January 9, 2007
Dear Terra Linda High School parents,
Perahps you are wondering what the "big deal' is with Transcendental Meditation and schools. It began for me when I was an 18 year old college student at the California College of Arts in Oakland. In September, 1971, the English teacher, who practiced TM, suggested it to the class. There was a lecture that was held on Campus.
By May of 1972, I had dropped out of college in pursuit of becoming a TM teacher. The "harmless" meditation consumed my mind and changed my personality.
TM is not about the meditation; it's about the Maharishi using people as his pawns in order for him to make a lot of money. Today, the self-proclaimed physics major gone guru has a 5 billion dollar meditation industry! The price for initiation is $2,500.00!
This all may be accepted as part of healthy capitalism if the meditation actually did what it claimed to do: increase creativity, energy, and bring on enlightenment. However, the first effect it had on me was actually to rob me of my interest in art. I lost the angst, inner drive, and interest. I felt I now knew something that my fellows didn't. I felt I was "above" the push and pull of normal life as I had always known it. I stopped caring. I felt distanced from other people. I felt a constant obligation to "spread the good news" of TM enlightenment.
I am not alone in my experience; many meditators lead quiet, unproductive lives and nobody notices them except those who knew and loved them before they became inducted. This is because they are not doing obvious harm to anybody; they are just existing in what I call a half-life way, not feeling passionately about anything. The actual TM technique trains a mind to dissociate from feelings and thoughts; this is especially risky for young people who have not had a chance to discover things for themselves through their own observations and choices.
The German government did an investigation on TM and found that this Mahesh Yogi guru customized a Hindu mantra meditation and has packaged it to appeal to the Western mind.
The "Introductory Lecture," which anyone who attended the "information" meeting on October 12th, was actually the first step in the indoctrination process. See how there was no room for true questions or discourse? This is the way cults work; they disengage the intellect from a critical thinking mode through sing song lectures filled with half truths, trances, or exhaustive activities, and replace it with whatever they want.
TM is not the same as chanting a few "Ohms" at the end of a yoga class. "Meditation is a good thing generally speaking, but meditation can be a terrible thing if it induces a trance state or disociates a person from himself of his surroundings, or makes him feel disconnected from people, if it takes away his interest in art if he was so inclined, if it makes him tired or weak, if it interferes with his day, if it brings anxiety attacks, if it makes one feel as if he is better than "other people," if it renders his life useless, if one becomes less able to function, if it flattens his personality, if it takes away strong feelings, if it makes one complacent.
There is information on website; www.suggestibility.org. I am also an author on a new blog; TMFREE.
College campuses and the USA are crawling with recruiters for a number of destructive groups; check out www.freedomofmind.com for a current list of possible destructive groups.
The Maharishi once said that if his organization had the brains that Ron L. Hubbard (founder of Scientology) had, he would have accomplshed his "World Plan" a long time ago!
Besides the foregoing, TM advocacy in the classroom or on the campus shows a conflict of interest. I know the power of a teacher; that's how I became a member when I was 18.
Sincerely,
Susan J. Crittenden, parent of 12th grader
