Was Mahesh lying to himself when he preached TM?

Betty said, "I'll always believe that Maharishi was a scoundrel who lied to himself first and us second."

I think this remark is SO important and that it should not be just tucked away amongst the comments on a side panel of a blog. It is a really important perspective that should not be overlooked when trying to understand Maharishi's behaviour. In spite of my unflagging support for the practice of this meditation I do harbour doubts as to the veracity of some of Maharishi's statements. -- Paul M | Homepage | 09.11.09 - 3:36 pm | #

Like Paul, I, too, feel that this constitutes one of the central questions that cries out to be asked and answered concerning the propagation of TM and the emergence of the TMO. From my own perspective, I think Mahesh took someone's word for it that TM was actually conveying the attention to some area transcendental to the usual consciousness of discursive thought. I don't, however, feel that this is what TM does. As I have written before, I think TM simply allows the thinking awareness, the consciousness of discursive thought to spread out, become thin, diaphanous and, just as he said vague, faint.

But this is not transcending. Transcending is much more like the Tibetan Dzogchen Trekchö where the discursive thought is cut through and the underlying pure awareness itself is directly experienced. There is no mantra method for this. It takes something like 2 seconds to learn it from a teacher. BUT, of course, it required a sound and highly viable teaching to support a clear and useful, skillful understanding of that experience.

It is only my personal opinion, but TM/Mahesh/Maheshism provided neither a viable technique nor a viable teaching.

First and foremost, was Mahesh lying to himself? was he deluding himself? was he in some kind of denial?

And, what prompted us to buy into t/his folie à deux or what appears to be shared madness?