the end of playing the game

TM: religion, cult, science? 

Sure, why not! 

It's how you play the game, plain and simple. 

An old-time friend wanted to know why I, such a devoted, committed, true-believer (in the old days), quit TM. When I said I began to feel that I was living a lie, he declared a whiff of bovine excrement. He was right.

It was so much more than that. But the words that told the story were short in coming, suddenly. Hard to believe, I know, given my propensity for rants.

What was really going on? what had really gone on?

Some folks find that TM is ok, lets them feel rested and lets them go about their business feeling free-er ... ok, less stressed. Is that a lie, too? Mahesh said, I thought quite rightly, that we judge the effectiveness of meditation by our results in activity. I don't know any TMers any more. Haven't met one in years. Are they good, kind, effective, happy people? Does anyone know? Or is expecting to find good, kind, effective, happy people anywhere a contemporary myth and fantasy?

Unfortunately, like drivers on the highway, we only notice the ones who cause accidents, vehicular trouble. Just as unfortunately, I met lots of TM casualties. To me, they were "proof" that there was something absolutely NOT universal about Mahesh's panacea. Something whiffy about the TMO party-line.

When I compare the true-believing big-wig organizational whoo-has on YouTube (including the head whoo-ha, David Lynch) I wonder just who Maheshism is benefiting, other than whoever is in charge of Mahesh's bank account. I don't see and hear solid-based logic and clarity. I hear proselytising and belief-based fantasy. Perhaps I am jaded (oh, horrors). Yet, I think that is not the case. Logic is logic and I hear alternative-logic, alternative-facts and lofty "spiritual" crap-speak.

Any ideas? experiences, commentaries?

Friends tell me that Leigh Remini's TV episodes on Scientology are informative, worthwhile watching. I shy away from even clarifying-cult talk; it's just too full of the old days, somehow. Will there, ever/someday, be a post-TM-version of Leigh Remmini's courage, clarity and forthcoming? I hope, but do not restrain my respirations.

Mahesh envied Hubbard (his apparent success, anyway) and I guess, like the current U. S. President, tried to outdo what he considered a rival. I see a lot of similarity between Mahesh (the one I knew in private) and the very public current President. One shudders at the thought of what goes on in private in the oval office one hears so little about! but that's probably another story inappropriate for this Blog.

So, what are current TMers like, the Fairfield variety, the ordinary other-than-Fairfield variety, the run-of the mill variety? do they talk like the YouTube variety? are they really successful, skilled in action and so on?

 I, a curious reader, want to know.