tendency of the children to "protect" either one or both parents by blaming themselves for the divorce. They hold the parents blameless for the unavoidable turbulence that breaking up the family apart causes.

This makes a kind of twisted sense. Parents are the most powerful figures in a child's life. They feed, clothe, and protect the child from the evil in the world. If they are wrong or flawed, there is no one to protect a child from that evil. At least in a child's mind. So it's easier to blame oneself than to accept that parents are, after all, human. As a therapist, I know children can't heal until they understand that they are not to blame for their parents' actions and decisions. And for many clients, particularly adults still suffering the aftereffects of divorce trauma from childhood, forgiveness for their parents can't begin until they first experience the anger from and place the blame for the divorce on their parents' shoulders.

Something similar seems to happen to people leaving the Transcendental Meditation Movement. In time, former TMers find it easy to accept that the TM Org was flawed. Some even come to think of the Org as evil, in whatever personal definition for "evil" the individual accepts.

But time and time and time again, I've seen former TMers hold the Maharishi blameless for the lies, fraud, greed, and damage committed in the name of the Movement. Some say he is an innocent, if naïve, monk. Some say he could not have known what was happening in a world wide movement. Some hold he was tricked by conniving deputies within the Movement.

Whatever.

It just seems that questioning the culpability of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is the last thing many former TMers do.

In an excellent book on exit counseling, Captive Hearts, Captive Minds, Tobias and Lalich state this is a common phenomenon for people leaving cults. I was lucky enough to be exit counseled by Jajna Lalich and Margaret Singer in 1995. I must admit that holding the Maharishi accountable was very difficult for me. I blamed Jerry Jarvis and other Movement leaders. I said that no man could possibly know everything that was happening in the Movement, and so he could not be held accountable. I said that the Maharishi existed in some kind of irreality bubble, like Nixon in his final days, and never received news of the terrible damage that rounding and the TM-Sidhis were causing for some TMers.

I used all the excuses. Lalich and Singer were patient and simply asked pointed questions. Never offering answers. Waiting for me to find my own.

Could the Maharishi really have been innocent? By all reports he micromanages every aspect of the Movement, not just the teaching, but money and real estate deals as well.

According to MIU Anthony Denaro, former MIU professor of law and economics, the Maharishi was aware of Transcendental Meditation side-effects that were "damaging and disruptive to the nervous system." "[He] was aware, apparently for some time [in 1986], of the problems, suicide attempts, assaults, homicidal ideation, serious psychotic episodes, depressions, inter alia [among others], but his general attitude was to leave it alone or conceal it because the community would lose faith in the TM movement. Maharishi had a very cavalier, almost elitist, view about very serious injuries and trauma to meditators." He could accept a "few" sacrifices to realize his World Plan.

It's alleged he went so far as to have the powerful tranquilizer Thorazine administered to students who "freaked out" on rounding courses.

Far from being a weak, innocent creature leaving his movement to underlings to run, the Maharishi has had a history of forcing out the strongest, most capable figures in his Movement, presumably before they could challenge him: Charlie Lutes, Jerry Jarvis, Deepak Chopra, others.

As for the innocent monk part, we now know he was a shrewd businessman and savvy marketer who knew the value and location of every nickel taken in. And he is alleged to have indulged his weakness for sex with many women.

It took me some time and a lot of work. But I eventually found the Maharishi responsible for these and other actions. He was not alone, but as leader of the Movement he holds the lion's share of the blame, in my mind.

But does any part of this resonate for you? Do you find yourself making excuses for our innocent monk?

Do you believe you can ever be free of this man's influence if you continue to hold him innocent? Do you believe you can forgive him and move on before you are willing to name his culpabilities for the damage he's done?

Do you have this or similar "Remains of Ignorance"?

Please consider posting your thoughts in the comments below. Just click on "Comments" and type away. Please feel free to remain anonymous. You may help another former TMer with your insights!

J.

To read other articles in this series, click on the label "Remains of Ignorance" below.

REMAINS OF IGNORANCE is an occasional feature of quick hits on life after Transcendental Meditation. It's a reversal of the Maharishi's translation of lesh-avidya. He claimed this was a Vedantic concept: Even after enlightenment there remains some slight residue of ignorance without which one would "drop the body" or die.

I've found that even after I left the TM Org behind, there remain in my mind "alien artifacts," bits and pieces of TM-based myths that still affect me today. I represent my own experience only here. But I've learned from my years counseling TMers that a significant number of others have had similar experiences.

THINK FREE: 03/05/07

THINK FREE is a regular feature of TM-Free Blog. It features a summary of news about TM and other orgs labeled "cults" by critics.

• Blogger Disses the Secret -- and John Hagelin, BTW community.livejournal.com
  
• Scientology Disaster Relief in Flooded Jakarta Indonesia clickpress.com
  
• Joyu tells authorities his group to leave Aum The Daily Yomiuri
  
• Today is Birthday of Scientology Founder, L. Ron Hubbard UPI
  
• Moon, PA Could Be Home of TM Peace Palace Beaver County Times
  

Have a hot tip? See something we missed? Email jmknapp53@gmail.com.

TM Checking and Hypnosis, Part I

The longer I spend with the Checking Notes, the more I'm convinced it's all in there.
--Anonymous TM Teacher

Year after year, the interest in the Movement is growing due to the success of Checking.
--Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, TTC III Videotape

INTRODUCTION
In this series of articles, I compare Transcendental Meditation's Checking procedure to trance induction or hypnotism. I also develop the ramifications for TM practitioners of undergoing frequent trance induction -- and being subject to the subsequent suggestions made by the Checker.

