Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Questioning my real motives – why did I start TM, why did I leave

I have taken a couple of comments from other sections of this Blog to set up this new thread where, if anyone wishes, s/he may talk about the why’s of starting TM and, if it is the case, the why’s of deciding to leave either the whole TMO shtick or just TM or meditation altogether and, should anyone wish, to discuss what s/he is doing now, whether some other school of meditation, some other yogic practice or other religious pursuit.

It might also be useful if people could tell us how they feel now in relation to how they remember feeling when they were doing TM/TMSP.

Here follows comments previously made:




Seeker noted I’m beginning to question my real motives for being here -

I’d like to know more about everyone’s feelings of “motives” for being here. I’ll start: I thought, believed, deeply, personally felt devotion to Mahesh because I thought (on the basis of almost no experience of any kind) that I had found something precious, monumental, real and lasting. This, as it happens, turned out to be false. It simply is not so. Thank you, Vaj, for clarifying this, above, for exactly what it is in a far better writing fashion than my own poor powers of explication could ever manage.

So I forgot about TM and all things Maheshism for a long time and went in search of more and clearer experience and understanding.

Then, as one does, I sort of re-discovered TM and things Maheshistic via John’s excellent Trancenet and, as things are so oft want to do, one thing led to another and here’s TM-Free Blog where I am finding out more and more about how disappointing TM/Maheshism has been for people who didn’t find wearing “transcendental” (ought I to have said vedic ?) blinders all that satisfactory.

When Mahesh said he made his mind like Guru Dev’s, I cannot now help but consider that, like a politician, he was actually saying, I figured out how to stay on his good side, how to manipulate him and his surroundings. When I hear Mahesh sayI could adjust his table, aside from wondering why he talked like an idiot, I now understand him to be saying, not unlike a politician, I wanted to get into his room and snoop around.


When I read Paul Mason’s excellent material on Guru Dev, I read about a truly committed individual who was willing to give up everything in his search for something transcendent to the materialistic and “gotta have” world of the flesh — and actually found something that permeated his every word and action. Obviously I only know what I read; I wasn’t present in the Ashram to see how he treated Mahesh who bitched that Guru Dev had been very hard on him and he wowed (why couldn’t the man pronounce his v’s ???) he’d never be as hard on any of his disciples as Guru Dev had been on him. What is the real message there? He got caught again and again trying to manipulate others, to gain personal favours????


The people I knew in India who had attended Guru Dev’s public talks and even been a bit closer to Guru Dev than that were profoundly moved by Guru Dev’s presence and his teachings. They also knew/remembered Mahesh from those days but would absolutely not talk about him. While reasons for this are many and varied, I cannot help but consider that, although Mahesh said he made his mind like Guru Dev’s, the disparity between the two men was blatant, patently noticeable and not at all what Mahesh let us believe.


Aside from sharing my own experiences of Mahesh who liked to tell the truth (“the actor can play god better than god”) and hide his motives in plain sight (“I knew something that would make all the people happy”*), I have found everyone’s contribution to this Blog insightful with respect to clarifying my own experiences of Mahesh and his very, very watered down teachings (yep, Hinduism light, Hinduism for people who’ll believe anything I tell them).


There’s more out there. There are deeper experiences of profound rest and profound wakefulness; there are meaningful teachings out there that exist only for the purpose of helping the individual find her or his own transcendent reality.

____________

* and I knew I could get them to pay a fancy price for it, too



GravatarSudarsha, why don’t you start the thread (but not open...give it a title) and use your comment above as the introductory article? Then it can be archived so that we can find it to remind ourselves of why we are here. Also, comments with regard to this won’t steer our attention away from this article under which they now appear...did that make any sense? It’s just a suggestion and I certainly have a few things that I’d like to contribute.



GravatarHere’s my 2 rupees (typed while eating lunch at my computer.) Sudarsha, yes, please --- open a thread. Our individual motives here have been questioned more than a time or two (as in “Get a life!” type remarks) by some drop-in TMO-TBers. Let’s open a specific thread on the topic so that they can really have something to chew on!



GravatarExellent idea Sudarsha! I was 19 years old when I met MMY, followed him for a couple of years in Europe and “initiated” more than 1000 in a few years and walked away when the powerprogram of siddhis were introduced 1976. Married the most beautiful initiator, had 3 children, had our sex, redwine, meat and holidays. We both live professional lifes in our chosen fields, trying to help fellow humans in trouble to the best of our abilities. Now, children away, and once more we go to India several times a year.... because we are having a good time. Really no problem with TM, Guru Dev or even MMY but BIG problem with organisations. They are like cancer, necrotizising from within...sending out their metastasis in many directions.


I am here at intervals simply because I love the truth... that is my definition of a seeker, might be a side effect of meditating on a Saraswati bijmantra for many years... who knows?, and is spirituality not never to be caught in a static web? That is at least my beliefsystem for the time being. As the danish mystic Emanuel Sörensen alias Sunyata puts it:


Emanuel was a simple man from Denmark.

“I did not belong to any cliques or creed.

I was not attracted to their magnetism.

What words will you use, when you, walking the

path alone, meet crossroad souls?

This Lion spontaneously

roared out his own Wu! language.

I am not alone! he would proclaim... I am all-one!

Joyous ease, innerstanding, delightful uncertainty, affectionate detachment.

Emanuel´s words are easy to innerstand”

However, I had my ups and downs and sadnesses, will properbly have in the future, and I love to hear how you are all doing!


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