"Checking" is a procedure conducted by a TM Teacher or Associate TM Teacher on a TM meditator. When an individual is first "initiated" into TM, the Teacher suggests that the new TM meditator undergo Checking once a week for the first month of meditation and once a month thereafter. The Teacher and the Checking Notes themselves state that the purpose of checking is to ensure that meditators begin meditation in the correct, "effortless" way. "The purpose of checking is to give the experience of right meditation.... Whatever is the complaint against meditation, whatever is the difficulty take the man through the necessary steps for checking, and he will feel better."¹

Any meditator who does not practice meditation regularly or experiences various problems such as headaches or gross physical movements, to name only two, is told that regular Checking will make the meditation enjoyable again.

The Checking Notes, consisting of 30 points and pages of General Points, are memorized by prospective TM initiators during Phase I of the TM Teacher Training Course. Course participants (CPs) are tested by course leaders for absolute, verbatim knowledge of this procedure, its wording, and the precise time intervals as quoted in the Notes. CPs must pass such a test three times without mistakes or even hesitations. Completing Phase I, graduates are termed Associate TM Teachers. To become full-fledged TM Teachers, they must again pass the Checking test three times on Phase III.

Despite their importance, evidenced by the rigorous testing procedure, according to the restrictions imposed by TTC course leaders, they may only be "inscribed in consciousness" -- that is, memorized from dictation -- in order to preserve the "purity of the teaching." The dictated text is represented by course leaders as being a direct quote from Maharishi Mahesh Yogi -- including idiosyncratic grammar and phrasing -- and is said to be the only process by which his Transcendental Meditation may be corrected successfully.

The group and individual checking procedures, as well as the steps of initiation, are unique to TM, to my knowledge. Although many if not most meditative traditions practice group meditation, no other that I am aware of employs an "opening and closing the eyes" trance induction to begin. (One correspondent suggested that there were similar procedures used in Swami Sivananda's practice, but I have been unable to confirm this. No such procedure is mentioned in his treatise, Japa Yoga.)

Some naive TMers believe that these procedures are somehow derived from Vedic literature. This is not the case. In fact, the Maharishi did not introduce the Checking procedure until he had been teaching meditation for over 13 years, according to my sources. TM Teacher Janet Luise stated in communication with me on the Yahoo Group, Fairfield Life:

"In August 1968 during the First Squaw Valley course, Maharishi gave the first rough checking notes to everyone there (about 300 people I think)[.] It was ["]Close the eyes, open the eyes["] etc but no pages of
memorized what to do if.....

I know he gave all the European teachers checking in Livinio Italy. I THINK that was right before the 2nd Squaw Valley in 1969 but maybe not....

I was on the 1st Mallorca course[,] Dec 1969- Jan 1970[.] [W]e DID have lots of checking pages to learn[,] so I imagine the Estes Park course directly before also go them.

Prior to this, the Maharishi trained what he called "Meditation Guides," who were supposed to ensure right practice for TM meditators through advice similar to the General Points. From 1956, when the Maharishi began what would become the Transcendental Meditation movement, until 1968 the Checking Notes simply did not exist.

According to one anonymous critic, the Checking Notes were not the sole product of the Maharishi, but were created in conjunction with TM initiators, although the Maharishi approved their final form. Some of the General Points were proposed by TTC CPs while video cameras were rolling. Viewing these tapes on TTC III gave me an insight into how the Maharishi emended and added to the General Points. Simply, a future initiator would propose a common sense procedure, such as how to lift one's head without strain if it tilted forward, as in General Point "P." The Maharishi would consider the addition, and then either give or withhold his approval. Thus it appears that much of the Checking procedure was not created by the Maharishi himself.

In fact, as I develop in future installments of this series, I believe the heart of the Checking procedure -- as well as the group meditation procedure -- may have been suggested by individuals not only familiar with flowcharting, certainly not a skill the Maharishi would have known from his background, but also familiar with traditional and Ericksonian hypnosis.

NOTES

1. "The Checking Notes," Revised by Maharishi December 74, introduction.

---

OUTLINE OF COMING INSTALLMENTS

Why the TM Checking Notes Are Important

Overview of Checking Procedure

A Word about Secrecy

What is Trance Induction?

Symptoms of Trance Induction

Who Can Be Hypnotized

Comparing Checking to Formal Trance Induction

Comparing Checking to Naturalistic Trance Induction

Defining Embedded Commands or Post-Hypnotic Suggestions

Symptoms of Post-Hypnotic Suggestions

Suggestions Presented during the TM Checking Procedure

Implications of TM Checking as Trance Induction

Questions for Further Research -- and A Few Caveats

THINK FREE: 03/04/07

THINK FREE is a regular feature of TM-Free Blog. It features a summary of news about TM and other orgs labeled "cults" by critics.

• Transcendental meditation reduces congestive heart failure eMaxHealth.com [No comparison to other meditation methods]
  
• Blogger Discusses Yoga and TM in the American Justice System 10venu.blogspot.com
  
• Foundation Seeks to Wake Nation to Danger of Cults to Children The Daily Nonpareil
  
• Farrakhan's time is up, but not the Nation of Islam's Detroit News
  

Have a hot tip? See something we missed? Email jmknapp53@gmail.com.

Request for Information on Noida Ashram

I've received a reader inquiry regarding the Maharishi Ashram at Noida. If any reader has information on what is happening now at Noida, please contact me at jmknapp53@gmail.com. Your confidentiality is assured.